Factotum, for all its grim grind, is funny-serious, and smart-stupid. Just like you after four beers, and me after eight.

Succeeds as a moody, evocative, and pleasing film, one that underscores its indie roots in sentiment as well as style

It is wonderful for what it is: a delightful, thoroughly satisfying comedy of modern manners.

This modest French-language film follows the time-honored cinematic tradition of plot as spearheaded by a simple twist of fate.

Instead of entering the jungle to find the heart of darkness, Stiller (the director, co-star, and co-writer of Tropic Thunder) goes in to take aim at the Achilles heel of Hollywood: its utter pomposity and self-importance.

A bit of a letdown in some ways, The Birdcage nonetheless features some scene-stealing performances.

The former mayor is an alert onscreen presence, but the film surrounding him is not always so lively.

Part character study, part redemptive drama, and all cheesy heart, it's Boston-baked melodrama, a little too gooey at times, but still pretty delicious.

So often in these big multi-villain events, the hero gets swallowed up, but here he defines the film. If this really is Holland’s last outing, then he leaves having kept true to the spirit of his Spidey.

The script unfortunately replicates one of the worst errors in "Toy Story 3": Sidelining just about every major supporting character from the early installments.

October Sky falls flat (despite its rich tone and some startling cinematography by Fred Murphy) due to its all-too-obvious third act and the vague fact that, really, not that much happens.

Mad Dog and Glory, thankfully, finds the director in remarkable form, crafting an engrossing new film out of what might have been, in less competent hands, simply another Hollywood formula movie.

Red Eye's no classic, but with its smart, twisty little script and those two killer performances, it is a helluva lot of fun.

It’s the sublime and understated performance by Krisha Fairchild (Krisha, Waves) as the aging pot farmer Devi Adler that elevates Freeland past its potential as a tone poem cliche into a far more arresting portrait of the old versus the new and beyond.

A film within a film encapsulated by a clever and very accurate anti-materialistic Buddhist morality lesson, Travellers and Magicians feels a bit like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as retold by Siddhartha.

Gorgeously animated in 3D in Daxiong's signature, hyperdetailed/hyperstylized artwork, Eternal Spring is a chronicle of dissidence, and Daxiong's attempts to come to terms with how the movement got to this point of non-violent resistance - an act with which he disagreed because of the backlash.

I suppose, in the end, My Brother Is an Only Child is a coming-of-age story about a young man who – like the era he was born into – has no idea how to come of age, except by violent fits and starts, in all directions, to varying ends, and ready to change course whenever the mood strikes.

Tangled is a serviceable kids' picture and marks a milestone in the history of Disney animation, but it's splitting hairs to characterize it beyond that.

This is an action flick for those who like form over substance in their popcorn movies which explode onscreen every summer.

Not only are these characters beautifully underplayed, but they're underplayed by two of the most enthusiastic scene-stealers around: Walken & Lauper.

Wonderstruck’s portrayal of deaf experiences and its adult treatment of childhood mysteries are original, and the way Haynes weaves it all together with gossamer strands gives this movie wings.

While the film will be of acute interest to jazz fans, the film offers up an object lesson in how contemporary documentaries function in the 21st century. Comprised of the requisite talking heads, archival footage, and the shotgun blast of endless photographs of iconic moments, the film delivers a perfunctory tableau that is right at home with the programming on The History Channel (with fewer Nazis, of course).

Hacksaw Ridge is drenched in the blood of the fallen and the mud forever caked on the boots of those who survived to tell the tale. It’s the closest thing to feeling as though you’ve marched a mile in those shoes.

In his first effort at directing a feature film, Hanks chooses his material wisely and writes it with witty, beguiling charm.

It's a good, solid little film about a man whose story deserves better.

An unusually fun and funny film.

A few unforgivably heavy-handed nods to The Shining aside, [Kawamura] has created a fresh new addition to contemporary J-horror, one that deftly warps the characters around its own rules without rendering them merely props for the next shock.

It is, in fact, an instant classic, the sort of film that will make you check under your bed at night and then amplify into terror the midnight creaks and 3am breezes that unsettle every house at times, most especially yours. Highly recommended.