A new biopic of eccentric British rock legend Ian Dury, Andy Serkis uncoils a performance of spit, grit and wit so ferocious it only serves to starkly clarify how unremarkable and formulaic the rest of the movie is.

A wisp of a wry comedy but Lungulov's touch is delicate, even piercingly so, and his direction of actors, especially Thornton and Karanovic, is beautifully nuanced.

A quietly powerful, incisive portrait of Canadian Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallarme (Roy Dupuis), who was sent to Rwanda in 1993 on a peacekeeping mission as the ruling Hutu attacked the rebel Tutsi, yet he was hobbled by the U.N. leadership and faced with the indifference of the world's superpowers.

A fitfully engaging effort that is most successful as a performance piece for actors Kat Dennings and Reece Thompson.

A chunky spectacle, to be sure – overstuffed with plot and characters - but at times, it's an insanely entertaining one.

Ball tends to slice and dice action sequences in a way that drains them of energy, and his attempts to churn up emotion fall disconcertingly flat. But he does stage a couple of effective adrenaline-pumping chases through the maze's industrial wasteland.

The Story of Luke is not a saga of epic proportions, but with a huge assist from Pucci's layered performance, takes a premise that could easily be movie-of-the-week sappy and finds a humanizing lightness.

Focused on the task at hand and exhausted from the effort, Stephen is often authentically moving, but on the ground, a manufactured awareness that this is all being filmed — along with a treacly score — mars the feel-good atmosphere.

Sweet, slight and frequently familiar, Geography Club, based on Brent Hartinger's novel about sexual identity among suburban teens, often feels as if it's circling its expiration date.

So instructional is the film, directed by Brook's son, Simon, that it feels like one of those P90X or Insanity home fitness programs: Try this at home. You too can perform on stage.

Engaging, naturalistic performances and nicely explored real-world issues add to this absorbing film's down-to-earth appeal.

A poignant documentary about the transformative power of art.

[A] stirring, tenderly observed French documentary

From bus stations to jazz concerts, Bradley finds epiphanies in public spaces, expressed visually, musically and, in the way the practical entwines with the philosophical, in dialogue spoken by friends and strangers alike.

Taking those Hail Mary passes to heart, Woodlawn is a heavily Christian sports drama that almost goes the distance despite adhering closely to the inspirational movie playbook.

The film works best when focusing on the conflict between world-weary Huck and dreamer Tom, but the characters are underdeveloped and the plot overly convoluted, lacking the foundational support to prop up their antics and capers.

A good mystery and earnest performances keep the movie lively, though the confined location and limited plot ultimately make the end product feel paltry.

"Mother" is definitely worth a look as an involving exercise in parental indiscretion, unexamined and over-examined lives, and a nostalgic look at East Coast Jewish culture.

It’s dispiriting to watch Lowriders make every predictable move. It clutters an otherwise well-meaning snapshot of a vibrant community underserved by mainstream filmmaking.

Watching an actress of Hunter’s caliber in a meaty leading role partly compensates for the creaky plot and overearnest tone.

Although the script by Olivia Hetreed and José Luis López-Linares traffics in vital ideas and still-timely assertions (“We shouldn’t try to fit facts into a set of beliefs!”), a looser, less self-important approach would have helped.

While their last movie managed to temper the outrageousness with an underlying goofy sweetness, the biggest offense here isn’t that it’s offensive, it’s just not all that funny.

As always with Greenwald, it’s refreshing that he doesn’t simply indulge in fear-mongering. He has the resources and the research team to sort through lots of data, culling the relevant points and encouraging action.

Although the often humorous film may not quite rank among Chen’s best and that CGI-enhanced feline isn’t always convincingly up to scratch, the buoyant yarn nevertheless casts a beguiling spell.

Given the script’s basic dialogue and narrow characterizations, it’s fortunate that there’s such an evocative locale to help us further imagine the lives of the film’s idiosyncratic folks.

Aggie is a well-made portrait of an admirable woman you come away feeling you’d like to meet.

The Haunting of Julia is an instance of the perfect blending of role and performer, with Mia Farrow cast as a young woman who may be either the victim of a ghostly possession or slowly disintegrating into madness. [26 Aug 1990, p.4]

This is a B-movie with the pretensions of a prestige drama; and frankly, the less ambitious version would’ve likely been better.

The idiosyncratic earnestness of an experienced horrormeister playing with the classics still makes for a substantial midnight snack.

As sequels go, this one is acceptable, nothing more, nothing less.

The film absorbingly shuttles back and forth in time, tracking key moments in the trio’s lives that not only illuminate their pasts but effectively prepare us for who Matt, Nicole and Dane become, for better and worse, when the going gets tough. It adds up to a skillful kind of mosaic that pays powerful emotional dividends.

The sharpest inside Hollywood comedy in quite a while.

In its empathy-driven terror and ghoulish wit — including the Chekhov’s-gun rule hilariously applied to the placenta — “Baby Ruby” won’t be for everyone, although it only ever feels steeped in the honesty of experience, which, according to the press materials, was partly Wohl’s own.

Drawn from Rabe's diaries, the film is rich in telling and ironic details.

Dorfman does an excellent job of constructing a dialogue- and performance-driven chamber piece; but he shows less skill at staging fight scenes and raw terror.

These creations have become like family to Lasseter as well as to each other, and they never fail to make us smile.

Ultimately, Journey to the Center of the Earth's minor-league visual pleasures will be most enjoyed by those with the smallest number of celluloid reference points, preferably those who have started going to the movies after "Jurassic Park" or, better yet, the Harry Potter films.

Not much happens in the understated British comedy Days of the Bagnold Summer, and that’s rather the point. It’s a truthful and sometimes moving slice of life (and cake) elevated by vivid lead performances.

In part because of the depth of Seydoux’s performance, the film becomes less an allegory of a nation and more a gripping character study, a portrait of a mask of personal and professional regard slowly slipping away.

Even after appropriately lowering expectations, it's kind to call this one a cut below.

By turns sweet and tart, airy and rich and, above all, a thoroughly irresistible confection.

Despite its wobbly tone and stumbles into implausible melodrama, the film succeeds as a study of realignments among friends and family, a gently cracked mirror held up to the insanity that would soon devastate the region.

A dumb twist can be excused, however, if your characters keep the thing afloat, which makes perhaps the most unforgivable sin of this claustrophobic terror scenario the fact that we have to spend it with arguably the two least interesting people in Los Angeles.

First-time director Andrew Scheinman -- one of the partners in Castle Rock Entertainment -- may have too much of the Billy in himself to bring out the true roisterousness of baseball. He manages the movie with too soft a touch. The film's injected pathos isn't true to what most adults respond to in the sport -- let alone children. [29 Jun 1994, p.F5]

The body count goes up, but our interest level doesn’t rise with it.

At his best, Roth plunders elements from countless other tales of supernatural spookery — ominous spell books, shuddering tombstones, grown men and little kids shooting lightning bolts from their fingertips — and nudges them eerily close to genuine enchantment.

With performers this engaging, we never want to stop watching, even as events go from grim to grimmer over four long and bitter years.

A film that never quite manages to justify its existence.

In making Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure, a documentary that tells the story of not just the tapes but their strange and increasingly sad afterlife, Australian filmmaker Matthew Bate faces the challenge not only of visualizing the audio artifacts but also of finding a way to position their makers and explain all that has transpired since the tapes were initially recorded.

The kind of tension you would expect is never completely present.

A jaundiced look at the CIA, bolstered by a terrific cast. [14 Sep 1986, p.6]

Aside from Gere, First Knight acquits itself honorably enough.

What happened to these men on that ascent is fascinating, though factors like differences in gear between 1924 and today means that definitively answering the question of how far Mallory climbed is not possible. Which seems, somehow, just as it ought to be.

Charlie Says is a fascinating and feminist exploration of Manson’s first victims: the girls themselves.

All of the film's technical and creative contributions are top-notch, but as it should be, it's the people who win us over. [11 Nov 1994 Pg. F10]

Limp spoof.

Swank is appealing and amusing, decked out in fringe and affecting a twang, but it in no way feels real; it’s more of a fun character performance. Ritchson, on the other hand, demonstrates a softer, more expansive side to the tough guy persona he’s perfected on “Reacher.”

It is an absolute wonder to watch and creates a warrior princess for the ages. But what this revisionist fairy tale does not give us is a passionate love - its kisses are as chaste as the snow is white.

With many languid scenes and little narrative momentum, Algrant may have been aiming for a more ethereal father-son heartbreaker. But all that comes across is twee hipster romanticism.

A mishmash of star power, bleakness, CGI and the cutes, it will on the one hand remind you of how charmingly adaptive Hanks can be, while the same time proving just how problematic the end of the world is as a scenario for schematic heart-tugging.

So, while the movie at times warmed my own middle-class, private school-educated cockles to a toasty complacency, there's an undercurrent of friendly fascism running through it like a nasty draft.

Only 22 when he began shooting the film, Greenebaum displays a prodigious understanding of the treatment of the elderly in contemporary America.

The film can be intensely moving, yet there's a self-congratulatory tone to much of it, especially in the domestic drama.

How It Ends works both as an alternative to the usual, race-against-time or humanity-sucks apocalypse dramas, and as a personal exploration of settling affairs — and it’s a comedy.

It’s a well-meaning impression of a soul-searching documentary (and only an impression), but impressions can still be plenty entertaining.

Even at its bluntest, Seriously Red draws a lot of heat and light from Boylan, whose Red enjoys embodying the casual confidence, folksy wisdom and bombshell bravura of one of the world’s most beloved entertainers.

More than anything, The Perfect Find is a strong showcase for Union, who gets to play a lot of notes as Jenna: funny, sexy, anxious, nostalgic, inspired. Even when the movie is too plain, its star is something special.

A lovely closing story about Wyman and his idol Ray Charles speaks volumes.

For those scoring at home, the third entry in the "High School Musical" series is better than the second but doesn't quite sustain the unvarnished, giddy highs of the first.

There are jokes here, and dramatic moments too; but everyone is so darn earnest all the time that nothing truly exciting happens. Instead, we just hang out with some pretty decent folks for a while, and then the credits roll.

The movie falls short of the grandeur it's reaching for, but if you're looking for balm to soothe your frazzled nerves, you may be able to scrape some from the movie's rawer edges.

A terrifically effective scare show, a virtuoso work of cinematic terror incorporating superior cinematography and production design -- and, most important of all, comic relief. [04 Nov 1991, p.F6]

For all the actors’ commitment and ferocity, the experience they offer feels less like a confrontation with the anxieties of modern life than a plush, moody escape.

What results is a film with some bright spots but whose effect is finally as muddled and wearying as the event itself sometimes is.

Under the insanity and unsexy nudity, Confetti has a sweet center. Comic timing, themes of tolerance and commitment and the marriage of farce and empathy lift the film above the mockumentary pack.

A Walk Among the Tombstones is the creepiest film I've seen in quite some time, and that's not meant as a compliment.

As a take on celebrity as religious mass derangement, Backstage is nominally interesting. As a study of two characters, it's not very convincing.

Rachel McAdams gives the kind of performance we go to the movies for. The rest of the film isn't always up to her level, but it does provide genial entertainment until it runs out of steam.

The cast is really fine, but the script requires a lot of hard swallowing. The story moves along briskly and colorfully but gets further and further from the intimate atmosphere that initially makes it so appealing. [25 Apr 1997]

Viper Club is an attempt at a very difficult balancing act. It doesn’t quite succeed, but it deploys enough persuasive elements to make the attempt involving.

Feels terminally generic and tone-deaf.

Foote pulls off a daring and unexpected finish for The Tavern that takes it to a rigorous, uncompromising level.

A shimmering fable of innocence and experience set in contemporary Los Angeles and Pasadena (its title is a nod to Virgil's "Aeneid"). Phillip Jayson Lasker's tartly knowing script, with the kind of witty dialogue that's all but vanished from American movies, recalls Hickenlooper's "The Low Life."

The melodrama of the Maugham original is too simplistic to involve, and the places the film's plot goes are so obvious that even the presence of quality actors can't create sufficient interest.

The film's drawback, and it is a serious one, is that few of its characters wear very well. The more we see them, the less they involve us and hold our interest, a situation not helped by the bombastic, theatrical style of acting a few of the performers have felt free to employ.

Resolutely somber, and self-aware about its deliberately tight and opaque visual style, it’s presentational more than lived, a series of filmmaking choices instead of something deeply felt and conveyed.

Three Peaks is a dark little family drama, a ticking time bomb of a movie that is well made but never totally satisfies.

Ballard has infused Wind with an old-fashioned romantic sentimentality that is affecting from time to time. But this and everything else that is good about the picture fights an ultimately losing battle against an inept story that feels like it was constructed from bits and pieces of other, presumably more involving films. It's a shame that director Ballard, who has gone many years between features, has had to set out this time in such a leaky and unsound vessel.

Although Pierre’s intentions remain debatable, the story becomes a subtle treatise on solitude, ecology and, it would seem, following your bliss.

Unfortunately, this improvised film (Guest’s actors work off a detailed outline) contains the occasional titter but few guffaws.

The Ritual is efficient and highly effective in its style, relying on sound, creepy production design, and the men's own fear and misjudgment to create the sense of pervasive doom. We don't see the monster in too much detail, leaving the mystery intact, but the creature design is stunningly original.

Small and surprisingly hopeful film, with beautifully attenuated performances by Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.

An elegantly told tale of obsession that, in failing to take on any larger meaning, rapidly becomes depressing to watch.

Beautifully envisioned, badly constructed, the only truly terrifying things in the new horror movie Mama are the fake tattoos, short black hair and black T-shirts meant to turn "Zero Dark Thirty" star Jessica Chastain into a guitar-shredding, punk rocker chick.

The Company You Keep is a shrewder, more satisfying piece of filmmaking than we've seen from Redford in a while, though not quite in the league with his best behind-the-camera work.

The changes make this “13” look and feel more like a conventional Netflix teen movie — all about puppy love and jostling for popularity — rather than the one-of-a-kind theatrical experience it once was. But Jason Robert Brown’s songs are still incredibly snappy, turning common adolescent experiences like crushes, first kisses and going to horror movies with friends into up-tempo bops.

Not even Seth's elegance and worldly warmth, nor his short speech about the virtues of his country's culture, is enough to give balance to the film's nearly two-hour portrayal of harassment, inequality and suppression. [11 Jan 1991, p.F1]

The film's tone is on the sitcom side, but its likable cast and zany subplots make it palatable.