So yes, Bodied is a comedy of ill manners, fraught as it is with a veritable encyclopedia of contemporaneous qualms confronted and contested with some seriously dope hustle and flow. Tag this one #badassseriousfun.

Truly, Everything Everywhere All at Once does one thing: exactly what the title promises.

For all the provocativeness of its premise, Babygirl is notably committed to nuance, even if the pacing doesn’t always feel intuitive. It marks a major leveling up for Reijn, cements Dickinson’s rising star status, and reminded me – for the first time in a long time – of what a truly terrific Kidman performance looks like ... and, yep, sounds like, too.

The Wedding Banquet wins fans with its sunny disposition as it turns a contemporary story about a marriage of convenience into a deft bedroom farce and humanist drama.

It's a film that you absorb, until it slithers around and engulfs you.

As light on his feet as he is as a musical-comedy showman, Jackman is perversely even more pleasurable when he’s popping neck veins from the effort of heavy drama.

The scenes of Chong loitering around the house, playing guitar and generally being a degenerate, are quite humorous, as is the duo's satirical venture to the welfare office.

It all comes back to Sorkin's core idea, implicitly and expertly expressed: that the tactic of violence and provocation, then making the victims seem like thugs, is still performed in Portland and St. Louis and New York, just as it was in Chicago. It's also a reminder that there was no Chicago 7 until the establishment brought them together.

There's also a little something smarmy about the interactions between the lawyers and their clients, all of whom are poor.

The gentle lift you feel in watching Defying Gravity is propelled by the earnestness of its emotions.

Hathaway and Sudeikis totally nail their respective roles (kudos to the great Tim Blake Nelson, to boot), and while Colossal falls shy of perfection, so does real life.

Inkheart was shot in and around Liguria on the Italian Riviera, and it looks absolutely ravishing.

Yet for all its unmistakable visual trademarks (hypersaturated colors; mad-scientist tinkering with film stocks and editing technique; sudden presentation of enigmatic, troubling images), this is also the most radical departure Stone has ever made in terms of basic sensibilities.

This is smart, quirky, frequently laugh-out-loud comedy, in all seriousness.

Far and away the most original thriller to come out of a major studio (in this case Columbia Pictures) in a long while.

The film is historical yet its characters are fictional. Well-captured is the controlled chaos of some of the political actions.

It’s high-brow, low-brow, and just about every brow in between, replete with meta winkiness and manic energy.

In an era in which too many of us automatically accept women's right to choose, Vera Drake reminds us that the time for complacency is not now.

Cuddlier and more charming, this alcoholic-hitman comedy isn’t your typical Dahl noir (The Last Seduction, Red Rock West), but it is offbeat, lovably deadpan, and just tart enough.

Mostly Superbad is as soulful and funky as its soundtrack.

So much here is equally befuddling and beguiling; I caught myself leaning in toward the screen repeatedly, trying to somehow get closer to the gorgeous impenetrability of the story, of the boy.

The way the destinies of four people converge in a small Arkansas town in One False Move is nothing short of wondrous.

Let the Sunshine In has many pleasures for those seeking a languorous, provocative, and enchanting look at a woman who is trying to carve out something authentic.

This film is sweet and frequently very funny. It isn’t perfect. Some of those imperfections – or, more to the point, irritants, such as the twee chapter headings and college-essay framing device – are carryovers from the YA novel, written by Jesse Andrews, who also adapted the novel to screen.

A stylistic tour de force, one that wordlessly emotes and wears its emotions on its literal silk sleeves.

The situation is not too far removed from that of Jayson Blair and The New York Times. The corporate oversight in place to catch deceptions is lulled into becoming part of the deception. Mahowny wanders through this film as if waiting to get caught, forced into deeper gambling debt because no one applies any brakes.

Priceless is a supremely satisfying confection – a French romantic comedy of the sort that ends with you standing outside the theatre with a dopey grin on your face.

It's like the Sixties never happened, or maybe happened too much.