With excellent animation, gobs of action, mystical mayhem and more twists and turns than you can count, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos - the latest installment of the anime sensation from Japan - is not likely to disappoint its fans. Or the uninitiated.

One can see the influence of Hayao Miyazaki here — this is way more “Spirited Away” than “Ghost in the Shell” — but Shinkai also goes off into his own, weird direction.

Gorgeous animated film.

As in "The House of Yes'' and "Freaky Friday,'' Waters keeps it wild but real, and the result is not only a series of lively scenes but lively close-ups: The big-eyed, expressive performances are just fun to watch.

A stark, minimalist drama.

With a surgeon's precision and trenchant wit, director Patrice Leconte slices open the French upper classes of the late 18th century and reveals the black, wilting heart beneath the pomp and pretense.

A smart, controlled film, made with considerable integrity. It doesn’t try to scare you with loud noises or threaten you with the imminent certainty of seeing something disgusting. Instead, it throws a handful of characters into a simple, yet harrowing, situation and then explores that situation in depth.

Matthews holds his own with his experienced co-stars, and his half- talking/half-singing explanation of his criminal past is the movie's best scene.

Hits a bulls-eye.

It’s charming and filled with wonderful performances, and has a nuanced story that will have adults walking out of the theater thinking about their own inner Pooh, and questioning why the hell they’re working so hard.

Adams sparkles with quick-mindedness and verbal agility. This is a worthy and underused talent.

It is not a pleasure to sit through, not even remotely, not even by some stretched definition of the word “pleasure.” It’s work, but it’s ultimately rewarding work. It tackles some truths that other movies wouldn’t touch, not even with a stick and thick gloves.

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.

Clumsily directed yet entertainingly written by Oakland native Nnegest Likké, Phat Girlz is like "Rocky" with cellulite. Or maybe "Pretty Woman" without all the bony butts. It has a lot of heart and soul, but it's almost never mean-spirited.

It's a startling, speedy, gracefully executed indictment.

The results are comical and unexpected -- and just a bit eerie.

Some people may be put off that For Your Consideration lands in a serious place. But I see it as evidence of an expanding vision, of continued artistic growth.

What makes this movie work is the charisma of Crudup and that Macy and Co. don’t dwell on the events that led up to the shooting. Rather, they use the son’s death as a launching for Sam’s journey into accepting the loss and getting on with his life.

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.

It weds all the winning aspects of the Neeson formula to a ticking-clock plot, full of tense moments and gripping sequences.

This is Almodovar's stab at serious drama, and the result is bizarre and affecting but also unsettling in ways that the filmmaker may not have intended.

It isn't elegiac, but enraged. It doesn't look back with sorrow, but forward in dread. And it's made with a clear intention - to stop the Iraq war.

Revelatory as well as unsettling.

Promised Land is a fine place to start appreciating Matt Damon, who always makes it seem as if everybody else is acting and he's just going through the movie being natural.

Ordinary Angels has some of the feeling of an after-school special because it’s a heartwarming movie in which everybody is nice. But it’s more well-made than most. It hooks the audience from the first scene and then builds in tension over the course of its almost two-hour running time.

When all's said and done, it turns out to be quite sweet-natured. OK. I laughed. So sue me.

At once ambitious in its global reach and modest in its simplicity.

At its simplest, we have here a performance showcase for O’Brien’s artfully restrained sniveling and, especially, for McAdams’ miraculous shape-shifting abilities. Essentially “Send Help” is “Cast Away” if Wilson the volleyball were a misogynist tool.

A modest documentary, small in scope and ambition, but it achieves one of the higher callings of art in that it forces viewers to look at a something in a newer, deeper and more humane way.

Although the director’s multipronged approach may dilute the impact of Intent to Destroy, there’s no denying the film’s value as an introduction to a major piece of history that continues to inspire debate of the most intense kind.

With impressive clarity and sweep, The Rape of Europa recounts the Nazi theft and destruction of European art and architecture.

A lustrously shot, well-acted and immensely moving romantic drama.

This is a remarkable performance, remarkable not only in its force, but in its strength and precision. Oyelowo is reason alone to see Selma, and if you need another reason, there’s Carmen Ejogo, as a lovely, strong and haunted Coretta Scott King.

Man on a Ledge doesn't aim high, but what it aims to do, it does. It grabs the audience's attention, engages its anxieties, stokes its resentments and, at the finish, sends people out saying, "That was good."

A fun afternoon for preteen moviegoers that has just enough charm, humor and game- for-anything actors to keep parents halfway interested as well.

What joy it is to watch the man (Douglas) slime himself on camera.

No film biography can capture or explain or add to the magic of Chaplin at his best, because these screen moments are perfect in themselves. But Chaplin, with dignity and some vitality, does what it can -- it holds up a light and points the way. [08 Jan 1993, p.D1]

This is smart, inspired, no-fuss entertainment.

Perversely fascinating.

Over the years, the Velvets’ slim but potent catalog has been elevated into the pantheon of classic rock, but only now Haynes has appropriately enshrined their deeds in a rock documentary as dark, dizzying and decadent as the band itself.

Mate swapping is so '70s. But Alan Rudolph, who wrote and directed Afterglow, avoids making it seem dated by presenting the menage a quatre as accidental.

It's a film of tension and spectacle, with a singular point of view behind it. It grabs the viewer thoroughly, even as it invites audiences to watch it with a cold, careful eye.

A modest but charming romantic comedy.

Strouse’s film is about the changes that occur in all relationships and about letting go when it’s time. It will probably not change your worldview about any people, places or things, but it’s a pleasant way to spend a couple hours.

Stylish, playful and buoyed by the chemistry of its returning ensemble, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” sharpens the franchise’s act with a surer hand to present a dazzling heist film that doesn’t treat its audience like a mark, but rewards them for paying attention.

A quirky little comedy about one day in the life of a New York playwright on the brink of either greatness or failure.

We are told at the film's beginning that we are about to see a "diary of suffering," and it is that, but the effect, after four-and-a-quarter hours, is exhilarating.

IAm Eleven is ultimately a satisfying film because the kids are so compelling. But Bailey’s motivations color the authenticity of a well-meaning “documentary” that borders on nostalgic self-indulgence and wishful thinking.

The sequel is even more enjoyable than the first, with action sequences that are as good or better than anything you’ll see at the theater.

The Sessions is moving. At times, it's even erotic, which is unexpected, to say the least. It sends viewers out of the theater with a heightened sense of the physical and a real feeling for all the things that sex means in human life.

Along the way, My Best Friend offers insights into the emotional and psychological components of both friendliness and friendship. They're not synonymous, though both have value.

Star Trek: Insurrection is out there where the imagination collides with roaring spaceships, exotic planets, wonderfully nutty costumes, a few choice jokes and some fascinating ideas.

A small and not particularly ambitious movie, but it's pleasing and exceptionally well made. It was directed by Stephen Frears, and while it's not up there with his best - "Dangerous Liaisons," "The Queen," "High Fidelity," "Cheri" - Lay the Favorite lavishes the same attention on the personal, on relationships, and, like most Frears films, it puts a woman at the center of the story.

A provocative character study and portrait of the times.

Love Hurts is that rare action movie almost devoid of noticeable computer effects. It’s a hand-to-hand, bone-crunching martial arts movie with tongue firmly in cheek, resembling those Jackie Chan action comedies from the 1980s and ’90s.

An enjoyable example of this extraordinary director's documentary work.

Bleak, dark and strangely arresting throughout, Blast of Silence is not quite a can't-miss proposition, but one comes away from it feeling as if one has seen a minor classic of some kind. Yes, minor - but still a classic. [04 May 2008, p.N36]

Theron is nearly unrecognizable in the role. She's also astonishingly good. Obscuring the movie star has liberated the actress.

It’s a good, not great, movie, but it has some of the elements that make Linklater’s work special. Few filmmakers are quite as keyed into the passing of time, as the source of all sweetness and heartache in the human experience.

The A-Team is a Joe Carnahan movie, i.e., an experiment in propulsion and personality over substance and story.

A sly variation on the buddy movie.

The locally sourced documentary is always engaging — lively and well-paced with an impressive list of interviewees from Hillary Clinton to Huerta herself.

In a variety of forms, Slither excels in imaginative gore and shows that first-time director James Gunn has learned much about the joys of linking humor and horror.

The rare case of a movie that gets better as it goes along.

The film's impact has a lot to do with Fabio Vacchi's original score, which is both plaintive and coldly modernist, with echoes of Charles Ives.

Gains its power through what it withholds, namely, sound- bite answers as to why these horrific events happen.

There's no greater meaning to any of this, and the slapstick turns won't seem particularly ambitious to anyone who grew up on Bugs Bunny cartoons.

As a slice of life, Les Misérables is satisfying enough, but as the film wears on, the movie goes beyond the slice of life. It steers in the direction of drama and consequences, as the story narrows, and pressures come to a boil.

A quiet, introspective look at how a volatile same-sex-marriage referendum played out in Maine, presents a balanced, journalistic approach to this divisive issue, but there's no doubt who leaves the biggest impression: the opponents of gay marriage.

Although the film ends with a facile, romantic comment by Oppenheimer, the unnerving momentum of all that has gone before will remain to haunt the imagination of the viewers. [20 Oct 1989, p.D2]

This documentary has no bells and whistles; Bill Haney, the director and co-writer (with Peter Rhodes), sticks to the facts.

Armed with wit and charm to spare, Extra Ordinary is joyful and creative and deserves to find an audience — in this world or the next.

Sweet-natured, meticulously observed love story.

The key to any Amy Schumer comedy is how often she gets to play self-delusion, embarrassment, fear and rage. As long as the emotions, terrors and humiliations are big, she’s funny, and her latest, “Kinda Pregnant,” gives her lots of opportunities to be funny.

Jeremy Irvine is the sympathetic focus, but it’s Noah Wyle who holds the movie together, as a former teacher who lost his job through a malicious student’s prank. Smart, self-possessed and capable, this fellow nonetheless carries himself with an awareness of some underlying guilt.

Ross surrendered himself to the tale, lavishing time on the characters, getting the period details right and making the races look authentic. The result is a faithful, loving piece of work, and the love shows.

One could argue about which "Lethal Weapon'' is the best, but No. 4 is certainly the funniest, warmest and most idiosyncratic.

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.

What a treat to find a movie so bright-eyed and true - without a trace of bathos - in its depiction of such a harrowing subject.

A long documentary that's very hard to watch - at times, it's harrowing.

The film depicts a treasure hunt, only in the sense that the movie has to have a running story. But it doesn't really trade on suspense or adventure, and in the few places Clooney pushes it that way, it doesn't feel right.

Much of the success of Little Pink House comes from the casting and the performance of Catherine Keener, an actress that has, simultaneously, an aura of glumness and an atmosphere of fun about her.

Despite the weakness of Sciorra's character, and the lack of development in her relationship with Snipes, Jungle Fever is a fascinating movie -- consistently provocative, brilliantly acted and written, in most cases, with a number of moments that transcend anything you've seen this year in their wit, sexual heat and emotional intensity. [7 June 1991, p.E1]

Does an admirable job of telling the stories of the obsessive Savitsky and other important Soviet artists, such as Alexander Volkov, Aleksei Rybnikov and Mikhail Kurzin.

Very imaginative and can be enjoyed by audiences of all ages.

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

A gritty but sweet look at young love and family dynamics.

The director has concocted a tragedy that actually feels tragic.

Sarah Palin -You Betcha! is probably the scariest movie you will see all year.

The sweetest little movie about a neurological disorder that we're ever likely to see.

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

One might quibble that Jackman and Thompson aren’t in the film enough, but really, humans are a distraction. The movie rides on its woolly sleuths, so audiences won’t feel fleeced.

This is a film without a single false note. From the rain-streaked windshield to the unaffected line readings from a stellar cast, there is not a shot in Blue Car that doesn't ring true.

Would be worthy of the highest rating, except for a slight slackening of energy in the last 20 minutes.

Bala, by the way, means "bullet." Laura Zúñiga, the real-life beauty queen on whom the film is loosely based, was called "Miss Narco" in the Mexican press.

A shrewd satire about stardom and the cult of celebrity.

The cast is uniformly good, but it’s Bardem’s sly, harried performance that powers this overlong, and more amusing than funny, comedy.

The image that finally lingers is one shown repeatedly: a close-up of fingers gently pressing a piece of fish onto a handheld oblong of rice, painting it with a single brushing of sauce and laying it on a plate, after which the preparer steps back. We're left to contemplate the pristine creation and envy Jiro's lucky customers.