Even at its most serious and sophisticated, it retains the pleasingly funky aroma of pulp.

Although it has some commitment issues in terms of wanting to be both a probing domestic drama and a flat-out thriller, Aaron Harvey's The Neighbor finds a sturdy constant in its thoughtfully delineated performances and handsome production values.

If ever a movie needed a modest, straight-ahead style to its telling, it's this one. And while James Foley's direction (and strong, iconoclastic casting) has resulted in a handful of indelible performances, he can't get out of his own way when it comes to how he tells his story.

Despite Denison’s intentions, a very fine, uncomfortable line exists between being up-to-the-minute and opportunistic.

At its most hopeful, the film traces a story of medical diplomacy, involving a young Gaza boy's life-saving surgery by an Israeli doctor. At its most searing, it illuminates the seeds of hatred and the depths of suffering and mistrust.

Species is a pretty good Boo! movie. It's not the kind of sci-fi film that's going to give Stanley Kubrick any sleepless nights, and it may not give the rest of us much sleeplessness either. Its primary purpose in life is to unleash a lot of gloppy morphing and mutating and make us go -- all together now -- eeeuuuh. [07 July 1995, p.F8]

At its best, though, Blue Chips is really about the wiggy, muscle-twitch world of high-pressure college athletics. The movie is best around the edges, when it's jamming and anecdotal and not taking itself so heroically seriously.

Probably no one movie could capture the scope of citizens forcing regime change in a dictatorial country, but the South Korean feature 1987: When the Day Comes valiantly tries in its own thriller-ish way.

This watered-down rom-com doesn't fully deliver but it's a diverting twist on the genre nonetheless.

Sometimes the cheekiness works and sometimes the empowerment theme feels forced.

Death Wish 4 may be preposterous, but on the level of technique it's a solid textbook example of crisp exploitation picture craftsmanship. Thompson clearly takes pleasure in setting up every scene with maximum economy and impact, and his work is that of a professional without apologies.

The sense of place and character in this film is handled so adroitly that whenever the plot comes blundering back in it’s a distraction — but never one that totally kills the movie.

My Art is an amusing riff on the way one’s creative work bleeds into one’s personal life, and Simmons expresses a singular voice and style, despite the missteps in storytelling.

The smart premise is muddled with far too many tangents — bumbling romances, rivalries with old classmates, troubled cats, precocious teens, angry dance sequences. When focusing on the central relationship, the film is at its best.

It all plays out a bit randomly, but the leapfrogged plot points, thin characters and blunt messaging in Max Botkin and Marc Hyman's peppy script prove forgivable, given how this nicely modulated film largely avoids the hyper-aggressive jokiness and desperate stabs at relevance that often plague kidpics.

Thanks to its star's all-in commitment, the overtly maudlin film works better than it should, particularly sequences in which octogenarian Reynolds is dropped into "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Deliverance" and converses philosophically with his younger self.

To call the movie a mess would be to state the obvious and perhaps miss the point. The movie’s sense of moment-to-moment chaos — madcap scenes of bellowing, falling, tumbling and general agitating — is scarcely accidental. It is, on the contrary, very deliberately achieved.

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.

The mix of essay, history, critique, laughable spectacle, and reflection starts to feel unwieldy and steered toward easy assessments about the perils of loving money and worshiping appearance over substance.

The respect for Lizzie means that film almost denies drama, rendering some moments almost inert. It could use an operatic high note, or even a truly deep dark night of the soul, some oscillation in the levels. But the film reflects the evenness with which Sevigny portrays the unflappable Lizzie.

Virtually everything about the film is derivative--even the design for the eerie setting for the climactic struggle recalls the interiors of the more exotic old movie palaces--but its makers can't be accused of cutting corners. No doubt about it, those who ask only for pure action will be getting their money's worth.

The delicious silliness of The Hurricane Heist creeps up on you, because the absolutely wild action sequences as Will weaponizes the hurricane happen with very little fanfare or preparation.

As hopelessly strained and unfunny as the fish-out-of-water material is in the guess-the-lines-predictable screenplay by Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft, the actors ultimately sell its sentiment, like expert landscapers who can make a homey garden using artificial turf.

Made with its subject's cooperation and talking to people like comrade in arms Gloria Steinem and Allred's daughter, fellow attorney Lisa Bloom, the film allows us, at least to a certain extent, to get behind the public persona to the private person.

That Hawke so closely aligns his cinematic style, inventive as it is, with the story’s disorderly, scruffily offbeat characters and settings is both a strength and a liability. His kaleidoscopic, at times ghostly, approach proves a valiant if studied effort.

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.

Even at its most confounding, this is a challenging and entertaining film, delivering suspense and drama even as it's asking if it should.

Director-editor Simon Kaijser takes an often choppy approach to the narrative, the catch-a-mouse symbolism is a bit heavy-handed and the ending could use more oomph.

As a chance to watch Collette and De Palma at work, soak up some lovely Paris locales and root for a working-class underdog, Madame proves a breezy enough diversion.

The off-kilter, colorful, cartoonish fantasy of Serenity is just so odd and appealing that you want to spend time with the characters, aboard this ship, among the people of Plymouth in this crazy, upside-down world.

The result doesn't feel evasive so much as vaguely incurious, and its focus on the message over the man himself can be as impressive in its single-mindedness as it is frustrating.

hough the first half of the picture is adequately tense and well-made, it's not strikingly cinematic or engagingly mysterious enough to justify the stalling. Or maybe the problem is that 10x10 takes too long to let Evans and Reilly off the leash.

Chilling Kafkaesque encounters give way to portrayals of thuggish cops bordering on caricature. In distractingly blunt ways, the film emphasizes what's already powerfully clear: the monstrousness of Mariam's situation and her courage.

The Monkey King 3 is more about eye-popping spectacle than narrative sweep, but it's generous with images that make audiences go, "Oooh!"

The Aussie crime-thriller "Hidden Light" manages to be an involving ride despite its sometimes murky storytelling and elliptical character connections.

The animal photography is what gives Benji the Hunted its greatest appeal for both children and their parents, but the film makers' notion of wild animal behavior is peculiarly suburban and misleading.

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.

Eric Stoltz makes a confident if tonally wavering feature directorial debut with Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk.

By sticking closely to a heroine who's skating on the edge of sanity, the film keeps the audience properly disoriented. Darkness runs deep in "The Lullaby," rooted in the never-ending conflict between mothers and daughters.

The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter is more of a wistful character sketch than a fully realized wilderness comedy.

No easy path to forgiveness and communication, this one, but as a tour-de-force howl of primal, damaged rage, it contributes in its own strange way to the current era of public reckoning and testy healing.

While there's only 25 minutes of good material strewn throughout a movie four times that length, Apartment 212 squeaks by thanks to its cast.

The aesthetic is just right, but it's a bit too obtuse, mannered and affected to sink its hooks into you, and it keeps the audience at arms' length.

The movie draws you in with its tender exploration of relationships and authentic performances, but pushes you away with pointless slo-mo sequences.

Decline's redeeming grace is its jocular, damn-the-proprieties air and, for the first half, its staccato editing rhythm. It's damnation is most of the music and its relative avoidance of heavy metal's darker corners: the pith and point that Alex Cox gave punk in Sid and Nancy.

John Irvin has a nice eye for irony and for the larger- (and funnier-) than-life trappings of the genre. He doesn't have enormous opportunities to exercise this bent, since Raw Deal is constructed like a serial bomb: It goes off roughly every 12 1/2 minutes, littering the landscape with corpses. But you can detect an adult hand at work here, which could never be said for Cobra's arrogant and inept childishness.

While the slim sampler platter would be more at home on an "Exorcist" commemorative DVD release, the documentary, accentuated with unnerving bursts of music sampled from the works of neoromantic composer Christopher Rouse, should placate the rabid fan base.

Some viewers may find Joe's stressors too negligible; and honestly, Tilt is too shapeless and esoteric to be great. It flags considerably after its first hour, stumbling toward a frustrating ending. Still, there's a frankness to this picture that compensates for the overall slightness. It's the rare thriller that looks to combine "Five Easy Pieces" and "Taxi Driver."

While it scratches an admittedly reflective surface, you keep hoping the nicely photographed Maineland would have dug a bit deeper.

Böhm doesn't do so well with Wildling's scare scenes and gore, because he seems more focused on making a coming-of-age character study than an effective fright-flick. But he has one remarkable character in Anna, who's played by Powley as a feral gal with a heartbreakingly doleful soul.

Eerie and haunting without ever being outright scary, Don't Leave Home is different enough from current trends in horror to be of at least some interest to hardcore genre buffs.

The script misses the spark of better family films with its overly complicated plot and lackluster dialogue. However, "The Son of Bigfoot" features some nice animation, particularly in its action scenes, and its moments between father and son are especially sweet.

Running Scared's razor-crisp editing (by James Mitchell) shows that you can combine mayhem and laughs. But the action becomes huge, cartoony, out of scale, crushing the warmth Crystal and Hines have built up. And the movie is too long by about 15 minutes, a deadly thought for a comedy.

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.

Centering on a vibrant performance by Horta and lively musical moments, this Brazilian biopic from director Hugo Prata celebrates Regina's talent, but it never gives real insight into who she was as a person or the historical period that fueled her work.

With its authentic emotions and good intentions, Herz's drama will still likely inspire empathy in the more sympathetic members of the audience who can see past its filmmaking flaws.

While undeniably a rough-around-the-edges first feature, there's something so appealingly genuine about Arkansas-based Justin Warren's loosely autobiographical Then There Was Joe, that you're willing to forgive the shortcomings.

Unfortunately, there's not enough footage of Wallace playing; and in an effort to squeeze in as many voices as possible, "Triumph" suffers from some repetition of anecdotes and ideas. But the details of what Wallace went through are astonishing, and important to revisit.

The film is impressive as a star vehicle, if a bit rickety as an action picture.

Caught hits the usual beats, but with an unusually strong cast and original characters.

As any dog lover will tell you, our four-legged friends make everything better. That’s especially true when it comes to the genial if overly familiar ensemble comedy “Dog Days,” whose four-legged stars bring out the best in the movie’s crisscross of humans — and in the film itself.

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.

The efforts of an international cast including stars Oscar Isaac, Melanie Laurent and Nick Kroll notwithstanding, Operation Finale sounds more involving than it actually plays, ending up earnest and acceptable more than compelling.

Whereas its plot may be derivative--and at several junctures, unconvincing--Flight of the Navigator nevertheless manages to develop considerable humor and poignancy from David's predicament and what he does about it.

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.

A few stirring shoot-'em-ups help relieve the logjam of cliches. Director George P. (Rambo) Cosmatos does an OK job at the O.K. Corral. But even the good stuff goes on for too long.

As push-pull friendships in churning waters go, Mia’s and Gianna’s is the visceral heart of Brühlmann’s film, which otherwise isn’t the greatest mix of teen angst and body horror you’re likely to see, but also nowhere near the worst.

It's a prodigiously researched buzz saw of archival material, facts, feelings, testimonials, and nostalgia.

This is not a “fun” horror picture. It’s about miseries both supernatural and mundane. And, yes, it’s scary. Pesce’s art-film roots are evident in the movie’s slow-burn first hour. But in the final third, The Grudge piles on the explicit gore and jump scares — all leading to a final scene and final shot as terrifying as anything in the original series.

The movie is breezy to a fault. The interviewees are focused and articulate, but aren’t given time to cover more than the basics. Anyone who’s already been following the ongoing conversations about the future of AI won’t learn much new.

Kill Me Again doesn't look like the noir classics; instead of black-and-white, it's shot in slightly muddy color with vagrant green tints. But it feels like them. It has that nerve-jangling mix of pungent cynicism and thick gobs of pseudo-Expressionist style. It's not brilliant or original, but it's still a lean, fast, wide-awake sleeper.

Anything wants to be an unconventional love story but gets distracted by other subplots, and McNeil doesn't take the time to develop what becomes the central story line. Still, it's a fine showcase for a softer side of the always excellent John Carroll Lynch.

Although first-time feature writer-director West Liang misses the boat on depth and any sort of memorable emotional unraveling, he touches on a range of realistic, recognizable feelings and dynamics: romantic, marital, parental, professional, sororal.

Cute and light and wafer-thin, this film is pleasantly similar to its successful predecessor, "The Brady Bunch Movie."

The Rachel Divide never quite cracks Dolezal's facade (if it even is a facade). But Brownson does move beyond the "think-piece" take on a real person — while also questioning whether she should.

Though Debs is a legendary and influential character, the style of "American Socialist" fails to come to life.

It is a fine, if lightweight, little slice of throwback-’80s teen movie tropes with some high-tech flair.

Based on Lois Duncan’s gothic young adult novel, Down a Dark Hall is entry-level horror for teens. The scares might not satisfy those old enough to vote, but it should provide mild chills for its target audience.

Like Agnès Varda’s similar 1962 French New Wave classic “Cléo From 5 to 7,” the thoughtful Here and Now uses one woman’s sudden awareness of her own mortality as an excuse to focus intently on the many moments of intense emotion that make up a day in the big city.

The mix of genres and the overload of characters are too much of a drag on the film. Waterston, though, is a wonder throughout, capturing the deep confusion as a woman whose life has been so upended that she wonders if she’ll ever see straight again.

If this swift, entertaining film, set during the post-9/11 run-up to the Iraq war, brashly leans left, it has history on its side as well as, it seems, the interests of our soldiers.

An exciting, upbeat film, but not a very impressive example of the animator's art. [01 Feb 1989, p.8]

None of this is as deep as it intends to be, nor will it strike science-fiction devotees as especially novel. But Sackhoff’s Mack is such a vivid, well-rounded character that “2036” still works. It’s like a stage play, crossed with one of the more philosophical old pulp magazine short stories.

Thompson’s directing is serviceable, if slightly scattered and derivative, using every rom-com trope and flourish available. “The Year of Spectacular Men” feels a bit long and self-involved — and a lot like the men whom Izzy dates, it’s fun but far from spectacular.

What makes the extended trip-tastic finale ultimately disappointing is that it remains a resolutely exterior experience, a set of wild but recycled gestures that reminds you just how tedious watching someone else’s LSD high can be.

Although it’s anchored by a deeply felt performance by the wonderful Emily Mortimer, with a marvelous supporting turn by the always-welcome Bill Nighy, the film, scripted and directed by Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (“Elegy,” “Learning to Drive”), is at times a bit too mustily mounted and told to keep us as fully immersed as we might like.

Light of Day is a sympathetic, intelligent movie, with one great performance, but it suffers from the malaise rock 'n' roll is supposed to cure: inhibitions, a lack of spontaneity. [06 Feb 1987, p.4]

When it's just roaring along through a kaleidoscope of Los Angeles locations, the camera perched behind, above or below the skateboarding heroes and villains, the movie can be fun. It's shot in an extravagant, try-anything, music-video style. It's rattlingly paced, vibrant and splashy. Then we get to the story. Stop me if you've heard this one: Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl. Sound familiar? Try this for extra spice. Two warring teen-age gangs clash--the free-and-breezy Valley Guy "Ramp Locals" and the swaggering, black leather, bone-in-the-nose "Daggers."

For all its real achievements, including a stomach-clutching re-creation of the Soviet invasion of Prague, and for all its uncoy acknowledgment of the power of sexuality, the film ultimately adds up to the unbearable heaviness of movie-making.

The actors are better and subtler than their earlier counterparts; the gore effects, too. Moviegoers looking for an excuse to grab their companions’ arms for two hours could certainly do worse.

Audiences who care more about how a film makes them feel than if it fully works will be rewarded. But those who need more will find that Discreet lives up to its name a bit too well, never fully offering answers to all the questions it asks.

Poltergeist III is another sequel that seems to exist for no better reason than justifying its title and number.

The second film never has the hardness or urgency of the first. Its best moments, perhaps happily, tend to come from the actors rather than the story or Richard Edlund's effects: especially newcomers Geraldine Fitzgerald and Julian Beck. [23 May 1986]

The movie’s derivative but lively and has a surprising scope.

The Hustle nods to its predecessors and feels at times like “To Catch a Thief” meets “Absolutely Fabulous.” But what makes “The Hustle” work is its stars.

Whether this iteration of Dumbo is a good experience for you will depend on your tolerance for the familiar and the sentimental, and the joy you take in what is visually striking and beautiful.

Nothing here is revelatory — at least not to anyone who reads the op-ed pages or has watched “The Good Wife.” But the movie is refreshingly smart about how real feelings can get in the way of callous calculation.

If you care about animation as an art form, it is impossible not to be thrilled by Disney's "The Black Cauldron." [27 July 1985, p.1]