Death at a Funeral is lethal farce, combining hints of "The Lavender Hill Mob," doses of Joe Orton and a smidgen of the Farrelly brothers' scatology in its mix.

This one's a step down from the original.

Deep Cover is a rousing entertainment but also a cunningly subversive piece of work, one that burrows from within genre conventions to defeat expectations and undermine smug certainties. It`s a movie that gets under your skin in a way that no amount of speech-making can.

After the persuasively strange first chapter’s over, “The Life of Chuck” is a duller kind of strange.

It's Hill who proves once again he's much more than his comedic origins, crafting a compelling portrayal of the elusive Donnie that just about steals the whole movie.

Underneath, it's a flashy crock-another piece of self-congratulatory formula wish-fulfillment masquerading as hip. This would-be "inside" comedy about not selling out sells out in virtually every scene.

Stewart did direct Rosewater, and even with its limitations, the film works. Stewart has serious, dramatically astute talent behind the camera, as well as (big shock) a sense of humor.

When Ferrell and Hoffman do their thing together, a charming bit of whimsy becomes something more. It becomes really, really funny.

Arachnophobia marks the directing debut of Frank Marshall, who has worked as Steven Spielberg's producer on many films. He has learned one lesson from Spielberg very well-namely, that getting the small details right about contemporary life can make the most fanciful story seem credible. He also has cast his horror film very unusually well.

The film treats depression and despair and young love with just enough gravity so the movie doesn't float away completely.

The climax of “Final Reckoning” is likewise impressive and scenic, but paced and edited less for the good of the overall movie and more for risk-verification purposes. That said, this franchise has class.

I do think “Wakanda Forever” has plenty of what the enormous “Black Panther” fan base wants in a “Black Panther” sequel. There’s real emotion in the best material here. The loss of Boseman was enormous. So is the skill level of the actors, returning and new, who make the most of a pretty good sequel.

The story is not sensationalistic, although its love scene could not be more emotional. It`s a gentle story of someone being brought in from the cold.

It's a tick better than the movie version of "Jumanji," if that's any help. If you liked the book, you'll find the film of "Zathura" faithful in most respects, though not so much amplified as padded.

Spiritual journeys, even if they’re comedies, don’t really lend themselves to the extreme, anal-retentive formalism found in every frame of The Darjeeling Limited.

The movie version of that life, directed by Richard J. Lewis, gives the adaptation an earnest go. But the script lacks juice.

Even with Levy and O'Hara and Shandling adding what they can, you can only enjoy the voices behind the critters so much when the images fall so short.

The style is brash, and it works. Tucker and Epperlein illustrate Yunis' account of his eight-month imprisonment, much of that time spent at the notorious Abu Ghraib compound, with literal illustrations--pages seemingly torn out of a Frank Miller graphic novel.

No revelation, but it’s a more honorable, interesting effort than many of the crass, dopey recent big-studio schlockfests like "Say It Isn’t So" or "Tomcats" that tell similar coming-of-age tales.

Reflects the sensibilities of its director, whose comedic performances in particular have indicated a game spirit and droll sense of humor.

The only the bum steer in Me Without You comes in the person of Daniel, played by Kyle MacLachlan of "Twin Peaks" fame. It's hard to tell whether MacLachlan was dealt a bum hand in an otherwise fine screenplay or acted on auto-pilot.

Souza comes off as a genuine and genuinely humble talent. There is, however, an element of intentional or inadvertent image-packaging that goes with any White House photographer’s beat. One wishes Souza were heard on the subject of the fine, tricky line between reportorial authenticity and visual flattery.

Solaris, an exploration of outer space and inner anguish, reminds us that science fiction can embrace adult ideas and human drama as well as technology and futuristic action.

A brash romantic comedy that has a serious purpose at its core.

It’s a familiar but enjoyably vindictive PG-13 thriller about mother/daughter trust issues. Plus a little psychopathology.

Trust seems ultimately a matter of touches-some cute, some surprising, some even fairly expressive, but none more than superficial. [16 Aug 1991]

It's a genuine shocker - a dazzler of a film - a hellishly funny picture.

At its best, Seasons shakes off its predecessors and captures the simple, grand ideas it's after purely visually.

True Stories is a great-looking and, with Byrne's score, great-sounding film, but it's marked by a flaw of sensibility, a too-great division between the one who is looking and the ones who are being seen. [31 Oct 1986, p.A]

He could dance brilliantly right up to the end, it’s clear.This Is It may be a court documentary, but as a heavily lawyered portrait of an artist, it’s still pretty compelling.

A delicately crafted, gently inflected, lovely little movie about the need for love, directed and co-written by Singapore's Eric Khoo ("Mee Pok Man").

A small but, in its way, daring picture.

Smile 2 goes in a newish direction, to frustrating mixed results — but it’s a mixed bag you can respect because it’s not hackwork and it’s trying new things.

Corny and far-fetched it may be, but Frequency works - except for some stretches when it doesn't.

In true Chris Smith fashion, he seems far less interested in the homes themselves than in the touching relationship between homeowner and abode.

It's a mixed message, but that perfectly encapsulates the confusion of 2016 American politics.

How does it all end? Don’t go looking to Save Yourselves! for answers. It lands in an ambiguous middle that’s not too bleak or too hopeful and just falls flat; an exaggerated shrug.

Dercourt, a very fine filmmaker, is a musician himself, a music teacher and one-time solo viola player with the French Symphony Orchestra. And he directs, with a musician's precision and an insider's sly wit, the world of classical music performance.

Except for the tractors, and the tanks in the later desert battle sequences, Flanders could be taking place centuries ago. Or centuries from now.

If the film's diffidence is its greatest charm, it is also, in the end, its greatest limitation-it's a movie that seems afraid to declare itself, to make the big move that might propel it from the pleasant to the memorable. [03 Aug 1990]

This sense of unruly behavior is mitigated, deliberately, by the gentleness and odd comic grace of July's presence and voice.

While the movie is never dull, its romantic fodder doesn't do justice to any period at all.

It's not exactly a good time at the movies, and even as pure education, it's a rather dull film with very little dialogue, but Glawogger does succeed in capturing the images, sounds and even imagined scents (oh, those burning goats) of contemporary hard labor, work that has become nearly invisible to us cubicle jockeys.

Branagh's regular composer, Patrick Doyle, delivers a persistent dribbling stream of forgettable mood music, and that's too bad; most of the scenes are acted so well, you don't want anything competing with them.

A mildly diverting, mostly forgettable variation on themes the writer-director has treated with more depth and vigor on several past occasions. It's a tentative, tiny film, every bit as inconspicuous as its recessive, occasionally invisible heroine. [25 Dec 1990, p.10C]

You don't need to be a soccer fan to, like Cosmos fans, fall for this captivating tale, told in "Rashomon"-like style.

The picture, intelligent but mild, has more of a 10-volt hum than a true spark.

Hilarious, inspired, frenzied.

Unlike almost every other sexy modern thriller (especially most recent studio blockbusters), this one gives you a lot to think about.

The consciously campy A Simple Favor is as bright and bracing as an ice cold gin martini with a lemon twist, and just as satisfying.

The Witches of Eastwick is filmmaking of a very high order; it's also a great time at the movies.

Time to Leave may not have made me cry, but it's affecting nonetheless.

Hinds has been ready for a role of this size and shape for years; it was simply a matter of finding it, and its finding him.

As an actor (not onscreen here), Kravitz is so effortless, you rarely detect any overt planning or determination in her performances. Her movie’s a different case: a precise visual telling of a tale heading somewhere awful, but also cathartic.

The biggest problem with the muddled mea culpa that is "Tupac" is that it is a kiss-up rather than a real examination of the rapper's life, so that anyone can speculate about what he might have become.

From director Ken Loach, England's longtime disciple of social realism, comes his most audience-friendly picture yet

So if you're in the market for a "family" film, Natty Gann qualifies. But that doesn't mean it's a boring, namby-pamby entertainment. Rather, it's that Natty, in her cap and jacket and determined look, is a character with universal appeal. [15 Oct 1985, p.2C]

The actors put it over, and Watkins is a genre filmmaker who believes in using his actors as more than pieces of plot in human clothing. That, I appreciate, with no reservations whatsoever.

Like Stone's "Platoon," World Trade Center has the visceral stuff it takes to appeal to audiences of all political stripes. Unlike "Platoon," however, its sense of craft feels impersonal.

It has a wonderful message about tolerance, acceptance, understanding and respect. There's no guarantee the message would register with all moviegoers, but social ignorance can be cured one person at a time.

The Breakfast Clu" is a breath of cinematic fresh air, taking on a very real adolescent problem and offering, in a dramatic way, a possible solution. The film is at its very best when the brainy kid wonders out loud toward the end of the film whether any of his new-found friends will still be his friends come Monday morning. It's a very real question, such being the impulse to conform in high school. A simple "hello" between a jock and a wimp in a crowd is a big risk for both of them. [15 Feb 1985, p.A]

There is more than enough energy here to sustain the film over its two-hour course. [3 July 1987, p.AC]

The second film lingers less determinedly on the degradation of Lisbeth and concentrates more on moving the narrative furniture around. The relationship between the main characters is the glue holding the balsa wood together.

This is the kind of film that doesn’t end after the credits roll, and it’s a gold-star example for what a documentary should do: inspire.

A quirk-heavy comedy that tonally reads almost exactly like "Millions," as executed by amateur actors having the time of their lives.

Grace and Quaid imbue what could have been caricatures--with heart, intelligence and great comic timing.

One of the best films ever about that game, one of the most exciting, instructive and sheerly entertaining of all chess films.

Against all odds this "Terminator" deserves to be welcomed back.

Succeeds as a paean to movies and movie-watching.

One can’t help but wonder if Ephron would’ve been better off focusing exclusively on Child: She’s simply more interesting screen company.

Entertaining as much of Avengers 2 is, especially when it's just hanging out with the gang in between scuffles (the "Guardians of the Galaxy" lesson, learned), Whedon’s picture meets expectations without exceeding them.

The most stylish comics-derived entertainment of the year...It's paced and designed for people who won't shrivel up and die if two or three characters take 45 seconds between combat sequences to have a conversation about world domination, or a dame.

A bloody strange movie--and a surprise. Who would have thought that you could put together an anthology of "extreme" Asian horror featurettes by three cutting-edge Asian directors where the most tasteful, restrained contribution was the one by Japanese mad dog moviemaker Takashi Miike?

Doesn't always sizzle, but its stars do.

If one thing holds the picture back, it’s the self-conscious album-cover aesthetic of Sebring’s visual approach.

I laughed a lot in the first half, before the movie's repetitive jackhammer pacing, which isn't ideal for any kind of comedy, began working against its better instincts.

The way Diary of the Dead chooses to deliver its gore, you know you’re in the hands of a grown-up uninterested in the excesses of the “Saw” or “Hostel” pictures. I mean, there’s gore, sure, and flesh gets eaten. But the way Romero shoots and cuts the shot of a girl’s reunion with her parents, one dead, one undead, it’s played for keeps--the right kind of gross, with a touch of mournful gravity.

Though critical of the director's selfish character, the story does make a case for the macho man as someone who won't tolerate phonies. [14 Sep 1990, p.C]

Quite affecting, even if it doesn't rank with classics like "Open City" or "Forbidden Games."

The Coens have technique and they have taste; what they do not yet have is the ability to move beyond their handsome imagery to the human center of their material. [5 Oct 1990, Friday, p.C]

Manages to find the magic through its documentary style, and manages to find the erotic in the commonplace. Not since the glory days of Italian neo-realism has lust among the peasants looked so good.

As we watch, we can sense, once again, the eye of a painter, the dreams of a poet and, tying them together, the vision of a master.

A warm, witty, consistently funny family movie with a sweet message about loving yourself, be you a mouse or whatever.

Skates over depravity when, like Crane, it should have dug down deeper.

It's a Solondz film; it's a given. Abe may deserve all that comes to him, but the question of how he got this way sustains the picture, against all odds.

Emerges as cutty, indistinct and confused, full of shots that don't match and spatial conceptions that would look flat even on TV. The more Branagh strains to appear “cinematic,'' the more he looks like a man of the theater. [23 Aug 1991, Friday, p.B]

By the end, the movie has become a shameless and, yes, effective ode to fathers and sons everywhere.

This addiction drama is primarily a showcase for its superb leading performers, and in its compressed time frame (24 hours around Christmas) it feels like a well-made play more than a fully amplified feature film. The acting is enough, though.

Zanuck seems unsure whether to swoon or to scold, and the distance she preserves between herself and the characters occasionally feels smug and exploitative. Still, Leigh preserves her integrity throughout, adding an inflexible reality principle to the often extravagant goings-on. [10 Jan 1992, p.J]

So much of Pamela, a love story is about a woman searching for love from men who saw her as a person to be obtained — and then controlled. The best love story might just be the one she develops with herself.

Certain things get fudged in The Founder, among them Kroc's middle marriage, and director Hancock can't completely resolve the warring strains in what he sees as Kroc's personality. But that's what gives the movie its tension, and it works.

Shooting largely on New Zealand’s South Island, Caro has a beautiful knack for fluid transitions: the witch entering the body of an unsuspecting traveler in silhouetted shadow, for example, or a simple, fixed composition of Mulan riding from one side of the screen to the other, in extreme long shot. The dizzying wuxia martial arts action, with warriors sprinting up, down and sideways, defying gravity, propel the action scenes without overwhelming them.