This is a penetrating biopic, and while it may take a familiar shape, the pioneering woman at the center was anything but traditional.

Ehrenreich isn't given much to work with here, but his sly comic reserve and devil-may-care attitude give you reasons to keep watching, well after the story has stopped doing anything of the sort.

A lively, old-fashioned adventure yarn with just a twist of modern attitude, it's the kind of pleasant entertainment that allows the paying customers to have as much fun as the people on screen.

Arizona Dream is the quintessential Nuart movie. It’s a dazzling, daring slice of cockamamie tragicomic Americana envisioned with magic realism by a major, distinctive European filmmaker, the former Yugoslavia’s Emir Kusturica.

Black and company throw all kinds of stuff at the audience, and though it doesn't all work, a lot of it does and the attempt to be different and create unguessable twists is always appreciated.

This overly derivative motion picture thinks it is doing and saying more than it is. Instead, it ends up as little more than a reasonable facsimile of the real thing, despite a subtle and effective performance by Ben Affleck, of all people.

Backcountry inevitably brings on the bloody, but it finds atmospheric ways to depict how the bucolic hush of a nature getaway can morph into a survival nightmare for the unprepared.

Everything about Executive Decision is familiar except how crisply its conventional story is executed. Since most action thrillers think blowing things up is enough to attract an audience, it's a nice surprise to come across a savvy piece of work that relies on suspense and is as professional as the elite anti-terrorist unit it celebrates.

Though the film is politically and culturally urgent, it’s too much of a challenge to connect with the void of character at the core of this screenplay. We may all have the power to be Jane, but the image of Jane remains frustratingly hazy in Nagy’s depiction.

A raucous, profane but surprisingly endearing piece of work.

Certainly Crocodile Dundee is nothing you can examine deeply or mull over afterward. It's simply an expert crowd-pleaser. It has such a sure, easy, confident touch that it's almost failure-proof--like a tip of the hat, a sip of beer, a quick, golden G'day.

Like the characters it presents, this film ends up with dreams it can’t deliver on, but just having the desire to do something different makes it a project worth paying attention to.

Too many of the characters are either good or bad, and that loss of nuance is missed.

Robinson's combination of fortitude, restraint and passion for the game was stunning. You can't help getting caught up in this story, even as you are wishing the telling was sharper than it is.

What the new movie lacks in craft, suspense and metaphoric richness it makes up for with, um, gadgets.

In some sense, California Solo is like meeting an engaging stranger: At first there's a certain air of enigmatic mystery that makes you want to spend time with them, but eventually things turn awkward and you just want to get away.

A raunchy doodle, a leisurely and easygoing diversion that goes down easy enough but is far from compelling.

A dark piece of whimsy that enchants and befuddles in equal measure.

The well-made Princesa is daring, for it ends on an upbeat note in circumstances that are traditionally treated otherwise.

Parents may find their attention wandering, but the simple tale contains valuable life lessons for their youngest offspring, who will likely be enchanted.

Corrente's gift for evoking the lives of blue-collar men that made his debut film, "Federal Hill," so appealing blends perfectly with the antic sensibility of the Farrellys.

This is one documentary, as “La Danse” was before it, that is a thing of beauty in and of itself.

While her résumé of fantastical roles makes her seemingly right for this kind of part, Gillan is directed into a pair of off-puttingly stiff performances, more skit-appropriate than feature-rich.

Ironically this big, lumbering movie could have used more, not less. More Godzilla without question, and more emotional content for its very good cast too.

Whether you are a religious, churchgoing person or not, if you are the least bit liberal or tolerant in your world view, this has got to be one of the most unnerving films of the year.

Dunne creates a full-blooded character. The film around him, unfortunately, takes low-key to the realm of tepid.

It's borderline parody of a kind of fey filmmaking popular at crunchy-granola festivals, but the counterfeit aesthetic is ultimately outshone by the life-affirming message.

Really effective horror films make us participants in the horror. Jacob's Ladder doesn't draw us in in that way. It's a movie about interior states that's all on the outside. [30 Oct 1990, p.1]

Enhanced by playful animations, this nicely composed documentary serves as an engagingly honest profile of a driven man and his prodigious movement.

A stunning reminder of the omnipresence of mortality.

By far the film's deadliest weapon is McConaughey. The way the actor leans into threats, dropping his voice, wrapping eloquence in sinister tones, is skin-crawling. The muscles in his neck literally seem to tense one by one. And if the eyes are the window to the soul, you really don't want to peer for long into his. It is not an easy performance to watch, but it is unforgettable.

Any time you're watching a film in which the statistics in the voice-over have more intrinsic drama than the protagonists' lives, you know you're in trouble.

As with a lot of filmmakers transitioning to long-form narrative after success with bite-sized flash, “The Assessment” is a commanding mood piece until our thirst for deeper emotional and thematic resonance reveals its shortcomings.

With its perspectives on love, aging and solitude, "Prelude to a Kiss" still offers a good deal more than the usual smiles of a summer's day. [10 Jul 1992, p.F14]

Its characters are as entertainingly quirky as any he's given us before, and his familiar themes -- strangers in a strange land, lives reformed by chance encounters -- are played out with much higher stakes and with greater purpose.

While the plot here is thin (and slow-paced, and oppressively grim), Owen has a remarkable facility for generating atmosphere. He’s made a film where one man’s internal strife has been effectively externalized as an inescapable, picturesque purgatory.

This much can be said for Roman Polanski's carnal hoot-fest Bitter Moon -- it keeps you wondering from scene to scene if the director has gone bonkers. No doubt a lot of the lunacy is intentional, but it's still lunacy. And not terribly enjoyable lunacy either. The film plays like a dirty joke that somehow got lost in the translation.[18 Mar 1994, p.F1]

Kon-Tiki features a protagonist who was determination itself, a filmmaking style that is square as opposed to cutting edge, and a story that is strong enough to involve us despite its earnest underpinnings.

Beyond explanation is the art itself. Animating Van Gogh’s bold impasto, already kinetic on the canvas, could have been merely superfluous. As moving pictures, though, the brushstrokes have an unexpected pull in this uneven but deeply felt homage.

The setting abounds in beauty, and the storytelling abounds in obvious cues that mute the intended suspense, if not the horror.

A tender city romance about about gentrification and Black melancholy, “Love, Brooklyn” brings together appealing actors and the charms of New York’s ever-changing borough into soft focus. It feels a little too carefully arranged to ever truly get under your skin as a modern-day affair about disillusioned hearts.

Notwithstanding the embellishments, this undoubtedly remains a Tyler Perry film — occasionally for better, but often for worse.

These filmmakers clearly have a knack for capturing nautical adventure and the delusional yet undeniably human desire to conquer the seas.

Though this film analysis has its interest, the most involving parts of “American Dharma” are not Bannon expounding on his political philosophy but his postmortem on the nuts and bolts of the successful campaign he helped run against Hillary Clinton.

The cast, including Tammy Davis as a handyman and Glenis Levestam as a housekeeper with a taste for innards, hits its marks flawlessly, even when the material isn't first-rate. Like "Shaun of the Dead," Black Sheep is at once exhilarating and self-deprecating, knowledgeable without being fannish, clever but not too clever.

The songs are lovely, and the first-time actors give performances that grow warmer as the film progresses, and their characters release, relax and find a groove, if only for this moment in time.

The narrative, at times, veers into overstatement, but for the most part we're allowed to eavesdrop on their self-examination guilt-free.

London's Fang was, fundamentally, a loner and a killer; the movie Fang is a big, friendly dog, temporarily derailed into the fight game by snarling villains. That makes this White Fang, rather oversunny, overaffirmative, primarily a movie for children. But I liked it anyway, despite the softened tone, the coincidences, despite Hawke's constantly gaping mouth.

While ideas concerning the awakening of the dead are rife with transformational potential, in The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster the means used to materialize them leave much to be desired.

Even if Dan and Gretta charm each other more than they charm us, the music they make is harder to resist than they are.

Provides little insight beyond hanging out with its super-sized star and would not be out of place as halftime filler except for its nearly 90-minute running time.

Although The Dying Gaul tries to evoke the pathos of Greek tragedy and the stars strive heroically, there's none of the requisite grandeur in this trio of creeps to make it worth caring what happens to them.

It's smart, spare, elegant and understated.

The young American actor (Derek Luke) gives such an intense, passionate performance as South African Patrick Chamusso that he just about dares you not to be involved with the tale he is telling.

It makes you giggle. That's the dark, dirty secret. You giggle. You giggle again.

What saves the film is that it is also packed to the gills with the classic slapstick sweetness that makes SpongeBob — in or out of water, on big screen or small — hard not to laugh at and love at least a little. Giggle, giggle.

Better than the fiasco that was "Ocean's Twelve" (how could it not be?) but not as engaging as "Ocean's Eleven."

A documentary made with rigor, humor and no small amount of honest emotion.

Favreau, who wrote "Swingers," has now directed and written the hilarious Made, which re-teams him with Vaughn. The two play off each other so well that they recall fond memories of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

Warm and appealing, but there clearly was a far more informative and comprehensive film to be made of the life and world of Francis Barrett.

Scrupulously fair-minded yet deliciously ambiguous, What Alice Found, a triumph of sound psychological and artistic judgment, is an unexpected treat for sophisticated audiences.

It starts throwing details at you almost immediately, each one building on yet also undermining the last, as if it were deliberately trying to confound your sense of what kind of movie you’re watching.

Made with taste, skill and discretion, The Daughter demonstrates both the staying power of classic material and the risks inherent in bringing it up to date.

The sights, sounds and sociological quirks of Lyle's and Nina's particular circle of existence are what give Newlyweeds its indie resonance, less a city symphony than an urban alt-fugue.

Thanks to the synthesis of adaptation, direction and ensemble — especially its leads — The Valet rewardingly finds its own way.

Even surrounded by all this quality work, Ralph Fiennes, who plays William Cavendish, the fifth duke of Devonshire, the most powerful man in England next to the king, walks off with the picture.

Baker's transformation from "spiritual father" to megalomaniac follows a familiar path of brainwashing and hedonism.

Franco pursues this nihilistic thesis with a single-mindedness that one might call rigorous if it didn’t also feel so lazy.

Oddly enough, it's as black comedy and social history, far more than thriller or human drama, that Patty Hearst works best.

It almost works as food porn when we spend some time in Chico’s kitchen, but we never linger long enough for the experience to marinate.

You don’t need to be well-versed in rom-coms to know that, in the process, Harper and Charlie will ultimately fall into each other’s arms, but getting there proves to be a slog courtesy of screenwriter Katie Silberman’s talky, sitcom-ready dialogue and director Claire Scanlon’s ponderously uneven pacing.

For good stretches, Toe to Toe has an engaging frankness about youthful liberty as both a weighty armor and a dangerously alluring escape hatch.

More than anything, this is an intelligent audience picture, a solid and engrossing piece of old-school filmmaking, both humane and character driven, in which the various protagonists learn something - not too much and not too easily - about the nature of their lives.

Through its keenly observed small moments and the presence of the charismatic Nafar and his infectious, socially charged raps, Junction 48 sensitively yet powerfully conveys the considerable challenges inherent in attempting to reconcile those rocky crossroads of coexistence and cultural identity.

Writer-director Jamie Sisley’s autobiographical first feature strikes a genuine, sobering chord.

Troll has a blockbuster polish without the Hollywood heaviness. The story’s nothing special; but the action is spry, the characters are likable and the emphasis on Scandinavian folklore keeps Troll from becoming just another generic “Godzilla”/“Jurassic Park” riff.

The idea behind this film is to celebrate James’ first and best teammates. In the real world, what they achieved as a basketball team was remarkable. But dramatized? On the screen? It’s stubbornly undramatic.

That spirit-crushing feeling of powerlessness is what director Nabulsi aims to fend off, admittedly through not always effective narrative means, but with emotional sincerity nonetheless.

Chalamet is so good it’s worth seeing Beautiful Boy for his work alone.

It's a bawdy farce done with real delicacy, a charming adult comedy that ends up with unlooked-for emotional heft. If that doesn't cover all the bases, it certainly comes close.

Certain qualities are undeniable, such as Keaton’s command of this character and O’Hara’s unique wit. Ryder has the heaviest performance lift, transitioning her character from teen to mom, but she finds her groove in the back half of the movie. But there’s something a bit bland and manufactured about this version.

This portrait of a woman on the verge — of success, of suppression, of submission, of rebellion — is never fully realized.

Undeniably a heart-tugger, but it is also a stirring affirmation of the rewards of a job well done.

At once vigorous and old-fashioned, a piece of expertly crafted entertainment that gets the job done with skill and panache. [25 July 1997]

This isn’t the anodyne, awards-baiting film about disability that viewers might be used to; instead, Hikari’s feature debut is sensitive and empathetic, showing a young woman who is more than just her cerebral palsy. Yuma is a wildly creative, sexual person who deserves more than her society often gives her.

Light and fun, if also a little slight, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is like a pleasant sorbet to wash away the aftertaste of the pre-summer clunkers.

Overly familiar material, even well done, cannot be made more intrinsically interesting than it is. Not even by Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves.

Jude Law makes for an effective rogue submarine captain in "Black Sea," a fittingly immersive thriller, tautly directed by Kevin MacDonald.

López’s film smuggles queer ideas and images into spaces traditionally populated by straight people and shaped by straight tastes. Which is, to be clear, no more the “right” way of updating the genre for the 21st century than any other. It’s just nice, for a change, to come in through the front door.

Turns out to be as simple, friendly, kid-appropriate and nontoxic as any major motion picmerchtainment franchise could ever hope to be.

Crossing many lines, director Mikkel Norgaard's loony feature doesn't always rise above its high jinks. But at its best, it's a sly dismantling of a familiar comedy template built on male cluelessness and female responsibility.

At 100 minutes Careful begins to bore, whereas at half that running time it might well have been unalloyed fun. [05 Nov 1993, p.F12]

Henry and June is so gentle it almost floats away--but it’s a movie that can’t just be dismissed. It may be a failure but it’s a one-of-a-kind-failure.

Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes is a darkly compelling, skillfully crafted cold case thriller.

Being privy to this proud, close family at such a heavy, teetering moment is naturally emotional, which means Sbarge’s occasional voice-over commentary and the overactive music score can feel superfluous. But it’s well-intentioned empathy.

While the pace of “Sadie” meanders and is often a bit pokey, the excellent cast, including Danielle Brooks as Carla, the local bartender and Rae’s best friend, brings your attention fully to the dramatic goings-on in this tiny community.