At first it's a kick to watch Clint Eastwood play Steve Everett, a horn-dog newsman...Is Clint being Clinton-esque? Even if he's not, these scenes are the liveliest part of this dog-tired movie.

Sloane is a nasty piece of work. Yet Chastain draws us in, making us see what the character keeps inside by the sheer force of her fireball performance. There are times when Miss Sloane plays like a pilot for a TV series. No knock on that. If Chastain stars, I'm in.

Malkovich weaves something delicate and devastating.

The film goes beyond historical anecdotes. Besides fresh and funny insights from the likes of Norman Mailer and John Waters, it shows how little censorship politics have changed from Nixon to Bush.

A sense of injustice runs like a toxic river through Everett’s film, an affront to homophobia through the ages, even our enlightened one. In the end, The Happy Prince makes its strongest mark as a heartfelt salute to Wilde from an actor and filmmaker who was born to play him.

Sollett, hoping for a "Before Sunrise/Before Sunset" vibe, sadly settles for a soggy aftertaste.

The latest film franchise culled from Marvel's comic-book universe packs a ton of fun into a teeny package. Its low-key charm helps glide us over trouble spots in tone and pacing.

Delivers the dazzle without sacrificing the smarts. The suspense is killer. Ditto the thrill of the hunt. The film uses the extra time to, of all things, develop characters and give this dystopian fable a human scale.

No laugh in this doc – and there are plenty – goes out without a sting in its tail.

It’s the kind of film that works well if you don’t feel like getting off your couch. Zeke would definitely approve.

Lennon's spirit, like his music, shines through this movie like a beacon. Powerful stuff.

Lurie has crafted a different kind of thriller, one with a mind and a heart.

What was once an anything-goes sensibility now feels like it’s stuck in a nothing’s-sticking gear. Dark, wearisome and bombastic, along with an ensemble cast clearly radiating that they’d rather be someplace else, is not what we come to a Marvel movie for. We already have the DCEU for that.

A sinfully scrumptious bonbon.

The villains, an incestuous brother and sister played by real-life marrieds Amy Poehler and Will Arnett are a hoot. And "Office" honey Jenna Fischer is welcome as Jimmy’s love.

Affleck may strike you as off-putting at first, hitting wrong emotional notes, but hang on. State of Play keeps the twists coming.

Australian filmmaker Grant Sputore, making his directorial debut, has a knack for keeping things moving, whether its within the claustrophobic walls of the “safe” house or, briefly, in the evocative scorched-earth landscape above ground.

You'll go limp from laughing.

Stay in your seat for the end credits, in which Murray waters a dying plant and karaokes to Bob Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm." That alone is worth double the price of admission.

Appaloosa is gripping entertainment that keeps springing surprises.

There's only one star in this movie: Everest. Kormákur couldn't shoot higher than base camp, around 14,000 feet, without sickening the actors. But a crew traveled to the top to get footage, while much of the climbing was shot in the Dolomites. No matter. You watch Everest and you believe.

The actors have a ball with the fun and games. And you will, too, unless — as noted — you and the TV series have never crossed paths.

DiCaprio is terrific, but he can't save this lecture from the shame of using Africa as a vehicle for another white man's redemption.

Sometimes a movie comedy just clicks. Welcome to one of those times.

Leave it to Hilary Swank. Even when her film's pace lags behind its cliches, she sparks this true story, about a California teacher who sparks her students, with the passion the subject demands.

By the time Fry lets darkness encroach on these bright young things, the fizz is gone, and so is any reason to make us give a damn.

Expertly directed by Richard Eyre (Iris) from Jeffrey Hatcher's play, the film is bawdy fun.

Ferrell is effortlessly uproarious. And watching hardass Wahlberg, in his first starring shot at farce, shake his sillies out is not to be missed.

A vibrant, bizarre hybrid of sci-fi and fantasy with avant-garde, jazz-inflected music by the composer, Forbidden Zone still remains unique decades after its inception.

You will not necessarily be enlightened, empowered, or enthralled by all of Gladiator II. But you will almost assuredly be entertained.

With the hospital and its primary representative in the case, Dr. Sally Smith, refusing to cooperate with the filmmakers, Take Care of Maya is necessarily one-sided. That side is rendered with sympathy and sensitivity, and a lingering, frustratingly unanswered question: How exactly does something like this happen?

There is so much dead space between the death-defying set pieces that you can feel things grinding to a halt long before the next adrenaline spike hits.

Ignore the film’s foolish framing device and Halston emerges as a fascinating study of a fashion artist who allowed women to live an idealized vision of themselves.

The actor has muted his usual um-ah-YES speech tics and other telltale Goldblumian gestures to a large degree, which works nicely against Sheridan’s revelatory performance. Their existential despair among the mental healthcare white-coat crowd plays and feeds off each other — it’s like discovering a "Waiting for Godot" production nestled in the middle of "Titicut Follies."

It’s not cynicism but a chuckling curiosity that fuels this sideways parable, which aligns it with Lanthimos’ past work in the most perfect of ways. You can’t say that it’s a movie for everybody. But it takes all kinds.

Spielberg's visual inventiveness is unflagging.

Regrettably, Bergman can't do much with a one-note script by Jane Anderson that reduces Perez to a grating cliché, Cage and Fonda to a parody of Ken and Barbie and our interest in what could happen to them to dry ash.

Madden directed Paltrow in the play on the London stage, but he does his "Shakespeare in Love" goddess no favors by filling the screen with big close-ups that betray the theatrical origins of the piece and drain the movie of life and urgency. Proof hasn't been filmed at all -- it's been embalmed.

The movie stays alert to the dreams and disappointments of four average people on an emotional roller coaster. It's a sublimely acted movie, hilarious and heartfelt.

When Short is onscreen, a movie that provides only fitful laughter bubbles over into bliss.

The Lodge strains credulity beyond the breaking point; “contrived” is the mildest word you could use to describe the plot. Luckily, Franz and Fiala are masters of setting a mood that makes your skin crawl. And Keough — she’s Elvis’s eldest granddaughter — is a subtle sensation.

Café Society isn't peak Allen, in the manner of such recent high points as "Midnight in Paris" (2011) and "Blue Jasmine" (2013), but the film — which could be helpfully subtitled Manhattan v Hollywood — feels lively, lived-in and fallibly human.

Despite a hint that Peter (Jeremy Sumpter) and Wendy (Rachel Hurd-Wood) might get it on, there's nothing to crow about.

I refuse to render a final verdict on the latest cinematic outrage from Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier until Volume Two drops its undies on April 18th. But I will say this for Volume One: It's a mesmerizing mind game.

Abbasi isn’t a subtle filmmaker, and his need to provoke sometimes undermines his points; his previous movie, the serial-killer thriller Holy Spider (2022), was a commentary on social misogyny that inadvertently courted the very thing it was trying to criticize. Here, the blunt force works in his film’s favor.

The trouble does not emerge from the movie’s noble intentions, but from the stodgy manner in which they play out.

Thanks to the clever, caring touch of director Ismail Merchant, working from a script by Caryl Phillips, this steadily engrossing film captures the book's bracing humor and humanity.

Eddie Murphy is funny again. Sadly, he lacks the guts to follow through on the cathartic self-satire that gives the film its distinction.

Even when the drama gets overcooked, Lymelife sends off sparks.

If there is such a thing as hard-core with a soft heart, this is it.

A terrifically exciting, deeply unsettling survivalist epic.

It's less an expose of junk-food culture than a human drama, sprinkled with sly, provoking wit, about how that culture defines how we live.

John waters and Kathleen Turner bring out the sicko best in each other in Serial Mom. It’s a killingly funny spoof of crime and nonpunishment that couldn’t have come at a better time for us or them.

In short, this is a genre mash-up has no agenda except providing escapist fun. Mission accomplished.

For all its fancy pedigree, the spellbinding Dancer in the Dark aims right for the heart and aces its target.

Official Secrets remains a compelling tale of injustice on an individual and global level. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been told better, but give it points for being told at all.

Until Richard Wenk's script drives the characters into a brick wall of pukey sentiment, it's a wild ride.

Even director Carl Franklin, an artful purveyor of sterner stuff in "One False Move" and "Devil in a Blue Dress," can't prevent One True Thing from descending into chick-movie hell.

McTeer and the transporting music hold you in thrall.

Lane is a force of nature. Her slow-burning, fiercely erotic performance charges the movie.

Cautionary tales aren't new. What sets Kids apart as daringly original, touching and alive is its authenticity.

There is the slightly conspiratorial sense that the team behind this trip down movie-memory lane simply fed the scripts of various canonized sci-fi epics into an AI program and waited to see what sort of composite it spit out.

Backbeat catches the Beatles in the act of discovering themselves. It’s a thrilling spectacle that rocks the house and a lot of lazy misconceptions about how legends are made.

Writer-director Andrew Niccol, who worked impressively with Hawke on the topic of genetic modification in 1997's "Gattaca," puts a lot out there.

Even when the acting is hammy, notably Wilford Brimley’s turn as Chance’s Cajun uncle, Woo stages every fight with hypnotic grace.

It's a kick to watch Denzel Washington do a movie just for the hot, sexy fun of it.

A film of startling humor and feeling. For that, director Steven Shainberg, who co-wrote the script with Erin Cressida Wilson, owes much to two remarkable performances.

A thunderous spectacle.

The tricky thing about parody movies is that the jokes get old fast and they're hit-and-miss. Walk Hard, a spoof of every musical biopic from "Ray" to "Walk the Line," is guilty on both counts. How lucky that when the jokes do hit, they kick major ass.

Even with its familiar visual and dramatic approach — the extent to which we are firmly, subjectively pushed into Joseph’s world and made to tumble around for a while amid his unpredictable behaviors — the movie packs an odd little punch.

What should’ve been a major coup for Netflix, and audiences at large, comes off as a rank revival that will only sully the memory of a British classic.

What jump-starts the film is the casting of Johnny Depp as Don Juan and Marlon Brando as his shrink. They bring a playfully romantic touch to a drama that could have been dead weight in clumsier hands.

An extraordinary high-pulp potboiler, one that mixes elements of indigenous mysticism, Greek tragedy and rural revenge flicks, along with a genuinely showstopping centerpiece.

Credit Rachel Weisz, who's just the dynamite actress needed to play a character who could be a misunderstood innocent or a fortune-hunting seductress who could be a cold-blooded killer. How delicious to watch the star keep us guessing.

This is rock-solid entertainment. McConaughey, a cunning mesmerizer in the courtroom, steers this Lincoln into what could be a hell-raising franchise. More, please. Soon.

Sometimes all of these little plastic avatars are a needless distraction from what is a compelling origin story by any measure. Other times, the LEGO-ification of it all provides a welcome distraction from some fairly cut-and-dried Music Documentary 101 business, with Piece by Piece putting a formally unique spin on a very familiar, if slightly incomplete arc.

The film itself occasionally plods, but Pacino, tackling a tough trap of a role, raises the bar in a mesmerizing acting triumph.

As a portrait of a friendship, one tested by decades of high times and lows, successes and failures, bad behavior and forgiveness, Nyad the movie is trawling deeper waters. As a bio-dramatization of one human’s resilience — and thus a stand-in for the triumph of the human spirit overall — it comes perilously close to merely treading them.

Odd as it is to say, Kingdom of Heaven loses its momentum the more Balian gets religion.

Sarah Silverman is the most outrageously funny woman alive.

Go with the whimsical flow that includes a hilariously morose robot named Marvin, voiced by the great Alan Rickman with the weight of the galaxy resonating in every bored, cynical syllable. Adams would be pleased.

It's the bruised history of these brothers that gives Out of the Furnace its beating heart and the power to grip you hard.

The sequel is more musically varied, though Kay Cannon's script amps the sass at the expense of structure. But the MVP here is Elizabeth Banks.

Honk for Jesus is a fine, often funny movie about the moral hypocrisy of the church and an even better movie about a woman forced to endure looking like a fool, an outright clown, because of her husband.

By any fair standard, this lushly produced film is a long, bumpy ride to a major letdown.

Piercing is not exactly a sophomore slump for Pesce, nor is it an embarrassment for anyone else involved. But the longer you watch it, the more inadvertently ironic the title becomes.

What could have been a sentimental train wreck emerges as a funny and touching portrait of three bruised people.

Theron, in the middle of her action-hero phase and at her "Mad Max: Fury Road" best here, just nails it.

If you’re willing to be patient, the characters become richer, the narrative takes more risks and the set pieces are more enthralling, like an engrossing disco sequence and a lumbering car chase in giant, period-accurate sedans.

The story has been filmed many times, but never with this kind of erotic charge. Knightley is glorious, her eyes blazing with a carnal yearning that can turn vindictive at any perceived slight.

Bad Influence will do in a pinch if you're starved for intrigue. For a while, it's nasty fun watching Michael sink into depravity. Erotic and spine tingling, this thriller has undeniable allure. But Bad Influence lacks daring, moral ambiguity and the pleasures of the unexpected, the elements that might give it distinction.

With Pfeiffer, 50, radiating uncommon beauty, grace and feeling, Frears uncovers a fragile story's grieving heart.

Their banter is fun at the start until it becomes relentless.

A crowd pleaser that spices a tired formula with genuine feeling.

For a movie made from spare parts - take "The Exorcist" and attach to "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity" - The Last Exorcism delivers the heebie-jeebie goods.

I don't blame you for backing off a movie that focuses on a suicidal teen who learns warm life lessons by spending five days in a Brooklyn hospital's psych ward. Stop worrying. It's Kind of a Funny Story, based on Ned Vizzini's semiautobiographical novel, breaks the jinx.

In the end, The Beach Boys is part an exploration of a family dynamic and a top view of one of America’s most important bands, with a soundtrack that is undeniably superb (a collection of songs released alongside the film is a must-listen).

If The Eyes of My Mother is occasionally stylistic to a fault and ends way too abruptly, it's also the mark of someone who isn't afraid to make something that leaves scars.