It's Kind of a Funny Story is kind of a perfect coming-of-age comedy, with its bittersweet fun set loose in the adult psych ward of a Brooklyn hospital where this clever case of teenage depression, identity and self-esteem is examined.

Running less than two hours at a time when four-hour rock docs are not unusual, this is a swift, compact telling, with surprisingly little in the way of music and whole swaths of recording history skated over. But it looks fantastic, with a bounty of archival photographs and home movies, many of which are new to me, even as a veteran of these things.

Beyond the love fest of talking heads is a compelling life story that courses through the Depression, World War II and swinging London, all evoked in well-curated archival footage.

Justin McMillan and Christopher Nelius' rah-rah documentary is most alive when it unearths old '80s footage of the friends partying it up with blond groupies — talk about thrilling curves.

The problem with “Five Foot Two,” which arrives Friday on Netflix and in theaters, is that it’s a disjointed pastiche of generic pop-star clichés.

The point of the film is to strike a blow for truth regardless of consequences, but it's hard to believe in this seduction. [11 May 2000, p.F36]

The uproarious laughter that floats from the cinema wonderfully illustrates the universality of the moviegoing experience.

The film flirts with upper-class stereotypes, but in the nuanced writing and the work of the strong cast, led by a terrific Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, it goes far deeper.

The film of Howl, like its source material, is undeniably brave, committed and inventive.

Ribière and Le Bourdonnec get almost hypertechnical with all the cattle breeds, feeds, grades, cuts, marbling, dry-aging and preparation. Nevertheless, most any carnivore would find this absolute torture on an empty stomach.

“The First” is a zippy 93-minute comedic adventure that embraces all the familiar building blocks of classic “Lupin III” stories: impressive car chases, impeccable disguises, impossible escapes and Lupin taking on an evil organization.

Lightweight but enjoyable. [11 Dec 1997, p.F48]

Hosoda, who directed the cult film "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," has made a sophisticated yet poignant family entertainment with an appeal beyond Japanese animation buffs.

The film is at its best when Dafoe is simply going about the ritual tasks of his character's work, setting up a camp or laying traps in the wilderness.

[Pesce’s] sense of horror craftsmanship is at once meticulous and oblique.

Despite its pitfalls, this movie musical is a clutch player that delivers an emotional wallop when it counts. You can walk into the theater as an agnostic, but you may just leave singing with the choir.

About a billion laughs (though "Hot Tub" is not for the faint of heart or anyone even slightly concerned with what's happened to common decency these days).

During their heyday, Cypress Hill pretty much went from high to high (no pun intended), which means this movie about the group is low on drama. But it’s filled with great music and welcome insight into some under-appreciated innovators.

Uneven but nonetheless emotionally gratifying.

Revolution #9, which is absorbing and terse, has some subtle, welcome comic relief from Spalding Gray.

It is impossible to watch this warm, wonderful film without becoming aware of the enormous impact the Yiddish theater has had on every aspect of American show business.

What Spy Game turns out to be is the old reliable family car spruced up around the edges in an attempt to convince a new generation of buyers that it's a hot number.

In this context Ferrell seems more than just comic relief. He's a reminder that the greatest, deepest laughter doesn't come at the expense of some other guy, but from the glints of self-recognition we get when the screen becomes our mirror.

Only the tigers, beautiful and dangerous, maintain their integrity. By staying true to themselves, they make nothing else matter.

It never cuts loose. No matter how much come-hither villainy Gere generates, or how much envy and menace Garcia throws back at him, they're still trapped there in that bare, empty story, waiting for the dry ice and the steam to arrive.

In other hands, these clashes of good and evil might have seemed ordinary, but Eastwood makes Changeling a hard story to shake off. To see this film is to understand both how fragile and how essential our hopes for decency and truth are in a world that must be made to care about either one.

Simon Killer...is Campos' bleakest project, which honestly makes me fearful for the future. Still, he is a provocative one to watch — willing to push the aesthetic boundaries as well as the story to extremes even when the risks don't always pay off.

The more you realize where Shyamalan is leading us — and by this point, it’s not exactly a surprise destination — the more difficult it becomes to locate a worthwhile point. Perhaps the point is in the impressive discipline of the filmmaking, though if anything, given its premise, the movie wants to be a grislier, more nastily unhinged piece of work than it manages.

The Summit tells a multifaceted story that deals with more than the expected peril and exhilaration of adventure tales. Here you'll find love, fear and forgiveness, personality conflicts and cultural differences, even mysteries that have stubbornly resisted solving.

Even for the most techno-wary at the Toronto assisted living centers where the movie was primarily filmed, the lure of virtual visitation seems to go a good way toward bridging what's been a large and digitally contoured generation gap.

It may lack focus in its approach to its subject, but Davis’ compelling character and powerful message keep the audience engaged.

Kern and Hennessy are always incredibly entertaining, going toe-to-toe, as Mary defies the convent’s rules and a smiling Mother Superior makes her pay.

We know who's going to triumph by the hokey, tearful conclusion, but that doesn't blunt the satisfaction. [28 Jul 1994, p.16]

Zoo is a cool sensibility married to a hot topic, a poetic film about a forbidden, unsettling subject. Elegantly made and eerily lyrical, it deals with what director Robinson Devor has accurately called "the last taboo, the boundary of something comprehensible."

Articulate, thoughtful and funny - hearing Vitali talk about getting used to 100 kinds of cheese in the West is a real pleasure - the Klitschkos are a treat to spend conversational time with. Just don't think of joining them in the ring.

Despite a few delights — chiefly an adorably self-aware Joe Manganiello as the object of Pee-wee's man-crush — the new movie has an unsure tone and the barest thread of a story.

With Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family, documentarian Susan Kaplan has achieved the enviable effect of eavesdropping on her subjects for a meaningful exploration of the possibilities and the limits within any relationship.

Blood on Her Name runs out of juicy “So now what’s” by its final stretch. But Lind is terrific throughout; and it’s a welcome change-of-pace to see a story about lawbreakers where no one involved is any kind of psychopath or super-crook. They’re all just plain folks, leading ordinary lives … and making terrible mistakes.

Earlier incarnations of this story had activism as the end goal, Valentin for his principles and Molina for his new friend. Condon is more focused on their humanity. Caring for each other makes this bleak world worth fighting for. Without joy, we’re already in chains.

Throughout Rob the Mob, De Felitta maintains an unfailingly sympathetic stance toward the lovers and the mafiosi alike, while keeping enough distance from all to disapprove of their dirty deeds and deter any viewer identification with them.

The cast, including Victoria Carmen Sonne, as the object of both Emil and Johan’s affections, and Lars Mikkelsen, as the quarry boss, is uniformly strong and singular.

No matter how he shuffles the pieces, Mr. Benson can’t shake free of the old storytelling ideas, from his steamroller plot to his programmatic characters and narrative beats that, by their very existence, signal that everything will slide into place as expected.

Above all this is a film for gluttons for punishment, for those who never ever can get enough of Sylvester Stallone. Everyone else, please leave the building.

This noisy retread, a secondhand facsimile of a movie, is, except for the headache its boisterous sound level leaves you with, as forgettable as a bad day in the Disneyland parking lot.

A story that might have been alive with messy complexity is instead genial and polite.

For all its visual surprises and visceral shocks, Lunacy is still the kind of film that is easier to admire than it is to actually like.

Though the film could've used more technical insight into Pearl's artistic process, it's hard not to be stirred by this hopeful portrait.

In conjuring a fantastical slippery slope in which technology, pharmaceuticals and the entertainment industry co-star in a takeover of our lives, The Congress boasts a propulsive image-making pull.

Despite the melodrama, the connections these women forge are heartfelt and earned.

Featuring footage from the last six decades, All Governments Lie is a timely, convincing documentary that will cause audiences to question what they see and read.

One of the better documentaries I'd seen in years -- it plays like a suspense thriller because that's exactly what it is.

Rampling, a Modigliani of long-limbed litheness with a face built for sorrow, inhabits the role and the visual compositions so deeply that the character resonates long after the film has ended.

What she finds is good for her and good for us -- a journey of realization for anyone who's ever felt lost in the crowd.

With Eating the ever-idiosyncratic independent filmmaker Henry Jaglom continues his intimate, spontaneous, witty but always compassionate observations of compulsive, neurotic human behavior--and reveals his ongoing fascination with women.

Though Honeymoon in Vegas has one of his most accessible premises, Andrew Bergman has never been to everyone's taste and probably never will. He is something of a spritzer in the Mel Brooks mode, someone who spews out such a torrent of manic material that by definition not all of it is going to work. But in an age where screen comedy tends to fit snugly in a handful of pre-set synthetic molds, his all-natural craziness comes as a special treat. Especially if you like to laugh. [28 Aug 1992, p.F2]

Before the Flood is neither dull screed nor stat-heavy pamphlet, thanks largely to the questing intensity of its marquee guide.

Made with daring and passion, it attempts the impossible and comes remarkably close to pulling it off. So close, in fact, that the skill and audacity used, the shock and awe of this highly entertaining attempt, are more significant than the imperfect results.

It's a deeply affecting performance, and it drives this quietly powerful, unrelenting film.

The strange, funny and sad story of a bipolar jazz musician and his long-suffering teenage daughter, reunited after his two-year stay in a mental institution.

There is something inspired about the idea of fusing old-school aesthetic brio and revisionist politics, but the instant you see what Damsel is up to, its power begins to dissipate.

Starts gently, with amusing drollness, then gets more serious, even provocative, without sacrificing its light touch. This is very much a film with something on its mind.

As somber as much of this deceptively simple yet consistently acute, subtle and observant film is, an effect heightened by a carefully controlled use of color, it is not without hope.

The film's scary moments are too monstrous and its happy times have too much idiotic beaming, making the film feel like the illegitimate offspring of "Alien" and "The Absent-Minded Professor."

The possibility of redemption hangs over this movie, as it does in much of Schrader’s work. But for the first time in this trilogy, that possibility is resolved in a manner that feels neither fully examined nor earned.

Eden is never less than suspenseful, but rather than sentimentally pander to easy outrage, or indulge in icky women-in-distress titillation, the movie...zeros in on the details of how dignity can be stripped like bark from a tree, and the queasy determination it takes to stay alive in a living hell.

A perfectly watchable if overtly theatrical whodunit.

The chillingly twisty plotting is dispensed in painstakingly measured increments that allow for maximum dread and, ultimately, well-earned shock value, while his four leads deliver equally subtle performances that sync with the pacing beat for beat.

Though American sports dramas find it hard to avoid heartwarming elements, this is a decidedly more even-keeled film, its European nature allowing it to focus on the drama of character as well as what happened on the court.

Thankfully for audiences, 11th Hour is not without hope. The filmmakers save the most exhilarating portion for last when they ask what's being done about the problems.

"A Man Within" won't be the last word on Burroughs, who died in 1997, but it's a welcome addition to the biographical canon - less as clear-eyed investigation than for the intimate and moving portrait it paints.

Overall, this picture is a refreshing alternative to the synthetic, simplistic Christmas movies that proliferate this time of year. Ditch the mistletoe and holly and it would still be a well-crafted, well-balanced character sketch, following two lost souls as they discover what they’ve been missing.

Having abandoned for a while the portrayal of real people, Streep demonstrates here that what great actresses do is show us ordinary people in an extraordinary light.

Ultimately, this grueling, overlong picture — think a chamber piece but with multiple characters and locations — never zeroes in on what it wants us to think or feel about Willis or John. But if it’s sympathy, it doesn’t get there.

This is very much Foy's movie, and if the role of a woman trapped and surrounded by crazies couldn't feel farther removed from Queen Elizabeth II (or could it?), this superb English actress brings furious conviction to every agonizing moment of Sawyer's journey.

The Weekend is as easygoing as its title implies, a loose, lovely complement to Meghie’s more polished studio film “Everything, Everything.”

Bharat Nalluri directs with a light touch and a great eye for costumes and sets, which are gorgeous enough to make up for any contrivances in the plot. It's pure romantic fantasy, and you won't believe it for a minute. But it's fun to watch Miss Pettigrew and Miss Lafosse live for a couple of hours.

Even if you have no previous interest in or extensive knowledge of hip-hop, Freestyle will draw you in, accomplishing that rare feat of making the creative process interesting while also telling a story.

The result is a movie that doesn't add up to the sum of its parts, yet some of those parts connect deeply anyway.

Though not without its mini-heartbreaks and melancholic turns, North Sea Texas explores emergent sexuality and first love with a refreshing optimism.

The Ramsay brothers are attracted to all the grisly stuff found at the junction between noir-tinged thrillers and scarlet-hued horror, although the plotting here isn't as tightly coiled and the characters aren't as delineated as obviously intended.

Jungle Book provides both rowdy thrills and old-fashioned family entertainment.

Schroeder is too fine-tuned a director for this roomie-from-hell claptrap, and his attempts to work in references to Polanski's films or to Ingmar Bergman's Persona only reinforce the pulpiness.

Even with a thinly drawn lead, Blizzard of Souls maintains an undeniably raw power as a small country’s coming-of-age story, told through a bright-eyed wannabe hero and forged in a maelstrom of death and disillusionment.

Although Goulet’s film is ultimately better at scene-setting than storytelling, the world she builds is a remarkably detailed, revealing reflection of our own.

The movie is an arty lark of ambiguous entertainment value, pulsing with melancholy. It's rarely less than interesting visually or tonally, thanks in large part to Korine's prurient sense of humor and the rich location textures and Crayola sweep provided by gifted cinematographer Benoit Debie ("Enter the Void").

For some, Nikou’s deliberate intent to portray a subtly warped reality may read as forced. But there’s an endearing bizarreness to “Fingernails,” his first film in English, that allows him to grasp at some of the intricacies of the human condition, steeped in silences as much as heartfelt analysis.

Berk and Olsen’s script only skims the surface of what is really going on here, and yet Villains remains a delightfully slick dip in the shallow end of the pool. You may leave wanting a longer swim, but enjoy the sick fun while it lasts.

For the most part, aside from a slightly slack start, and its stirring but simplistic ending, that kind of well-researched procedural detail is what makes Penna’s film such an engrossing and surprisingly touching addition to a genre already bursting with splashier, more extravagant and more overtly sentimental titles.

Relatively accurate as a period piece, looks great and boasts a bevy of vintage numbers, some original recordings and others performed in an authentic manner by Ian Whitcomb and His Bungalow Boys.

The carefully crafted Everything Put Together is unpredictably venturesome, and cinematographer Roberto Schaefer makes virtuoso use of digital video to create the images and movements that play so large a part in the film's success.

This is a film that goes its own way to the end as it asks the audience, "What you just saw, were they happy times or not?" The question is a good one, and the answer, like this film, is sure to stay with you.

An expertly made suspense thriller based on an actual incident, but on a visceral level it's about as much fun as watching someone pull the wings off a butterfly.

One of the most genuinely fear-provoking movies of the year, Luz shines for the calculated sensory stimulation it inflicts and its contained intent, as if it had been built to prove omnipresent evil lies unnoticed. It’ll render you unexpectedly rattled.

This indulgent, overlong film takes a solid hour for its bigger themes of love, loss and guilt to settle in. By then, however, the movie has tried our patience to the point that many may not care.

What we have here is truly a rare bird, and I'm not talking about the world's last two blue macaws...No, the nearly extinct species of which I speak is the G-rated family movie - nice for a change to sit through a film with literally no cringe or fear factor.

An affectionate though flawed comedy.

Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning social satire, Triangle of Sadness, is many things: a cautionary tale about the perils of slurping shellfish on rough seas, a blunt (as in dull) critique of the one percent, a (wasted) opportunity to hear Woody Harrelson espouse the tenets of Karl Marx and a pessimistic suggestion that people — both the oppressors and the oppressed — share a fundamental willingness to exploit each other given the right circumstances.

Genre fans may be disappointed that Spell is more of an artful character sketch than a supernatural thriller. But by focusing on despair and regret, the movie is still pretty haunting.