Bad Words does to spelling bees what “Bad Santa” did to Santa Claus.

Chronicles the eerie and oddly inspiring story of Johnston's ongoing battles to survive - both as artist and human being.

Here at least the gobbledygook is entertaining.

Given the subject, the movie is too romanticized, and Christie's eyes remain too sharp here to convincingly convey someone whose memory is fast slipping away. Much of it is powerful anyway.

In all, A Cry in the Dark is one of the year's most engaging films, well acted (by everyone except Sam Neill, as Streep's deeply religious husband) and made with a clear sense of social awareness as well as movie-style drama. [25 Nov 1988, p.27]

Positioned somewhere between sitcom and piercing human drama, The Kids Are All Right, is both overtly familiar and cutting edge.

Director Andrew Wagner, adapting a novel by Brian Morton, is sometimes understated to a fault, but his work with the actors, who also include Lili Taylor as Leonard's daughter, is impeccable.

The filmmakers are clearly on Wise’s side, but they are also eminently fair.

What separates Charles Ferguson’s Time to Choose from the many other documentaries about climate change is that, after dutifully presenting many of the usual horrifying climate statistics, it lays out a series of possible solutions, already available, to the crisis.

Splendid acting helps Jordan achieve most of his goals, although some may find the romantic and religious elements an uneasy mixture.

Montenegro, the star of "Central Station," and her daughter make a remarkable pair. They hold your attention even when the emptily portentous story does not.

Although simpler and less mysterious than the great Hayao Miyazaki movies, the gently melancholic From Up on Poppy Hill is still a must see at a time when family entertainment is too often synonymous with blandness.

I can agree that the power brokers in this scenario, who effectively broke Barnes's will, have far more interest in tourism than in masterpieces. But casting this story as a battle between the elites and the philistines mischaracterizes the situation.

Ultimately, the blight is so overwhelming that the film collapses from corruption overload.

Despite much of the turmoil depicted, there is a sweetness to parts of this film that is reminiscent of the 1961 British movie "A Taste of Honey."

Rosen­thal serves up a hilarious documentary of his travails developing "The Voroniny," or, as it was known in development, "Everybody Loves Kostya."

What makes the movie a superior specimen of traditional screen storytelling is largely the exquisite care director Armstrong has taken to make every shot as radiantly appealing as possible, bathing even the melancholy aspects of the plot in a glow that's as pleasing to the eye as it is warming to the heart. [23 Dec 1994]

[Cameron] may not be a great artist, or a visionary, but in its look, and its feeling for family, this behemoth enterprise still has an ardent, cornball grandeur to it. I look forward to “Avatar 3.”

Carrère, wisely I think, doesn’t turn the film into a reformist anthem. Shooting in a semidocumentary style, he allows us to absorb, along with Marianne, the relentless accretion of injustices. He also gives us some of the most believable portraits of female friendship I’ve ever seen in a movie.

The film wants to be a wing-ding entertainment, but it also strives to say Something Important. The first half of that equation is what makes the movie eminently worth watching.

Certainly few people on the planet were more interested in food than Child, and, judging from this movie, few people are as interesting.

Although Gravel doesn’t make a big deal about it, Julie also represents something larger than herself. Her plight as a single working mother is far from unique. But Full Time doesn’t ennoble the working class.

The role of Fern gives McDormand license to indulge an opaqueness that is often more gnomic than expressive. Perhaps she and Zhao felt that being more demonstrative would shatter the film’s wayward poetic mood.

Lowery never needed to convince audiences that Gawain was worthy; Patel did all that himself, extracting the dignity that was within Gawain from the beginning.

“Vengeance Most Fowl” encapsulates everything that makes “Wallace & Gromit” movies such a joy for children and adults. Its humor is unabashedly silly, yet slyly clever.

The one thing Devotion does bring home is the true meaning of courage.

Perhaps inevitably, it falls short of its ambitions. But it’s bracing to see a studio movie these days, particularly one with such huge scope, that at least attempts to serve up more than recycled goods.

The action is gripping and the story raises important issues about medical ethics in a high-tech society. Gene Hackman is in excellent form, and Hugh Grant does the most finely tuned acting of his career to date.