Although Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Lords of Dogtown, has a good sense for the period and does what she can with her actors, we've seen the originals, and these aren't the originals.

It's nimble, bright and funny. It doesn't dumb down. It doesn't patronize. It knows something about human nature.

This is just sheer, escapist entertainment from start to finish.

Some of the bits work and others don't, but no one seems to be keeping score, and that's part of the movie's charm.

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

The nice thing about Paper Towns is it’s as much about the friendship between Quentin, Radar and Ben as it is about Quentin’s love for Margo, and his quest to find her after she disappears yet again.

Spinster isn’t a particularly visually arresting film, nor is it bursting with memorable and colorful supporting players. It’s simply an effective vehicle for Chelsea Peretti to expand upon her smart/cynical persona to include some genuine heart and likability as well.

Sharp-edged, perfectly timed, funny and thoughtful.

A story like Five Senses sounds like a gimmick, but Podeswa has a light touch when dealing with the senses and a sure one when telling his stories.

It crash-lands with an ending of soppy moralizing, but until the end, it's smart and merciless in the tradition of the original story.

I understood the general outlines of the story, I liked the bold strokes he uses to create the characters, and I was amused by the camera work, which includes a lot of shots that are about themselves.

Still, this is an involving and inspirational tale, highlighted by a Christopher Walken performance that is remarkably free of any showy tics or mannerisms and is a reminder Walken is a great actor first, a lovable caricature second.

The problem this time around is the plot is particularly idiotic, the supposedly snappy quips are lame and come at some weirdly inappropriate moments — and it’s all delivered in an extremely bloated package.

The downward arc of the first two acts of the movie is made harrowing and yet perversely amusing by the performance of Paul Kaye.

Quick Change is a funny but not an inspired comedy. It has two directors - Howard Franklin and Bill Murray - and I wonder if that has anything to do with its inability to be more than just efficiently entertaining.

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.

I found myself debating the film's moral questions on the way out of the theater.

Support Your Local Sheriff is a textbook example of the evil influence TV has on the movies. It's essentially a lousy TV situation comedy dragged out to feature length for no good reason.

Clint Eastwood's film is a determined attempt to be faithful to the book's spirit, but something ineffable is lost just by turning on the camera: Nothing we see can be as amazing as what we've imagined.

Oh, God! is lighthearted, satirical, and humorous and (that rarest of qualities) in good taste.

Tom Cruise is perfectly satisfactory, if not electrifying, in the leading role.

This is a very good haunted house film. It milks our frustration deliciously.

In many ways this feels like an update on the exploitation movies of the 1970s and '80s that played on drive-in theater screens before eventually making their way to VHS and late-night TV cult viewings. It’s Sharp Cheddar Cheese on Wry (sorry) and it’s a cool and breezy 84 minutes of fun.

All the time Phil and Claire seem like the kind of people who don't belong in a screwball comedy. That's why it's funny. They're bewildered.

This is a well-intentioned and sometimes quite sharp high school movie that falls just short of the mark due to a few way-off-the-mark scenes and too much heavy-handed preaching.

Pfeiffer is delivering one of the best performances of her career as the complex and formidable and deeply sad Frances, but she’s like a world-class basketball player stuck on the court with a bunch of weekend amateurs. There’s no one to give her a decent game.

Foster, I believe, sees right through this material and out the other side, and doesn't believe in a bit of it.

For those who have read the poets and are curious about their lives, Sylvia provides illustrations for the biographies we carry in our minds.