The plot, naturally, is silly and not exactly bound by logic. But it's Judge's gimlet-eyed knack for nightmarish extrapolation that makes Idiocracy a cathartic delight.

If this adulatory “American Masters” production elides certain chapters of Angelou’s biography, it nonetheless offers ample evidence of her commanding intensity and of her importance as an unwavering voice of the black experience.

Despite conflicted circumstances, the cast is capable, but there's a feeling of loose ends, an overall lack of cohesiveness to this good-looking film. The Trigger Effect is on-target when it comes to the ills of modern society but is charged with ambivalence as to what makes a hero.

What makes this schemer so exciting to watch is that he’s like a lot of guys in their early 20s, regardless of the time and place. He’s an incorrigible hustler, just making moves to get him through the day.

While this film fits squarely into Soderbergh's recurrent goal of ignoring audience interest when possible, that's the only area in which it can be considered a success.

Crimson Peak's astonishing visuals don't enhance its story (co-written by the director and Matthew Robbins); they overwhelm it, encouraging us to stand back and admire the look when we should be involved in the emotional mechanics of this lurid tale.

Cyrano slips in and out of that realm fitfully; it’s not always the most graceful retelling of this oft-told tale, and its ardent defense of love for love’s sake can feel paper-thin one moment and swooningly sincere the next. What gives the movie its sustaining pulse is Dinklage.

Amini has a powerful acting triumvirate in Mortensen, Dunst and Isaac to help him deal with the capricious nature of this particular tangled web.

The film is an astute character study that is analytical but never unemotional.

Despite the compromises that typically attend a studio-made family entertainment — especially one that has been adapted, however lovingly, from a sharper, edgier piece of source material — The BFG also possesses a rich and unmistakably Spielbergian understanding of the loneliness of childhood, and of the enduring consolations that friendship and imagination can offer. Not unlike its title character, the movie can be cloddish and clumsy, but it is also a thing of wily cleverness and lithe, surprising grace.

The occasional creakiness of the narrative machinery is largely dispelled by Cornish’s flair for brisk, energetic action and his ability to keep the journey flowing from one mini-adventure to the next.

Its chill, holistic view of the clinic and its canine patients will likely appeal to pet lovers and wellness devotees alike, although the allergic and the skeptics might find their minds wandering toward its end.

Archetypal characters and somewhat formulaic plot notwithstanding, Diggers has the conviction to avoid tying things up with a bow and allows us the privilege to imagine where its denizens will go afterward.

Any glimpse of emotional honesty comes courtesy of the actors, who manage to do a credible job despite the material.

The Inventor becomes less an exposé of white-collar crime than a study in the power of self-delusion and corporate megalomania. Gibney’s methods are simple but often brutally effective.

Though much of the acting attention in Danish Girl will understandably go to Redmayne, Vikander's position as the audience surrogate plus her energy and passion as Gerda, a woman facing an exceptional challenge to her love of her husband, is more than essential.

Certainly you expect a good time from Bateman and McAdams, who give their banter just the right sly, sportive rhythm even when the lines and situations themselves come up short.

Who would have thought one of the most amusing and oddly insightful romantic comedies would be built around the power and the potent pull of porn?

Searingly well-acted.

Without complexity to its characters, with little balance and without a hint of the personal, family or community issues involved, Colors becomes a movie that never has to ask "Why?"--a vivid, noisy shell of a film filled with eager young actors rattling along on the surface of a lethally important subject. [15 Apr 1988]

A martial arts valentine to the power of fighting women. It's a slick and delirious Hong Kong action film.

Their (filmmakers Oxide and Danny Pang) sense of pacing is nicely arrhythmic, which makes the "boo" moments all the more heart-thudding, but what's even more pleasurable are the pockets of quiet, those lacuna of low-frequency dread when nothing much happens.

By turns heartbreaking, amusing and disturbing, the film features people from different regions, economic classes and religions, recounting stories that are sometimes bleak, sometimes encouraging, but always compelling.

Smart, lively and altogether warmhearted dramatic comedy.

Directors Tim Golden and Ross McDonnell, with the help of narrator Raul Esparza, do justice to all sides.

The Prestige does more than focus on magicians. It is so in love with the romance, wonder and ability to fool of stage illusion that it becomes something of a magic trick in and of itself

Spurlock creates a good time along with some surprisingly salient observations as he tries to keep his balance on this very slippery slope.

The triumph of this performance is that Zellweger is not so much presenting a Garland we’ve never known as portraying the one we’ve read about with the kind of nuance and depth that insures hearts go out to her, as they always have.

Matthau has the best role, but Robbins and Ryan are finally simply too good for their material, which is not nearly inspired enough to do justice to their talent.

The screenplay gets so intricate and angry — and so shamelessly ambitious — you can’t believe someone in today’s Hollywood was willing to put up the money to get it made. Even helmed by proven hitmaker Verbinski of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, it’s a feat akin to convincing someone to fund a skyscraper-sized cuckoo clock that has a bird that pops out and heckles the crowd.

There may have been skepticism about “Wonka,” but there’s no need to worry all that much, especially not about Chalamet, who gives himself over fully to the wonderment and vocal demands of the role. See it and enjoy it for what it is: a playful, heart-tugging take on a beloved character that’s smarter than it lets on.

The plot is predictable, but the inevitable showdown is, appropriately, the movie's highlight, a ferocious hands-on battle — save for the balletic bamboo pole interlude — on a busy, night-lit expressway, with semis and cars roaring past. It's a climax worthy of the tribute thread running through Kung Fu Killer.

A side benefit of seeing The Judge is that it reveals the rarely seen everyday side of Palestinian society, where ordinary people just want to have a good life and be treated fairly by their family. People who need a fair-minded adjudicator like Kholoud Al-Faqih and are fortunate to have her.

The need to make an ordinary life extraordinary is so prevalent it smothers any genuine emotion from family members losing a loved one.

Truth is a movie curiously in conflict with itself. There is a constant shift between granular detail and big-picture sweep that the movie never fully resolves.

For all Winocour’s obvious skill behind the camera, too much of “Disorder” bogs down in ill-defined motivations and credulity-straining plot turns.

Volorzhbit has a gift for building tension through narrative restraint and mordant humor; she also has a keen sense of misdirection.

Parents is all leftovers, despite the tasty little tidbits that Quaid and Hurt keep sporadically cooking up: Dad's spotless collars and loopy grin, Mom's brittle Cutex-lacquered claws. [27 Jan 1989, p.7]

Elegy seems determined to make real every ageist dig that could be thrown its way -- out of touch, balefully slow and, for a film at least partly about the zesty enterprise of sex, awfully lifeless.

The movie's humor targets both kids and grown-ups with equal success, but, even with the presence of a mustache-fixated monkey, the main attraction here is the movie's vibrant 3-D animation and its perfect storm of foodie-friendly sight gags.

For a movie about the creator of some of the most pointed, controversial comedies in television history, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You has a curious habit of sidestepping some of the thornier and more interesting aspects of its subject’s life.

A beautiful evocation of a time and place -- Mohawk Valley in upstate New York, spanning from one Halloween to the next -- and a loving but unflinching probing of the lives of Mosher's family in the course of a year.

Lovering keeps In Fear visually absorbing through unsettling close-ups and a well-paced series of scares.

Perhaps the film's biggest failing is simply that the music of The Hip Hop Project isn't more thrilling, that there isn't a sonic equivalent to the wounded, searching feelings of the young writers' lyrics.

The problem with Sherry is that, unlike Ryan Gosling's Dan in "Half Nelson," whose humanity transcends his addiction and who is still capable, no matter how uneasily, to maintain relationships with others, she is a terminally uninteresting narcissist with a bad case of arrested development.

Proyas is trying simultaneously to create a pure thriller and sci-fi nightmare along with his tongue-in-cheek critique of artifice. And this doesn't work out quite so well.

Tonal swerves can be a source of useful friction; here they’re simply awkward, and Robespierre’s efforts to meld sentiment and laughs grow increasingly strained.

Floating in on an airy breeze of dreams and true love, the lively adventure-romance Stardust offers that elusive quality summer movies are supposed to possess but rarely do -- total escape.

A bit of a mess, but it is a genial mess, and one that will make you laugh. Which is the whole idea.

An exciting and involving rock music doc, a smart and satisfying look inside that tumultuous world.

The film is an engrossing and original police procedural of bleak, steel-gray images and high style. But be warned: as part of its complex, ever-unfolding plot, it is punctuated with some grisly images.

Chaiken manages to make the film conversational without seeming talky, the curse of many New York filmmakers, and she has as sure an instinct for the succinct image and brisk pacing as she does for dialogue.

DuBowski has cast admirably far and wide for his interviews, giving the work global scope. In some instances, DuBowski is pretty clearly a proactive documentarian, inspiring some of his interviewees to dare to take steps that are risky and revealing.

Akshat Verma's script is imaginative and funny, the film's stars are engaging and Delhi Belly adds up to pleasing escapist fare.

While Whelan repeats his points too much, it remains gripping and maddening throughout to watch him run into stone walls.

Wedding Doll is a small film with a unique take on coming of age and finding one's own place in a world that's often unwelcoming to people who are different.

As a brisk, sobering reminder of — if you’re inclined to think this way — where it all went wrong with image over meaningful policy in politics, The Reagan Show may feel like the doc of the moment.

Between the defensive driving and offensive behavior, and vice versa, The Road Movie is a gleeful rubbernecker’s large popcorn’s worth of crazy.

With its incoherent, episodic script, In Like Flynn lacks the worth of even a minor Flynn film.

There’s much to explore and dissect about the intriguing world that directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher spotlight in their documentary The Gospel of Eureka, but the film, strangely flabby at just 73 minutes, leaves us wanting.

Through interviews with survivors of the massacre, loved ones and congregants, as well as reporters, politicians and activists, Ivie has made something heartfelt and messy, focused on what’s devotional in testifying about a joy that’s never coming back, and pardoning a malevolence that’s never gone away.

A surprisingly effective slice of dystopian noir.

A terrific campy wallow from 1964 starring Bette Davis as twins. And double the Davis means double the fun. [08 Aug 2004, p.E14]

Poupelle of Chimney Town manages to do something most people would tell you is impossible: Feel empathy for a pile of smelly trash. It’s a fitting feat for a film that encourages you to keep believing in your dreams even if everyone else belittles them or tells you you’re wrong.

Some movies are meant to be messy, and some messes are strangely alluring.

Affecting and sincere in the best sense, which makes up for the whiff of anachronism and the creakiness of some of the big metaphoric moments.

In the bruising melodrama Pieces of a Woman, Vanessa Kirby does something remarkable and rare — or at least, she makes it seem rare. She brings sharp emotional definition to a character who, in the throes of a devastating loss, refuses to make her feelings easily readable, or consolable, for those around her.

Days is loaded with effective visual razzmatazz, but what the eyes giveth, the ears taketh away. For whether it's the plot, the dialogue, the character development or the acting itself, anything that stands apart from camera style is a thudding disappointment.

While undoubtedly a uniquely creative and singularly emotive film, it can be all just a little too, too much.

Here are casual cruelty, crushing heartbreak and pressure from parents and peers, all of which can involve the viewer but are nothing revelatory.

A mid-level commercial thriller, it is a solid and acceptable if not overwhelmingly exciting piece of work from a star and a director not previously known for their centrist tendencies.

Byzantium's appeal is not so much its bite, which could use some refining, but the emotional journey its undead take. In Jordan's hands, the vampires are so very human.

Though the combination of social critique and unhinged laughs doesn’t always jell, the movie is quite gloriously a thing unto itself, even as it draws upon obvious inspirations.

The Edge's fusion of Mametspeak with a true life adventure remains brawny entertainment, even it it is difficult to take as seriously as the filmmakers intend. But when Bart is on his game, nobody is going to notice anything else.[26 Sep 1997, p.F4]

As a transcription of Bogosian's theater piece, Talk Radio is tense, packed and crackling with life. As a dramatic investigation into Alan Berg and his murder, it's shallow and dubious. But as a synthesis of those two disjointed halves into a volatile whole--a comic-paranoid nightmare about media success, media myths, prejudice and the pathological relationship between performers and their audience--the film is an often dazzling success. Bogosian and the cast are bravura performers; Stone a director with guts and talent.

One of the dark pleasures of "Margot" is watching Kidman and Leigh inhabit these two roles with a fierce passion.

Crisp as the creases in its naval officers' uniforms, this tale of seething conflicts aboard an American submarine on the eve of nuclear war is strictly by-the-numbers, but hardly ever are traditional elements executed with such panache.

Excessive reverence has killed many a well-meaning adaptation, but this “White Noise,” at once wildly mercurial and fastidiously controlled, somehow winds up triumphing over its own death. It’s too full of life — and also too funny, unruly, mischievous and disarmingly sweet — to really do otherwise.

It's when the film detours into Irving's personal attachment to the birds, including photos of her as a child on the beach, that Pelican Dreams gets seriously off track. Fortunately, pelicans are interesting creatures and the time spent with the lens focused on them is payoff enough.

Some testimony here may rankle certain viewers, despite — or because of — Bloch’s attempt at evenhandedness. No matter, it’s a timely and essential portrait.

Carmen relies too much on coincidences to keep its story going; and Buhagiar threads in a few too many impressionistic flashbacks to the heroine’s youth and to the romance her family forced her to abandon. But McElhone strikes a fine balance between humor and pathos.

Roofman plays like an indie drama photobombing a studio rom-com.

Straightforward and solid but only mildly involving.

It's sensational in both senses of the word: a bravura, provocative sendup of horror pictures that's also scary and gruesome yet too swift-moving to lapse into morbidity.

Much like the image of Wright presented by the movie itself, Wish Me Away is graceful, sincere and heartfelt.

In Swan Song, [Ali] lives in both drama and sci-fi worlds as he crafts a man coming to grips simultaneously with his own mortality and the dawn of something new for humanity.

A splendid instance of a surrealist vision that serves to heighten the impact of genuine emotions experienced by believably real people.

This altogether remarkable film is as much of a paradox as Nong Toom: at once poetic and sensitive yet as gritty and hard-hitting as any boxing movie.

This shrewd mixture of slick comic-book mayhem, unmistakable sweetness and ear-splitting profanity is poised to be a popular culture phenomenon because of its exact sense of the fantasies of the young male fanboy population.

McLaughlin, who has a good eye for the minimal, manages to bring out the haunting beauty of empty places littered with the discards of forgotten lives.

Though its snapshot approach is uneven, Harvest is itself a valuable resource: a good starting point for a fuller perspective on this nation of immigrants.

Abel Ferrara, director of King of New York, is a virtuoso of grunge. He may not have all the equipment necessary to make a great movie -- he's not real big on narrative, logic, believability, human empathy -- but he sure knows how to shoot the cinematic works. In technical terms, King of New York is his most stylish job yet. In emotional terms, it's as aggressively wacked out as such earlier opuses as "Ms. 45" and "Fear City."

For the most part, this is an absorbing and nuanced character sketch, with a well-deployed supporting cast.

Despite its omissions, the film proves a rich and satisfying meal and should be embraced by Chaplin fans and completists.

Somehow, against considerable obstacles, it has captured something true about families and friendship, creating a texture of believable emotions on screen.