Nickel Boys offers a different way to understand horrors based on true events not that far in the past by plunging viewers into its characters’ humanity.

Exhilarating for Lynch diehards.

It's funny, clever and marginally educational.

Jack Frost starts out with sweet promise, then loses steam and gets a little too strange for its own good. It also gets cloyingly manipulative, but its heart is in the right place.

Aims to do nothing but please, and it accomplishes its modest aim with charm and intelligence.

Whatever one’s politics, it’s hard not to be charmed by Ivins’ feisty demeanor and, by extension, Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins.

May hit a few wrong notes, but it strikes an emotional chord.

Succeeds despite that mismatch of artist and material.

The Shadow is more than just the product of the trend to make high- tech features out of '30s superheroes. It's adventurous film-making, genuinely enthusiastic and genuinely inspired. [01 Jul 1994, p.C1]

Tequila Sunrise is a sharp-looking, tantalizing romantic thriller whose assets overcome a labored plot and several lapses into L.A. hipness that result in sheer inscrutability. [2 Dec 1988, p.E1]

Keaton is fun to watch — fun and a little bit eerie. He plays Ray as all drive and no soul.

This is the movie for anyone who has ever sat around with friends and thought, "Someone should make a movie about this," a film that captures the tenderness and quick humor of hanging out. It's not an easy task. We may find our own friends delightful, but watching other people's friends is a dreary prospect.

Babygirl likely will divide viewers, but no matter what side one takes — and despite a bit of a shaky denouement — it is more than just a provocative talker.

In the moment, it's intermittently transcendent, heartrending and beautiful ... and busy, repetitious and boring.

Among the slapstick, there are musical numbers and a few surprise cameo appearances. In the end, the film leaves you in a dance-happy mood.

Girl Picture excels at showing how teenage life can be a sensory experience that’s exhilaratingly joyful and unbearably painful, sometimes simultaneously.

In the end, the filmmakers don't reveal a lot of new insights into Dahmer's character, or answer questions about how all these murders went unnoticed before Dahmer was apprehended. In some ways, we are left to fill in the blanks - and that can be a queasy experience.

It’s easy enough to have problems with Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody. It’s not nearly as truthful or as dramatic as it could have been, and it glosses over things that could have added those elements. But it’s hard to argue with a movie-length experience of listening to Whitney Houston’s voice.

Saved throughout by its inviting atmosphere and richness of characters.

In terms of dramatic tension, Best in Show is more compelling than a lot of formulaic sports movies.

Delicious but complex.

That the movie works so well is also due to the exceptional talents of leads Simonischek and Hüller, who hold nothing back — especially the former, whose Winfried is one of the oddest ducks in recent movies.

The result is smart and witty, with just enough obvious nods to the present to serve as a capsule of this unstable moment in media, much as the first film captured for the waning golden days of glossy publications.

Clocking in at a mere 79 minutes, featuring plenty of laughs and climaxing with a rousing chase, “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” is an impressive feat of clay, a winning choice in a competitive animated holiday season.

Knowing nothing about "X-Files" is no impediment to appreciating this for the well-acted, adult piece of work that it is.

Overall it's a remarkably eccentric work coming from a cagey old Hollywood hand who directed Bogart and Hepburn in their primes. [28 Jun 2009, p.Q30]

Rosendahl brings a wonderful innocence and burgeoning sexual awakening to the role, while still evincing inner strength and complexity. In her unconscious attempts to regain her soul, Lore pays the ultimate price as she discovers the stink of who she and her family and her country had become.

Captures an artist who has decided not to burn out, but to fade away with dignity.