[Anderson] is still that open book, disarmingly funny and candid and uncynical, sitting there beautifully makeup free, letting the filmmakers and audience peer into her soul through many pages of journals going back to her childhood. It is a captivating watch, especially for those who never thought much about her at all.

There is more good than bad in Mulan, and we should be so lucky to get a gorgeous and inspiring war epic that is suitable for children to watch. Mulan might even inspire some kids to dip their toes into all that Asian cinema has to offer, which would be the best possible outcome. But something has to give in this blind fealty to the animated films, because it’s getting in the way of greatness.

A bewildering 90-minute, narrator-less and wordless experiment that’s as audacious as it is infuriating. It’s not clear if everyone was high making it or we should be while watching it.

Hopefully it will attract an audience either tired or turned off by the franchise’s past rigidity and addiction to spectacle. This is what we needed: Smaller, quieter, more human and sweeter.

The issues it addresses are, to say the least, crucial ones, and even though it trusts its audience to trudge through some dense material, the audience should repay that trust. Here’s hoping it will.

Causeway, directed by Lila Neugebauer with a straightforward honesty, sounds more manipulative and manufactured than it is. At its best, it’s a quietly affective portrait of unlikely friends hoping they can help each other make it to the shore.

The Pirates of Penzance is not for everyone. Gilbert and Sullivan purists, beware. Rock fans, watch out. But for those who like a rollicking good show, full of inspired silliness and performed in high style, by all means go. [07 Mar 1983]

Everyone knows this story and how it turns out. But “Cyrano” does a wonderful job of letting you cling to the hope that it might go differently, as agonizing as it might be.

A surprisingly delightful film full of action, heart, a crazy-haired Patrick Stewart (as “old” Merlin) and a few genuinely good gags.

A charismatic ensemble cast, a sharp script and a few well-placed twists make Game Night one of the more enjoyable big studio comedies in recent memory.

Zellweger’s voice might not be an exact match of Garland’s, but the soul and spirit that she brings along with her lovely approximation will certainly elicit more than a few goosebumps.

As in most sci-fi movies, the set up of “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is better than its follow through. But the movie has a kinetic kick, and you could argue that it’s obsessed with the right things. We could use more movies similarly engaged.

This is an eminently pleasant movie, propped up by its indefatigable good cheer and King’s immaculately tidy craftsmanship.

This movie will not be for everyone, but it is important not least because it continues to advance the discourse around miscarriages which is a trauma that couples, but mainly women, have been expected to shoulder in secret for far too long.

It's fitting that director Brian De Palma's latest effort, Carlito's Way, begins and ends inside a train station, because this is a movie that's seriously derailed. [09 Nov 1993]

In very ’80s environs, Baumbach’s film always remains — purposefully, I think — a self-conscious work of literature adaptation, juggling big themes and highly literate dialogue with a screwball touch. It makes for a heady concoction too constantly interesting to ever be boring.

The film succeeds in doing what it aimed for: Presenting a humane portrait of a guy who will be serving most of his life behind bars, in crowd-pleasing packaging. But what, ultimately, is the point of using the charming parts and ignoring the unsavory ones? For a filmmaker who has never shied away from the rough edges of reality, “Roofman” feels a bit dishonest.

If you must reboot an over 30-year-old Disney Channel cartoon like Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, you could do much worse than looking to “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” for inspiration. But it is a high bar and though Chip ‘n Dale might not reach the heights of that Robert Zemeckis film, it is still a pleasant surprise stuffed to the brim with pop culture references that children of the Chip ’n Dale era may enjoy.

The populist message here is clear — the longer Wall Street overlooks the value of people, the financial system will remain broken.

The Border is a well-made action-adventure film enhanced by authentic settings and a superlative performance by Jack Nicholson. [08 Feb 1982]

Breaking, Abi Damaris Corbin’s lean and heartfelt first feature, is a lackluster bank-robbery thriller with noble intentions enlivened by an impassioned performance by John Boyega and an elegiac final appearance by the late Michael K. Williams.

Master ultimately suffers the fate of many promising films with many good ideas and not enough time to develop them — some paring down would have improved the latter part of the film.

A pair of other recent films — “Minding the Gap,” ″Skate Kitchen” — better explored the camaraderie and freedom of skater culture. But there are glimpses here of a more radiant, lyrical film.

All of You is a sort of second stab at this story, which Goldstein and Bridges (“Black Mirror”) first explored in the canceled-too-soon AMC anthology series “Soulmates.” Fittingly for a story about second chances, this time it sticks.

Neither the divers nor kids, government officials nor families and volunteers really come into focus, staying as murky as the miles of submerged cave.

Memory is selective, memory is jumbled, memory travels in different directions. And so does “Mothering Sunday,” Eva Husson’s affecting and visually pleasing — if languorous — meditation on love and loss, based on a woman’s memory of an impactful day that reverberates through her long life.

At one point we get an action-flick style montage, which feels odd, as does the often overly obvious, swelling musical score. It’s hard to go too far wrong, though, with a story as compelling as Tubman’s and an actress as vivid as Erivo.

Starting with the potentially crippling proposition of a key death, this franchise has somehow found new vibrancy.