While on its face, Mother and Child is about the impact of adoption, in its heart Garcia's movie reckons how consequential motherhood is in the calculus of womanhood. The fine actors show how we bond to those not related to us by blood - and also how we love. Bring Kleenex.

If Martin Scorsese updated "The Roaring Twenties," the classic Jimmy Cagney movie about World War I vets who come home and find that the only jobs available are with gang lords and bootleggers, it would look a lot like Sean Kirkpatrick's rookie feature, Cost of a Soul.

This slight and amusing 'toon is mostly a trip designed for the kiddie crowd to take in.

If you just give yourself over to Nolan's sweeping, symphonic Cowled Crusader saga, The Dark Knight Rises is, well, a blast.

Cold Mountain is the equivalent of comfort food: old-fashioned, earthy (lots of root vegetables), satisfying.

Its surgical candor makes Forks Over Knives a little bit like a food horror movie.

Yea or nay, love or hate, the portrait that Streep delivers in Phyllida Lloyd's impressionistic biopic is astonishing.

Among the leads, Radcliffe alternates between playing the wet blanket and the dry wit, and Grint strikes a few sparks as his ambivalent protector. It is Watson who catches fire as the strategist and soldier of this penultimate Potter quest. Watson's so good that one wishes Rowling had built her septology around Hermione Potter.

Montenegro's character has a spark in her eye, and a determination, that makes this quiet, intelligent film anything but boring.

When Dizdar hits, he hits big.

Suffice to say it's got plenty to do with corporate karma. And the word severance is more than just a double play on words - it's a triple whammy.

What threatens to be 80 minutes of hypochondria turns into an inspired travelogue of nontraditional remedies. [13 June 1997, p.03]

With mixed results, Moore singles out those who profit from the misery of American workers.

The British star of "Ali G" fame plays Ricky Bobby's arch-nemesis. His name: Jean Girard. His provenance: France. His sponsor: Perrier. Speaking through a set of nasty-looking, tightly clenched teeth in the faux-est of faux French accents, Cohen is hilarious.

McAvoy is charismatic, funny, and on the mark. Hall and Eve are both just right in their roles - bringing depth and detail to what could have been caricature parts. And if Starter for 10 takes a turn into foolhardy tragedy, it doesn't linger too long there.

It's sick. It's stupid. But it also is undeniably adept at skewering social hypocrisy, lancing the boils of political self-righteousness, and poking fun where others fear to tread.

The weight of the picture's moral and political message rests on Ice Cube's Calvin. A decent, honest man with a well-developed sense of responsibility and a passion for social justice, he's an iconic American type - the reluctant hero. He'd rather tend to his own garden, but when called to duty, he's all in.

Startlingly original comedy-drama.

It's a grand and glorious mishmash of the Bible and the Beats, of German expressionism and Hollywood B- movies, at once pretentious and naive, jokey and deadly serious. You'll love it or you'll hate it, and you know who you are. [04 Feb 1994, p.03]

It's wholesome as a glass of milk, and as refreshing.

In theme and technique, it pushes the boundaries of animation and opens up new and imaginative possibilities.

Aniston and Zahn are sweet together - their respective characters have built up psychic armor to keep the outside world at bay, and each breaks down the other's in revealing ways.

It's the living jungle of Kipling's stories that we could once see only in our minds.

A double shot of Saturday-night lowdown chased by a cheery chug of Sunday-morning uplift.

Simple, poignant and leavened with humor, it's a film that affirms the nourishing aspects of love and companionship.

Subversively funny, Stick It sees gymnastics as a microcosm of teen life.

Ravi is an affable guide through the world of Indian dating, and Champa and Vasant are adorable and hilarious.

The treasure of the film is the unearthing of the family bond, magically played by Douglas and Wood.

The film, with its painterly juxtapositions of dockside industry, green hills, and cloud-scudded sky, is full of misguided motives and fairy-tale fraud. But it rings true at heart.

The unforced performances of Courtney and Fanning are remarkable.

A comedy of the old school. Depending on your view of the current state of screen humor, that's either a promise or a warning.

An exceptionally fine children's film.

Miles Ahead is more a provocative character sketch than a meaty portrait, but it's a film that should be applauded for its daring, and for Cheadle's shape-shifting, soul-baring work.

The movie about literature's luckiest orphan may teem with children, but it is not for them.

The movie's greatest misstep - other than Dempsey's boring romantic foil - is that, at one point, Bridget flashes back to events from the first movie. It's a reminder of how much fun the first film was, and it'll make you want to run out and watch that rather than the finish the one you bought a ticket for.

At a certain point, Bujalski - the mumblecore meister, gleefully pushing the envelope of credulity here - jettisons the mock-doc pretense for a Christopher Guest-like glimpse into a strange subculture of the everyday.

Puccini for Beginners, which takes its title from its heroine's passion for opera, isn't just another trendy toe-dip in sexual experimentation. It may not be the real world of New York, or even of most relationships, but it's worth a visit.

What Our Fathers Did is a movie about historical and filial responsibility, about repudiation, about acceptance, about the pain we inherit, and the pain that continues to be doled out.

Rea, with his hangdog looks and Jimmy Stewart line readings, spends a good deal of his time writhing in fake blood and broken shards - not what you'd call glamorous work, but he does it with conviction.

The trippy creation of onetime marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg, SpongeBob is a cockeyed optimist toiling at the bottom of the fast-food chain.

The real reason to see Blank City is to catch snatches of the now-decades-old films - priceless DIY numbers that capture all the wild energy, humor, and rage of, if not a more innocent time, then certainly a cooler one.

DuVernay has confidence in her actors that is reciprocated in kind. Richardson-Whitfield gives a remarkably empathetic performance.

A disturbing and forceful drama.

Until Steak(R)evolution gets repetitive, it's fascinating to see how everything, from culture to politics, affects what we eat and how we eat it.

Bridge to Terabithia the movie, like the book, is buckets-of-tears sad. Director Csupo and company manage to get that - the simple power of a story about kindred souls, about loss, about the limitless possibilities of a lively mind - just right.

Amid all the horror and the black ooze, there emerges a deeply touching story about the power of love.

Catching Fire is bigger, better and broodier than the first film.

Fraser and Elfman are goofily endearing even if they seem more sincere acting opposite the rabbit and the duck than they do each other.

There are good things to say about the inspirational Disney sports film McFarland, USA, starting with its up-from-the-scrap-heap story, which happens to be true.

Poignant, funny and clear-eyed about some tough topics: homophobia, racism, AIDS.

Little gem of a movie.

Chilling - and very chatty. Snowden is a seriously talky film. Yet it never feels tedious, thanks to Stone's tremendous sense of story construction, the film's razor-sharp editing - and Gordon-Levitt's masterful performance.

The Hunt offers a powerful, provocative study of mob mentality and the fabric of trust.

There's something optimistic in the filmmaker's clear-eyed, straightforward storytelling style.

Black's caped "luchador" grows on you. Like a fun guy.

Some movie-goers will be more annoyed than surprised by the finale.

Kari's film, witty and sad, is a spare, small thing, but Noi has a poetry about it, and a poignancy.

A thoroughly satisfying mix of mayhem and mindless fun.

In the psychologically scarred world of The Holy Land, sex and religion, love and hate, survival and despair all ricochet around, waiting to explode.

A disturbing and provocative study of adolescence and isolation.

So what if the movie isn't finger-lickin' good like the original? The performances by Hanks as a crook and Irma P. Hall as his honorable landlady are mighty tasty.

After nearly three decades of misfires, major and minor, William Friedkin, the creator of "The French Connection," "The Exorcist" and "Sorcerer," is back in true form with Bug. And heaven help us for it.

It's a noble enterprise, and a remarkable story, but it's not a movie that will set you free.

The vampires in What We Do in the Shadows are symbolic of something else altogether: epic unkemptness.

Murphy, in the boogeyman role, toggles between seductive and sinister with enough conviction to make you forget that his character makes no sense at all.

Fugard’s classic minimalist drama comes eloquently to film.

It is a difficult and demanding movie, one that rewards the persevering moviegoer just as Pollock's difficult and demanding paintings ultimately reward the steadfast.

Whatever one makes of its subject's moral code and mind-set, one has to give Terror's Advocate its due: the stories are riveting, the man is real.

Fan's fly-on-the-wall perspective enables the viewer to empathize with all the players in the family drama, unlikely to have a happy ending.

When the film focuses on the Trojans, it's splendid. But when Troy attempts to sort out the competing agendas of the Greeks, it drags.

Vintage Terry Gilliam, a pour not to all tastes but one certain to please lovers of "Time Bandits" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen."

Several notches above the usual gay-themed indie, and mostly manages to avoid -- or at least legitimately deploy -- the gratuitous throbbing beefcake scenes that are part and parcel of the genre.

Sisterhood is Stand by Me for girls, as sullen, plucky, melodramatic, exuberant, athletic, graceless, crafty, artistic, arrogant, modest, helpless and resourceful as its teenage heroines.

This quiet, aching film - punctuated by dead-on music choices, a blues song, reggae, the requisite Leonard Cohen - doesn't answer those questions. It's enough to raise them.

The performances in Girl, Interrupted resonate, but the movie does not.

Richard Wenk's script, taut and enjoyable, pays homage to those police procedurals, with a nod to the Brazilian hostages-on-mass-transit documentary, "Bus 174."

As scatalogical affairs go, Flushed Away shows remarkable buoyancy.

There's humor in it, and sadness, and an acid-tinged humor that is miles away from the branded levity of "Friends." More power to Aniston for feeling the need to try something different, and then doing it -- well.

With Insomnia, his third feature, Nolan, 32, has proven himself a precocious master of the thriller, unsettling the audience with a brief image of blood seeping through fabric.

For those who have seen Tarkovsky's moody original, let me say that Soderbergh skims the fat from the 1972 film. What's left is a rich stew of longing.

The sequences with the melancholy Faunia are monochromatic and those with Lester perfunctory. Benton too neatly -- and too hastily -- wraps up a story that would surely exert more power if it were messy and unrushed.

A promising filmmaking debut, Star Maps defines a landscape where everyone has a dream - and where a lot of people will do a lot of things to achieve that dream, however misguided and delusional it might be. [22 Aug 1997, p.10]

However improbable this sounds, The Brady Bunch Movie is to the original television show what real grass is to Astroturf. [17 Feb 1995, p.03]

The line between ha-ha funny and sorrowful reverence has been crossed - more deftly than you'd think.

Shamelessly entertaining.

It's giving nothing away to say that Munro makes it to Bonneville, and breaks the record - which apparently still stands - on his two-wheel contraption.

If The Golden Bowl -- isn't charged with electric emotion, well, that's not what Henry James or James Ivory is about.

At once a shocking, baroque freak-out and a finely tuned, brilliantly paced surrealist black comedy.

Plays like an exalted episode of "Miami Vice" or a stealth version of "Shane."

It's pretty formulaic stuff, and earns its R rating with profanity and unapologetically gratuitous female nudity, but somehow has a winning knuckleheaded charm.

In Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, Kempner gives us a balance of artist and alter ego, introducing us to a woman we'd like to know even better.

If there were truth-in-titling, Burton's movie rightly would be called "Alice in Narnia: With Stops at Disneyland, the Shire, Rohan, Naboo, and Oz."

With a thumping score and whirling cinematography, District 13: Ultimatum delivers two or three awesomely choreographed chase-and-fight-and-chase-and-fight-again sequences. The dialogue (in French, with subtitles) is not this movie's strength, nor should it be.

An unusually atmospheric outing. Splatter fans may be disappointed, because Nakata isn't interested in a body count.

Roos introduces the possibility that perhaps two partials add up to the whole truth, and in so doing creates a provocative love story that sticks with you long after the credits roll.

The Second Mother is an interesting look at generational and class divides in Brazil, without the feel of a lecture or lesson.

A surprisingly moving drama - a throwback to the small, character-driven indies of yesteryear.

A lyrical and delightfully goofy study in romantic longing.