The charm of Conversations With Other Women, a gimmicky but oddly moving two-character drama that flies in from who knows where, is its intelligentknowingness.

This real-life alliance is part of what makes the slice-of-life comedy The Wash work as well as it does, despite a somewhat skimpy though often crassly amusing script written by the film's director, D.J. Pooh.

(Duffy) navigates the twisted collision of religious faith and the thrill of the kill, altruism and brutality, with an ingenious mix of humor, horror, mysticism, and just plain hipness.

The film does not offer an optimistic view of relationships.

It hasn't got a brain in its body, but it's fun to watch.

The movie is 141 minutes long but you rarely feel its weight; that’s how confident a filmmaker Gray has become. All The Lost City of Z lacks is a great leading actor, someone magnificent and flawed like a Peter O’Toole.

The performance often errs on the side of cartoon, but it's laced with flashes of remorse and chagrin, with sincerity. When Carrey tries to do "dramatic acting'' the life always goes of out him.

Mostly people talk. Lovely to look at, In Transit is even better to listen to. The documentary tells us straightaway that what we hear matters just as much as what we see.

If there’s any way that Roach slips back into a creative pigeonhole, it’s by being overly keen on sticking his actors in prosthetic makeup. Richard Kind’s Rudy Giuliani, for one, elicits an unintended chuckle. And while Theron’s makeover is, again, uncanny, Kidman’s cleft chin is needlessly distracting. We’d buy her performance without it.

The journey is not very exciting, but the destinations are inspired.

Soft girl era is something the socialmedialites are desperately in search of, and so am I. “You, Me & Tuscany,” takes us there.

This isn't a great movie, but it is a special one. And Penn is something to see.

For a film about the power of speech, it's the quiet moments of rapture that say everything.

Monkeys end up supplying the movie’s real drama. While parentally overlooked mischief-maker Tao Tao gets up to the requisite, well, monkey business, he’s also witness to a stunning snatch-and-fly attack by an opportunistic goshawk. It might not be nature on demand, but it’s some scene.

Fans of “Key & Peele” will love their latest duet. Much of their dialogue sounds improvised, and the pair work off each other like the pros they are.

All three actors are excellent. So’s Gil Birmingham, as the victim’s father.

The film captures both the claustrophobic and melancholic mood of Giger’s house, and also, perhaps, his mind.

Touches smartly and wistfully on a number of themes, not least the notion that the marginal members of society - the ones who get spit out on the sidewalk with no idea of how it happened - might benefit from a helping hand and a friendly kick in the pants.

Tom Bean and Luke Poling’s documentary shows that its subject’s true talent may have been for an occupation no less rarefied than the ones he failed at: movie star.

As with “American Sniper,” Sully gets a little gooey in the final scenes, opting for a simplistic celebration of American know-how, where everything up to that point has been darker and more nuanced. Whether you want to accept it or not, Eastwood remains one of the best and most quixotic filmmakers we have, torn between jingoism and doubt, exceptionalism and despair.

The remake isn't openly nostalgic. In a sense, this is another sexy vampire movie. But Farrell does something special with the sexuality: It's simultaneously omnivorous, dangerous, and a hoot.

Pee- wee's Big Adventure is a shrewdly observed, deftly executed looney tune. [9 Aug 1985, p.42]

If there's true magic to be found in the proceedings, it's in Garai's dexterous performance.

August's production, while not on a level with either of those memorable predecessors, is solid nonetheless. Its strengths are its handsome amplitude and the intelligent clarity with which the various strands of the novel are advanced by a smoothly meshed international cast. [01 May 1998, p.D4]

A gruesome, helpless spiral barely saved by an actress locating humanity where few would have cared to bother.

A skillfully managed fairy tale about a mouse, a rat, and fairy tales in general.

Breathes fresh life into old formulas.

That it works like a charm - that it mostly keeps its manic energy in check, and that it plays to chick-flick formulas without ever groveling - is due almost entirely to the leads.

Co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman cut their teeth on 2010's glib social-media mystery "Catfish,'' and since they're clever boys, they make the most of the series' new toy. Otherwise, Paranormal Activity 3 is almost identical to, and just as eerily effective as, the first two films in its alternation of cheesy "boo!'' tactics and genuine scares.

Putting the film’s thesis statement in the mouth of its maternal figure feels intentional; so does the laissez-faire tone. As a result, we laugh so that we may not cry.

A cheerfully rambling documentary that's much more thought-provoking than the sum of its parts.

In Shortbus, the impish writer-director John Cameron Mitchell does the unthinkable: He puts the joy back in movie sex.

This tale of a leather coat that wants to be God may not be the director’s finest work, but it’s certainly more than a fringe benefit.

I would be much harder on this movie if I didn’t have such a good time watching it. Admittedly, it’s ridiculous, but I absorbed all of its haphazard chaos with a huge smile on my face.

It's that gulf between earnest idealism and beaten-down realism that's the unexpected drama of Beauty Academy.

Zodiac is a kind of corrective remake of "Se7en," a renunciation of that earlier movie's psychotic nihilism. That rejection extends to a neat sight gag. Fincher gives us a shot of a cardboard cutout for "Dirty Harry" that mocks the personal abyss that catching Zodiac becomes.

Dutifully bleak, suitably oppressive, the film delivers Atwood's desolate who-owns-our-bodies? indictment with intelligence and probity. [09 Mar 1990, p.25p]

This is a party, and you're either having a good time or wondering when Akin is going to get down to business. But for an hour and a half, fun is the business.

CJ7 is precisely the 80-something minutes of delirium and cheesy special-effects you'd expect from the man responsible for the chaos of "Shaolin Soccer" and the lunacy of "Kung Fu Hustle."

Good clean dirty fun.

In Robot Stories, technology hasn't colonized human life, it's finding ways to make living (and loving) better.

Slow West doesn’t really go anywhere we haven’t been, but because Maclean is discovering the genre for the first time, we see through his fresh yet jaundiced eyes.

Anyone looking for a more practical horror film than ''The Fog" should try The Future of Food.

After Innocence isn't bravura filmmaking, and it doesn't have to be -- this is one of those documentaries where the subject is compelling enough to do the legwork.

On the one hand, welcome to the music business. On the other, if A Tribe Called Quest can't stay together who can? It's a worry that eventually gets at the eccentricity of both the music and the movie.

The enjoyment of the film comes from watching Mesrine's ambitions grow slowly but exponentially; the shock is in being reminded and re-reminded of his sadism.

So forget about taking anyone under 12. But if you want to see what a benign demon looks like when he's eating nachos and unwinding to Al Green, this is the movie for you.

The result is, like its characters, a good and decent film in a world that rather heartlessly demands more.

Like Lyon balancing looking out and looking in “The Bikeriders,” Nichols balances the mythic and mundane in this version.

More problematic for Hudlin is the nature of the case — only by proving that a rape victim is a liar can Friedman and Marshall win an acquittal for their client. Fortunately, the case (in the film, if not in real life) is resolved in such a way that racism and misogyny are found equally guilty.

It's a predictable but acridly pleasant 12-step bonbon: self-help noir.

Not only does the movie look like it's set somewhere, it feels, cinematically, to have arrived from someplace - early John Cassavetes, the French New Wave, Eastern Europe.

Lori Petty gives her enough scrappiness on screen to make her a lot of fun to watch. When Tank Girl isn't playing like "Road Warrior" meets "La Femme Nikita," it plays like "The Crow" meets "The Brady Bunch," and it's the ultimate spring-break movie. [31 March 1995, p.57]

True to its title, Schizo is both gripped by the past and pulled toward an unknown future.

A sweet-natured trifle, as flavorful and as thin as a crepe.

While Morris From America trundles along familiar tracks, Hartigan’s eye for detail and individuality yields enough dividends to keep the film moving tartly and congenially along.

Walt Disney meets classical music with a film that didn't become famous until it was re-released in the '60s and became the ultimate drug film for folks fond of LSD. It is a wonderful animation trip for adults but children might be a bit bored by the lack of story and long running time. Treat it like MTV - a few bits here and there instead of one sitting. [01 Nov 1991, p.35]

An efficient, good-looking production that amounts to the kind of safari with which Disney's customers will feel comfortable. [23 Dec 1994, p.53]

The reliable Mike Newell directs Mona Lisa Smile with such assurance that the important moments are never mawkish or dull, and he encourages the women to act with absolute conviction.

The British actor Christian McKay resurrects the young Welles as a magnificent mountain of talent, ego, and unsliced ham. He, and he alone, is reason enough to see this movie. The problem is the “Me’’ - Zac Efron.

The final scenes are both ambiguous and terrifying, and they left a preview audience as shaken as any I’ve seen. I had the distinct feeling, though, that a lot of them wouldn’t be recommending the movie to their friends. It gets very far under the skin.

The film is also packed with enough sharply scripted screwiness from Adam's roommate (Jake Johnson), Emma's roomie (Greta Gerwig), and others to keep viewer impatience to a minimum.

Nancy is an eccentric, pungent gift of a film about a woman without identity played by an actress without persona.

As a portrait of dysfunctional pedagogy, it's both refreshing and more than a little terrifying.

Warm, wry, endearing.

What’s most compelling is the near-documentary quality of Teller, Koale, and Bennett’s characters playing against a VA backdrop of prosthetic limbs and catheter bags, of desensitized clerks and overwhelmed therapists.

Wind is quite content to keep things at the visual and visceral level, and on that unambitious but highly photogenic plane it's a handsome piece of salt-water escapism. When those sails start popping as they're slapped with gusts of sea air and the tacking gets intense, Wind gives you an adrenaline-filled ride. [11 Sep 1992, p.37]

How’s the movie? Extremely entertaining and fairly pointless, and it will probably be taken for a classic by a generation that has likewise never heard of Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood” (1994), a movie that plumbed the wayward soul of its misbegotten moviemaker to depths The Disaster Artist never manages to touch.

Looks brilliant while you're watching it and stands revealed as counterfeit only in the strong light of day. What Baldwin does, though, is the stuff of supporting actor Oscars.

[A] peripatetic and ultimately poignant documentary.

If you miss Anthony Bourdain — and for many, the celebrity chef’s death in 2018 felt like the loss of a close and troubled friend — Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is a salve.

People called the Bhuttos "The Kennedys of Pakistan" and, in a parallel with our losses, the Pakistanis suffered the untimely deaths of Benazir, her father, and her two brothers.

Perhaps it’s just as well that other issues remain in the background and the film focuses instead on the bond between Leavey and Rex. Not only is it a compelling metaphor for a woman finding independence and empowerment, it dramatizes a primal emotional relationship that proves heartbreaking and triumphant.

What’s most unexpectedly gratifying is how much energy veteran standup director Jeff Tomsic and his splashy cast pour into ensuring that this is legit entertainment, packed with gonzo wit and even some sentiment.

It's messy, but in the end satisfying, a film worth making, a journey worth taking.

The movie puts us so close to so much yet keeps its emotional distance -- as if to say, no matter how much we see, we'll never truly know.

A solid two-bagger, not a home run.

Beautifully shot and deeply dispiriting, the documentary examines the global refugee crisis.

Where Wiseman excelled in respecting the broad rhythms and pure storytelling of the ring, Chang's new documentary focuses on the stories of three boxers and weaves them into a compelling narrative that rivals anything Hollywood could script.

It’s a showcase for an actress who wins us over by degrees and a reminder that there are no new stories — only fresh ways of telling them.

It works well as a documentary, and I can’t deny that Presley gave 110 percent to his audience at every show. That in itself is impressive. (If you’re a fan, add an extra star to my rating.)

That Ginsberg is played by Daniel Radcliffe might come as a shock, but the shock wears off as the movie rolls on and you realize you’re in very good hands.

This being a Czech film, drama, comedy, history, and social commentary are served up in equal proportion.

In the end, Seabiscuit gets right the things that matter.

Pig is a thoughtful, well-made movie for an audience primed for junk: It’s pearls before swine.

A rarity for documentaries. The movie is a full-tilt farce, and were it not completely true, it'd be a piercing satire that Preston Sturges might have polished into a resonant screwball.

Never has a movie so soberingly made the fight to save life and the struggle to hold on to it seem so futile.

It's the movie "Yellow Submarine'' should have been but didn't know how to be.

There’s a bittersweet poignancy in watching the children bond with animals and people during their travels before beginning the next leg of their journey.

Especially wonderful is Taraji P. Henson as Petey's longtime girlfriend Vernell , a vision in Foxy Brown period clothes with a pixie smile, lollipop legs, and a filthy mouth. After "Hustle & Flow ," this is at least the second movie Henson has stolen, and will Hollywood please do something about it?

It's earnest and well-acted and sturdily filmed: We're in good hands and we know it.

In the end, Fighter, despite its newsreel footage, is less a document of wartime experience than of the mentality one needs to maintain in order to be a fighter.

If it weren’t such a good and distinctive film, “Flee” would still have a strong claim on the attention of moviegoers, since it’s that powerful a rendering of the refugee experience. But it is that good and definitely that distinctive.

It has a sense of small-town America that feels special even without great specificity. Some of the music on the soundtrack places it in 2007 or 2008, but, really, the film occurs outside of time, virtually outside of place (it's suburban Detroit), and in a void of cultural chic.

Their film is a fiendishly detailed toy -- the sort found at the back of a forgotten museum -- and while the shadow play it presents is an old and eternal one, you never cease to hear the whirr of the gears.

A triumph of romantic impulse over stylistic indulgence. [21 Oct 1983]

Marshall reveals himself to be a terrific showman of chaos and comic savagery. This is Baz Luhrmann's "Mad Max."

Polar chaos notwithstanding, “Fate” delivers action with more consistent visual precision than in the last couple of films, as newly enlisted director F. Gary Gray accesses the flair he brought to 2003’s “The Italian Job.”