This 1968 Beatles musical gets somewhat plot heavy near the end, but it's a marvel of innocence and free association, blending several animation techniques in a loose narrative full of gentle bad puns and flowing visual segues.

A stodgy Universal thriller from 1941, redeemed by a name-heavy cast.

Zappa's most ambitious compositions (performed by the London Philharmonic) share screen time with nostalgic freak humor. [26 Dec 2013, p.30]

It’s pretty much all genre and no nuance, though Michael Curtiz’s direction is surprisingly soft and light.

Archetypal 50s science fiction—light on brains and heavy on sexual innuendo (1954). But director Jack Arnold has a flair for this sort of thing, and if there really is anything frightening about a man dressed up in a rubber suit with zippers where the gills ought to be, Arnold comes close to finding it.

Richard Fleischer’s professional efficiency tarts up a bit with dated 60s flashiness (multiple images, etc) and semidocumentary pretense in this 1968 feature about Boston sex murderer Albert De Salvo (Tony Curtis), brought to justice at last by police inspector Henry Fonda.

Redeemed a bit by Adrien Joyce’s Preston Sturges-inspired screenplay, Nichols’s film is nonetheless as unfunny as Carnal Knowledge, and just as vicious.

Elvis made a few better films (including Peter Tewksbury’s The Trouble With Girls and Don Siegel’s Flaming Star), but none that drew so well on the bad-boy side of his personality.

Gregory La Cava's improvisational style received its highest critical acclaim for this 1936 film, a marginally Marxist exercise in class confusion during the Depression.

A failure of resolution mars it, but it is diverting enough for the first couple of reels to make it worth seeing.

Uys's juggling of the separate yet interlocking plotlines is fairly adroit, and his whimsy continues to be good humored, although once again it's purchased with a sentimental and complacent view of African life designed to flatter the viewer.

Charming, if a bit claustrophobic.

This curious ecological parable was directed by George Miller (Babe: Pig in the City), who still has an eye and a sense of humor but on this particular outing can't get the script he wrote with three others to make much sense.

Director Jonathan Demme's farcical and broad 1988 comedy, written by Barry Strugatz and Mark R. Burns, doesn't really work, but there are plenty of enjoyable compensations.

Though frustratingly superficial and shot through a nostalgic, rose-colored lens, this enthralling 2010 doc opens a wider window on forgotten world of burlesque shows than anything I've previously seen.

There's some excellent comedy early on involving the mutual incomprehension of Africans and Americans, though this eventually gives way to solemn, ethnocentric mush about one African's reading of the story of Jesus, demonstrating as usual that sustained subtlety is hardly Spielberg's forte.

On the whole, the adaptation is faithful but some of the qualities of Dinesen's language are lost in translation or through abridgment, and the politics have been needlessly simplified.

Lacks the scariness, the mystery, and even much of the curiosity of Rivette's better work.

The script by producer David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson is serviceable but not exactly inspired.

Streisand is stunning, but the film is a trial, particularly when the music disappears somewhere around the 90-minute mark and all that's left is leaden melodrama.

Special-effects buffs generally cite this 1963 effort by Ray Harryhausen as the master’s masterpiece, and his work does a great deal to enliven the tired plot and vacuous stars (Todd Armstrong, Nancy Kovack).

There are some striking visuals and Hartnett is a magnetic presence.

Helms's screen persona-the stiff-necked nerd who triumphs through sheer doggedness-is heavily reminiscent of Harold Lloyd's, though Lloyd was handsome and endearing enough to succeed as a romantic lead.

Nichols is so astute at directing the actors (who also include Bill Nunn, Donald Moffat, and Nancy Marchand) that it's relatively easy to overlook the yuppie complacency, shameless devices (starting with an adorable puppy), and product plugs (especially Ritz crackers) that undermine the seriousness of the whole project.

Wears its art, as well as its heart, on its sleeve -- so much so that I feel guilty for not liking it more.

Storper is pretty good at playing with and against certain western cliches in his treatment of the good guys (including Annette Bening's character), but resorts to pure cliche when it comes to the villians (e.g., Gambon and James Russo).

A mainly routine Hong Kong action film from fleet and floppy-haired action hero Jackie Chan. It's light on plot and character, but the stunts are well staged.

If you can tolerate the overbearing music (think John Williams at his most manipulative), this is relatively painless, thanks to a lighthearted tone and some energetic lead performances.