The movie is harsh, nasty and vulgar like you wouldn't believe. And often, it's hilarious.

The narrative is hamstrung by cliché attempts to build McKay’s backstory, shamelessly changing key facts. McConaughey’s performance is just fine, as is Ferrera’s, but the personal stuff feels like a distraction.

The resulting film is a rich mix of movements and cultural phenomena that occurred not only in the United States, but several European countries.

Anchoring the film is an outstanding performance from Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who plays the timid, nameless woman who comes to believe that her jihadist spouse - rendered silent by a bullet in the neck - is a "patience stone" that can absorb all the misery confided in it.

You can see the outcome from a distance, but Michael Lehmann ("Heathers") directs with such snap, and the actors play their concert of comic duets and trios with such skill and charm, that The Truth About Cats & Dogs emerges a surprising, first-rate romantic comedy.

For music fans, there's great pleasure in hearing new audio tracks to "Sitting Here in Limbo," "Friend of the Devil" and more songs -- each one complete and unedited.

Directed by the Polish filmmaker Malgorzata Szumowska, The Other Lamb is slow-moving but never dull, because the world of it is so distinct and odd.

Will Smith has the right quality for the role -- he's an easy man to root for -- but he augments this by channeling some inner quality of desperation and need.

A film that has unusual expectations from its audience -- and that's a welcome relief.

The movie is overly long and much too intense for small children, yet it's filled with dialogue and plot turns that are too juvenile to thrill adult audiences.

A superb drama about sexual harassment at Fox News.

Belle isn't a perfect movie; in some ways it's obvious. But even if it's not true to history, it's true to that painting and worthy of its inspiration.

Suspiria is not just a movie unworthy of your time. It’s an experience one should reflexively recoil from, up there with things like fire, pain, humiliation and embarrassment. Easily, it’s one of the worst movies of 2018.

That the film succeeds as well as it does despite a series of coincidences that strain credibility is a credit to a fine cast and a joie de vivre that pervades even the most implausible moments.

This is the old stuff, the good stuff, the tried-and-true stuff of shrewdly accomplished audience manipulation.

If the movie sometimes seems not to come to much either, it does have something to say to those patient enough to stick with it.

A modest amusement.

Midway, Mondays in the Sun becomes as dull as a day with nothing to do.

Slyly powerful.

Think of Enigma as a cerebral thriller about the horror of war and the hope that people had in spite of it.

If this isn't the single best performance ever by a preadolescent male (Osment) in a motion picture, then it's tied for whatever is first.

Pretty standard stuff, mixing a few truly clever moments with facile drug humor and throwaway female characters.

Only when it makes the claim for Page as a pivotal figure in American culture does it overstate the case and become tiresome.

Writer-director Patric Chiha directs the proceedings with incredible restraint, which works both for and against him. Yes, it allows the actors to shine with some subtle, quiet moments, and prevents things from going over the top, but somehow Aunt Nadine and restraint don't belong in the same sentence.

Fright Night isn't quite a classic vampire movie, but it's refreshingly straightforward and self-deprecating.

The problem with Ready or Not is that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (“V/H/S”) don’t know what kind of movie they want to make, or what to do with their heroine. There are constant shifts in tone — is it a comedy, like the trapped-in-a-mansion “Murder By Death”? A satire on the rich? A kick-ass revenge picture?

If Soderbergh's ambition was to make us feel just how dull it would be to a woods-dwelling communist guerrilla, he succeeded.

A stark, minimalist drama.

An endearingly quirky independent film from Australia, with very likable characters and an intriguing premise.

Muppet Treasure Island is an elaborate, juicy eyeful. The film is an impressive maze of visual scale and perspective that lets humans and puppets interact as a single species. The overall effect is a wonderful sense of the fantastical. But simplicity might have helped where the movie often stagnates with gimmicks.

The Wanderer can turn an anxious tone to creepy and phantasmagoric. Kaufman's brilliant camera work relies on the exaggerated style of comic books, and the visual energy throughout is gritty.

It’s extraordinary how Luhrmann is able to tell this story honestly, while still making it palatable. It’s equally extraordinary that he can take this short and tragically misdirected life and make it feel like a triumph.

While Pick of the Litter can’t be described as innovative, it still creates a solid emotional punch when we see several of the five now-grown dogs finally matched with grateful humans. It’s quite moving to hear the recipients detail how liberating it is to have the assistance of one of these amazing animals.

For the most part, it's fairly pleasant and interesting enough to be there.

Hao doesn't seem to have a point of view. Mongolian Ping-Pong is episodic and meandering, with several tedious stretches.

Harron validates and largely clarifies the work.

The violence and mayhem are constant, though the movie's style is refreshingly old-fashioned -- scream- and laughter-inducing, rather than coldly repulsive in the modern fashion.

A breed apart from anything coming off the Hollywood assembly line or, for that matter, from the saccharine romances Britain has lately produced.

Surprisingly, the results are embarrassing. As puppetry, Team America is stilted. As satire, it's gutless and lazy. And as comedy, it barely delivers laughs.

Klapisch still gets these characters to sneak up and make us care about them - though it might help if you remember them from when they were young.

You Kill Me is pretty light, but it's well made, and within the built-in limitations of its story -- a hit man goes to Alcoholics Anonymous -- it's fairly pleasing.

Much about Living Out Loud is pretty far-fetched, but at least it accurately portrays the dating possibilities for newly divorced women of a certain age.

Brad Pitt is in ecstasy here, despite the cool demeanor throughout. This is an actor who is never better and never happier than when he gets to be seedy, slick his hair back and wear a leather jacket.

By the end, Downsizing is one of those great ideas that should have just stayed an idea.

The goal here was to be absurdist, relentless and light. Well, Barb & Star is light — so light it floats off and vaporizes.

It's a complex, satisfying piece of entertainment, a succession of unexpected, outrageous scenes.

The real story of the King Richard dig is fascinating, but the movie, directed by Stephen Frears (“Cheri,” “The Queen”), is just OK.

A very noble movie, which makes it interesting at times, but not often enough.

Schizo offers not just the proverbial window into village life in Kazakhstan, but a panoramic view.

In many ways a meandering film, a collection of good scenes.

More emphasis on these darker, subterranean elements might have made for a fuller experience, but Infinitely Polar Bear is really all about a father as seen from a child’s perspective. It’s better than a scrapbook item, as in a film made to be appreciated by one family. But it’s not quite a successful movie.

An Eye for an Eye may very well be the most unpersuasive documentary ever made.

Produced by "Lost" and "Alias" mastermind J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield has been one of the more interesting experiments in large-scale guerrilla filmmaking.

Cheadle the actor is nearly perfect in the role.

At its best, Fury examines the psychological experience of warfare.

The tone is both satiric and serious, zany but heartfelt, and for a while - maybe 20 minutes - all seems well.

What could have been a brilliant short becomes deadly, stretched to feature length. The last hour of Nadja takes on the pace of a stranger's vacation video. In a sure sign of desperation, the careful tone of the opening is abandoned in scattershot attempts at cheap laughs. The film's world is undermined, and Nadja gets as precious, smirky and as boring as a Hal Hartley picture.

At its exhilarating best, Following Sean is reminiscent of the lauded British documentaries that began with "7 Up.''

If you like this sort of movie - and actually, cards on the table, I like this kind of movie - you will not be sorry you saw it. But you will not come away from the experience feeling that you've seen Victoria, young or otherwise.

The latest in a year filled with Armageddon movies such as "Terminator Salvation" and "2012," and it won't be the last, but it's the most chilling so far.

It's hokey, implausible and packed with red herrings, and yet it's a lot of fun.

The entertaining new film from Sony Pictures Animation is a nice surprise, and the rare mainstream American kid film.

Miss Sloane is one of the year’s handful of great actress vehicles, and Chastain takes this role by the throat, smashes it against the wall about ten times and then devours it while it’s still quivering. You want to see star acting on a grand scale? Miss Sloane is the movie to see.

When the film sticks with the eccentric comedy of a highborn woman attracted to a preoccupied genius, it works splendidly. When it strays into melodrama, it is as ill-equipped as Luzhin.

It's dreary and self-indulgent but has its crystalline moments.

An unforgettable film.

An ambitious political thriller, a multilingual film of mood and texture and the occasional haunting image.

Unfortunately the movie is also a bit too long, and for long stretches it's about as entertaining as, well, a long stretch. Still, if this were one of those movie-review TV shows, I'd have to give Lion's Den a (tiny) thumb's up, for its aura of authenticity and for the ferocity of Gusman's commitment.

Does a fine job.

A film that must be seen to understand the sad truths of our times. It's been made with a sensitivity and creativity that's come to exemplify Winterbottom's work.

Seeing his life from the inside, the impulse to judge him fades. You would not want to trade places.

Within the realm of a mildly good time.

By being more than a superhero movie, it reminds us of what it’s worse than. Its greatest virtue isn’t that it’s a superior comic book movie, but rather that it comes close to not being that at all. Close, and yet not close enough.

Only in the movie business could someone sell such shoddy merchandise and expect people to buy it. If The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 were an appliance, it would be a broken toaster that people would toss in the garbage. Except that analogy is too kind, in that “Mockingjay” would be half a toaster.

As a piece of filmmaking, Where to Invade Next gets off to a strong start and then sags in the last half hour, but it makes a lot of interesting points and, in the way it shows other countries, conveys something about the United States.

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.

Within limits, this is an excellent documentary. Even fans who think they've seen everything will see things here they haven't seen.

Sirens is affectionate toward its characters without getting gushy or softheaded. [11 March 1994, p.C5]

An ideal introduction to Toback's output as well as a welcome elucidation for longtime fans. Apart from those worthy functions, The Outsider is also shrewdly made, illuminating its subject in a variety of settings and, at times, subtly assuming the style of Toback's films.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is overstuffed and a tad too long. But it’s also a humorous, heartfelt farewell by Gunn to his band of misfits. While the film takes pain to emphasize that the Guardians will go on, whatever comes next will certainly be different without him.

A canny piece of filmmaking, sure to absorb both audiences familiar with Kushner's plays and those who know little or nothing about him.

The best thing about Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things, other than the music, is the way it evokes an era and reminds us that its subject was one of the great voices of the 20th century.

Suffers from long takes, no music score, naturalistic acting and an agenda so stifling it doesn't allow its characters to breathe.

Crown Heights is a challenging film with long treks between uplifting moments. And there’s no question the film earns every moment of grace.

Rich with statistics and snazzy visuals, but it ignores those larger questions and, as a result, feels a tad naïve.

A lighthearted fable with jarring scenes of violence and halfhearted stabs at mystical realism, its saving grace is its gooey center, the luminous Binoche.

Fraulein works by an accumulation of details.

You're under the thrall of a new peculiar couple. Both actors appear to be having fun outmaneuvering each other on the ice and onscreen.

Here Balasko, best known as a comedian, is particularly satisfying. But the reward is too small on the investment, and the film's resolution is downright irritating - not just a waste of time, but a waste of time with attitude.

The humanity Snyder’s cameras capture is stirring as these young people work past their issues and together on shrewd political strategies.

It's an achingly beautiful movie and a triumph of location scouting, with more cosmopolitan spectacle than the past three Indiana Jones and James Bond movies combined.

Byrne makes Amanda compelling from the first moments of “Tow,” a moving if also obviously low-budget and occasionally corny underdog story.

For about 115 minutes, State of Play tells an alarming, tightly constructed story, with serious things to say about journalism and the state of the country. The movie appears to be all but over - and likely to stand as one of the best films of 2009. And then the filmmakers add one last embellishment, and they blow it.

As soon as Guest of Cindy Sherman ended, I wanted to see it again for its high entertainment value and to determine better what I had just witnessed.

Piccoli gives the film a depth it perhaps doesn't deserve.

Since the hit-man career is probably one of the most familiar non-law enforcement careers in films, it should come as no surprise that Little Odessa has nothing new to say about it.

There is a “Good Will Hunting” vibe to the film, a gifted young person sliding toward obscurity who is helped by the intervention of friends and colleagues. And the film may end with all the lose ends tied up into fancy bows, but its heart is pure.

It's a funny, mostly harmless and entertaining film with a bad case of dry mouth.