There are many scholars and critics here, most of them useful and pleasant, who obviously love him. Most remarkably, there is his granddaughter, Bel Kaufman, still looking terrific at 100, who had writing in her blood and wrote "Up the Down Staircase."

Chasing Mavericks is made with more care and intelligence than many another film starting with its template might have been. It's better than most movies targeted at teens. And the cinematography of the big Mavericks scene by Oliver Euclid and Bill Pope is so frightening that you sort of understand why Frosty stays on the shore, watching Jay with binoculars.

Everything comes down to an epic battle between the Transformers and the Decepticons, and that's when my attention began to wander, and the movie lost a potential fourth star.

It’s not in the same league as “Playbook” or “Hustle,” but thanks to some memorable set pieces and the best performance by Jennifer Lawrence since her breakout role in “Winter’s Bone,” the sometimes-bumpy journey is worth your investment.

As usual, the production design and costumes are museum-perfect, and even as things remain as complicated ever with the Crawleys et al., the film itself is the definition of a simple pleasure.

A movie that I find oddly touching. It is no doubt too thoughtful for the summer action season, but I appreciate the quietly realistic way Shyamalan finds to tell a story about the possible death of man.

Hey, it's no masterpiece. It is what it is: soft-core eroticism. But on that basis, it succeeds, which is why I am giving it three stars. All criticism is subjective, all star ratings are relative, and if you have read this far you want to know if "Sex and Zen" is a superior example of its genre. It is. If there is the slightest doubt, stay around for the closing credits, which begin with gigantic block letters reading: "Recommended by Penthouse." The possibilities for additional recommendations in other kinds of movies are tantalizing.

Developments unfold according to the needs of the characters. The movie is not about springing surprises on us, but about showing these people in a process of discovery. The performances are not pitched toward melodrama; the actors all find the right notes and rhythms for scenes in which life goes on and everything need not be solved in three lines of dialogue.

Slice is schlock, but that’s kind of the point. It doesn’t have a tenth of the production values of, say, last week’s violent thriller “Peppermint” (and no doubt it was made for even less than a tenth of that film’s budget). But it has originality, and originality goes a long way.

The ethical considerations of these physicians and their patients is the focus, not the pro-lifers and their death threats.

Writer-director Jack C. Newell’s 42 Grams is a smartly executed, well-photographed and at times almost painfully raw profile.

This is the kind of story that has to be true; as fiction, it would not be believable.

It might be another 30 years before we get the next “Fletch,” but if Hamm is up for a repeat appearance, I’d be more than pleased to come along for the ride.

Murmelstein answers his accusers in The Last of the Unjust. Over a compelling three hours and 38 minutes.

The charm of Goon is that Doug Glatt (Scott) is a genial guy from a nice family. Just because he hands out concussions doesn't mean he dislikes anybody. He's just happy to be wearing a uniform.

Morales trafficks in familiar formulas of an everyman in a bind with evil men. What sets Graceland apart are the conflicted values of its characters.

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.

Offers modest pleasures. It is not an essential film, but if you go to see it, it will not insult your intelligence, and there's genuine suspense toward the end.

The real support group at this place is the one formed by a small band of students, who lean on each other and reinforce each other in the face of the small-minded bigotry of the so-called adults in their lives.

The movie is more slapdash than smooth, more impulsive than calculating, and it takes cheap shots. I responded to its savage, sloppy zeal.

Moves at a breakneck pace, it has strong and simple characterizations, it has good location photography and terrific special effects, and it supplies what it claims to supply: an effective action movie.

This is a well-made film, with plausible performances by all the leads, especially Ann Dowd.

Kennedy goes for silhouettes and, as I’ve mentioned, for the kind of carefully casual arrangements of figures we find in samurai films - the Japanese Western. The result is a movie that isolates the John Wayne mystique and surrounds it with the necessary simplicity and directness.

Cutthroat Island is everything a movie named Cutthroat Island should be, and no more. It is a pirate picture, pure and simple, and doesn't transcend its genre except perhaps in the luxurious production. Leaner and meaner pirate movies have worked more or less as well, but this one gets the job done.

Directed by Alex Lehmann with a deft and indie-casual touch from a script by Lehmann and Mark Duplass, Paddleton is a low-key, sweet and heart-tugging buddy movie.

A gentle and sweet whimsy, attentive to the love between the two brothers, respectful of the boy's growth and curiosity.

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s stirring and sprawling period-piece epic “The Woman King” is groundbreaking in that it tells the story of the legendary, real-life, all-female West African warrior unit known as the Agojie, but also quite traditional in that it follows the blueprint of blockbuster action sagas such as “Braveheart,” “Gladiator” and “Rob Roy.”

What the film is really about is social embarrassment, and Bleistein's clear-headed, calm understanding that his old friend has a stupid daughter who has caused fraudulent trouble for a great many people.