John Trank's Chronicle grows into an uncommonly entertaining movie that involves elements of a superhero origin story, a science-fic­tion fantasy and a drama about a disturbed teenager.

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.

Into the Woods rumbles on for too long and has some dry patches here and there — but just when we’re growing fidgety, we get another rousing musical number or another dark plot twist, and we’re back in business.

Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales is a strange and daring Western that brings together two of the genre's usually incompatible story lines. On the one hand, it's about a loner, a man of action and few words, who turns his back on civilization and lights out for the Indian nations. On the other hand, it's about a group of people heading West who meet along the trail and cast their destinies together. What happens next is supposed to be against the rules in Westerns, as if Jeremiah Johnson were crossed with Stagecoach: Eastwood, the loner, becomes the group's leader and father figure.

So, yes, it's soppy and manipulative and mushy. But that train looks real enough to ride.

There’s something quite beautiful and quite melancholy and sometimes achingly relatable about the tone of writer-director Elizabeth Chomko’s lovely and memorable What They Had, which is based in part on the Chicago-born Chomko’s own family history.

A meticulously crafted, sparse but beautifully photographed full-length feature film with strong work from a reliable veteran and a breakout performance from an actor you might not have heard of before.

Yes, it has some big laughs, and yes, some of the special effects are fun, but the movie has too many gremlins and not enough story line.

The reconciliation at the end of the film is the one scene that doesn't work; a film that intrigues us because of its loose ends shouldn't try to tidy up.

By the end of the film the 1949 film noir sources are plainly in view, but earlier, Soderbergh seems more interested in personality quirks than double-crosses, and those are the more interesting scenes.

It is not a children's film and it is not an exploitation film; it is a disturbing and stylish attempt to collect some of the nightmares that lie beneath the surface of Little Red Riding Hood.

There’s no narrator, no interviews, no dramatic re-creations of events—simply an admittedly well-edited but ultimately unenlightening mash-up of archival footage, person-on-the-street interviews from the time, snippets from chat shows and audio and video clips of various newscasters and pundits. We’re left wondering: What. Is. The. Point.

A grand, romantic life story about love, loss, regret and the sadness that can be evoked by a violin - not only through music, but through the instrument itself. It is all melancholy and loss, and delightfully comedic, with enough but not too much magic realism. The story as it stands could be the scenario for an opera.

Tenet reaches for cinematic greatness and, though it doesn’t quite reach that lofty goal, it’s the kind of film that reminds us of the magic of the moviegoing experience.

Sayles' film moves among a large population of characters with grace, humor and a forgiving irony.

She is also, we sense, a woman of great generosity of spirit, and a TV natural: The star she most reminds me of is Lucille Ball.

O Brother contains sequences that are wonderful in themselves--lovely short films--but the movie never really shapes itself into a whole.

A documentary about a town of 33,000 so consumed by football it makes South Bend and Green Bay look distracted.

Gena Rowlands plays the role at perfect pitch: She is able to suggest, even in the midst of seemingly ordinary moments, the controlled panic of a person who needs a drink, right here, right now.

Alas, with the notable exception of the empathetic Boutella, the cast of “Climax” consists primarily of dancers who are not actors. And as actors, they’re really good dancers.

By far the best of the mid-1970s wave of disaster films.

Douglas plays Ben as charismatic, he plays him shameless, he plays him as brave, and very gradually, he learns to play him as himself. That's the only role left.

Bastards is both visceral and visual.

All of the materials are in place for a film that might have pleased Orwell. But somehow they never come together.

Little Voice is unthinkable without the special and unexpected talent of its star.

Someone like Petey Greene made a difference and made a mark, and broadcasting is better because of his transparent honesty. He helped transform African-American stations more, probably, than their mostly white owners desired. And talk talents like Howard Stern, whether they know who he was, owe him something.

Parker reaches with both hands for greatness and falls short — but this is nevertheless a solid and strong and valuable piece of work.

You might be tempted to think that Arthur would be a bore, because it is about a drunk who is always trying to tell you stories. You would be right if Arthur were a party and you were attending it. But Arthur is a movie. And so its drunk, unlike real drunks, is more entertaining, more witty, more human, and more poignant than you are. He embodies, in fact, all the wonderful human qualities that drunks fondly, mistakenly believe the booze brings out in them.