To state the obvious, Manderlay is often patently offensive in its racial politics, and it surely isn't for everyone. It is, however, very funny, very dark and very skillfully played.

It’s a diverting ride, played out against spectacular locations, that repackages a whole bunch of familiar elements and attitudes: A little latter-day Bond, a little Jason Bourne, a little John le Carré, a little 1950s Hitchcock.

May not be a very grand picture, but it's a gently satisfying one. And if it brings Smith's book just a few hundred more readers, it's admirably done its job.

Brings back the characters you may have loved, as I did, in the earlier movies: My particular faves are Antonio Banderas' poon-hound Puss-in-Boots.

Captures the awful intimacy and the grimy, second-rate quality of the Northern Ireland conflict in resonant fashion.

Argento always gives us something to watch, and maybe even something to fear. I've never seen her in a movie where I haven't been at least a little bit scared of her.

Along the way, it even gives the adorable manchild Michael Cera the chance to reinvent himself as a possible sex symbol -- in other words, it allows him to be a man.

Amira & Sam came along and swept me off my feet, like Fabio riding a stallion. It largely works thanks to Starr and Shihabi, a pair of likable and restrained actors who build slowly from tangible discomfort toward an unexpected passionate chemistry.

There's definitely some empty-calories, summer-movie fun to be found in this ludicrous genre mashup, most of it courtesy of maniacal Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who stages hilarious, imaginative, almost free-form action sequences like nobody in the business.

Almost always a pleasure to watch. Pushing Tin is, essentially, a western -- Cusack really is the fastest gun in the West.

What makes me respect The Man Who Wasn't There despite myself is the sense that the Coens want it to be about something that can't be described or defined.

It’s a highly capable sequel that drinks long and deep from the established Marvel legendarium and brings back all the key players from Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 hit “Thor.”

Lavish in its approach -- it attempts some rather extravagant battle scenes -- yet it still seems modest in its goals: It's more interested in being a Saturday-afternoon entertainment than a blockbuster.

Home of the Brave isn't exactly a subtle or a delicate picture -- it's an old-fashioned Hollywood movie, at least in tone, that's being released like an indie -- but it has some terrific acting and comes straight from the heart.

The picture has an unsettling, haunting quality that I haven't been able to shake.

This yarn about an innocent-looking but desperately horny teenage girl might not have that much commercial upside, but its bittersweet, faintly depressed brand of Nordic humor is definitely enjoyable.

In her adaptation of The Namesake, Mira Nair hits it right at least half the time. In places, the movie feels aimless and misshapen; it doesn't have the gentle but focused energy of Lahiri's book. And sometimes Nair goes overboard in heightening the cultural contrasts -- the inevitable incongruities between East and West -- that Lahiri navigates so subtly.

I enjoyed Age of Ultron more than its predecessor, despite the fact that it’s almost exactly the same thing. This was probably a result of adjusting my expectations: I wasn’t sitting there waiting for Whedon to revolutionize the genre, or to turn an overdetermined comic-book movie into a Noel Coward comedy. He delivers a clean and capable entertainment, with a handful of distinctive flourishes stuck to the margins.

Autumn is actually pretty damn good. It's a defiantly odd work, a movie-movie set more in the crime-film Paris of Jean-Pierre Melville or Jacques Becker or early Godard than in the real 21st century city.

An imperfect picture that's alive every minute, a movie that perfectly captures the vibe of a person, a place, a time and a way of being, and even gets, indirectly and without a whiff of sanctimoniousness, to the heart of what being an American ought to mean.

A ponderous but mesmerizing tick-tock thriller.

What makes Boynton's film stand out amid the current crop of political documentaries is its rigorous reportorial fairness, and its refusal to simplify material in order to score facile ideological points.

Juliette Lewis makes Aurora Borealis into a funnier, richer, more powerful film than it has any reason to be.

It may not be a great film, but for moviegoers, Letters to Juliet is like that long buried missive of its title -- a hopeful sign that when we hold out for good things, our patience is sometimes rewarded.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Star Trek Into Darkness – once you understand it as a generic comic-book-style summer flick faintly inspired by some half-forgotten boomer culture thing. (Here’s something to appreciate about Abrams: This is a classic PG-13 picture, with little or no sex or swearing, but one that never condescends.)

It's a classic gal-pal movie, perfect for daughters, sisters, moms and the guys whose asses they kick.

Some of the knife-twisting later scenes in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" feel almost campy, like winks at the audience or studious self-referentiality. None of this is quite enough to ruin a gripping, gruesome fable, which of course del Toro's fans and other genre buffs will rush out to see, but it does render the movie a minor muddle rather than a horror masterwork.

Hu, a Chinese-American immigrant who made a mid-career switch from business to filmmaking, approaches these characters with genuine passion and compassion, and her evident talent shines through the timeworn material. Acting by all three principals is tremendous.