It’s impressive how many hot button issues Ansari, making his directorial debut, packs into 98 minutes, especially while keeping the laughs coming.

Tribe superfan Rapaport doesn't fawn, but he juggles too much, and the ending feels pat. It's still an outstanding effort, and one of the more honest band biopics in recent years.

What distinguishes Cap is his humble backstory, which involves neither hairy gods nor hot-dogging test pilots but a kid from Brooklyn who just wants to fight for freedom.

For all the squalor and extremely upsetting subject matter, you can't take your eyes off the screen.

A melancholy, well-observed film.

Wildly imaginative if extremely strange.

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

Fifty Shades Freed has something extra going for it, in that it depicts something that movies and pop songs and pop culture in general tend to avoid, which is the romance of familiarity.

In recreating the fantastic adventures of Solomon Perel, director Agnieszka Holland not only shows a lively appreciation for his anguish and his adolescent desires, but she also illuminates the mentality of mass ideological movements -- both fascist and Communist. That is a large order and Holland, a Polish-born, Paris-based director, carries it out with acute, ironic flair. [03 July 1991, p.E3]

Irrespective of what the future holds in terms of gun control, the movie is a striking portrait of a married couple who expected one kind of life, got another, and are making something useful from their misfortune.

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."

A thorough indictment of the Bush administration's focus on Iraq.

For at least a half hour, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a brilliant and exciting film and seems almost sure to be one of the best of 2010. Then it becomes simply good. Then it becomes merely interesting. And then, about 15 minutes before the finish, it becomes dull and interminable.

Ghosts of the Mississippi doesn't glorify in happy endings. That's because it haunts with the reminder that racism remains an unhealed wound.

Reveals essential truthfulness about families.

A tough internal struggle must take place before one can come forward and admit enjoying The Devil's Rejects, a movie so fundamentally horrible that even its creator has to admit he's basically made a 101-minute snuff film.

The fuzziness is suddenly and definitely gone, and Reeves emerges as a mature, charismatic movie star.

It's a feel-good deal you can take the whole family to, or even better, a date. And this almost cuddly film, built on a farfetched case of mistaken identity, delivers plenty of fun.

Thelma always emphasizes seniors’ capabilities, not their limits.

After watching Project Nim, a distressing portrait of a misguided 1970s language experiment, you'll be glad you're not a chimp in a cage. But you might want to revoke your membership in the human race, which comes across as a narcissistic, hedonistic, self-absorbed, neglectful, anthropomorphizing and arrogant bunch of hippie-dippy know-it-alls.

There's a zippety-doo-dah bounce and brashness to Roger & Me, but it's not the definitive word on what ailed Flint, Mich., when assembly lines stopped rolling. [12 Jan 1990, p.E3]

Both a delightful story and a great food movie that ranks with "Like Water for Chocolate'' or "Babette's Feast.''

You should approach Resistance as a fact-based World War II movie and not think much about the Marceau connection. The truth is, even if young Marcel didn’t go on to become a major artist, this was a story worth telling.

G20 is standard-issue improbable action that’s lifted by EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) award winner Davis, who makes everything better, and the Mexican-born Riggen’s direction.

The documentary Hell and Back Again may be the closest most civilians ever get to the reality of the war in Afghanistan.

Passes by like a dream.

In the end, it’s hard to know whether to see the Iran of Desert Dancer in optimistic or pessimistic terms. Young people, especially, want to be free, but the other side has all the power. Having YouTube on your side certainly helps, but an army and some tanks can come in handy, too.

To extend the boxing analogy, it's as if Morris, after getting pummeled for 12 rounds, just taps Rumsfeld with his finger - and scores a knockout.