Despite its outlandish conceits, it is grounded in sisterhood. As bloody as it is, the pain the girls dish out to each other is nothing compared to the trauma they’ve experienced.

Wild has so many things in its favor that it’s tempting to leave out the fact that it’s a movie about a hike that sometimes feels like being on a hike, a long one, without many changes of scenery. But the movie’s achievement is that it overcomes this.

Powerfully documents the human cost of the Iraq war.

A potent social allegory told with humor and mystery.

Sure to be an instant animated classic as it expertly balances emotion, humor and social politics amid a backdrop of surreal, eye-popping visual beauty.

Humpday succeeds, often beautifully, by grounding its risque premise in the awkwardness and humor of real people trying their damnedest to communicate. A lot.

This affecting documentary focuses on their 2004 production, a play whose themes of forgiveness and redemption certainly ought to have some resonance for the inmates.

In the face of this relentless nihilism, it’s quite an achievement that the new documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste is so darned entertaining and hopeful, as well as informative.

In The Burial, every character gets a chance to shine, but not like in a “Star Trek” movie, where Sulu gets his moment and then Chekov. Rather, it all feels natural and organic. There’s something almost philosophical in a directorial point of view that understands that supporting and featured players are just as human as the main characters.

An artful look at religious hypocrisy, interfamily dynamics and the way people wrestle with personal history long after the original events are over.

The style is documentary-like, in that it feels like life and that anything might happen. There is also a nice sense of being in the midst of the action and right there in the room with the characters.

It's moving, romantic, dreamlike, flawlessly acted and so engaging as to make you forget about euthanasia before it jolts you back into recognition.

The Others is great as a collection of acknowledgments, but a ghost story made of a bunch of ghoulish thank-yous isn't that haunting.

People who have seen fellow painter Julian Schnabel's "Basquiat" - with its star-making portrayal by Jeffrey Wright - may reasonably trust its truth as a tribute over Davis' ostensibly more factual exercise.

Fake It So Real isn't just for wrestling fans. It will appeal to anyone compelled by the documentary medium's ability to tell stories.

For a movie that takes place mostly in the bowels of a sewer, Flushed Away has some surprisingly charming moments.

Awakenings is a troubling film, but it's also a courageous one that dares to tackle a difficult subject with sensitivity and honesty. [20 Dec 1990, p.E1]

The movie makes a point, but it doesn’t build on it. And so the movie becomes as dull and depressing for us as it must be for the central character.

The documentary is exclusively about Ullmann and Bergman as human beings and about how they got along.

This is a movie that can be enjoyed in different ways and for lots of reasons. It’s dramatic and it’s funny, and it has a warm humanity at its center.

Director Manuel Poirier (Antonio's Girlfriend) is easygoing in the way he uses Paco and Nino to poke through veneers of machismo.

If you want to see great acting that’s unadorned, not fancy, and very much in the style of 2024, see Plaza in the climactic scene from “My Old Ass.” You will walk out of this film different than when you walked in, and a little bit better for the experience.

What's exciting is that the Sprechers have delved into territory that is normally the domain of literature and have emerged with a film that's neither overly literary nor simplistic.

There are moments of satirical humor sparked by Ted's stiff, earnest demeanor and Fred's glib, transparent conniving.

Graizer takes his time and never feels the need to spell everything out, and The Cakemaker is a testament to what filmmakers can achieve when they trust the audience.

Gorgeous but dark -- not the usual Disney experience. Audiences will find much to embrace in this animated drama, yet they may not walk away humming the kind of catchy tunes contained in Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King or Aladdin.

So it’s not my bag, but I went into Jackass Forever with the best intentions.

The beauty of Duck Season is its insistence that profound human experiences can arrive slowly, in incremental packages, scattered over the course of an average Sunday.

This is spellbinding, transporting, damn near indescribable and the latest indication that Christopher Nolan might be the slyest narrative tactician making movies today.

As challenging as it must have been to pilot Joss Whedon's space opera from the TV junk pile to the big screen, the finished product is a triumph.

It is described as about a guy who came back to life, and clearly one of Dumont's aims in The Life of Jesus is to express a spirit of charity for flawed humanity amid the rhythms of ordinary life.

Unlike Sean Penn's demagogue in "All the King's Men," you're able to forget that Whitaker is acting. He embodies the role. When clips of the real Amin are shown at the end, it's almost shocking to realize the extent to which Whitaker has become him.

Gut-wrenching.

It will bring joy in a way certainly not intended, as one of the most gloriously and unwittingly silly films ever devised by a major American filmmaker.

Less subtle than its predecessor, Tomboy is like a pint-size "Boys Don't Cry," and as such, it's practically unique.

More than most espionage movies, the film is about relationships, the men with each other, the men with their own disapproving wives, and governments with each other. Everyone courts someone.

Though the movie has a handful of shots that are downright gross to witness, what makes The Orphanage scary is not what it threatens to show but what it suggests about life.

Guadagnino has a choice, whether to be an artist or just the maker of artistically rendered, conscientiously realized garbage. It’s time to quit while he’s behind.

The movie’s length is, at times, a challenge, but Dune is so original and contains so many strong scenes that the length mostly isn’t a problem.

Details the group's raucous history with humor and a minimum of hero worship.

(Holm) nails one of the best roles of his career.

An eerily affecting domestic drama combining elements of "The Lost Weekend'' with "Lost Highway.''

There's no joy and little playfulness about this caper comedy, which, despite a lighthearted script, has a sober undertone to it, almost a melancholia.

The sentimentality overtakes Wonder Boys when, in the last half hour, it tries to make nice with its characters and fashion a deep message from a trivial story.

A slow seduction.

The film is mentally graphic, not sexually graphic.

The ego trips and sexuality and driving are all filmed with equal intensity, to the point where the emotions and flesh and crunched metal seem to blend together. The movie's only major problem is that the tension sometimes overwhelms.

Some of the movie probably will mystify viewers not steeped in Middle Eastern history and culture, but a good deal of the humor can be appreciated by anybody.

One of very few films to accurately portray the experience of growing up male.

It’s refreshing to see a film that not only spotlights a queer Asian American woman but also treats her with such respect and tenderness.

In general the film is so impressive that we can't leave the theater without wanting more.

Stunning, odd, glorious, calm and sensationally absorbing.

The result is a nice little movie that does its job and doesn't spread misery under cover of spreading joy.

Going into Armageddon Time, I had no interest in James Gray’s childhood. But that was to be expected. What I didn’t expect was to have even less interest going out.

An unlovable movie. It's morally ambiguous, which means there's no real rooting interest. It's episodic, with the same kinds of episodes repeated over and over, so there's little sense of forward motion. It feels philosophically and politically confused, so there's no message to take from it.

Though it would be inaccurate to reduce Thelma to an extended metaphor, it’s fair to say that Trier uses the supernatural element to illustrate, in a forceful way, the power of lust, the selfishness of love, and the world-obliterating intensity of a first romance.

Plan B is ultimately a gross-out sex comedy that has more than sex on its mind. It seems odd to consider a film with such familiar beats radical, but the word fits here, in the best sense.

While hardly glorifying abusive husbands, Take My Eyes, a mesmerizing and deeply disturbing film from Spain, makes an attempt to understand their thought processes.

Colette is never dazzling. It has erotic elements, but nothing like “Becoming Colette,” which is, on balance, a weaker film. There’s not a single great scene. But there is no scene that is less than intelligent. Colette is smart, conscientious and absorbing, and gradually, in its diligent way, achieves a certain fascination.

Based on the litany of deep cuts and the intrinsic understanding of the concept in “Mutant Mayhem,” it’s clear Rogen and Goldberg bring a particular love for the franchise to the screen.

Utterly enchanting.

The women are remarkable, unforgettable. But don’t overlook Nivola, an enigmatic figure as the rabbi and husband.

With skill and also with love, writer-director Eric Mendelsohn creates a delicate and airy mood, a kind of cinematic haiku.

At its simplest level, East Is East is a broad comedy, but Puri's acting, so honest and heartbreaking, gives the film weight.

Among Chan devotees, it achieved cult status.

In "Fatal Attraction" [Close] was a woman out of control. Here she's in control of her emotions, too much in control. When Merteuil finally lets loose and gives way to complete animal despair, Close is horrifying. [13 Jan 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Delirious, over-the-top, gorgeous to look at and with comic timing delivered at a machine-gun pace, Spain’s My Big Night is not only the fastest-moving film of the year so far this side of “Hardcore Henry,” but one of the most entertaining as well.

Black Bear Ranch's legacy of environmentalism (the residents were on the forefront of the anti-deforestation movement), and the endearing long-term relationships it engendered, endure.

As the documentary was produced by National Geographic with the cooperation of the Cousteau Society, Garbus has access to some fabulous, colorfully restored footage, some of it never before seen, that makes this an eye-popping experience — in theaters especially.

It serves as a great introduction to an important artist who was ahead of his time.

Woman of the Hour, Anna Kendrick’s tense, insightful directing debut, re-centers the narrative on Alcala’s victims and the rampant misogyny that suffused the 1970s.

Thanks to Radner’s letters, diaries and autobiography, director Lisa D’Apolito is able to tell us, with great immediacy, what Radner’s thoughts were at the time. We come away with the portrait of someone who was never just going along for the ride, but who was always questioning and challenging herself, working toward professional excellence and hoping for an ideal romance.

It is old-fashioned in a good way, classical and well-acted, and that it has no surprises keeps it from being disappointing, even as it keeps it from being great.

Thompson and Asomugha are nicely paired. Too much is made by critics of the notion of “screen chemistry,” but there is something complementary in the personalities of these two actors, as well as in the roles they’re playing.

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind captures that special quality that Williams had, the extra quality that went beyond the laughs, that communicated his whole being.

A harrowing story about the will to survive amid the most brutal conditions imaginable.

An actors' feast.

The problem is that the story, as constituted, is of necessity against organized religion, but Farmiga, as director, pretends that it's ambiguous. So you get a movie slightly at cross-purposes with itself.

The film's final words are simple and to the point, and come from the retired cop, Seymour Pine: "You knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that?"

A first-class genre entry stacked with dandy performances and some crackerjack action to boot.

It's a life worth remembering.

The chief asset of Ain't Them Bodies Saints is Rooney Mara, who gets more interesting with every movie.

There is history as it's remembered, and then there's history as it happened. This documentary gives us the latter, and it's a true education.

In Darkness is an extraordinary movie, and somehow good art creates its own uplift.

Don't be fooled by the casual style. There is nothing casual about these emotions, or about the talent of these two filmmakers.

Downbeat, ultimately tragic, but there's a wondrous, sad beauty here.

Re-creates that chilling sense that comes when, in the middle of a pleasant conversation, one realizes the other person is off his rocker.

At 80 minutes, this might have been a delight. At more than two hours, it's so much of a good thing that it starts to become a bad thing.

Absorbing and exquisite.

A must-see documentary about not just a would-be assassin and moment in American history, but a snapshot of the Bay Area during turbulent times.

At the end of the day, though, thanks to the moral complications expressed by the abortion doctors and patients, this movie gives us more than enough room to help weigh these issues on our own terms.

Though the material might lend itself to heavy-handedness, director Ole Christian Madsen is steady, and he gets fine performances from the two leads and Stengade.

In the end, Sully is a broadly crowd-pleasing movie, at a time when we could use the straight-forward entertainment.

A nasty little picture with a lot of wit and impudence.

Herzog, as ever, is obsessed most of all with human nature: Into the Abyss explores our deepest urges to love, and live, and kill.

Despite its many virtues, Interstellar feels as if it doesn’t quite hit the target.

The real joy here is the gorgeous nature cinematography.

Bridge to Terabithia is a good movie, but it could become truly great with a director's cut that leaves the fantastic elements a little more vague.