There's not a single moment here in which Nixon is admirable, decisive or appealing. Nixon doesn't work as a drama, but with a little push it might have been a great comedy.

A dead woman tells her own harrowing story in the documentary God Knows Where I Am. It’s the kind of movie you need to be prepared for — its most intense moments have echoes of tragic literature.

What makes this whole thing work is, first of all, Wilee's ride, an elegant machine that lacks any gears or brakes.

Bursts with action, ideas and interesting characters.

Brower's legacy, however, is beyond question. Historian Starr calls him "an American hero," and though Brower was a prickly sort and a zealot, that judgment sounds right.

It is so narrowly focused on neurotic obsessions that the quest for finding that fundamental nature of ultimate reality is sidetracked. What kind of approach is that for a Buddhist? Ferrara takes the easy way out.

As played by Boseman and Gad, Marshall and Friedman are a complementary pair, like something you’d see in a buddy movie — one fit and one fat, one black and one white, one tall and one short, one calm and one stressed, but both Americans working together in a just cause.

For all its surface seriousness, Splice is a regulation monster movie. So however somber it gets, it's never truly thought-provoking, and however outrageous it gets, it's still always 20 minutes behind the audience. It's just too dumb to be serious and too slow to be entertaining. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/03/MVKJ1DOO26.DTL#ixzz0pqYvhKuF

Thirteen Lives deserves to be seen. The only question is whether audiences will be up for it. I saw it on a huge screen and had to occasionally remind myself that if it got really overwhelming, I could always close my eyes. It’s that intense.

Eye-catching and entertaining but less inspired than the original.

Even a mediocre David Mamet movie is still a David Mamet movie. That means there are lines to savor, partly because the lines are so good, partly because they are so Mamet.

Here, as in the "Friday" movies, the jokes are big and rude and vulgar and very funny.

A triumph for all involved.

Mothering Sunday is most likely a one-of-a-kind hybrid, a brilliant one-off.

Funny and intelligently made, a film for kids and adults that's both sweet and sardonic...Elf stays perfectly in balance, a pleasure throughout.

As Russell Boyd's remarkable cinematography emphasizes the dwarfing grandeur of the surrounding topography, Weir shows how the corresponding smallness of individuals is compensated for by the grandeur of their aspiration.

An argument could be made that too many bad things happen to the good members of this sisterhood. The movie does occasionally teeter on the brink of soap opera, but then, so does life.

It's probably the only love story you'll see this decade that will make you half-expect the camera to swerve and pick up the sight of Rod Serling, standing there in a black suit.

At times, Harriet is a little too romantic — never quite schmaltzy — but it feels like a movie perhaps a bit more than it should. Still, it’s effective and, at times, moving, and it has a major asset in Erivo.

The best thing about Scare Me is that, for all of its entertaining qualities and acute cuts at white male fragility, this is one excellent guide to writing and filming good horror.

Given its mad-dog subject, Cobb, starring Tommy Lee Jones as the raspy, snarling and seemingly demented Ty Cobb -- one of baseball's greatest players -- should have been a home run of a bitter, heartrending drama. Instead, this histrionic portrait of the most celebrated cur in sports history comes across like a fly ball that thuds on the ground.

It’s a solid first step into the magical world of the familiar. Escapist entertainment for crowds that prefer to know their destination in advance.

The best part about the movie is the way it shifts focus, starting as an observation of the animal and then subtly morphing to the point of view of Nénette, who passively experiences a jumble of voices that start to run together.

Directed by the Oscar-winning Domee Shi (“Turning Red”), Alameda native Madeline Sharafian and Adrian Molina (“Coco”), the visually appealing “Elio” moves confidently and delicately handles themes of isolation, grief, family strife and friendship.

The least offensive teen movie in ages.

A clever mishmash of Hitchcockian and 1980s and ’90s high school movie sensibilities, the Netflix dark comedy Do Revenge falters when it tries to grow a heart.

Timeless and tragic.

On the surface, Sweeney’s film is a playful examination of sexual fluidity, but underneath the gags, it’s really a universal, sweet movie about the modern complexities of finding a soulmate. It’s also a nice example of how independent films can breathe fresh air into genres like the romantic comedy.