Maybe it's no mystery how they did it, considering the aggregate comic talent, but this bunch achieves peaks of sublime nuttiness.

Features a superb performance in the lead role, a strong supporting cast, very good cinematography and, most of all, emotional authenticity.

McNally takes a thin story and pumps it up, bringing in waitresses and busboys, all of them lonely, all of them broke. In the hands of director Garry Marshall, the material becomes deadly. He turns on the schmaltz, brings up the violins and shows them in their tiny apartments, alone and miserable but kinda cute, living their small, dull lives. This is the working class as viewed by the clueless wealthy -- condescension trying to pass as compassion. [11 Oct 1991, p.D1]

Sweet and insubstantial -- just like the French Christmas cake for which it's named.

This is a science fiction film, but like all excellent movies in the genre, the focus never strays from the human heart.

A smirky cleverness infects much of the picture, yet some scenes are so skillfully created that it's hard not to admire them, and Dominique Pinon's sensitive performance as a retired circus man gives the movie a soul. [10 Apr 1992]

Though many of Parker's well- known wisecracks make their way into the screenplay, Mrs. Parker ultimately does not give us the Dorothy Parker of legend.

After shooting lots of people and cutting lots of throats, Deadpool tries blowing himself up, something he probably should have done first. And with that, the movie shifts. Deadpool 2 becomes less violent and a lot funnier. It becomes a much better movie than the original “Deadpool,” not an action bloodbath with laughs, but a knowing spoof of the superhero genre.

Director and co-writer/producer Gavin O’Connor’s meticulous drama feels authentic all the way around. The basketball feels real. The high school kids seem real. Jack’s relationship with his estranged wife Angela (Janina Gavankar) is very believable.

American Star is a nice surprise. To hear it described, its premise sounds almost ridiculously predictable: Ian McShane as an old hit man on his last assignment. But the movie turns out to be a serious work that goes to unexpected places.

In any case, Puzzle ends strangely, in a way that’s not clear what the filmmakers intended or how we’re supposed to feel about it. It’s entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional.

I Care a Lot is notable for its colorful supporting and featured roles — Chris Messina as a mob lawyer, Peter Dinklage as a Russian mobster and Eiza Gonzalez as Marla’s girlfriend. But the main attraction is Pike, who doesn’t try to make us like her. She commits to the character’s nature and holds us with her honesty, her intensity and her unmistakable pleasure in getting to play someone appalling.

There have been many movies about cops working undercover, but The Infiltrator is different. It shows the difficulty of it, the almost-second-by-second stress involved in having to be yourself without being yourself, and having to seem relaxed without ever relaxing. It’s possible to get nervous just thinking about this movie.

Any movie that features a character calling herself Fat Amy has a pretty firm grip on irony. It helps that Fat Amy is played by Rebel Wilson ("Bachelorette," "Bridesmaids"), my favorite eccentric Aussie practitioner of lip-curled comic timing.

What makes the film emotionally satisfying, beyond the stirring music, is that we witness the healing and enlightenment of chorus members, some of them bearing scars from their oppressive red-state upbringings.

The story doesn’t deliver. The songs are forgettable. And the magic never descends. Supposedly, Mary Poppins returns, but that’s not Mary. Emily Blunt stole somebody’s umbrella.

The Idol, a feel-good film about a Palestinian boy’s improbable ascent to pop stardom, takes place mostly in Gaza, a place not associated with feeling good. But out of the war rubble emerges one of the most irresistible movies of the year.

A tender, gently paced coming-of-age movie whose strength is its young lead actor.

One's enjoyment of The Fairy depends a lot on knowing why it's worth seeing. It's a comedy with two or three big laughs, but it's not side-splitting. Nor does it have a particularly compelling story. Its appeal is rather in watching people who have devised their own original style of comic performance and have taken it to a rare level of refinement.

Félix and Meira appears to be a simple movie about fitting in, acceptance and sacrifice. Yet it’s so elegant and poses so many sides that it’s actually a very complex film with very complex characters.

Vincente Minnelli's lavish and hugely entertaining adaptation of the Gustave Flaubert classic leaves little doubt that Emma (Jennifer Jones in an over-the-top performance that works surprisingly well) has found satisfaction for the first time in the arms of wealthy rogue Rodolphe (a perfectly cast Louis Jourdan). [26 Aug 2007, p.N44]

Like practically every other animated movie meant for mass consumption, the movie gets lost in the chase — the point where story flow is interrupted so that characters get lost as they try to achieve their objective and a manufactured villain is trying to keep them from their goal.

It may not be the greatest of cinematic exercises, and it often feels contrived, but this documentary somehow is enlightening, ridiculous, foreboding and funny at the same time.

A doleful melodrama. There are some intense, moving sequences, but too much emotional badgering and a general shortage of finesse.

There is none of the drippy cuteness of ''Star Trek V.'' This is the best sort of adventure story, with good characters and excitement and lots of humor. [6 Dec. 1991, p.C1]

Potent.

It's not much of a comedy - even Steve Carell, as the therapist, plays it straight here. But it's very effective as a cautionary tale.

Unlike "Exit Through the Gift Shop," Catfish isn't able to make the leap from odd incident to an indictment of our times.