Charmingly quirky.

Amazingly, the filmmakers claim that no CGI was used in the film. The cast of dogs are all real (none was harmed in the making of the film), a tribute not only to Mundruczo’s unique vision and filmmaking skills, but also to animal trainer Teresa Ann Miller, a Hollywood veteran.

Gainsbourg's character seems too sweet to be true until she tangles with her onscreen director over nudity. The fire Gainsbourg brings to the scene suggests she's had similar battles.

It's stupid but glorious -- Dominic (Vin Diesel) and his crew of high-spirited street racers are hired by an FBI agent to hunt down an international terrorist in London. Ridiculous and entertaining from start to finish.

A must-see.

Rhys Ifans is an engaging protagonist, playing Marks as a passive and seemingly unflappable character whose iron nerve and ability to keep cool in a crisis get him out of more than one desperate situation.

Some of the dialogue in Made was improvised, and the comic invention at work here -- Vaughn's and Favreau's -- make Made into a rough gem.

Fascinating, obnoxious and poignant.

While Pick of the Litter can’t be described as innovative, it still creates a solid emotional punch when we see several of the five now-grown dogs finally matched with grateful humans. It’s quite moving to hear the recipients detail how liberating it is to have the assistance of one of these amazing animals.

This is a quality movie, carefully disguised as a mediocre one. It’s a chore to get through the beginning, but builds a strong story, and leaves legitimate good feelings on the way out of the theater. Smallfoot is not a “The Lego Movie”-style surprise classic, but it’s better than most.

The Kill Team serves an essential function by illustrating in agonizing detail not only how easily morality can be subjugated to hate, but how important it is for people of conscience to do the right thing. It’s deeply uncomfortable viewing at times, but it’s no less necessary a story to experience.

A charmer, a movie whose embrace of cinema is so passionate it could be mistaken for an embrace of life.

Stylized and visually arresting, with intense sex scenes that earned the film an NC-17 rating, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is an immersion into another time, place and mentality.

Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever goes a long way toward humanizing the Venmo multimillionaire best known for pumping his teenage son’s blood plasma into his own veins.

Doesn't rank as a great film, but it's difficult to take your eyes off it, as you wonder what impossibly bizarre thing might happen next.

Bound to be talked about, debated and eviscerated far more than it's understood.

This complex, fascinating documentary breaks new ground by focusing on the legal types who have administered, and justified, the occupation over the decades.

The strangeness, humor and melancholy of aging are deftly explored in this film.

Tells the story of Leo Tolstoy's last year from a refreshing new perspective.

The film spends an excessive amount of time on Ruskin’s psychological abuse of his wife, which makes Effie’s eventual redemption feel rushed and out of the blue. But Thompson has once again proved herself to be a talented wordsmith, imbuing Effie with generosity of spirit and intelligence.

After a slow start, this is the rare film that gets better as it goes along. The story, about two scientists working in a post-apocalyptic New York, deepens and builds an intense rooting interest. The action sequences are too much out of a video game, but this is intelligent science fiction -- and it benefits enormously from Tom Cruise in the lead role.

While the format as such doesn’t allow for a critical push-and-pull, that’s not a debit. This is about time well spent on a life well lived. A series of pieces adding up to much more than the whole.

Stettner approaches this material with a playwright's incisiveness and structural sense. His dialogue is cutting, often surprising.

Accomplishes the impossible, maybe the unimaginable -- it makes golf entertaining.

Those of you who don't work for a newspaper may also be interested in what it's like on the inside - how stories are generated, how editors and writers interact, etc. For what it's worth, it's an accurate portrait.

Funny, original, occasionally poignant and almost all of it too dirty to repeat in a newspaper.

In addition to being the best of the sequels (with all the jumps, gore and quips we’ve come to expect), the new Scream is very much a movie for this moment, tapping into the vogue for legacy revisitations, and its own privileged status as an elder statesman on the horror scene, to show how the familiar can feel both comfortable and terrifying at the same time.

A character study hiding in cowboys’ clothing — and even if its pacing could use a little more giddy-up, it delivers an inspired ending that makes the brothers’ longish journey worthwhile.