Swan Song, of course, belongs to Ali. He conveys Cameron’s vise grip of moral dilemma, fear of dying and concern for his family visually, often wordlessly, and it is a complex, layered performance. Let’s just say this is an unusual way to confront your inner demons.

Compelling parable from Canada that's open to a number of interpretations.

Unique.

It brings together several popular strains of contemporary moviemaking and combines them into one big, shameless, audacious, compulsively watchable, irresistibly likable piece of pure entertainment.

Littlerock could easily be described as the flip side of "Lost in Translation": Instead of Americans struggling to communicate in Japan, it's the Japanese who are out of the loop when they get stranded in the outer, outer fringes of the Los Angeles area.

As entertainment, this approach might be questionable. As a service, it would be valuable.

An outstanding gangster film -- loaded with style and ambience -- that boasts one of Christopher Walken's finest performances. [28 Aug 1991, p.E3]

By now, fans of the studied loveliness of Merchant Ivory films savor that they aren't pat, slick or especially action-packed. A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries is a fine example -- themes percolate and evolve into poignancy.

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.

Transamerica provides the frame and the occasion for one of the year's best performances, Felicity Huffman's as a woman trapped in a man's body who's passing for female while awaiting a sex-change operation.

A hit- and-miss affair, consistently amusing but not as outrageous or funny as Cho may have intended or as imaginative as one might have hoped.

Anyone expecting a flashy Bond-style fantasy is going to be disappointed.

A movie so cheeky, aggressive and bursting with vitality that it can't help being annoying and exhilarating at the same time.

Forgiving its moments of melodrama, Philadelphia makes emotional power punches out of every smile, embrace and tear in its story of a regular guy contracting AIDS and getting booted out of the law firm that once lifted him to glory. [14 Jan 1994, p.C1]

At just under two hours, "Ultraman: Rising" is a bit longer than it needs to be, but buoyed by a strong voice cast and a unique point of view that blends elements of superhero action with heartfelt family drama, it's an effective reinvention of a franchise that's had more than its share of reboots over the last 58 years.

Dumb Money is a tale of 2020, and the movie captures that 2020 feeling — gray, depressed, anxious and almost comically miserable.

The Good Dinosaur has an original concept, disarming emotional heft and features the most impressive visuals in animated cinema to date.

Overall, this is a nice introduction to an amiably dour tunesmith who once wrote that "all art aspires to the condition of Top 40 bubblegum pop."

It's the supporting players who stand out.

In his quiet, sad stoicism, Boyega at times seems to be channeling Denzel Washington. He embodies the dignity of suffering.

It packs a lot in its 81 minutes, and does it well.

The result is that after two hours one gets the sense of having seen a panorama of human experience, of having witnessed a moment of time in all its true fullness.

With Pavarotti, director Ron Howard serves up a straightforward documentary about the great tenor’s life and career. It’s just a birth-to-death saga, featuring interviews with colleagues and loved ones and a catalogue of greatest hits, so nothing fancy here. But if you can find a better way to spend two hours, take it — I’ll stick with this.

The thing that may be most chilling about “Master” is how its three protagonists want and need to support one another but ultimately cannot due to internal as well as external forces.

A feverish, unremitting and grimly joyless film.

Results are all that matter, and the result here is that The Desolation of Smaug fails in almost every way, as a story, as an adventure, as a piece of art direction and as a visual spectacle.

In its most touching moments, the film achieves a kind of sad and waltzing rhythm all its own. In its least, it's precious and plodding; the metaphoric link between grief and housework drags like a mop on a bathroom floor.

This is one of those rare films nowadays that might have been helped with a few extra minutes. Yet at the same time, that’s a clear sign that Hill has created a world and a set of characters that have kept us engaged throughout.