The French farce aspect of the film is its true heartbeat. These characters are not really serious people, and it is difficult to take any of them seriously. That’s fine, it gives Three Night Stand its special lunatic edge.

The issue of so-called “illegals” could not be more timely and, if Spare Parts does anything, it attempts to humanize the situation of those children who cope with this limbo-land existence without having had much choice in the matter.

Appropriate Behavior, even with its reliance on familiar types and tropes, feels like a unique vision of life seen through unique eyes.

It’s charmingly funny and shamelessly punny.

Vaguely more tolerable than you might expect – enjoyable, even, in sporadic bursts.

Match has enough meaty and engaging character material to effectively sidestep the very theatrical contrivance of its plot premise, which does have a great deal of potential for reversal and counter reversal and indeed takes full advantage of that potential.

This ensemble drama about troubled upper-middle class strivers is slick, confident, and rather empty, and structurally more self-defeating than clever.

Slick and sometimes goofy as it is, Blackhat is an odd, fascinating movie: a high-tech action thriller about the human condition. I can think of no better current illustration of the notion that, to quote this site's founder, it's not what a movie is about, it's how it's about it.

It is an unmistakably “small” film, but as the story builds up and the characters come into focus, you know you are witnessing something rare and precious: an American independent film that’s understated and intelligent, as well as utterly free of showiness and calculation.

There are few surprises here after the narrative’s turn to survival horror as the film plods to its inevitable conclusion, and even that final shot feels unearned.

As the heart of the story, however, Sarah Snook delivers a knockout performance that calls on her to perform the kind of tricky scenes that could have resulted in bad laughs throughout if handled incorrectly. Not only does she pull off her performance brilliantly throughout—there is not one moment in which she is anything less that utterly convincing and believable.

The movie never entirely rises to the height of its ambitions, though: there are moments when you can practically hear it straining to impart significance to what is, in the end, a fairly standard sensitive-young-criminal-in-over-his-head story.

This is a film we’ve never seen before: Syeed explores the heart of a rarely visited landscape, and the souls of the resilient Kashmiri people. This is an amazing film.

It's just a frantic, flash-cutting frenzy. Even the slower, more intimate family scenes feature so many swooping-up-from-below shots and so many sudden inserts that moments (emotional or physical) are never given a chance to land.

A very nearly epic romance, one that approaches the idea of a ménage-a-trois as emblematic of a particular idealism on the part of its participants rather than a hotsy-totsy taboo-busting arrangement.

It's quite good, for what it is. But it's that "for what it is" part that proves slightly exasperating.

How badly do you want to see rabid computer-generated zombie-monkeys die violently? Because there's not much else worth recommending in [Rec] 4: Apocalypse.

The thing you'll remember about P'tit Quinquin, over even the most perfectly timed joke or the adorably misshapen head of Quinquin, is the face of Bernard Pruvost, as the detective protecting his flock from the murderer.

The Woman in Black 2 might have served as an effective tribute to movies like "Curse of the Cat People." That is, if it hadn't completely squandered all this goodwill in its last third.

This lavish period piece contains enough thrills, spills and moments of cinematic grace that not only manage to push it through the rough spots but allow it to put most American action films of recent vintage to shame.

Ultimately Leviathan may divide viewers between those who find its possible meanings too numerous and inchoate and others who welcome the challenges of helping create its meaning.

Entertaining in spots, obvious and irritating in others, with a one-note schticky performance from Christopher Waltz as Walter, Big Eyes is a strangely conventional entry in Tim Burton's filmography.

The Gambler should have been called “Three Supporting Characters in Search of a Lead.” A gaunt Mark Wahlberg stares out from the poster, his name is above the title, and he’s in almost every frame of this remake, but his character may as well be non-existent.

I didn’t laugh once, but there were several lines that, in context, got a wide fool-grin out of me.

One of the more tough-minded and effective war pictures of post-American-Century American cinema.

Cotillard can be an exquisitely subtle actress, with expressive eyes and a face that are made for quiet suffering. Even when Two Days, One Night drags a bit, Cotillard’s performance remains compelling.

The singing is often splendid. The bits of humor are deftly handled. The pace is relatively swift. And it never feels like a static rendition of a theatrical event dumbed down for a younger demographic.

Known for her superb indie dramas “I Will Follow” and “Middle of Nowhere”, DuVernay has proven herself a master of small, intimate moments. Selma never loses focus on the interpersonal dynamics between King and his followers, his detractors and his family.