Funny, yes, but also observant and thought-provoking.

Altered States is a superbly silly movie, a magnificent entertainment, and a clever and brilliant machine for making us feel awe, fear, and humor.

A tender and perceptive film.

This is Webber's flawed but treasured document of his son, an attempt to share a portrait of their developing relationship, and — later on — a chance for Isaac to see his dad's parental reflections captured on-screen.

As the documentary makes clear, Bourdain, who battled heroin addiction in his younger days, was a thrill-seeker, an obsessive personality, who always seemed to be in search of the next amazing experience, the next high, the next unforgettable adventure.

Stillman has done a marvelous job of adapting Austen’s novella Lady Susan and capturing the author’s tart and rapier-sharp sense of humor.

Lili Taylor plays Solanas as mad but not precisely irrational. She gives the character spunk, irony and a certain heroic courage.

Wise, touching, and often wildly funny,

The abrupt tonal shifts may throw some viewers for a loop, but when the confrontations segue from tense verbal exchanges to sudden bursts of violence, it feels authentic and organic to the foundation laid down in the first half of the film.

Because Die Hard 2 is so skillfully constructed and well-directed, it develops a momentum that carries it past several credibility gaps that might have capsized a lesser film.

It’s a blazingly vibrant, emotionally resonant and exhilarating movie musical that does justice to Alice Walker’s iconic 1982 novel and the subsequent stage and movie versions while forging new creative paths and standing on its own as a bold and original work.

You leave Felicia's Journey appreciating it. A week later, you're astounded by it.

Because of the ingenious screenplay by John Orloff, precise direction by Roland Emmerich and the casting of memorable British actors, you can walk into the theater as a blank slate, follow and enjoy the story, and leave convinced - if of nothing else - that Shakespeare was a figure of compelling interest.

Lee has a wealth of material here, and the film tumbles through it with exuberance.

Nil by Mouth is not an unrelieved shriek of pain. There is humor in it, and tender insight.

It’s entertaining as hell.

Sudeikis and Brie make for one of the most endearing pairings of the year, and Headland has delivered one of my favorite romantic comedies in recent memory.

Though stylized and eccentric and non-linear in its narrative path, and filled with dazzling non-sequiturs and oddly cryptic storylines, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth is indeed set on this Earth, and these characters are very much alive.

This is a lurid, cynical, nasty, rough piece of work, and I mean that in the best possible way.

What's alluring is the way the characters played by John Livingston and Sabrina Lloyd savor each other, in between their troubles. Movies are too quick to interrupt romance with sex. Sarah and Rand fascinate us with their dance of dread and desire.

Beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, it's an uncommonly thoughtful epic. Its power is compromised only by an ending that sheepishly backs away from what the film is really about.

Bridesmaids seems to be a more or less deliberate attempt to cross the Chick Flick with the Raunch Comedy. It definitively proves that women are the equal of men in vulgarity, sexual frankness, lust, vulnerability, overdrinking and insecurity.

What finally makes Miss Firecracker special is that it is not about who wins the contest, but about how all beauty contests are about the need to be loved and about how silly a beauty contest can seem if somebody really loves you.

With Pugh and Garfield delivering authentic, genuine movie-star performances, “We Live in Time” is an old-fashioned weeper, done with heart and originality. It’s a Movie We Think You’ll Like.

As for Witherspoon, there’s not a shred of her America’s Sweetheart persona in this work. She strips naked, literally and otherwise, in a raw, brave performance.

I had heard the music before. What the film gave me was an opportunity to see Thelonious Monk creating some of it, and, just as importantly, an opportunity to see how those who knew him loved him.

Boorman's film is shot in wide-screen black and white, and as it often does, black and white emphasizes the characters and the story, instead of setting them awash in atmosphere. And Boorman's narrative style has a nice offhand feel about it.

MacLaine and Cage are really very good here.