It’s a rambunctious, often hilarious, and carefully-constructed story about a teenage boy starting to question his sexuality in the midst of his Evangelical Christian world.

Like “Kaguya,” it functions as a highly sensitive and empathetic consideration of the situation of women in Japanese society—but it’s also a breathtaking work of art on its own.

For all its visual audacity and honest feeling, Anomalisa is a modest, even slight work, aesthetically sealed off from the same reality it engages.... But there's so much beauty and sadness in it, and so many exquisitely conceived scenes (including an impromptu musical performance that ranks with Kaufman's greatest moments), that it would be miserly to underrate it.

The idea of remaking "Point Break" was not necessarily a bad idea, I suppose, but whatever charms that film might have had, they are utterly lost on the people behind this embarrassment.

Such a hit-and-miss mess that it makes the wild-and-crazy-to-the-point-of-sometimes-flailing tenor of “Anchorman” and other such Ferrell vehicles feel like finely-tuned Logitech vehicles.

Joy doesn’t work entirely, and the structure set up so clearly in the opening sequence is dropped early on for no apparent reason, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t get carried away at the story of a mop sweeping the nation. It’s a lunatic “Mildred Pierce," without the murder.

In my view, it’s one of the most genuinely, and valuably, patriotic films any American has ever made.

Will Smith’s performance as Omalu is lovely: small-scaled, precise, imbued with righteousness but not tritely pious.

If you prefer acting prowess over “Star Wars,” you won’t do better at year’s end than observing Rampling (she of the withering stare) and Courtenay (he of the soulful gaze), two stalwarts of that wonderful wave of British talent that hit our shores in the ‘60s, as they perform a finely calibrated pas de deux.

An impressive display of film craft and a profoundly ugly movie—so gleeful in its violence and so nihilistic in its world view that it feels as though the director is daring his detractors to see it as a confirmation of their worst fears about his art.

Our favorite films often drop questions like these into our lives, allowing us to appreciate the world a little differently than before we saw them. The Revenant has this power. It lingers. It hangs in the back of your mind like the best classic parables of man vs. nature. It will stay there for quite some time.

Worse still: because The Emperor's New Clothes is often beholden to the whims of Brand (star of "Get Him to the Greek," and that tedious "Arthur" remake nobody saw), it too often feels like "Button-Pushing Encounters with Russell Brand."

Come for the murky action, and stay for the shudder-inducing feeling of nostalgia for Mao's Cultural Revolution. It's a very odd movie, indeed.

Willis really might as well have phoned in his performance. Part of me doesn’t blame him, but another part of me would like him to cut it out.

The opening party represents what is best about the movie: it's pure mayhem and it's entirely silly.

As the themes, characters and ideas from the first two parts begin to reappear, so too do full-figured women and gorgeous, semi-nude men right out of the earthly kingdoms of Pasolini.

So if you're wondering if you should see He Never Died or not, consider how much time you want to spend in Rollins's company. He proves himself to be as charming as a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger, but his appeal is just as limited.

Röhrig has the tricky task of carrying this story on his shoulders—and us along with him—without the benefit of being able to emote or even say much. It’s a physical performance as much as it is a quietly emotional one; he has to establish who this man is mainly through his gestures, demeanor and energy.

As in other recent female-driven raunchy comedies like “Bridesmaids,” “The Heat” and “Spy,” the force is strong in this one.

The ethereal essay provides a bounty of poetry, in the form of a measured narration by international treasure Tilda Swinton, and an extensively labored assembly of 200 black-and-white film clips.

The film ultimately runs up against the limitations of its own nature.... But it’s still an exhilarating ride, filled with archetypal characters with plausible psychologies, melodramatic confrontations fueled by soaring emotions, and performances that can be described as good, period, rather than "good, for 'Star Wars.'"

The film has no flow, no rhythm, and absolutely no reason to be 119 minutes. And then there’s the broad racism and misogyny of the piece.

American Hero is an obnoxious rock star moment, with images of Americana that have apparently been lost in translation by an outsider British director.

The melancholy that falls over this chapter is hard to shake but its tempered slightly by the love Gomes has for his characters, bad habits, ingrained sadness and all.

In surveying this setting, one might think Almost There is a documentary about impoverished, elderly folks who have sadly fallen through the cracks in the system. Instead, it’s an uncomfortable journey through the later life of an artist, a warts-and-all look at the filmmakers’ process that fails to get past its most troublesome wart.

Boy and the World is dazzlingly colorful and alive, often resembling a more elaborate version of the kind of childlike drawings you probably have stuck to your refrigerator door right now.

I kept thinking one thing during most of Don Verdean: What would Christopher Guest do with his company of ace ad-libbers with such material? And the answer suddenly came to me — probably toss it in the trash and start all over again.

Body feels downright old-fashioned: a thriller with tension that doesn't stem from gore, jump scares, or other cheap shock tactics, but rather a creeping dread that grows with each red herring, and slow-burn plot twist.