Those who deplore Beavis and Butt-Head are confusing the messengers with the message.

An enjoyable and slick little thriller with a brilliant cast of actors clearly having a good time sinking their teeth into the salacious material.

The whole program could make a nice introduction to moviegoing for a small child.

Until it descends into mindless routine action in the climactic scenes, Tears of the Sun is essentially an impressionistic nightmare.

A video game crossed with a buddy movie, a bad cop-good cop movie, a Miami druglord movie, a chase movie and a comedy. It doesn't have a brain in its head, but it's made with skill and style and, boy, is it fast and furious.

Only a few sequels have been as good as the originals; the characters especially like "Aliens'' and "The Godfather, Part II.'' As for Scream 2, it's ... well, it's about as good as the original.

In writer-director-star Novak’s scathing social satire “Vengeance,” he plays a character who isn’t all that different from Ryan—only this guy might be even more cynical, more immersed in his smart phone, more of an opportunistic narcissist. It’s a smart and insightful performance in a film that has a lot to say about the personal disconnect we feel in today’s Wi-Fi world; the stereotypes held by Blue Staters about Red Staters and vice versa, and the manner in which millions of us consider every waking moment as potential material, to be memorialized in a selfie or a tweet or a Tik-Tok video or a podcast.

As the quarantine continues, this is a great time to revisit or introduce yourself to some of the most iconic cult films ever, and the three-part series “Time Warp” (the first episode debuts Tuesday on multiple streaming platforms) is a breezy and insightful look at dozens of wonderfully strange, sometimes campy, often hilarious, exceedingly endearing favorites.

Masterson, like many actors, is an assured director even in her debut; working with her brother Pete as cinematographer, she creates a spell and a tenderness and pushes exactly as far as this story should go.

This is a monster movie disguised as a war movie.

That’s when It Comes at Night is most effective — when we’re trying to figure out these characters and what exactly is creating those weird noises and jolting thumps beyond the locked doors.

There's little effort at psychological depth, and the characters float along on the requirements of comedy. But it's sweet comedy, knowing about human nature, and Deneuve and Depardieu, who bring so much history to the screen, seem to create it by their very natures.

It doesn't make the slightest effort to cater to conventional appetites. But the more you appreciate what they're trying to do, the more you like it.

Scott keeps the story from becoming cloying and sentimental. He is aided by smart, low-key work from his cast, especially Huard, who easily embodies the persona of an adult slacker, instilling him with a warm charm.

A funny movie with its heart finally in the right place, but all sorts of unacknowledged complications lurk just beneath its polished surface.

There is very little comic invention in the idea for Doctor Detroit (the screenplay is Identikit sitcom), but there's a lot of invention in Aykroyd's performance.

This is a movie about the end of youth and high romance, about death and the possibility of simple human compassion.

The movie's screenplay is contrived and not blindingly original, but Barrymore illuminates it with sunniness, and creates a lovable character

What's fun is the carefree way the animators swing through their story, using the freedom of the cartoon form to blend 19th century realism with images that seem borrowed from more recent special-effects pictures.

Neither man is right; neither man is wrong. Neither man can do anything to ward off the inevitable. All they can do for now is soak in every last moment they have together, and oh do we wish for them to have as many of those moments as they possibly can.

Robocop is a thriller with a difference.

Grips the attention and is exciting and involving. I recommend it on that basis--and also because of the new information it contains.

Not as taut as it could have been, but I prefer its emotional perception to the pumped-up sports cliches I was sort of expecting.

Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony is one more bravo for the iconic masterpiece.

The stakes in Beirut are deadly serious, but the film itself is not presented as a major political statement or commentary beyond: The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is an old-fashioned spy thriller, and as such it succeeds.

Assuming that few members of SpongeBob's primary audience are reading this (or can read), all I can tell you is, the movie is likely to be more fun than you expect.

Nightmare Cinema as a whole is the bloodiest, most violent, most gruesome and most twisted movie I’ve seen this year. And I mean that mostly in a good way.

Although “The Cursed” milks its relatively thin storyline a bit too long and engages in some heavy-handed (albeit valid) social commentary about 19th century colonialism perhaps one too many times, this is an effectively creepy and often bone-crunching horror gem with some striking visuals and a first-rate cast.

We know we’re being manipulated from time to time, but the messaging is so earnest and the performances are so heartfelt, we’re willing to go with it. Call it a Comfort Movie.

This is the 24th Bond film and it ranks solidly in the middle of the all-time rankings, which means it’s still a slick, beautifully photographed, action-packed, international thriller with a number of wonderfully, ludicrously entertaining set pieces, a sprinkling of dry wit, myriad gorgeous women and a classic psycho-villain who is clearly out of his mind but seems to like it that way.

Hellaware doesn’t really have anything new to say about its art world subject... But Bilandic does perfectly capture the laid-back style of the twentysomethings (the lead actors all do fine work) and manages to present a fresh story of callow youth caught up in their own American odyssey.

It seems to me that Campbell has a good case here--good enough, anyway, to convince the judges on the African court.

Into the Woods rumbles on for too long and has some dry patches here and there — but just when we’re growing fidgety, we get another rousing musical number or another dark plot twist, and we’re back in business.

Thanks to the stylish directing by Everardo Valerio Gout, a tight screenplay from series creator James DeMonaco and a terrific ensemble cast that elevates the material, The Forever Purge is a fast-paced jam that would play well on a drive-in movie screen. Take the whole thing with a big tub of popcorn and many grains of salt.

As you might expect from this cast, all four leads are simply outstanding.

The filmmakers obviously understand and love Garfield, and their movie lacks that sense of smarmy slumming you sometimes get when Hollywood brings comic strips to the screen.

Mammoth is a perfectly decent film. Too bad it isn't more thoughtful. It's easy to regret misfortune if all you do is regret it.

Jim Jarmusch stocks his latest low-key indie with more than his usual characters in low-velocity drift. The Akron-born auteur infuses the title couple of Only Lovers Left Alive with his taste for culture, if not cuisine.

A vibrant and crazy and thought-provoking and immensely entertaining film that could have been even more resonant had it not settled for a relatively conventional final act we’ve seen in dozens of thrillers.

The movie has its pleasures, although human intelligence is not one of them. Caesar, to begin with, is a wonderfully executed character, a product of special effects and a motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis, who earlier gave us Gollum in "Lord of the Rings."

For a time, The Dig is a quiet little gem of a drama with only a few characters, but after Basil uncovers what appears to be an intact, seventh century Anglo-Saxon ship with far-ranging historical and cultural implications, Sutton Hoo gets quite crowded with new characters and a myriad of subplots, most examining the classism and sexism of the era.

The Disaster Artist is a breezy, entertaining and even affectionate movie about the making of “The Room.”

Here's a Brazilian thriller that's so angry and specifically political, it's hard to believe they got away with making it.

The four leads are enormously likable and there’s still enough sharp, raunchy, sexy humor for me to recommend this version.

There’s a good measure of comedic relief doled out between the action sequences, e.g., Neeson coming up with an ingenious plan to placate the passengers when they’re on the verge of a rebellion. This is a movie that knows it’s not to be taken too seriously.

So, yes: “Kate” is “John Wick” meets “Die Hard” meets “Collateral” meets “Kill Bill all the Volumes” and we’ve seen it all before and you’re not going to get much in the way of original plot, but what you WILL get is a grindhouse of a good time with some bleak and wickedly sharp humor, screen-popping visuals and some pretty great fight choreography.

A quirky and entertaining deadpan comedy/drama.

Focusing on Rumsfeld’s 2001-06 stint at the Pentagon, Morris scrutinizes his rhetoric and rationale for attacking Iraq and Afghanistan. Tactics and costs take a back seat to semantics.

This is a documentary about what happens to you when you appear in "Troll 2."

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.

A disquieting film about testing faith.

Not very much really happens in Duck Season, but in its rich details, it remembers how absorbing and endless every single day can seem when you're 14.

Overall this is a solid, intelligent movie about the joys of expanding our horizons — in all directions.

The movie is funny and entertaining in all the usual ways, yes, but I was grateful that it tried for more: that it was actually about something, that it had an original premise, that it used satire and irony and had sly undercurrents.

Deathtrap is a wonderful windup fiction machine with a few modest ambitions: It wants to mislead us at every turn, confound all our expectations, and provide at least one moment when we levitate from our seats and come down screaming.

Catherine Hardwicke’s sharply drawn, slow-simmer domestic drama Prisoner’s Daughter has the cool vibe of an indie film from a generation ago, from the lived-in look of the Vegas sets to the authentic performances of the terrific cast.

Bastards is both visceral and visual.

The success of Crimson Gold depends to an intriguing degree on the performance of its leading actor, a large, phlegmatic man.

Robert Redford has shown that he has a real feeling for the West--he's not a movie tourist--and there is a magnificence in his treatment here that dignifies what is essentially a soap opera.

Howard Stern has been accused of a lot of things, but he has never been accused of being dumb. With Private Parts, his surprisingly sweet new movie, he makes a canny career move: Here is radio's bad boy walking the finest of lines between enough and too much.

In an age of prefabricated special effects and obviously phony spectacle, it's sort of old-fashioned (and a pleasure) to see a movie made of real people and plausible sets.

We’ve yet to get a masterpiece-level film adaptation of the classic novella “The Little Prince,” but if and until that day comes, this will do just nicely, thank you very much.

Bell and Grammer are wonderful playing off one another. Funny when the moment calls for funny, authentic and believable when the moment calls for substantive drama.

The high-tech stuff is flawlessly done, but the intriguing elements of the movie involve the performances.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter is a chilling and unnerving psychological horror film brimming with dicey characters who are capable of deeply disturbing behavior. We keep holding our breath because it feels like something awful is about to happen — and our instincts might not be wrong.

Movies like this are more or less impervious to the depredations of movie critics. Either you laugh, or you don't. I laughed.

It's worth seeing for the acting, and it's got some good laughs in it, and New York is colorfully observed, but don't tell me this movie is about human nature, because it's not; it's about acting.

The Miracle Club contains few surprises, but that’s kind of the point of these kinds of movies, yes? We’re here for the comfort-viewing and the location scenery and the hand-me-a-tissue moments and the sublime performances.

A surprisingly personal and moving documentary about three very different types of restaurants.

Godzilla vs. Kong is the kind of movie you can pretty much forget about almost instantly after you’ve seen it — but it’s also the kind of movie that makes you forget about everything else in your life while you’re watching it.

The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values.

There’s something wonderful, albeit borderline shameless, about a movie that gives Billy Crystal a hall pass to indulge his corniest instincts, from his character’s gimmicky hat to his karaoke scenes to his baseball-influenced memories.

A sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin. Here is a gifted actor who apparently by his own decision has brought desolation upon his head.

I have a feeling the loss of their child and the state of their marriage were what most interested the backers of this film. They must have wanted to make a film about Darwin the man, not Darwin the scientist.

This is a hot modern martial art. Not only do the shots look convincing, not only are they held long enough to allow us to see an entire action, but Belle in real life does a version of this stuff.

It is not the film you think it is going to be. You walk in expecting some kind of North Beach weirdo and his wild-eyed parrot theories, and you walk out still feeling a little melancholy over the plight of Connor.

Lacks any formulas or solutions, and is content to show us its complicated characters, their tangled lives, and the way that our need to love and be loved can lead us in opposite directions.

It's remarkable, a war story told as a chess game where the loser not only dies, but goes by necessity to an unmarked grave.

Family Business tries to play it down the middle, when it probably should have jumped in one direction or the other, toward a pure caper or toward a family drama.

Prince Avalance is frequently funny in a subdued sort of way, but it’s primarily contemplative and eventually intimate.

The film is warm and intriguing, and he (Valentin) is the engine that pulls us through it. We care about what happens to him; high praise.

The plot is a little of Fatal Attraction, a little of Jagged Edge and a little of Wall Street. It works because it's so audacious in combining elements that don't seem to belong together.

The Night They Raided Minsky's is being promoted as some sort of laff-a-minit, slapstick extravaganza, but it isn't. It has the courage to try for more than that and just about succeeds. It avoids the phony glamour and romanticism that the movies usually use to smother burlesque (as in "Gypsy") and it really seems to understand this most-American art form.

Writer-director-star Cooper Raiff’s smart and charming and delightfully offbeat Cha Cha Real Smooth is a movie very much of the present day, but there’s something almost nostalgic about the self-consciously indie material in that it reminded me of somewhat similarly themed gems such as “Rushmore” (1998), “Igby Goes Down” (1998) and “Tadpole” (1998) — and all of these films are generational descendants of “The Graduate” (1966).

Not as inspired as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" but in the same spirit. It's goofy fun. Or maybe we should make that daffy fun.

It is the craftsmanship that elevates One True Thing above the level of a soaper.

The movie's strength is not in its story but in its unsettling and weirdly effective visual and sound style. (Review of Original Release)

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky concerns a love affair between two irresistible forces who have never met an immovable object before.

Here is a movie that makes you want to do something. Cry, or write a check, or howl with rage.

Forget the plot. The movie is really about Steve and Terri taking us on a guided tour of the crocs, snakes, deadly insects and other stars of the outback fauna. Steve's act is simplicity itself.

The movie evokes that long-ago world carefully and with a certain poetry; it was shot in the Dominican Republic. There is a lot of music, much of it from the period and performed by the same musicians or their successors.

Nastassja Kinski, in one of her most affecting performances, does much to convey the turmoil going in her soul.

The movie is, in short, your money's worth, better than we expect, more fun than we deserve.

The movie plays out like a thrift-store version of Adam McKay’s “The Big Short,” in that it takes us through the looking glass into a world so complex and nebulous, even the major players sometimes seem utterly befuddled — but does so as if we’re taking a thrill ride in a Financial Theme Park.

A sweetheart of a film, whimsical and touching. It positions itself somewhere between a slice of life and a screwball comedy.

Adult World does have some smart, funny and wincingly painful things to say about the desire to make art vs. the desire to be famous for it.

This powerful and well-acted story might have been much more effective if told in strictly linear fashion.

Poltergeist is an effective thriller, not so much because of the special effects, as because Hooper and Spielberg have tried to see the movie's strange events through the eyes of the family members, instead of just standing back and letting the special effects overwhelm the cast along with the audience.