It's nice to see Scorsese making a cameo here, a kind of symbolic olive branch that may herald an overdue armistice. At last, it's OK to like Marty and Bob. [16 Sept 1994, p.53]

The elegiac air that surfaces here and there in Bathtubs blends nicely with Young’s own final days on Late Show, reading his separation papers and wondering how to look for a job in his 50s.

Ben is Back, operating with the flexibility of fiction, flirts with the idea that a mother’s intuition and love can be decisive, even as it acknowledges the pitiless, relentless nature of the disease. Or maybe all the movie wants to propose is that miracles — rare as they are — can happen.

It’s a good, quiet performance by Teller, and also by Bennett — her Saskia is welcoming but wary.

The movie is an inventive and shrewd satire of the way social media can be used to describe and distort the lives of users.

Suffice it to say that as James is pushed into the real world, the real world is more than willing to meet him halfway, in a way that is touching and charming, and at the same time plausible.

Lucky, written as a tribute to Harry Dean Stanton, ends up being a fitting cinematic eulogy to the late actor, who died last month.

In essence, it shows that what the “horse soldiers” did was pretty remarkable — efficient, daring, effective.

Yeoh’s fantastic as usual, making an impressive series of moves while not disturbing a single hair on her period Joey Heatherton hairdo.

A Man of His Word...is not a lecture. It conveys the pope’s concerns, certainly, but it also conveys his charm — his gentle, personal manner, his sense of humor (he quotes from the St. Thomas More joke book), his “charisma.”

Suffice it to say, there is a good deal for Buckley to do, and she does it. In a year of memorable and unnerving female characters, she makes Moll stand out.

The acting is fine throughout, and director Labaki (she plays Zain's lawyer) has a genius for handling untutored performers like Al Rafeea.

At first the flippant tone of some of these scenes seems a bit off, but the movie (full of narrative curves) eventually makes tonal sense. The movie’s epilogue sends us out on a flat note, but Kirke, and her character, make an impression.

The movie is a little too postured.... Even Baby’s busy backstory threatens to make him a collection of quirky details. But all of that artifice is probably part of the point, best appreciated by generation Ear Bud and its preference for curated experiences.

I wasn’t sure, after the tedium of Infinity War, that Marvel could wrap this up in a satisfying way. Turns out, it was a snap.

Some are born great, others achieve greatness, and in the documentary Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary, we meet a musician who falls squarely in the latter camp.

Mostly what lurks around the edge of the action isn’t danger, but affection.

Hamm is in his sweet spot here as a former hotshot now emptied of ideals and passion. Pike plays a woman who trades on being underestimated by men, and supporting pros like Whigham and Norris obviously enjoy working with better-than-average dialogue.

The story is nonlinear, a collection of images that can suddenly assemble into an emotion.

The ability of political power to impose narratives, says Chappaquiddick, has always been conditional on our willingness to believe them.

This is another fine performance from Hall, who's given a good character to play by writer-director Andrew Bujalski.

In general, Coco is the kind of first-rate technical production you expect from Pixar. On the other hand, it often feels more frantic than exciting, and it counts on moments of humor that often do not materialize.

Director Ferenc Török departs from the High Noon arc, and finds a way to end the movie with an invocation of violence, rather than an eruption of it. His final image, gruesome and evocative, is unforgettable.

Branagh the actor finds a nice balance between Poirot’s colorful flourishes and his moral seriousness. Branagh the director gives the movie the same balance, and wants the audience to have as much fun as the actors, which is true more often than not.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread is a cockeyed love story that starts as weirdly as it ends.

It is, in some spots, an emotional film thanks to the intimacy it shows between Gottfried and his family, but avoids being too saccharine. Thankfully, the comedian’s foul mouth probably helps the film from going too far into weepy territory.

Writer-director Ari Aster excels at making these old-school horror movie moves (he gets great mileage out of seance scenes), and the intensifying atmosphere of dread is thick. And he layers on effective, original ideas.

It’s easy enough to guess where this is going, but the movie gets the details right, and the relationships play out in a satisfying way, aided by Merchant’s consistently funny writing and light touch.