Brothers has the careful observation, measured pace and lived-in feeling of a good European film.

It’s a telling scene, musicians enjoying the company of other musicians, professionals all. Guy is a bluesman’s bluesman. They flock to see him jam; he’s still playing ’em, and still losing ’em.

Mixing in citizens’ harrowing cellphone footage and heartbreaking emergency call recordings, Walker’s teams immerse us in the flaming terror as few features have before.

The movie is rich with music and more than a few moments of painful exaltation.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice boils down to "The Karate Kid" meets "Harry Potter," with maybe a dash of "Ghostbusters" to keep it interesting.

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.

Perry is at his best playing frenetic confusion.

It’s hard to say what McCarthy intended with “Brats,” but he ended up making a cautionary film for journalists. As such, it may have a limited audience, but if it’s seen by the right people, it might do some good.

A simple story told with economy, Wadjda is a notable example of old-school, humanistic filmmaking. It's also genuinely groundbreaking: the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and the first film directed by a Saudi woman.

Something special about it. It's a formula movie, to be sure, but it's Formula One.

A sophisticated story of disappointment and accommodation.

Has a solid story, which keeps things interesting during the quiet moments when nobody is getting kicked in the head.

Despite its implausibilities, Only the Lonely disarms you with its innocence. [24 May 1991, p.E1]

In retrospect, Levinson might secretly wonder if the bizarre casting was the right move after all. But at least he got strong performances from his lead actor, and he took a good script by Pileggi (“Goodfellas”) and made a good movie out of it. You can’t ask for much more than that.

Blanc is completely without vanity in showing the physical deterioration wrought by addiction. Her performance is as chilling as Lee Remick's in "Days of Wine and Roses.''

This particular package has a lived-in quality that doesn’t just counterpoint the set piece mutilations but complements the franchise’s premise that death — or here, the never-seen personification Death — can come from anywhere, anytime.

The movie is predictable at times, but also winning, with a thumping soundtrack and smartly written characters. Ortega, with his Peter-from-“Office Space”-deer-in-the-headlights look, is the movie’s appealing center.

Anyone can make a bad movie. But it takes a unique set of circumstances to make a movie so horrible that people are celebrating its badness two decades later.

The movie is saying something worth hearing about the place the future holds, the concept and promise of it, in human existence. It’s an attempt to wrest that vision from the narrow fantasies of doom-peddling action filmmakers. That’s an attempt worth making.

The dialogue is loaded with depth charges that take a while to explode beneath the surface.

The important thing is that Dreamland accomplishes its main intention, which is to make us invest in this strange love story.

The problem is that the story, as constituted, is of necessity against organized religion, but Farmiga, as director, pretends that it's ambiguous. So you get a movie slightly at cross-purposes with itself.

So, Dial of Destiny isn’t great, but it’s still a lot of fun — even compared to some previous “Indiana Jones” movies.

An enticingly risque saga of the 16th century monarch.

Best in its first hour, when it concentrates on the politics and the specific horrors of Panem. It becomes more conventional in the second half and loses steam, but it's always heading somewhere.

It's a sensational part for a young actress -- the film is told entirely from her point of view, using her journal entries as voice-over narration -- and Judd, in her first film, gives a subtle, delicate performance. [05 Nov 1993, p.C12]

There are laughs throughout, but Guilt Trip isn't joke-happy. The humor is light and well observed, as when Mom keeps playing the audiobook of "Middlesex," and the son gets uncomfortable hearing about anything sexual in front of his mother.

Strikes a surprising array of notes: scary, sad and hopeful. The director, Tomas Alfredson, does a great job of presenting peril in the film.