A handsome and sometimes harrowing film, and will be completely unintelligible for anyone coming to the series for the first time.

A full-bore melodrama, told with passionate intensity, gloriously and darkly absurd. It centers on a performance by Natalie Portman that is nothing short of heroic.

From what dark night of the soul emerged the wretched idea for The Nutcracker in 3D? Who considered it even remotely a plausible idea for a movie?

The unexpected thing about Made in Dagenham is how entertaining it is.

At the very least a superior action film, in which the action sequences are plausible and grounded in reality.

As a movie, Today's Special is only just OK. What saves it, as it saves so very many things, is the garam masala.

The movie is a competent thriller, but maybe could have been more.

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.

Is the film watchable? Yes, compulsively.

Comedies open every week. This is the kind I like best. It grows from human nature and is about how people do their jobs and live their lives.

What's effective is how matter-of-fact Fair Game is. This isn't a lathering, angry attack picture.

Perry tries to be faithful to the play and also to his own boldly and simply told stories, and the two styles don't fit together.

So what has happened is that this uptight, ferocious, little gamin Lisbeth has won our hearts, and we care about these stories and think there had better be more.

For a time in her life, a woman's pregnancy is the most important thing about her. That is the subject of Hideaway.

An efficient delivery system for Gotcha! Moments, of which it has about 19. Audiences who want to be Gotchaed will enjoy it.

In Hilary Swank, the film finds the right actress to embody gritty tenacity.

This is a film for intelligent people who are naturally curious about what happens when the shutters close.

Tamara Drewe is one of those British comedies in which, one way or another, we envy all of the characters.

It's not enough to like such films because they're "so bad they're good." You need to specialize, and like the films because they're so good about being so bad they're good. Modus Operandi, a film by Frankie Latina that has won praise on the midnight movie festival circuit, is such a film.

De Niro is so good at playing a man who has essentially emasculated himself because of fear of his anger, so that sex and anger may be leashed in precisely the opposite way, as in "Raging Bull." And Norton, the puppetmaster - it may not even be freedom he requires, but simply the pleasure of controlling others to obtain it.

Clocking in at a brisk 88 minutes, Assassin reaches a heartfelt but ludicrous conclusion, and you’ll start to forget it moments after the final credits.

Neither hagiography nor cold-plate dish, this is a solidly researched, well-photographed, crisply edited film that chronicles Trotter’s life with journalistic integrity, while providing fascinating glimpses into the “foodie” culture of the times, in Chicago and around the world.

For all the beautiful and lovely music Whitney Houston gave us, for all those soaring notes she hit, the documentary Whitney. Can I Be Me is a nearly joyless and melancholy piece of work. Because we know how it ends.

Poetic Turkish tale. Nuri Bilge Ceylan shot this entrancing black-and-white story in his hometown, from a story written by his sister and with a cast of friends and relatives. [20 Oct 1998, p.37]

A poet imprisoned during the Islamic Revolution is released 27 years later. Camera focus, reflections and water droplets are sublimely designed to articulate what his liberty will let him see. [04 Oct 2012, p.4]

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

Red is neither a good movie nor a bad one. It features actors we like doing things we wish were more interesting.

It is a great film about greatness, the story of the horse and the no less brave woman who had faith in him.