When a film like Stories We Tell comes along, you're reminded how powerful and universal even the most intimate and individual lives can be when captured with intelligence and perspective.

For most of its running time, it's a riveting rendition of a stranger-than-fiction tale.

The plot is simplicity itself, and Jaden's quirk-free character and bland performance don't add anything. It's actually a little sad that M. Night Shyamalan has descended to this sort of vanity-project work-for-hire, but at least he didn't insist on some absurd twist ending.

Although the filmmakers reportedly worked with David Copperfield and other renowned real-life illusionists and tried to minimize the use of CGI, you're still left wondering how much of the magic is merely the kind Hollywood spits out by the terabyte.

It's visually appealing, but embodies the movie's (and Frances') problem: wanting to be taken seriously without putting in the real work required to prove you're actually serious.

"Fast Five" and Fast & Furious 6 -- the newest, nearly-as-much-dumb-fun sequel -- play more like "The Avengers" than they don't.

Galifianakis tries hard, and he has a few nice moments with guest star Melissa McCarthy, but this is a movie to make teetotalers of us all.

The documentary's soundtrack is composed entirely of Source Family music, and some of it's not half bad.

By combining formulaic screenwriting and downbeat art house clichés, the ending puts a significant damper on what had been a fascinating character study.

Aselton is clearly trying to broaden her reach as both actress and director beyond the rumpled indie comedy of "The Freebie," her directing debut, and the concept is there, but a movie like this needs a much more polished execution that Black Rock gets.

A watchable, even suspenseful portrait of a woman who spends most of the film smoking cigarettes, sitting at typewriters or sparring at dinner parties.

Not only compelling and complex, but educational.

Since the revelation of Wall Street's culpability for the 2008 economic crisis, though, the arc of Changez's transformation feels almost clichéd, despite Ahmed's earnest, effective performance.

When the camera glides down a pier to settle for the first time on Gatsby's face, it's a movie-star moment of the sort we don't often get anymore, and there aren't many actors who could pull off Gatsby's mixture of confident charisma and pathetic vulnerability.

There's something in this nostalgic, lovingly photographed film about the transition from the classical art of painting to the new art of the cinema, as embodied by one of the greatest practitioners of each. The independent-minded Andrée, who would go on to marry Jean Renoir and star in several of his early films, is presented as something more than a mere muse, if something less than a full-fledged character.

To top it all off, the movie ends with one of the best covers of "I Shall Be Released" you'll hear, courtesy of gospel singer Marion Williams.

It's solidly entertaining, with Downey's roguish charm as appealing as ever.

There's a certain bravery in Brandon's full embrace of the themes of Cronenberg père, who may be returning the favor with his next film, the Hollywood satire "Maps to the Stars."

Bay seems to have been gunning for something along the lines of "Blood Simple" or "A Simple Plan," but Pain & Gain is just plain simple.

Lyrical and gorgeous, it indulges in enough trademark Malickian touches to seem almost a parody of itself.

The spirits of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are alive and well in the Southern-fried coming-of-age tale Mud. It's got all the ingredients.

Paradise: Love, the first in a thematic trilogy, is a sad story about the difficulty individuals face when trying to establish relationships across vast cultural and economic gulfs.

As far as the company Redford keeps, I liked it better when he hung out with Paul Newman and Sydney Pollack, but those days are long gone.

The credibility of these theories ranges from faintly plausible to frankly ridiculous, but Ascher isn't interested in judging them; his movie is more about the joys of deconstruction and the special kind of obsession that movies can inspire.

Upstream Color culminates in a wordless final act that is among the most transcendent passages of pure cinema in memory.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this story is that it would have been lost to history had not American spelunker Chris Nicola happened across mundane relics -- buttons, shoes and the like -- while exploring the cave complex in the 1990s.

Oblivion is Moebius-comic gorgeous and it sounds great, especially the loud, nervewracking honks the drones make when they're weighing whether or not to shoot you. I suppose that's a surface appeal. But it's a nice surface.

It's a remarkably mature achievement