A sturdy and sophisticated crime drama from the Philippines that takes a pretty gruesome situation and enriches its presentation with lots of human detail.

This is a multilayered film that not only exposes a man's contradictions - a do-gooder narcissist; a thoughtful, delusional activist - but also speaks volumes about the fringes on both sides of the political spectrum.

An occasionally powerful, yet occasionally frustrating documentary.

Loose, buoyant and bracingly original.

Director Sameh Zoabi relies on the old adage that we have more in common than not, but it’s a lesson that bears repeating — particularly when laughs come with it.

Even though the film is by the numbers, it offers younger generations who know nothing of Poitier’s life and groundbreaking work a look at this important actor and activist.

Director Stephan Elliott too easily buys into the drag queens' conception of themselves as valiant pursuers of illusion, without ever questioning the value of the illusion being pursued.

The result is a lovely wash of humanity, served with affection.

Though it never runs out of gas or even shows signs of sluggishness, del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” runs out of importance about a half hour before the finish. But it’s still an entertaining movie by a distinctive filmmaker.

A personal story with broad implications for the culture as a whole.

A balanced examination of the reasons for the electric car's disappearance, reasons that include corporate collusion and greed, governmental spinelessness and oil company propaganda -- but also consumer indifference and the limitations of the vehicles themselves.

The ending is predictable to anybody who's followed the trajectory of outsourcing. Outsourced humanizes those affected by it - even if the story sounds familiar.

If there is a beef to be had, it is that Tran seems to have tried so hard to make a movie of importance that his characters often resemble archetypes as opposed to people; the game cast appears straitjacketed at times. Still, it's a story that needed to be told.

For those who've never before heard fado, Fados will be a revelation - a window into a music that (like blues music) can be poetic, heartbreaking, melodramatic and redemptive, all at the same time.

van der Groen, described as "Belgium's national treasure," is especially terrific as Pauline.

Glorious moments aplenty despite director who's just in the way.

This movie can be recommended only to dyed-in-the-wool fans of the genre. Anyone who goes into one of Miike's films must be prepared to be put through the wringer.

An unabashed paean to Kerry's character at a time in the presidential election when Kerry's character is being questioned. It's also a riveting film.

Joner is a capable actor, but he’s required here to remain for such a long time in a one-note condition of mental fragility that our sympathy for the character starts to give way to exasperation.

A serious documentary about this gloriously trashy trailblazer.

In the end, there’s some naughty, voyeuristic fun to be had from Studio 54, but the bottom-line story of the club — assuming that is of value — is still to be told.

The bottom line with Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights is that the writer-director has taken Emily Brontë's tale of undying passion and rendered it passionless.

There's a manic quality to the film that may wear you down. But at least you won't be bored.

"Bombshell” tells the story of a triumphant and consequential life. And there’s more: Everybody interviewed on camera about her apparently really liked her, especially her children. That’s no small achievement.

The payoff in 21 Grams comes not from watching characters achieve or overcome but from the recognition of their struggle not to give up the fight.

When (and before) the end credits roll, you will probably feel a sense of outrage — and helplessness.

While The Lady in the Van is one of those quaint and quirky little films of which the British are inordinately fond, Americans will find it equally endearing, with the exception of the hideously over-the-top final scene.

Bottaro finds ways to dramatize chess, and the environments are fascinating throughout.

Well-made and modestly enjoyable.

A very human story.

The best thing Harrelson brings is his own sweetness of disposition, which somehow never goes completely into hiding.

This is an embarrassing film. It's a sex comedy that sets itself up as a satire of middle-class mores, except there's no truth behind any of its observations. LaBute tries to be shocking and manages only to be shockingly puerile -- tasteless in a high-school-boyish sort of way.

Solid if unspectacular.

It’s a good film, very unlike most “disease of the week” pictures, in that it’s often quite funny, and it tells a fascinating story about something that remains mysterious to most people.

At 86 minutes, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe feels twice that long. Most of the good laughs are front-loaded in the premise; the rest pop up every 15 or 20 minutes, which isn’t exactly prime Mel Brooks ratio.

Late Night is a fairly agreeable experience, and every time Thompson is on screen, there’s a reason to keep watching.

A forgotten masterpiece.

City Slickers is a funny and affecting comedy, with wonderful jokes and a script flashing intelligence in every direction. [7 June 1991, p.E1]

The best teenage werewolf movie ever made.

Connoisseurs of straight-to-video mayhem will revel in the latest chapter of the "Universal Soldier" franchise, which manages to strike that delicate balance between over-the-top ridiculousness and well-crafted filmmaking. [28 Feb 2010, p.Q28]

It's a violent yet occasionally funny film - thanks to some inventive gags that pop up - and it hits some of the same blood-splashed chords as "Terminator." [17 Jul 1987]

Like all great works of art, the story’s point has resonances beyond its era and even beyond the specific subject of gay people, generally.

Aimed directly at your inner 8-year-old, and it strikes home.

The Old Guard shows that, in the hands of a smart writer and director, something can be made of it that’s worthy of our attention. This genre can grow. Let’s hope it does.

Fortunately, !Woman Art Revolution isn't a stuffy museum piece. It's an important documentary, sure, but it's also playful and engaging.

A film for anyone who enjoys an intelligent thriller, but for illness phobes this movie is a special pleasure in that it presses all the right fear buttons even as it validates a very particular vision of reality.

Talky, emphatically unsteamy psychological drama.

One of the great portraits of artists fighting, even with murderous rage, to reach the sublime.

Both heartfelt and tough-minded.

A tasteless, vulgar, savage assault against everything that is good and decent in the Christmas season. I think you are going to like it.

The movie turns from good to great as the layers are peeled away and director Hahn provides an insider's look at the creative epicenter of the studio.

An empty exercise.

Color Out of Space is a trashy, ridiculous science fiction/horror film. It is silly, poorly written and, well, I liked it.

If you can still be entertained by a thriller that unabashedly borrows from others of its ilk and don't mind reading subtitles, you could do worse than District B13. It's over so fast, in a quick 85 minutes, there's scarcely time to get bored by the silly plot.

The picture, which marks the debut of Mexican film maker Guillermo del Toro, is a dull hybrid - a ponderous art film crossed with a vampire story. [06 May 1994]

But that’s also the movie’s charm, painting a world where all you need is talent, a little luck and a couple of shoulders to cry on when things get tough. It’s a stripped-down “A Star Is Born” — without the rehab and suicide.

Fans of this film will some day wear out their DVDs and Blu-rays playing that fantastic battle scene again and again.

Fortunately, the movie gets a huge lift from Johnson, who reappears in the second half of the film and rescues it from nonstop boys’ hijinks. It’s not enough to say the camera loves her. Put Johnson in a close-up and the rest of the movie disappears.

A small, independent comedy-drama that does a number of things very well. It does them all quietly. The scenes don’t swing for the fences. The emotional work is true, not pushed, and by the end, the movie ends up giving the sense of a world.

Truth or Dare is like a detective story. You try to infer the truth by looking between the frames. The picture we get of Madonna is a contrived one, but it's revealing anyway, because it's the one she wants to present. [17 May 1991, p.E1]

It’s amusing to see what Ozon is up to, but the central character and her problems remain simply matters of curiosity mixed with indifference.

Summertime is the first movie ever like Summertime, and on that basis alone, we should appreciate it.

Marketed as a romantic comedy, “Materialists” is a sharper, more thoughtful film than its genre would suggest. This is a story about perceived value and what its pursuit costs its characters — emotionally, physically and materially.

The movie is an enjoyable but flawed attempt at an epic story, with too much of the best action concentrated in the beginning.

Does about as good a job as any film could be expected to.

East Side Sushi is an engaging film that fits neatly into that category of foodie films and dreams.

If there’s hope in these films, it’s in a reestablishment of human connection. As father and daughter, Del Toro and Threapleton (daughter of Kate Winslet), establish real chemistry as people willing to change for the better.

Joachim Trier is a Norwegian filmmaker who made a strong debut in 2011, with his film, “Oslo, August 31.” Louder Than Bombs is his first English-language effort, and it’s disappointing.

In addition to being funny and endearing and having a lively script and lots of nicely observed performances - is something of an education.

Radical follows a predictable formula, and Derbez, a major star in Mexico whose last American projects were the Hulu film “The Valet” and the Apple TV+ series “Acapulco,” lifts the material with his typical vibrant energy.

As a piece of filmmaking, the trick of Operation Varsity Blues is that it provides first-rate entertainment even as it incites sputtering rage.

It exemplifies the same appealing style, which strives to show life as it's lived and people as they really talk and act.

A disturbing drama about the dehumanizing and humiliating effects of war.

In general, the humor is understated, excessively so.

One never knows where "Warm Water" is going and even though the film's objective feels a little fuzzy even at the end a parable on female sexuality? an ode to liberty? there's such a joy in the telling that it doesn't matter terribly.

A gentle comedy, offbeat but never cute, never lewd and never going for shortcut laughs that might diminish character.

The New Zealand feature Boy almost pulls off the trick of merging cartoonish humor and '80s pop culture with a story glancing at deeper family issues. The film has an appealing 11-year-old hero, but in the end feels half baked.

The movie is one big in-joke. It's watchable, but eventually wears you down with its over-the-top cleverness.

Romance and comedy are part and parcel, and both are done with aplomb. But what gives the work its distinction are its intersections. To be Filipino in America is to have an ever-changing relationship with otherness. The otherness of being one ethnicity among many in a national melting pot. The otherness even among other Asian Americans. And the otherness of being American in nationality but of another culture and history at heart.

Often amusing but lacks the necessary bite.

The movie's strength is that it makes us want to know more about Levitch, and we pay attention as the tidbits are dropped -- that he's from a middle-class Jewish family in upstate New York, and that he did time in prison. The movie's flaw is that, having gained our attention, it fails to tell us what we want to know.

It doesn’t really add up, either as a psychological portrait or moral commentary.

It's not enough to say that Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino's best movie. It's the first movie of his artistic maturity, the film his talent has been promising for more than 15 years.

In the end, the best thing about The Dragon is that it will make people want to go out and rent ''Enter the Dragon.'' [7 May 1993, p.C1]

Never Let Me Go is gorgeous. And depressing. It's exquisitely acted. And depressing. It's romantic, profound and superbly crafted, shot with the self-contained radiance of a snow globe. And it's depressing.

It's a rare, beautifully made movie that offers you another world. [23 June 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

If you stare at it too hard, In Another Country, an exercise in drollery from South Korea's Hong Sang-soo, simply evaporates. But if you take the film as the bauble it is, you'll be entertained by its lighthearted wit, social observations and resolute sidestepping of profundity.

It's a film of unquestioned visual artistry, and the filmmakers' empathy and human understanding are apparent moment to moment, scene by scene. But despite sensitive performances, it's an experiment that fizzles.

Long before the finish, Man From Reno has flat-lined.

It's that constant weirdness, coupled with Nicolas Cage's best performance in pretty much forever, that makes this depraved, sexually charged, over-the-top drama so much fun to watch.

Once it gets rolling, Unstoppable doesn't pause for breath.

In terms of story and emotional power, Brave comes up short.

The lively setting helps, but the main attration here is the familiar story, which has been around forever and yet never gets old.

The picture is crammed with shameless satire, engaging moments of pure silliness and jokes that border on the outrageous. It combines relentless energy with an aura of good nature for a formula that works.

Elliptical, sweeping, lovely and thoroughly confusing.

An unbearable exercise in provocation.

Word of warning: Don’t go to the theater with a full stomach. Some of the images of animal abuse are graphic and hard to watch, although this is rather tame compared with other documentaries on the same subject.

The best American film of 2008.