Witty, adult treatment of an offbeat subject: a pubescent boy's infatuation with an older woman.

It's entertaining and inoffensive.

Loses steam only when it strays from the sisters and attempts to depict their parents' loveless marriage.

A movie that eliminates Hollywood gloss and pop cliches -- and in their place offers an honest look at young love and its pitfalls.

Nightmare-inducing.

Evans pays careful attention to atmosphere, while giving wide berth to cinematographers Dimas Imam Subhono and Matt Flannery, who find beauty among the mayhem. Everything on screen is crystal clear and vibrant, like a city street right after the rain.

“Shang-Chi” gives us Shang-Chi, a likable, thrilling-to-watch and ultimately very welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

There are some rumblings about the sea monsters wanting to express their true selves and being accepted by humans even though they are different, yadda yadda, but it’s not very well developed and Luca, like its charming village at low tide, is a shallow dip in the water.

A lean, mean, riveting back-to-nature horror film that flies through its thrilling 99 minutes.

It's an impressive achievement: The film reveals things about each person's inner world, and how it looks to the other, without making us feel as if we're lost in a house of mirrors.

In Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, we learn about the visionary filmmaker through his body of work and insightful interviews with such luminaries as Martin Scorsese and Kirk Douglas as well as Cardiff himself.

Lenny Cooke is humbling, as well as a cautionary tale for young people thinking they can make the big time.

The movie might work better if the psychological puzzle tucked inside it were more engaging or surprising. But as the pieces fall into place, in a clunky resolution, the story turns as flat as the screens that contain it.

It's a broad generality to say that French filmmakers have a particularly perverse sensibility, but it can be backed up by one import after another. The latest, La Moustache, is wonderfully odd in a minimalist kind of way.

It’s maybe not one of the best movies of 2022, but it was certainly one of my favorites.

It eschews obvious effects, but even more impressively, it tells a story without an obvious moral. It assumes that kids can wrestle with a fairly complicated narrative and draw their own conclusions.

Altman has delivered a lot of surprises in his long directing career, and his new comedy, Cookie's Fortune, is one of the most refreshing -- not because it's so good, but because it's so sweet and affectionate.

This is a movie made by and for adults, and adults should consider seeing it.

Some folks will have no trouble being inspired by Rudy's story; some will feel as though they boarded a sinking submarine. [13 Oct 1993, p.D2]

Although some of its parts are brilliantly executed and played by a terrific cast, the result is scattered, overamplified and unsatisfying.

A glib satire with a slick surface, lots of snappy patter and nothing to sell but its own cleverness.

A mini-masterpiece, with lean filmmaking and lots of surprises.

There should be more American family movies like Pete’s Dragon. Since there aren’t, we should get behind this one.

Made mostly by white people, it's a film largely about how awful white people are -- just the kind of thing many white viewers will love and consider important. But however you might feel about this kind of movie, Map of the Human Heart is fake merchandise, an unfelt, boring travelogue that covers itself in its anti-racist, anti-war message and then dares audiences to notice its barrenness at the core. [14 May 1993, p.C6]

The engaging HBO documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, both a guilty pleasure and meaningful slice of queer history, delivers a loving yet irony-laced tribute to a closeted movie icon whose tragic death from AIDS changed the course of the epidemic and cemented his place in LGBTQ lore.

Ultimately, “The Long Walk” is a heartfelt metaphorical drama about people bonding under duress. Instead of focusing on the darker side of human nature one might expect from the average dystopian film, it finds power in small acts of connection.

A grim and sometimes funny examination of life on the margins and of a singular artist's world.

A smart, arch and rather cold-blooded comedy.

Too slick but amusing marital farce.

A strange almost-thriller.

The movie is laugh-until-your-stomach-hurts hilarious.

Much of The Tracker, a blunt morality tale about Australian racism, is heavy going.

A glossy miscalculation.

Intimate, heartfelt and wickedly funny, it's a movie whose impact lingers.

The filmmakers put their faith in a character, not fireworks, and the result is big blockbuster that feels more like a sweet little movie.

As much as anything we’ve seen in recent years, the film is confirmation that artists, not paranoid executives, continue to make the big calls at Disney. And as long as that continues, a few glitches in the plot won’t ruin anyone’s good time.

The film perhaps shines brightest when it depicts two telling relationships Nannerl has outside her family. The first is with Louis XV's 13-year-old daughter, Louise...The other relationship is with Louise's troubled brother, the dauphin.

This film is family.

The new Robert De Niro film with Bill Murray, Mad Dog and Glory, is just off-balance enough that it may throw audiences off, too. It is not a romantic comedy by a director who can't do that particular dance, but a strange hybrid between comedy and drama. [5 Mar 1993, p.C1]

War Game is one of the more timely and disturbing movies of recent months.

Favoring precision filmmaking over cheap thrills, with a vibe more Alfred Hitchcock than Freddy Krueger, Red Eye establishes two intelligent characters and lets audiences sit back and enjoy an entertaining battle of brains and wills.

Trumbo is welcome just to bear witness to the severe consequences meted out to one man who dared to do the right thing.

For the most part, however, Proxima enthralls with its deep dive into the mechanics of astronaut training. Green presents a woman with the right stuff for it, but maybe she can’t give up the parts of herself the job demands. It’s a stress test the actress passes with flying colors.

Visually accomplished and loads of fun.

The film’s writer-director is British-born Sabrina Doyle, who is making her feature debut after spending the past decade in Los Angeles making short films. Her touch is nearly perfect: authentic, patient, guiding — giving her actors plenty of space. And they respond.

Though specific to the stories of its central characters, this documentary is as complicated as life. It’s happy, sad and uncertain — genuinely moving and uplifting, yet never reassuring.

A provocative character study and portrait of the times.

Colorful and sweeping.

The tone is low-key, and Franco never presses the audience. Instead, he lets scenes happen, avoiding close-ups and all other means of exaggeration or emphasis.

There aren't that many songs this time - just a handful, reprised ad infinitum. You get to sing most of them, so I'm sure you've noticed how bland they are.

Edge of Tomorrow covers familiar ground with unexpected wit and economy, and the result is a thoroughly entertaining sci-fi fantasy.

A brilliant performance (Walken).

An elegant and rather even-tempered documentary.

A dark, unsettling drama from Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone.

Funny, affectionate documentary.

Fascinating stuff.

Wonderstruck should not be confused for a brilliant but challenging film. Rather, it’s narratively deprived and with entire sections that are completely charmless.

As thrillers go, Rapt is long on intellect and short on action, a virtue to some degree, though not entirely.

Theo Padnos, who was kidnapped and held for nearly two years by al Qaeda in Syria, has a compelling story to tell. Unfortunately, it is not compellingly told in the documentary Theo Who Lived.

Hacksaw Ridge is one of the best films of 2016. And the victory is all the more sweet for Gibson in that he succeeds on his own weird terms.

The picture... is well- made and entertaining, but it holds a special interest in what it says about Hanks.

Although it’s good to have a critical accounting of his role in modern American politics, most of what we see here has been reported elsewhere, and this documentary seems aimed at rallying the troops.

On its own terms, Escape From Mogadishu makes for an engrossing, nail-biting Korean history lesson.

The documentary isn't particularly thrilling, or even very informative, but it's almost certain to lower your blood pressure for 83 minutes.

More than on "Prime Suspect," more than any film in recent memory, Le Petit Lieutenant conveys the relentless toll of big-city police work.

It's not a bad film, but Towne and his star, the charismatic Billy Crudup, never fire the imagination in the way their inspirational, respectful biopic is obviously intended to.

22 Jump Street is exactly what comedy is today. It's coarse, free-flowing and playful.

Twilight’s Kiss is a fragile film of quiet moments and tender feelings, and although it runs out of gas near the end, it takes us on an engaging journey.

At its best, “Erupcja” feels truthful, even insightful. At its worst, it’s an off-putting selfie of the chronically self-absorbed, like a big-screen “Girls.” It does offer an interesting perspective on its case of apparent synchronicity late in the film, but leaves plenty for viewers to ponder on their own.

Luther, who identifies as gay, never explicitly assigns labels to these young characters, which makes perfect sense in a story that openly embraces freedom and tenderness. Here’s hoping for many more films from this sensitive, nuanced talent.

The movie saves most of its modest number of jolts for its last quarter or so, which makes them all the more intense. They stick in your craw - and be warned, they're not for the squeamish.

A dark comedy that confirms Diablo Cody as a screenwriter of importance, eliminates the last shred of doubt that Jason Reitman is a major director and gives Charlize Theron her best showcase since "Monster."

A little movie with a lot of hilarious swearing and an unexpectedly big heart.

The result is 50 percent more realistic than the average sports film.

It is such a soul-killing exercise in narcissism — and not a very smart thriller, either — that yeah, you can buy into the notion that Tinseltown is a total drag.

Crowe and his movie leave you with a good and generous feeling. As the Matt Dillon character might say, it's a pretty good hang. [18 Sept 1992, p.C1]

When explored by writer-director Mike White’s expert, soulful script, Brad, against all odds, becomes a sympathetic figure, and the film itself achieves a sort of poetry.

Sets off depth charges of the psyche.

It's a generous tale, told through big performances by a talented cast, presenting a range of colorful characters that only Dickens could have created.

A warm, funny family story that defies popular notions about immigrant families.

Sometimes demure, sometimes funny and other times flat-out crazed, Wuornos was effusive and confrontational when Broomfield filmed her just before her 2002 execution in Florida.

This is a solid suspense thriller that's fun. These stars have put it together in a spirit of playfulness -- as in playacting.

It's a simple story, reminiscent of the Iranian film "The Wind Will Carry Us."

Even his wife barely knew him, recalling for her son the peculiarities of raising a family amid Daddy's cloak and dagger - and if she's baffled by his behavior, what hope is there for anyone else?

Bachelder’s fly-on-the-wall approach reveals great details, and she picked compelling subjects.

The idea of a worldwide calamity returning with a vengeance is an awful prospect that audiences, at this moment in particular, might find dreadful. So, it’s especially easy to sympathize with the characters in these early moments. Yet after the opening, A Quiet Place II doesn’t show us anything new, and soon the movie’s energy flags.

Beguiling.

In performance and rehearsal clips, Heymann’s saturated cinematography captures the raw physicality and emotion of Naharin’s work, and the way he cajoles, demeans and seduces his dancers.

A charming, aimless film about the aimless. It plays like a nuanced MTV reality show (an oxymoron, perhaps, but you get the idea).

It's an assaultive work about an assaultive fellow.

It’s a potent and timely slice of Americana.

The resulting film is neither better nor worse than the Swedish film, but it's more cinematic.

Bergman fans will love this film, but the great thing about Searching for Ingmar Bergman is that budding cineastes who are curious about his work will find much value in it as well.

Yet despite the interchangability of some of the characters, the last half of The Outpost — in which the two-day Battle of Kamdesh is condensed into an hour of horror — is a technical marvel, as the soldiers come under an attack as relentless as a tsunami.

The story of an elaborate con game and the wholesale betrayal of an innocent man, it's also an unusually cold film that ends with a feeling of hollow soullessness.

Inhuman though it may be, this is far-and-away the most humane of “Predators,” expanding rather than skimping on the series’ blood hunt fundamentals. That kind of daring and intelligence makes “Badlands” the coolest science fiction adventure seen in eons.

By the way, if you’re wondering about the subliminal appeal of the dragons — why these animated creatures look adorable on screen and not menacing at all — here’s why: Their movements, behaviors and expressions are based on cats. Once you know, it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

It's no masterpiece, but it's real.