Attempts something startlingly original by melding light opera with soap opera.

It’s the kind of observational humor that instills a knowing chuckle and nod of the head, as opposed to an all-out chortle.

For all the movie’s honesty, the reality of Alzheimer’s disease is a lot worse than what you see in Still Alice. Perhaps directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland made a calculation as to how much an audience can take. They were right.

For about 115 minutes, State of Play tells an alarming, tightly constructed story, with serious things to say about journalism and the state of the country. The movie appears to be all but over - and likely to stand as one of the best films of 2009. And then the filmmakers add one last embellishment, and they blow it.

This is a good movie for Hamm, and also for Pike who, in her recent films, has too often been either a madwoman or a victim of circumstance (and sometimes both). Here she gets to be active and think on her feet, and it makes a big difference.

Director Anthony Fabian lets the story sell itself, and it does so partly on the strength of the lead performance by Sophie Okonedo.

In The Suicide Squad, writer-director James Gunn has done the seemingly impossible: He has found the fun in the Suicide Squad. He has come up with a way to take what seemed like a dead concept and turn it into an action-packed joke machine.

Ernest & Celestine builds a delicate and charming animated world, but you wouldn't want to live there.

It’s punctuated by the landscape of the demon slayers’ past, through their memories. Idyllic lakes and streams; gently falling snow; a small village. “Infinity Castle,” then, is a place of potential redemption and reclamation, of souls and reputations and a sense of one’s inner self.

This warm, celebratory and very public film is punctuated by sudden and luminous private visualizations.

The Ground Beneath My Feet consistently serves as a powerful showcase for the talented Pachner, who manages a performance that is both distant and achingly vulnerable.

For the most part, though, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead spends its time celebrating an era in which the comedy frontier was distasteful, brutally honest, and innocent at the same time.

This movie can be recommended only to dyed-in-the-wool fans of the genre. Anyone who goes into one of Miike's films must be prepared to be put through the wringer.

Any Agnieszka Holland movie is worth seeing, even if Spoor isn’t up to the director’s best (“In Darkness,” “Europa, Europa”).

One of the most effective thrillers in years, Attraction did an excellent job of mixing its suspense with trendy issues of sexual paranoia and monogamy. [27 Dec 1987, p.19]

Kevin Costner's Robin Hood is big, sometimes exciting, funny in places and occasionally stupid, but it doesn't disappoint. [14 June 1991, p.E1]

In “My Name is Alfred Hitchcock,” Cousins gives us a new way of looking at Hitchcock, as a filmmaker with an evocative visual world, and a case could be made that it would be easier for viewers to appreciate that aspect of Hitchcock on a second or third viewing.

At 2 1/2 hours, Gladiator is a long ride, but it doesn't drag.

The Nun II has some interesting ideas and some thrilling sequences.

I Stand Alone ("Seul contre tous" in French) is a portrait of a pathetic soul, but it is also a cautionary tale. The butcher cannot be dismissed as a monster, nor is this a creep show. Something like the butcher's story can be found almost every day in newspaper crime reports.

Faithful but not slavishly faithful to the source, the movie retains most of the songs but streamlines the story, particularly in the second half.

A charming if unoriginal coming-of-age story.

This is a fascinating portrait of an artist.

A one-joke documentary stretched, with surprising success, to full length.

The film is never dull. And director Yony Leyser has come up with an ending that will take your breath away. Burroughs would probably be proud.

Rush is amazing throughout this absorbing, provocative film.

A tense, intelligent and sober film.

The film is ultimately as much an indictment of liberal apathy as of conservative dirty dealing, and a canonization of McKinney for her continued refusal to follow any party's party line.