Anderson has abandoned a bit of his whimsical nature for the later portions of the film, but the film’s first half hour presents one of his most darling settings yet, until, of course, it all crumbles into murder, mayhem and bad renovations.

Wood’s energetic, tightly wound performance carries the movie; his ability to juggle all the different information coming at him — keeping time on the piano while speaking and hitting his cues — is admirable and probably exhausting.

For a movie with the ostensible mission of spreading the Gospel, it does a poor job of speaking to anyone except the faithful.

A relatively high-flying adventure, injecting the always-entertaining airplane-set thriller with some fresh thrills and a cadre of characters worth getting invested in.

The film’s tone is wildly uneven.

The first sixty minutes of Pompeii are awful, bordering on unwatchable... The final forty-five minutes of the movie however are, by sheer force of will, irrefutably entertaining. At least there’s raining death in the form of fireballs smashing up the place.

It’s funnier than it has any right to be, really.

Not every book should be made into a film and, as appears to be the case with Winter’s Tale, not every book can be (especially this one).

That it’s not totally dialed in throughout makes it a victim of the same thing most bad movies fall prey to: having the spark of a great idea rested awkwardly on top of a spinning mess of execution.

More aggravating than endearing, although there’s an interesting idea buried beneath all the cutesy plot details.

RoboCop has sound and fury to spare and even an inspired idea or two lurking beneath that polished exterior, but much like its upgraded namesake, this watchable mess ultimately lacks a prime directive to call its own.

I’ve given A Field in England two tries now and each time found it to be occasionally ferocious and funny, severely trippy for stretches and at times outright tedious. With that said, I still can’t wait to see what the man does next.

Monuments certainly isn’t unbearable to watch, but for all its quality pedigree and good intentions, the result is a frustratingly flat film that drifts from moment to moment with a curious lack of urgency and an overbearing sense of self-importance.

Just plain funny, loaded with joke after joke and pun after pun.

The most awkward thing about That Awkward Moment is that the majority of it just doesn’t make much sense and, as a relatively light-hearted spin on the romantic comedy genre, it absolutely should.

Sprawling between plot lines and shifting between tones for longer than it ought to, but laden with enough pockets of truth to make you wish it had been better, more restrained, more disciplined, more trusting in its own emotional sensitivity to spare us all manner of dorky detours.

There’s just too much good stuff to dismiss White Bird in a Blizzard out of hand, even if it does have a somewhat dull and desultory plot.

The Trip to Italy is plenty enjoyable for fans of the first one and these two, but by the end, it also has the consistency of reheated comfort food.

They Came Together is a very fast, often very funny riff on a very tired Hollywood formula.

While it’s only modestly effective at the serious stuff, at least it’s free of sanctimony and preciousness.

It isn’t surprising how warm and enjoyable Life Itself is – James is a singularly talented documentarian who literally owes his career to Ebert, and Ebert approached the facts of being filmed the same way he faced films, or for that matter faced anything: With honesty and good humor.

Though its uncluttered simplicity and refreshing lack of cliches render it sublimely enjoyable, the film never digs deep enough to give itself much weight.

Murdoch’s film is fraught with ambition and aspiration, but a little thin on talent and technique.

Good luck finding a modern martial-arts epic that can even hold a candle to it.

Here is a pitch-black psycho-horror-comedy to restore one’s faith in the “What the eff did I just watch?” genre.

Swanberg’s most mature and satisfying film yet.

Listen Up Philip is big, sprawling and tortured, if a little lacking in focus – while funny in parts, it isn’t really a comedy.

I Origins is about on-par with “Another Earth,” but it’s still disappointing that a film so obsessed with the eye has such a fuzzy, blurred vision of what it wants to do.

For all of Krauss’ clearly good intentions, the film still falls staggeringly flat, even with the inclusion of a bold and unexpected performance from Vanessa Hudgens, doing her damndest to break out of the Disney mold and turn in actual work here.

This long-distance love story is comfort food in any language, perfectly agreeable and unlikely to surprise.

Throughout the picture you understand the miracle and good fortune of finding love, and recognize the great changes in tolerance American society is currently (albeit slowly) undergoing.

[An] unusually unromantic approach to music education is one of many noteworthy things about Whiplash, a funny, exhilarating drama — bordering on psychological thriller.

While the final act might not surprise or stun, it does feature some classic le Carre movements, some trademark Corbijn ease, and a terrifying Hoffman bellowing at the sky – not so bad for just another spy film.

With its painfully plain-spoken conflicts and eventually oversold gestures of kindness, Camp X-Ray may offer frustratingly little insight into the hazy world of wartime morality, but if nothing else, it suggests that Stewart may escape her own “Twilight”-shaped prison yet.

Superbly written, handsomely made and full of terrific performances, Laggies is Shelton’s best film to date.

Ride Along is a strong recommend when Hart is talking, but merely a mediocre attempt at a movie when he’s not.

An instantly and enduringly compelling documentary.

Relentlessly awful.

A masterfully queasy blend of dark humor and darker humanity.

Ultimately seems at war with itself, torn between its duties as an entertaining, engaging movie and a somber, sincere memorial, and in splitting the difference, the film effectively assaults its audience almost as aggressively as its subjects.

While the art of action filmmaking depreciates, Harlin remains steadfast in his classicism, even if the movie doesn’t have the foundation to support him.

The Double taps into a deep reservoir of psychic turmoil even as it navigates the script’s abundant jokes, and the nightmare of the heart of the film is doubtless universal.

Where The Banshee Chapter thrives is the overwhelming claustrophobia of the film.

The movie on its own is great, but with this music it's sublime.

A gripping, fascinating and visually arresting memoir.

Like a swollen boxer's eye, it should have been cut.

An emotionally punishing experience.

It never quite elevates itself above something like a really well produced behind-the-scenes featurette on a high end Blu-ray. But if you’ve got that Jodorowsky T-shirt aping the Judas Priest logo, you may as well start lining up now.

The kid performances are impressive and the subtext of a region still shaking off the effects of a long-ended war gives seed to some much needed discussion.

Insufferably boring, culturally hegemonic, and profoundly ugly.

A feral and staggeringly well-conceived revenge saga.

Educational content, clever and photorealistic dinosaur CGI, and John Leguizamo voicing a prehistoric bird. What else would one need for a fun movie stew?

One terrible sub-plot away from being a legitimately good movie.

It’s merely somewhat better than last year’s meandering dud — a slight improvement on a movie that should have been pretty easy to improve upon.

Ti West’s pointless new film The Sacrament, an exercise in talking loud and saying nothing, isn’t just bad, it’s infuriating.

White Reindeer concedes that much about Christmas is funny — its notions quaint, its fixtures cliched. But it proposes that beneath this sometimes lurid veneer lay something to cherish all the same.

While American Hustle succeeds when it comes to casting and characters, it’s dragged down by a murky and poorly-paced narrative.

While hardly insightful as a character study, Tracks can’t help but flourish as an Aussie travelogue, with cinematographer Mandy Walker doing justice to these vast and harsh environments.

The Punk Singer is a perfect storm. It is a love letter to Kathleen Hanna, to feminism, and to the fans, but it’s also just a damn good movie.

Out of the Furnace is no disaster, but it doesn’t achieve what it hopes to achieve, and it has no one to blame but itself.

He spent 28 years in prison and this is what he gets?

While the film certainly targets a particular audiences, those viewers who don’t fall squarely into that demographic should nevertheless find the film pleasant enough, its pastoral ambitions compensating for its lack of finesse.

The animation is beautiful, the music is catchy and the lyrics are clever.

A slumming Spike Lee is still better than most directors at the top of their game, but Oldboy isn’t just Lee’s worst movie, it’s practically his “Wicker Man”.

Only completists need check in with Homefront. The rest of us can just stay home.

A film that strives to make you think, and even tug at your heart. But the central foundation of the entire enterprise is so shaky that the walls and plaster are falling down all around you, even as you’re trying to make sense of it all.

Philomena honors its namesake by valuing potent understatement over potential hysterics.

A potent encapsulation of how fame and finance beget fear and grief.

Steady-handed action is enough to elevate this film above its predecessor.

There’s charm and delight here, to be sure, but it is occasionally obscured by attempts to make it somehow darker, deeper, and more dramatic.

The Best Man Holiday goes whole hog on the holiday cheese, and there’s something admirable about an adult feature that doesn’t balk at real feelings, especially around the holidays (sex montages notwithstanding).

Go For Sisters is something of a frustration. It’s the least interesting crime caper ever, and there are fascinating characters forced to go through the motions as if any of us could possibly care.

Teller manages a careful enough balance between painstaking technique and a larger cultural context over 80 brisk minutes to make even minor revelations feel like major moments.

An embarrassing gut-punch of unfiltered schmaltz, but its sympathy for the devil-style humanism is well-meaning.

If only all of Thor: The Dark World could capture the magic of its last act, the film wouldn’t feel like such a chink in Marvel’s otherwise solid armor.

Some Velvet Morning is a horror film with no blood, with words the only weapon for 98% of the picture.

The result is a film that grows worse with each passing minute, as the vibrant and complex Diana is reduced down to a daft, dumbstruck love addict, a biopic that tries desperately to humanize an already beloved and relatable human being and makes her look comically idiotic and empty in the process.

Might be the single most beautiful documentary of the year.

A superb tearjerker in between beautiful bluegrass ballads.

Since it took 28 years to get it to the big screen, the fact that the end result feels rushed and hasty probably qualifies as irony.

A more than worthy (and weird) holiday diversion for the whole family.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Douglas, De Niro, Freeman, and Kline are just plain fun to watch together. As predictable and occasionally uncomfortable as Last Vegas can be, it’s an assured crowd-pleaser.

Then Bill Nighy shows up and is awesome and punches you in the heart. It ultimately feels like a cheat, and while there won’t be a dry eye in the house, it won’t be earned.

A darkly tense drama that rarely hits anything resembling an emotional beat.

Despite being very much a “filmed play” it doesn’t come across as too theatrical. Polanski uses plenty of close-ups and keeps the action moving.

Gambardella’s world-weary look back at his sweet life, eclipsed by his turning sixty-five, is a dizzying fantasia of flash and filigree, and what it lacks in direct narrative is well patched-over with frenetic and emotion-rich sequences. This movie is a sight and sound workout.

It’s just boring – and boring in a way that apparently has no endgame.

Borgman‘s crafty, trickster-ish screenplay, always two steps ahead of you, keeps you rooting for clues, enough to put your ethics on temporary hold.

Alas, despite the timeless concerns of adolescent bullying and burgeoning sexuality, Carrie as a film fails to become its own satisfyingly whole interpretation of coming-of-age horrors both literal and figurative. Its bloodshed may be all dressed up, but it ultimately has nowhere to go.

A Stallone / Schwarzenegger film that isn't completely beneath them.

A directorial debut composed of many of the filmmaker’s trademarks (strong women, pop cultural-heavy dialogue, a difficult subject matter made light by way of wit) that still manages to disappoint when it comes to the final product.

If Her is ultimately better at considering the future than it is at taking us there, it resonates as an insightful reminder that love isn’t obsolete quite yet.

A pastiche of bad film cliches and scenes devoid of any real conflict or character development.

Fellowes' many changes diminish the power of Shakespeare's story.

I recently heard someone describe Gloria as a midlife-crisis drama, which stunned me. In the most convenient terms, I guess that’s what it is. But what Lelio and Garcia pull off here is so delicate and sturdy that it defies such easy categorization.

The absolute antithesis to the pioneering punk spirit it tries to portray.

Palpably well-intentioned, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is nevertheless phony to the core.

Its final scenes and sublimely framed last, lingering shot are extraordinary.