Freakonomics is uneven, and even a little cloying, but its sum effect isn't bad.

To the extent that this mostly sunny excursion succeeds, it's due to the irrepressible Hawkins.

An intensely intelligent, well-written, and mature exploration of the unwritten rules women have to follow if they want to succeed in high finance.

Bellflower has plenty of rough edges and it suffers from a bad case of hipper-than-thou-ness. But it's a triumph.

Some call Margot a comedy. For me, it is a tragedy impaled by comic moments.

The Watermelon Woman is a thoughtful, charming movie that takes its audience along on a journey of self-discovery - without ever taking itself too seriously.

Enter the Void inspires ambivalence. Aside from its technical brilliance, it is an experience equally sublime and infuriating, revelatory and painful, ecstatic and terrifying.

For those who gripe that America doesn't make cars or movies like it used to, Clint Eastwood has two words for you: Gran Torino.

Offers a worshipful but insightful portrait of the group - centered, of course, on its charismatic front man.

Oddly enough, though Land of the Dead is more clever and grand than Romero's early classics, it is not as haunting.

Lacks the gimmicky hook that made "Run Lola Run" an arthouse hit, but it doesn't lack for ideas, nor for images that will sweep you up in their boldness and have the resonance of dreams.

The Edge of Seventeen is funny and tragic, but most of all it feels real in the same way John Hughes movies felt real. It's not a candy-coated version of teenagedom. It's harsh, and awkward, and funny, just like being a teenager.

Out-of-control hilarious.

Whatever you say about Sex and Lucía, you have to admit that it takes place at a hormonal high tide that never ebbs.

Greenwald's film is filled with an infectious love for the region's songs. It could hardly be otherwise, given the level of musical talent she recruited for Songcatcher.

A crazed symphony of the supernatural. The elements don't hang together, but Kasdan delivers real scares, and real hoots, in the midst of the mayhem and madness.

Whether or not Ainouz's stylish directorial debut gets to the "real" Madame Satã is beside the point, but as a celebration of a figure who fashioned his own identity from pieces of pop culture and street poetry, from song and fashion and fury, it's memorable.

Lee transforms a generic cops-crooks-and-hostages scenario into a smart, sharp heist movie by the sheer force of his love for, and knowledge of, the city where he lives.

While 13 Going on 30 is too formulaic to sustain the delicacy of emotion that gave "Big" its appeal, it has tour-de-farce moments that made screenwriters Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa's "What Women Want" such a monster hit.

George Miller's Fury Road is a hundred things at once: a biker movie, a spaghetti western, a post-apocalyptic dystopian action pic, a tale of female empowerment (The Vagina Monologues' Eve Ensler was a consultant on set), a Bosch painting made scary 3D real, a Keystone Kops screwball romp, and an auto show from hell.

Tony Takitani, fablelike and beautiful, requires a certain amount of patience, but its small, peculiar charms work their way into your soul.

Like "Compliance," Z for Zachariah shows how terrifying and redeeming interpersonal relationships can be. We crave human contact, yet it can still destroy us, even at the end of the world.

At first glance Walter isn't a guy you want to spend two hours with. But by the end of the film, you don't want to see him go. Jenkins is like that: He sneaks up on you and steals your heart with light-fingered skill.

A wide-screen wildlife documentary in which the cycles of birth and death, migrations and seasons, are captured in stunning - absolutely stunning - ways.

Watching these young men brutalize each other is troubling enough, but perhaps the film's most interesting angle is how the experiment changes more than its subjects.

Billy Bob Thornton, wearing a succession of toupees, wigs, fake facial hair, and funny hats, and twitching more than a horse's behind, is the best reason to see Bandits.

A first-rate horror film, of which there aren't many. [17 Jun 1954, p.19]

Hugely entertaining catalog of MPAA follies.