Zahedi's search for fulfillment is depleting, like throwing good sex after bad. The more we learn about the hole in his soul, the more vivid his misogamy becomes.

I'm not sure that I really want to see "Scream 3,'" but Craven, Williamson, and the screamers certainly bring this one off by not only slapping all their cards on the table, but insisting we admire the way they play them.

"Bad Santa" it's not. Bumptiously entertaining it is.

Veteran London theater director Dominic Cooke (the BBC’s “The Hollow Crown”) and acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan adapt the fractured-narrative feature from McEwan’s book, enhancing the elegant prose with additional bits of rich characterization and handsomely shot scenery.

The small Indonesian island of Bali still evokes images of a tropical paradise where Westerners can escape the discontents of the so-called developed world. Much of that romance lingers in Bitter Honey.

A solid entry in the real estate horror genre and an impressively taut feature directing debut for actor Dave Franco. Relying far more on psychology than bloodletting, the movie nevertheless exudes a growing sense of dread that’s difficult to shake.

It's nearly over the top in the compassion department, but Random Harvest nevertheless has its satisfactions. [16 Oct 1992, p.38]

A righteous but wrongheaded thriller, chokes on its well-meant outrage and leaves a moth-eaten plot and handful of nonsense characters on its way to a dopey finish.

If you’re willing to just go with it, no questions asked, “Cuckoo” is an entertaining horror offering. But I must warn you that trying to make sense of the plot will drive you, well, cuckoo.

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.

It's predictable fluff, sometimes pleasantly so, at others times irritatingly.

Amirpour has the potential to see things as no other filmmaker does, but she doesn’t yet have a vision, and she may not as long as she keeps fiddling around with genre conventions laid down by others. She’s an eccentric magpie of a director, and this time the pieces she collects glitter but never quite cohere.

What Gibson gives us is a portrait of a man behaving gracefully under several kinds of pressure, some of it shamefully unfair. It's a solid acting achievement, and his directing, which never calls attention to itself, is right on the money, too. The Man Without a Face is an affecting evocation of a man of principle who teaches a boy what's important. [25 Aug 1993, p.53]

It’s all ridiculous and enjoyable, and at the movie’s center is an actress creatively guessing at what omniscience might feel like.

While the picture isn't brilliant, it is, at its most entertaining, a kicky, surprisingly astute throwback to bygone Hollywood social comedies.

The movie's sharp-tongued and softhearted, a Sundance kind of film that mostly sidesteps generic Sundanceyness.

There's a layer of grim comedy in Butterfly Kiss. But what's exciting about it is its gritty way of remaining so uncompromisingly bleak in its psychopathology. [7 Jun 1996, p.58]

The film is overripe with erotic symbols.

Scholey, Fothergill, and crew do impressive work, but we're also reminded that wild animals don't know from cues, marks, and scripts. That's part of what makes them so compelling.

Isn't always on the money, but when it is, it really is.

Chatty, neurotic, maddeningly messy, often very funny, "New York" spins in a lunatic orbit of its own.

Heavy metal, alt-pop, southern rock, orchestral swells, wailing Middle Eastern tunes all vie for our attention, but none of this noise drowns out the sound of good intentions twisting themselves into an impotent knot.

What Trollhunter isn't is particularly scary, but in its defense, it's not trying to be.

I’m on the fence here. I enjoyed the animated version of this movie quite a bit, so I’m torn between being happy this film was nowhere near as bad as I’d expected and being frustrated that I sat through a carbon copy. Your enjoyment will depend on whether your Toothless nostalgia has a full set of teeth.

Leaves you longing for the other, better political thrillers it evokes.

To have been the film it could have been, crazy/beautiful needed to be messier.

The closest cinematic approximation to a beach novel that money and skill can buy.

Taken as a whole, the film says, "We grieve too, but like this, and this, and this."