Has the courage to work without a net, aware that when you're a teenager, your life is not a story so much as a million possible stories.

A screwball film noir with a lot of medium laughs and a few great big ones,

What makes the movie work is that Pitt and Jolie have fun together on the screen, and they're able to find a rhythm that allows them to be understated and amused even during the most alarming developments.

The acting is effective, the direction by Alexandre Franchi is confident, and the cinematography by Claudine Sauve could hardly look more assured.

It’s the powerful, raw, energized performance by Chadwick Boseman that makes this film worth seeing.

Simple enough to delight a child and complex enough to baffle a philosopher.

Entertaining for what it does, and admirable for what it doesn't do. It gets us involved in band politics and strategy, gives us a lot of entertaining halftime music, and provides a portrait of a gifted young man who slowly learns to discipline himself and think of others. That's what it does. What it doesn't do is recycle all the tired old cliches.

This is a cheeky, madcap romp, with exaggerated views of 1960s American stereotypes about Brits and vice versa, featuring terrific performances by Perlman and Grint, a most unlikely and most likable buddy duo.

Algren admirer Kurt Vonnegut, a novelist and a Long Island neighbor, called the Chicago exile ”the loneliest man I ever knew.” Caplan and Mueller invite viewers to befriend this contrary figure.

For Keeps is an intriguing movie that succeeds in creating believable characters, keeping them alive, and steering them more or less safely past the cliches that are inevitable with this kind of material. It’s a movie with heart, and that compensates for a lot of the predictability.

Funny, quirky and insightful, with a bounty of interesting supporting characters and not a ton of concern about telling a conventional story.

Koyaanisqatsi is an impressive visual and listening experience, that Reggio and Glass have made wonderful pictures and sounds, and that this film is a curious throwback to the 1960s, when it would have been a short subject to be viewed through a marijuana haze. Far out.

The material can get awfully sudsy and we can see a couple of the big reveals coming two scenes in advance, but on balance this is a well-written, moving story bolstered by an outstanding cast.

As in the earlier film, this one dances always at the edge of comedy. It especially has fun with the Rules of Vampire Behavior.

The appeal of You've Got Mail is as old as love and as new as the Web.

Suffice to say Levine has fashioned a twist-filled gem that leaves us a bit drained but also a little bit exhilarated by all its peaks and valleys and sharp curves.

It’s a well-calibrated performance, with Harrelson convincingly conveying how Lyndon Johnson felt the weight of the world on his shoulders and took on that challenge in mostly admirable ways.

It is not inspired, but it's cheerful and hard-working and sometimes funny, and--here's the important thing--it's not mean.

Here is a film about African Americans that sidesteps all the usual, hopeful cliches and comments on how one failed generation raises another.

This is one of those rare Christmas comedies that has a heart, a brain and a wicked sense of humor, and it charms the socks right off the mantelpiece. Even the unexpected casting is on the money.

The film may provide an introduction for some audience members to the Hitchcockian definition of suspense: It's the anticipation, not the happening, that's the fun.

It is a ridiculously entertaining (and often just plain ridiculous) monster-robot movie that plays like a gigantic version of that “Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robots” game from the 1960s, combined with the cheesy wonderfulness (or should it be wonderful cheesiness?) of black-and-white Japanese monster movies from the 1950s.

The very embodiment of a star vehicle: a movie with a preposterous plot, exotic locations, absurd action sequences, and so much chemistry between attractive actors that we don't care.

What makes it special, apart from the Ephron screenplay, is the chemistry between Crystal and Ryan.

We’re not buying ALL the hype and hokum sugarcoating this fact-based fairy tale, but we’re happy to come along for this particular ride.

A featherweight comedy balanced between silliness and charm.

Swimming With Sharks was written and directed by George Huang, who was himself a personal assistant in Hollywood, and whose networking must have paid off, since he got a movie out of it. His plot may be overwritten and the ending may be less than satisfying, but his eye and ear are right.

We are not looking at flesh-and-blood actors but special effects that look uncannily convincing, even though I am reasonably certain that Angelina Jolie does not have spike-heeled feet. That's right: feet, not shoes.