The bottom line on Being the Ricardos is that it’s irresistible. It’s an invitation to go behind the scenes of the “I Love Lucy” show and to see what Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were really like. It’s also an invitation to travel back to the 1950s, with writer-director Aaron Sorkin as your guide.

There’s no question that John Wick: Chapter 4 is really good for what it is. The only bad thing is what it is.

Raw, provocative, sometimes humorous and always humane, Kokomo City is an engrossing documentary about four Black trans sex workers who constantly disarm with their outrageous anecdotes and their palpable fears of living in a world that’s often hostile to them.

Director Ang Lee ("The Wedding Banquet") spared no effort in giving the food its perfect preparation and display. Brace yourself for a visual orgy.

At some point or another, you will be offended by The Hunt. But see it anyway, confident in the certainty that other people — people you don’t agree with, people you don’t like — will be offended, too.

The movie moves. It has action sequences that are so enormous that they won't just wow audiences, but rock them back in their seats and make them laugh at the audacity of it all.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the best movie so far this year about a kung-fu fighting panda.

When the movie starts, its main characters seem outside the norm, unusual, “wierdos,” in the description of David himself. By its end, you see nothing at all of that; they’re just people.

Writer-director Patric Chiha directs the proceedings with incredible restraint, which works both for and against him. Yes, it allows the actors to shine with some subtle, quiet moments, and prevents things from going over the top, but somehow Aunt Nadine and restraint don't belong in the same sentence.

Killer of Killers continues the concept co-director Dan Trachtenberg applied to his 2022 live-action “Prey,” only with the more elaborate action, wider scope and graceful, graphic kineticism animation can accommodate.

An appealingly quirky thriller from Brazil.

The world of this film is like nothing most Americans have seen. But we know what it's about. It's about greed and guilt and how inconvenient it can be to have a soul.

Black comedies are rare enough. Birthday Girl is a member of an even rarer species, the black romantic comedy.

Joel Schumacher, the director of "Falling Down," "The Client" and "Batman Forever," has a strong feel for this kind of glossy pop entertainment and a way of integrating social issues without sacrificing narrative drive.

Has an old-fashioned feel, as if it had been made in the period of its setting. I mean this as a compliment.

Gladstone (“Under the Bridge”), Oscar-nominated for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is the heart and soul of “Fancy Dance,” which in other hands might have been a noirish thriller. But writer-director Erica Tremblay has something else in mind: a finely crafted drama about a woman and her niece who are unwilling to let the hopelessness of her situation define her.

Like the best Marx Brothers films, Brain Donors has gags for the sake of gags. There's no pretense to plausibility. It's just layers and layers of jokes; some work, some don't. [18 April 1992, p.C3]

In a film that easily could have been cold or ironical, Ferrell provides the emotional thrust.

Relies on comic formula -- but does so with more than usual panache.

At times, Anderson may be too brilliant for his own good, and there is a risk that viewers will tire of the director's relentlessly prowling camera.

The concluding image of men silhouetted against the dying flares of explosives, as they march to the raucous refrain of the Mickey Mouse Club theme, is masterly, but leaves a viewer curiously discomfited. Whereas "Platoon" shattered civilian complacency about that war, Full Metal Jacket is merely numbing. [26 June 1987]

It took the franchise four tries, but with Expend4bles, they’ve finally made a solid and consistently effective action movie.

The key to enjoying the film is warming up to the heroine, Poppy.

At its heart, the film is about the intense connection between Valentino and his business partner of 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti, the brains behind the branding.

This moody film, set in muggy Memphis, exudes a dangerous veracity that's both exciting and poisonous.

The Call might not be a classic for the ages, but for a Friday night? For a movie to take people out of themselves? And to make them marvel at the viewing experience that just happened to them? This one is hard to beat.

American Star is a nice surprise. To hear it described, its premise sounds almost ridiculously predictable: Ian McShane as an old hit man on his last assignment. But the movie turns out to be a serious work that goes to unexpected places.

The handsome and appealing Max, by the way, is played by five dogs. For the record, he is a Belgian Malinois, a breed that in real life is often used in police and military work.