Kon-Tiki reminds us how important it is to expand our horizons by making discoveries, exploring new worlds and pushing ourselves to the absolute limits of human endurance.

Under the circumstances, Hollywood Shuffle is an artistic compromise but a logistical triumph, announcing the arrival of a new talent whose next movie should really be something.

The most remarkable thing about Rize is that it is real.

Good but not great Brooks... but smart, funny -- and edgy.

This is a genuinely well-crafted horror gem with a winning cast, some nifty twists and a very good bear who betrays its CGI origins maybe 10% of the time but for the most part looks like an actual, cocaine-fueled black bear with lightning-quick reflexes, a big bite and an insatiable appetite for coke on the rocks.

What I've come away with is a notion of a land which, despite its crushing problems, has produced a population that seems extraordinarily radiant.

With Surrounded, Mandler solidifies his standing as a talented and versatile filmmaker, with Letitia Wright and Jamie Bell burning up the screen as two wounded and fiercely independent adversaries who both realize they’re in this thing together, and the outcome is most likely going to be a bloody mess.

With all that corn and cheese and old-timey sentiment, “The Greatest Showman” ends up scoring some very timely social arguments. P.T. Barnum himself would have approved the dramatic sleight of hand.

There’s not a single false, “actor-y” note in Bening’s work. It is a master class in nuanced acting, and it is deserving of an Academy Award.

The film unfolds easily, with affection for the man no one likes, and at 95 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability, creating a character you'd like to like, and could like, if she weren't so sad, strange and turned in upon herself.

This is lovely little gem.

There ARE times when Aloha doesn’t work — and yet I’m recommending it for its sometimes loony sense of wonder, its trippy spirituality, its brilliant cast and because I seem to be a sap for even the Cameron Crowe movies almost nobody else likes.

The movie is brave to raise the questions it does, although at the end I looked in vain for a credit saying, "No extras were underpaid in the making of this film."

Thanks to an ambitiously layered script from Paul Downs Colaizzo (who also directs with a steady grasp of comedic pacing and a nice visual eye), and a resonant and rich performance by the terrific Jillian Bell in the title role, Brittany Runs a Marathon has some refreshingly sharp edges and occasionally charts a relatively unorthodox course for such a comfort food-type movie.

Supermensch sells the impression that its subject is a genuinely good guy.

It seems at first to be merely a jumble of discordant images ("Freaks" shot by the "Blair Witch" crew) but then, if you stay with it, the pattern emerges from the jumble.

The movie is entertaining on its own terms, and Washington's warmth at the center of it is like our own bemusement, as together we return to the shadows of noir.

Munger Road does an efficient, skillful job of audience manipulation using the techniques of darkness and vulnerability, and the truth that a horror not seen is almost always scarier than one you can see.

We’re left with the feeling that while Rock Hudson enjoyed an often-spectacular career and a rich and full and glamorous life, the real Roy Fitzgerald was never able to truly emerge from the shadows. The world wouldn’t allow it.

I was confused sometimes during Baron Munchausen and bored sometimes, but this is a vast and commodious work, and even allowing for the unsuccessful passages there is a lot here to treasure.

This is a smart, funny, original piece of work that turns some well-worn tropes upside down in clever fashion, a heartwarming slice of comfort comedy.

The movie resembles a chess game; the board and all of the pieces are in full view, both sides know the rules, and the winner will simply be the better strategist.

Over the course of a brisk 86 minutes, the filmmakers do a stellar job of providing context and explaining just how the special came to be.

A taut, handsome production -- the most expensive Danish film to date -- and it looks like a film noir, as indeed the costumes, cars, guns and fugitives force it to.

I thought the basic situation in The Bodyguard was intriguing enough to sustain a film all by itself: on the one hand, a star who grows rich through the adulation that fans feel for her, and on the other hand, a working man who, for a salary, agrees to substitute his body as a target instead of hers. Makes you think.

Fascinating because it require us to see the younger character through two sets of eyes -- our own, which witness an attractive woman drawn to a younger male, and the women's, which see a lost love in a new container.

The kind of movie that grabs you while you're watching, even if later you wish it had grabbed a little harder.

How can one man juggle two women, possible expulsion, Mafia baseball bats and the meaning of life, while on acid? This is the kind of question only a Toback film thinks to ask, let alone answer.

The movie's intriguing in its fanciful way, and there are times when both Calvin and Ruby seem uncannily like they're undergoing revision at the hands of some uber-writer above them both.

The grubby, low-budget intensity of the film gives it a lovable quality that high-tech movies wouldn't have.

In some truly inspired casting choices, Ashley Judd provides emotional depth as Barack’s mother, and Jason Mitchell (who deserved an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Easy-E in “Straight Outta Compton”) and Ellar Coltrane (who literally grew up onscreen in “Boyhood”) deliver stellar work as friends of Barry’s who remind of us of the multiple worlds he inhabits.

Directed by David Tedeschi and produced by a team including Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Martin Scorsese, “Beatles ’64” could have been subtitled, “Everything Old Is New Again.”

Schlaich portrays a society in which some are racists who act cruelly toward the black man, and others, even strangers, go out of their way to help him.

The movie felt long to me, and there were some stretches during which I was less than riveted. Is it possible that there wasn't enough Sendak story to justify a feature-length film?

Mean Girls dissects high school society with a lot of observant detail, which seems surprisingly well-informed. The screenplay by "Saturday Night Live's" Tina Fey is both a comic and a sociological achievement.

This is not a great movie, and you will be able to live quite happily without seeing it, but what it does, it does with a certain welcome warmth.

Baldwin and Moore generate genuine heat and chemistry together, even in some ridiculous moments.

A riot of visual invention and weird humor that works on its chosen sub-moronic level, and on several others as well, including some fairly sophisticated ones.

Movies like Wonderland invite me into the screen with them. I am curious. I begin to care.

This one doesn't go on the list of great recent European thrillers, but it's engrossing, and in the character of Martine/Candice, it touches real poignancy.

We appreciate Mister Rogers even more after seeing this film, but I’m not sure we really got to know him any better.

This is a smart, sensitive, perceptive film, with actors well suited to the dialogue. It underlines the difficulty of making connections outside our individual boxes of time and space.

It is not about whether the hero will get the girl. It is about whether the hero should get the girl, and when was the last time you saw a movie that even knew that could be the question?

This is the most gruesome and quease-inducing film you are likely to have seen. You may not even want to read the descriptions in this review. Yet it is also beautiful, angry and sad, with a curious sick poetry, as if the Marquis de Sade had gone in for pastel landscapes.

This is not a major Spielberg film, although it is an effortlessly watchable one.

Not perfect; a vice cop played by Pam Grier is oddly conceived and unlikely in action, and the movie doesn't seem to know how to end. But as character studies of Jack and Claire, it is daring and inventive, and worthy of comparison with the films of a French master of criminal psychology like Jean-Pierre Melville.

It's a political conspiracy thriller, a science fiction adventure, and sort of a love story. Most movies that try to crowd so much into an hour and a half end up looking like a shopping list, but Dreamscape works, maybe because it has a sense of humor.

The Last Boy Scout is a superb example of what it is: a glossy, skillful, cynical, smart, utterly corrupt and vilely misogynistic action thriller. To give it a negative review would be dishonest, because it is such a skillful and well-crafted movie.

What surprised me was how much I admired Kristen Stewart, who in "Twilight," was playing below her grade level. Here is an actress ready to do important things. Together, and with the others, they make Adventureland more real and more touching than it may sound.

We see different movies for different reasons, and Diamonds Are Forever is great at doing the things we see a James Bond movie for.

Spectacle matters more than story for Reygadas, who wants to create a world onscreen instead of developing characters or critiquing society.

Although The White Diamond is entire of itself, it earns its place among the other treasures and curiosities in Herzog's work. Here is one of the most inquisitive filmmakers alive, a man who will go to incredible lengths to film people living at the extremes.

With a dialogue-driven, authentic screenplay by Alanna Francis, an effectively poignant score by Owen Pallett and powerful work by Kendrick and Kaniehtiio Horn and Wunmi Mosaku as Alice’s best friends, this is the kind of intimate drama that sticks with you long after the viewing experience.

If you see only one martial arts Western this year (and there is probably an excellent chance of that), this is the one.

One of the things I like about the movie is the wit of its dialogue, the way sentences and conversations coil with confidence up to a conclusion that is totally unexpected.

Told as a melodrama and romance, not docudrama, and that makes it all the more effective.

Exactly the kind of documentary we all want to have made about ourselves, in which it is revealed that we are funny, smart, beloved, the trusted confidant of famous people.

The movie uses the materials of melodrama, but is gentle with them; it's oriented more in the real world, and doesn't jack up every conflict and love story into an overwrought crisis.

Fright Night is not a distinguished movie, but it has a lot of fun being undistinguished.

Directors Jennifer Lee (who also wrote the screenplay) and Chris Buck, along with the obligatory army of talented Disney animators, deliver one brilliantly rendered set piece after another.

The movie has great moments and a lot of life, sensational special effects and costumes, and Ross, Jackson, and Russell. Why doesn't it involve us as deeply as The Wizard of Oz? Maybe because it hedges its bets by wanting to be sophisticated and universal, childlike and knowing, appealing to both a mass audience and to media insiders. The Wizard of Oz went flat-out for the heart of its story; there are times whenThe Wiz has just a touch too much calculation.

A cynical, savage satire about violence, the media and depravity. It doesn't have the polish of "Natural Born Killers" or the wit of "Wag the Dog," but it's a real movie, rough edges and all, and not another link from the sausage factory.

What brings the movie alive is the performance that Diana Ross and director Sidney J. Furie bring to the scenes.

Contains scenes of brilliance, interrupted by scenes that meander. There is too much, too many characters, too many subplots. But there is so much here that is powerful that it should be seen no matter its imperfections.

21 Grams tells such a tormenting story that it just about survives its style. It would have been more powerful in chronological order, and even as a puzzle, it has a deep effect.

So much love is devoted to creating the wacko loonies in the cast that we're left with a set of personality profiles, not characters.

Desperately Seeking Susan does not move with the self-confidence that its complicated plot requires. But it has its moments, and many of them involve the different kinds of special appeal that Arquette and Madonna are able to generate. They are very particular individuals, and in a dizzying plot they somehow succeed in creating specific, interesting characters.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. plays a like a lower key, vintage edition of a “Mission: Impossible” movie. It’s a good movie with a great look.

At times Shock and Awe is reminiscent of journalistic procedurals from “President’s Men” to “Spotlight” to “The Post,” and it gets the nitty-gritty details of an early 2000s newsroom just right.

Resisting screen rules is Godard’s forte.

Van Damme says worse things about himself than critics would dream of saying, and the effect is shockingly truthful.

Every frame of “Pinocchio” is filled with rich and lush detail — at times this almost looks like a 3-D film — and the performances, whether live action or voiced, are universally excellent.

One of the secrets of Youth in Revolt is that Nick seems bewildered by his own desires and strategies. He knows how he feels, he knows what he wants, but he'd need a map to get from A to B. It's his self-abasing modesty that makes the movie work. Here, you feel, is a movie character who would find more peace on the radio.

Bronstein's performance is crucial. It's difficult to make a manic character plausible, but he does.

It's a tribute to The Celebration that the style and the story don't stumble over each other. The script is well planned, the actors are skilled at deploying their emotions, and the long day's journey into night is fraught with wounds that the farcical elements only help to keep open.

The film is one of those interlocking dramas where all of the characters are involved in each other's lives, if only they knew it. We know, and one of our pleasures is waiting for the pennies to drop.

A smart and good movie that could have been a great one if it had a little more daring.

Movies like this are machines for involving us and thrilling us. Cliffhanger is a fairly good machine.

A wry, affectionate delight, a human comedy about a man who thinks he has had greatness thrust upon him when in fact he has merely thrust himself in the general direction of greatness.

This is a true story, and it’s now getting the feature film treatment in Bill Pohlad’s warm and elegiac and lovely Dreamin’ Wild, with Casey Affleck doing his disheveled-restless-socially awkward thing in a searingly strong performance as the brilliantly talented Donnie, and the versatile Walton Goggins making the most of an opportunity to play a genuinely nice regular guy in Joe, who always knew he was at best the Ringo to Donnie’s John.

The movie generates little suspense and no relief. And yet it is worth seeing as a chamber piece, an exercise in which two great actors expand their range and work together in great sympathy. Both Nicholson and Streep have moments as good as anything they have done.

In its finest moments, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is swift and clever and exhilarating. At its low points, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword plays like a cheesy B-movie, with ridiculous monsters and unintentionally laugh-inducing moments.

Spelling the Dream is a fresh take on the competition, focusing largely on the phenomenon of Indian-American dominance over the last quarter-century.

These performances are so quietly effective that we watch, absorbed. I'm not sure, however, that where this film comes from quite earns the place it goes to.

The Dead Don’t Die is delivered in one long, deadpan note. Some of the sight gags and quips are gold; others are just filler, but still kind of interesting in a wacky sort of way.

This is sweet and smart film.

Nighy leaves behind his trick box of winks and sly smiles and sarcasm for a relatively straightforward performance, and wisely so. As outlandish as the material can get in The Limehouse Golem, this is serious stuff.

While the outcome is pretty predictable and borderline formulaic, this is a well-paced romantic comedy that works due to its engaging cast — with special kudos going out to Radcliffe and Kazan, but also Driver, who delivers perfectly as the fast-talking, libido-driven hunkster.

It’s not often an animated children’s movie features lessons about critical thinking, especially when the movie on the whole is a zippy, silly, zany, cheery little tale with the obligatory upbeat musical numbers, wonderfully entertaining voice work from the eclectic cast, and a gentle, PG tone with nary a sequence that will have the little ones scurrying for cover under your wing.

The movie itself is fun: goofy, softhearted, fussy, sometimes funny, and with the sort of happy ending that columnists like to find for their stories and hardly ever find themselves.

Alan Rudolph’s Mortal Thoughts is a movie just like the true crime stories I enjoy the most.

Weir is good with his actors and good, too, at putting a slight spin on some of the obligatory scenes.

The film leaves no doubt Ted Hall was a brilliant man, and that he and Joan had a beautiful marriage. His legacy beyond that remains a subject of intense debate.

A film like Haywire has no lasting significance, but it's a pleasure to see an A-list director taking the care to make a first-rate genre thriller.

Emily Browning's face helps The Uninvited work so well...She makes you fear for her, and that's half the battle. Yet she's so fresh she's ready for a Jane Austen role.

Yes, this film is unapologetically corny and unabashedly self-congratulatory, and while it pales in comparison to many of the classic animated films referenced throughout, the little ones should find it entertaining enough and the parents should be at least mildly amused as well as grateful for a zippy 95-minute running time.

While Penn and Teller certainly know how to tell a story, Tim’s Vermeer is at times a chore to sit through, even with a brisk 80-minute running time. We’re literally watching paint dry.