Shot in Argentina, where a prosperous middle-class economy was destroyed during 10 years of IMF policies.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is very good, but a step down from "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," if only because that film and its casting were so fresh and unexpected.

It is not a compelling documentary (too much exposition, not enough on-the-spot reality), but it is instructive and disturbing.

Racing With the Moon is a movie like Valley Girl or Baby, It's You, a movie that is interested in teenagers and willing to listen to how they talk and to observe, with great tenderness, the fragility and importance of their first big loves.

A gentle story that involves a great deal of violence, but mostly the violence is muted and dreamy, like a confrontation with a fearsome scarecrow that looks horrifying but is obviously not real --- or real enough, but not alive.

In Good Company is a rare species: a feel-good movie about big business. It's about a corporate culture that tries to be evil and fails.

Baratz doesn't ask any of the obvious questions, preferring to observe uncritically, and if you can do the same, you may find Unmistaken Child worth seeing. I could not, and grew restless.

Watts achieves a kind of early Coen brothers, early Tarantino feel.

Directed and co-written by Shawn Snyder, To Dust is a dark but not bleak comedy, an oddly effective love story and also a classic buddy movie, albeit presented within a framework I don’t we’ve ever seen before in the genre. It’s also lovely and offbeat and kind of wonderful.

Is Terminator 3 a skillful piece of work? Indeed. Will it entertain the Friday night action crowd? You bet. Does it tease and intrigue us like the earlier films did? Not really.

The movie is more concerned with the story line (premiere-fire-threat-rescue) than with painting the time and place.

Julie & Julia is not lacking in entertainment value, especially with the Streep performance. But if the men had been portrayed as more high-spirited, it might have taken on intriguing dimensions.

Yet in its high spirits and wicked good humor, Emma is a delightful film--second only to "Persuasion" among the modern Austen movies, and funnier, if not so insightful.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a sometimes daffy, occasionally baffling, surprisingly touching and even romantic adventure with one kinetic thrill after another. It earns a place of high ranking in the Marvel Universe.

It goes without saying it's preposterous. But it has the texture and takes the care to be a full-blown film.

What all three of these stories share is the quality found in Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King: An attention to horror as it emerges from everyday life as transformed by fear, fantasy and depravity.

The Boston Strangler requires a judgment not only on the quality of the film (very good), but also on its moral and ethical implications.

But don't get the idea City Island is a laff riot. For this story about these people, it finds about the right tone. They're silly and foolish, as are we all, but deserve what happiness they can negotiate.

The filmmakers (working from a script by Kaluuya and Joe Murtagh) deftly blend some stunning action sequences with moments of quiet beauty, as when a large contingent from The Kitchen gathers at Life After Life for a memorial service for one of their own.

[Keaton and Nicholson] bring so much experience, knowledge and humor to their characters that the film works in ways the screenplay might not have even hoped for.

This film is true about human nature. It is not universal, but within its particular focus, it is unrelenting.

This is the raunchiest, filthiest, most ridiculous and most politically incorrect movie of the year. It’s also one of the funniest — and its own very twisted and warped way, it offers some legitimate if obvious insights about our insane world.

Eddie Murphy looks like the latest victim of the Star Magic Syndrome, in which it is assumed that a movie will be a hit simply because it stars an enormously talented person. Thus it is not necessary to give much thought to what he does or says, or to the story he finds himself occupying.

This is a fun movie, and a bright and intelligent one. It bears few signs of having been made on a low budget, and the special effects are reasonably slick.

While it is unabashedly sentimental and at times goes over the top with the symbolic melodramatic devices, it is a beautifully shot and heartwarming film, and the 86-year-old Loren is magnificent and regal and fierce and funny and beautiful and screen-commanding throughout.

In the early scenes of White Hunter, Black Heart, Eastwood fans are likely to be distracted to hear Huston's words and vocal mannerisms in Eastwood's mouth, and to see Huston's swagger and physical bravado. Then the performance takes over, and the movie turns into one of the more thoughtful films ever made about the conflicts inside an artist.

Effective without being overwhelming.

What it doesn't have is a narrative magnet to pull us through - a story line that makes us really care what happens, aside from the elegant but mechanical manipulations of the plot.

Works because the story is sympathetic to the feelings of the characters, observes them as individuals, is not concerned with the sensational aspects of their household but in the gradual way practical matters work themselves out.

Of the voices, Griffith makes Margalo lovable and as sexy as a little yellow bird can be, and Lane does a virtuoso job with Snowbell, the only cat with dialogue by Damon Runyon. Fox's Stuart is stalwart and heroic--the Braveheart of mice. As for the parents, Davis and Laurie deserve some kind of award for keeping straight faces.

The film is pitch-perfect in its decor, music, clothes, cars, language and values. It takes place during those heady years between the introduction of the Pill and the specter of AIDS, when men shaped as adolescents by Playboy in the 1950s now found some of their fantasies within reach.

Someone like Abe could only prevail through the powers of denial and optimistic wishing, and Solondz makes that happen, as the film gradually slips into fantasy.

If "Henry V," the first film [Branaugh] directed and starred in, caused people to compare him to Olivier, "Dead Again" will inspire comparisons to Welles and Hitchcock - and the Olivier of Hitchcock's "Rebecca."

The script by Stallone and Juel Taylor is solid, adhering to the time-honored “Rocky” formula of relatively intimate character scenes, training montages and of course a couple of big fights.

Ben Is Back shifts gears and becomes as much a thriller as a family drama, and some of the developments stretch credulity. Through it all, though, there’s the magnificence of Julia Roberts, and the fine performances from Hedges, Vance and the rest of the cast. They do great justice to this finely constructed slice of fractured family life.

It is the first directing effort by Lili Zanuck, co-producer of Driving Miss Daisy, but feels like the work of a more experienced director, especially in the way she gives full measure to the many strong supporting performances in the film.

The film is astonishing in the amount of material it contains. It isn't thin or superficial; there is an abundance of observation and invention here.

It would seem to be a tall task for director Ryan White (“Good Night Oppy”) to find a fresh way to tell the tale — but thanks in large part to the 55-year-old Anderson’s funny, warm, smart and engaging presence as she literally opens the doors to her home and the pages of her diaries, “Pamela, A Love Story” is a fascinating albeit obviously sympathetic take on Anderson’s life and times.

Here, as the little cinder girl, she is able to at last put aside her bedraggled losers and flower as a fresh young beauty, and she brings poignancy and fire to the role.

It’s some of Keaton’s finest work. It’s also the first great movie I’ve seen in 2017.

Possibly the most under-plotted, underwritten, over-photographed film of the year. Which is not to say it isn't great to look at. It is.

This put-on-a-happy-face plotline is not nearly as annoying as it sounds. In fact, Swift wisely heads off audience rebellion by having his characters make fun of "Pollyanna" before the viewer can. [24 May 2002, p.13]

Beautiful. Even on the small screen. Yes, it’s a shame that American audiences won’t be able to see Niki Caro’s spectacular live-action epic “Mulan” in theaters, but the good news is this is such a great-looking film, with amazing set pieces and dazzling action and colors so vibrant they would dazzle a Crayola factory, it will still play well on your home monitor.

Loach's realism always carries a distinct sense of humor, volatility and, most alarmingly in this hypercapitalist new century, a socialist passion for The People.

Moonraker is a movie by gadgeteers, for gadgeteers, about gadgeteers. Our age may be losing its faith in technology, but James Bond sure hasn't.

As for Coppola and his world, it's difficult to say whether his film is successful or not. That's the beautiful thing about a lot of the new, experimental American directors, they'd rather do interesting things and make provocative observations than try to outflank John Ford on his way to the Great American Movie.

It’s not shocking or groundbreaking or attention-getting; it’s just consistently good at telling the story of a handful of characters who feel fully lived in and utterly real.

There’s no doubting Arquette’s sincere desire to learn the sport and craft of wrestling, to get into shape, to resuscitate his career, to make his family proud. We’re still rooting for the guy.

The movie is not tidy. Like its heroine, it doesn't follow the rules.

It is light and pleasant and funny, the characterization is strong, and the voices of Phil Harris (O'Malley the Alley Cat) and Eva Gabor (Duchess, the mother cat) are charming in their absolute rightness.

Even with its excesses, Frantic is a reminder of how absorbing a good thriller can be.

What it all comes down to is a skillfully assembled 130 minutes at the movies, with actors capable of doing absurd things with straight faces, and action sequences that toy idly with the laws of physics.

Hollywood Stargirl is smart, family-friendly entertainment with the perfect combination of real-world plausibility and magical escapism.

Sasquatch Sunset is the kind of film that seems almost pre-ordained to reach some level of cult status. Godspeed to those who will embrace its epic-level gross-out factor. I guess I’m just more of a Bucky Badger guy.

This is a delightfully goofy, self-aware movie that knows it is a movie.

It is admirable and well-made, but unutterably depressing and unredeemed by any glimmer of hope.

The movie is too impressed with its own solemn insights to work up much entertainment value; is too much fable to be convincing as life.

There may be possibilities here, but they're lost in the extraordinary boredom of a long third act devoted almost entirely to loud, pointless and repetitive action.

The movie was mostly shot on two difficult locations: The streets of East L.A., and inside Folsom Prison. It knows these worlds. The language, the clothes, the attitudes, are all shown with the understated conviction of a director who is sure of his material.

Elstree 1976...is a sweet, quietly funny, fascinating and contemplative study.

A fascinating portrait of an almost likable rogue. You'd rather spend time with him than a lot of more upstanding citizens.

Kate Mara delivers one of the best performances of her career in the title role.

The Bling Ring is a sly, often hilarious and at times sobering look at the 21st century fascination with celebrities.

Filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller unfortunately adopts the format of prime-time docu-tainment.

It’s a smart, solid and engrossing paper-chase investigative story about one man’s dogged determination to shed light on the government-sanctioned, post-9/11 torture tactics used by American interrogators on foreign soil.

This Netflix original from writer-director Jeremy Rush is one of the most gripping and entertaining action mysteries of the year.

Sometimes the choices a film eschews are as valuable as the choices the film makes. In the case of Causeway, the result is a thoughtful and realistic slice of life that is set in present times but has the distinct vibe of indie films from a generation or two ago.

The film is intended for family audiences. It is so gentle and whimsical that one wonders if American children, accustomed to the whiz-bang action of most animation, will accept it. Maybe there would be hope for the younger ones - but what will they make of the subtitles?

From the start, Koepp sets out to get under the viewer's skin, which he does with relentless ease. [30 Aug 1996, p.32]

As Soderbergh lovingly peels away veil after veil of deception, the film develops into an unexpected human comedy. Not that any of the characters are laughing.

Crimson Peak is a gorgeous mediocrity.

Technically impressive but listless and tedious.

The nice thing about Shaft is that it savors the private-eye genre, and takes special delight in wringing new twists out of the traditional relationship between the private eye and the boys down at homicide.

Haggis writes with such directness and such a good ear for everyday speech that the characters seem real and plausible after only a few words. His cast is uniformly strong; the actors sidestep cliches and make their characters particular.

Russell doesn't give a damn about the material he started with, greatest art work of the century or not, and he just goes ahead and gives us one glorious excess after another. He is aided by his performers, especially Ann-Margret, who is simply great as Tommy's mother.

While this worshipful documentary breaks no new ground and often seems like little more than a glorified IMDB bio accompanied by video, it serves as a lovely and valuable reminder of Hepburn’s unique star power and grace in front of the camera — and her kindness and tireless work for the less fortunate long after she had kissed the cinema a fond farewell.

This is a lovely movie.... So lovely a film, in fact, as to be nearly tame.

There are more than enough laughs and clever surprises in this broad and sometimes violent farce to warrant a recommendation, thanks to a solidly funny script by Mark Perez, some pretty neat camera moves and choreographed action/comedic sequences from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein — and a likable and talented ensemble cast, led by two of my favorites.

Gordon-Levitt the writer-director delivers some great laugh lines and a couple of nifty plot pivots, and Gordon-Levitt the actor gives a winning performance.

There's a lot that's good in White Palace, involving the heart as well as the mind.

A special movie - not just a police thriller, but a movie that has researched gangs and given some thought to what it wants to say about them.

This is the kind of movie you happen across on TV, and linger to watch out of curiosity, but its inspired moments serve only to point out how routine, and occasionally how slow and wordy, the rest of it is.

I saw more important films at Sundance 2003, but none more purely enjoyable than Bend It Like Beckham, which is just about perfect as a teenage coming-of-age comedy.

A poet imprisoned during the Islamic Revolution is released 27 years later. Camera focus, reflections and water droplets are sublimely designed to articulate what his liberty will let him see. [04 Oct 2012, p.4]

Christopher Nolan's The Prestige has just about everything I require in a movie about magicians, except ... the Prestige.

The movie is quick and cheerful, and Spurlock is engaging.

From start to finish, Judy feels more like a stylized tribute act than an insightful interpretation of the real thing.

I.Q. is a romantic comedy with its heart in the right place, and all of the other pieces distributed correctly, too.

The film has many virtues, but for me the most enchanting is simply the lust with which it depicts a bold and colorful era in history.

Despite the best efforts of the talented director/co-writer Paul King (who gifted us with the “Paddington” movies) and the wonderful ensemble cast, Wonka is like one of those enticing-looking chocolates with a smooth and silky and delicious coating — but inside, you taste dry coconut instead of caramel or a cherry, what a bummer!

Truth is a strange interpretation of events, in which the visuals and the music sometime seem to be nudging us in one direction, even as the screenplay and the performances are telling us something quite different.

Because it speaks to a terror that lurks deep within our memories, Parents has the potential to be a great horror film. But it never knows quite what to do with its inspiration. Is it a satire, a black comedy, or just plain horror? The right note is never found, and so the movie's scenes coexist uneasily with one another.

By the time it's over, Penelope Cruz has slipped away with it, and transformed Kingsley's character in the process. It's nicely done.

There is clear definition between closer and further elements. I've seen a lot of 3-D recently, and in terms of technical quality, this is the best.

This is the face of dysfunction. Apparently alcohol and drugs are not involved, except perhaps with some of the missing men. The drug here is despair. They seem to treat it with cigarettes.

A great visionary achievement, a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like "Metropolis" and "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Landline is a very funny film about people dealing with very serious situations.

It's a film you enjoy in pieces, but the jigsaw never gets solved.