Unabashedly warped and horny, Morgan knows exactly when to set off the depth charges lurking in the waters of Bone Lake, making its big, filthy reveal feel like the inevitable result of the characters’ urges.

Neeson's performance as the legendary Irishman reminds us of how large a presence the actor is: He fills up the frame with his voice, his hands, and his gestures.

If you take this stuff seriously, one way or another, you're sure to be duped. You've got to hand it to Mr. Brown: So dark the con of man, indeed.

It's Winslet who is the heart and soul of Little Children, and when she makes a desperate, final bid to reclaim her soul, it's both horrifying and heart-rending.

 Angel Has Fallen attempts to tell a slightly more mature story. Waugh seems to barter for creative control by the act: As long as the studio gets a respectable pairing of intro and outro set-pieces, Waugh is free to explore unexpected elements of trauma and masculinity.

That Zellweger had the audacity to decide to actually sing the standards in Garland’s act, rather than lip-synch them, and then perform them with such bravado in a voice eerily channeling Garland is the real icing on the cake here. In Judy, a star is reborn.

Gently funny and admirably, even unfashionably humane, People Places Things is at its best beat-to-beat.

Its view of mankind is unkind, to say the least, but any race that can produce such remarkably garish gore as this is perhaps salvageable somehow, someday.

Cairo Time may be your ticket if you're in the mood for love, but the excursion is a cut-rate journey.

In Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song, it feels like two different docs were threaded together. As interesting as I found it, the film was trying to focus on two parts of a story when it needed to be just one.

A must-watch for animal lovers with a strong stomach (there is some pretty graphic surgical footage) and a stronger heart (because no one likes to see an animal suffering), The Dog Doc isn’t always going to convince everyone.

A stunningly impassioned and articulate study of a writer's life and the censorial demons that can strangle that voice.

The sharp performances and committed cinematography elevate this stock drama to something beyond routine.

It's the kind of story that shows more than it tells, a story that's forged in the spaces that exist in between characters and spaces.

If taken merely as a vaguely historical spy thriller, Farewell is a dandy tale.

My Donkey, My Lover & I isn’t going to break the mold, but it’s an easy stride of a film that’s bubbling with joy.

WTF is on the right track, even if it never pulls all the way in to the station.

There’s much to applaud and much to knock in this Disney action adventure. Tomorrowland breaks the mold and becomes something quite original, while at the same time it ballyhoos its inspirational message to an extent that deadens the narrative.

Wharton brings an extraordinary diversity of speakers to explain the wildly eclectic archive footage she assembles, with as many foreign policy experts as guitarists.

While Fried Green Tomatoes often veers between being too pat and too vague, too obvious and too unclear, too much of the “I laughed, I cried” school of storytelling -- it still has a charm that stems from its vivid and unique characterizations.

Sister Aimee is a scrappy period piece that supplants the things a bigger budget might have afforded with good choices about things that were under the filmmakers’ control.

As an introductory lesson to what it means to be intersex, Every Body serves its purpose well enough, but there’s no bite to the storytelling, no immediate call to action.

Call it the aesthetic of un-Happiness.

It's a movie perfectly designed for tossing back popcorn (the jumbo kind so you don't have to leave your seat during the show); not until later do you get the empty feeling that you've swallowed an entire bucket of popped air.

Despite the film’s largely hectic point-of-view, first-time helmer Dean Israelite credibly establishes a science-positive environment that ultimately results in less-than-intelligent displays of teenage impulsiveness, and the kids have a believably determined camaraderie as they only ever use the device together to get revenge on bullies, win the lottery, and snag backstage passes at Lollapalooza.

Maleonn somehow finds an anchor of optimism amidst the situation, despite his father’s steady memory decline. That, too, is part of this film’s gift.

Simply put, Burton's film lacks the social and political gravitas of the original, a film that was wholly of its time.

It's an engaging recollection that's more sweet than bittersweet, tempered by an eagerness to please that pulls us into its remembrances of things past.