The film looks great, the songs are wonderfully visualized, and the characters are appealing.

This is one of those comedies that doesn't pound us on the head with the obvious, but simply lets us share vast amusement.

Impressive moviemaking, showing Scorsese as a master of a traditional Hollywood genre.

Not that Frank is without talent or without charm. He’s still out there performing, and he’s got a hell of a voice, and he sure has a way with a story.

It's pretty good, in fact, with full-blooded performances and heartfelt melodrama.

Intense, erotic and willful.

May be a sardonic view of Japanese corporate culture, but that's not all it is. The movie is also subtly sexual and erotic, despite the fact that every scene takes place in the office and there is not a single overt sexual act or word or gesture or reference.

Reddy’s story is given the standard, time-honored biopic treatment in I Am Woman, which checks off just about every cliché imaginable — and yet wins us over, in large part due to the star-power performance of Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Reddy.

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.

This still works as a solid Disney sports movie because of the remarkable story, Mira Nair’s energetic and uplifting direction, and one of the most endearing casts I’ve enjoyed in any movie this year.

Full of non-stop action, an intriguing new take on J.M. Barrie’s classic “Peter Pan” tale and some old-fashioned, swashbuckling mischief led by Hugh Jackman, director Joe Wright’s Pan is one heck of a charming romp.

Director Lance Oppenheim (who at 24 is a good half-century younger than his subjects) employs a straightforward, deadpan style that suits the material well, avoiding condescension or cutesy gimmicks as he introduces us to a number of residents of the Villages.

Masterful at concealing its true nature and surprising us with the turns of the story.

Despite its creativity, the movie remains space opera and avoids the higher realms of science-fiction.

The result is one of the jollier comedies of the year, a movie so mainstream that you can almost watch it backing away from confrontation, a film aimed primarily at a middle-American heterosexual audience.

Not a documentary about anything in particular. That is its charm. It's a meandering visit by a curious man with a quiet sense of humor, who pokes here and there in his family history, and the history of tobacco.

In September of 1946, two months after Mother Cabrini was canonized, more than 100,000 gathered at Soldier Field for a Holy Hour celebration. “Cabrini” the film is a fine reminder of why she was so revered by so many.

Houston basically gets the “Bohemian Rhapsody” treatment in that the film glosses over some of the darkest moments in her life. (in fact, Anthony McCarten is the screenwriter of both films), but it works beautifully as a feature-film biography highlighting one of the most incredible voices and one of the most infectious star personalities of a generation.

Ephron develops this story with all of the heartfelt sincerity of a 1950s tearjerker (indeed, the movie's characters spend a lot of time watching "An Affair to Remember" and using it as their romantic compass).

As loaded with special effects as "The Matrix,'' but they're on a different scale. Many of his best effects are gooey, indescribable organic things, and some of the most memorable scenes involve characters eating things that surgeons handle with gloves on.

Coppola is unable to draw all this together and make it work on the level of simple, absorbing narrative. The stunning text of "The Godfather" is replaced in Part II with prologues, epilogues, footnotes, and good intentions.

Streep’s performance is risky, and masterful.

Ang Lee has boldly taken the broad outlines of a comic book story and transformed them to his own purposes; this is a comic book movie for people who wouldn't be caught dead at a comic book movie.

I feel such an affection for Chabrol and his work that I probably can't see The Flower of Evil as it would be experienced by a first-time viewer. Would that newcomer note the elegance, the confidence, the sheer joy in the way he treasures the banalities of bourgeois life on his way to the bloodshed?

This movie has a lot of good music in it, some on the soundtrack, some on the screen. Jackson and Bernie Mac have enormous fun doing intricate dance moves together.

Four Lions is impossible to categorize. It's an exceedingly dark comedy, a wicked satire, a thriller where the thrills center on the incompetence of the villains.

This movie kept me involved and intrigued, and for that I'm grateful. I'm beginning to wonder whether, in some situations, absurdity might not be a strength.

The two leading men, Northam and Everett, are smooth and charming.