Back from the time when Scream director Wes Craven still made real horror. A family on vacation with a trailer is irritating enough. But then their ride breaks down in the desert, and there's a clash of family values with a family of inbred cannibals. During the struggle for survival, it gets hard to tell who the real savages are. [27 Oct 2003, p.E1]

The film draws you deeply into Baker’s fantasy world, to the point that the entreaty of his famous recording, “Let’s Get Lost,” almost seems like a good idea.

As it is, Elvis is a gorgeous tragedy, a movie mixtape with a sonorous performance at its core, maybe Luhrmann’s best since “Romeo + Juliet” (1996) and perhaps his most postcard-perfect movie ever. But it has a rubberized script, a turgid length and a key issue that affects many musical biopics: It’s not really sure what it thinks or wants to say about Presley.

Every dog in this sweetly earnest movie seems to have a strong sense of responsibility.

Directors Laura Collado and Jim Loomis’ cleverly edited and deliciously photographed food porn is a tasty peek at the cutthroat culinary world and one of its most mysterious figures.

As far as truly caring about anything that goes on in this epic, well, that’s a chore. And with a run time of more than 2½ hours, that chore becomes ever more burdensome as the minutes tick away.

Perhaps Downsizing needed to be downsized a bit; as it is, it’s an intriguing concept that slips away.

It’s a feel-good film about dreams, about obsession, about believing in yourself when nobody else seems to be doing it for you, and Hawkins carries it with effortless ease.

The problem with Miles Ahead isn’t the playful, broad license it takes with Davis’ story, but that it’s so silly.

Nadja is a one-way ticket to a visual paradise that unearths nothing more substantial than splendid Gothic atmosphere. In opting for artiness, it strands its cast in lifelessness, an anemic exercise in desperate need of a blood transfusion. [15 Sept 1995, p.F5]

Florid but warmhearted — much like the man at its center — The Happy Prince is a haunting portrait of the aftermath of betrayal; of how the master of comedy became a tragedy.

As with any Michael Moore movie, attention must be paid.

Cornel Wilde directed and stars in this nearly wordless 1966 story of a stripped white man hunted by African natives. It has several elements in common with Passion in the Desert. [09 Jul 1998, p.E3]

Despite all the nudity, it's less erotic than Duigan's charming schoolkids romance "Flirting." If only "Sirens" could have been a little livelier, if only Duigan, Grant and Neill had gone too far. [11 March 1994, p.D26]

You know, there was a time when “Guardians of the Galaxy” was fun. That time was 2014, when the first picture came out... Now here’s “Vol. III.” And it’s no fun at all.

What Warner undergoes in Crown Heights is difficult to watch. Yet in the end, remarkably. there is triumph. And, finally, justice.

Byrne, a recent Oscar nominee for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” holds it together.

But while the message of Amanda Silver's screenplay may be unpalatable to some, this nanny-from-hell thriller is so artfully paced and performed that there's little resisting it.

It's all over the place, trying to cover every base as it delivers its neon-style message: Nothing is more important than friendship. Indeed, it's so busy pushing buttons that it rarely has time to settle down to establish even one relationship that rings true - by and large, we have to take the actors' word for it - yet fans of this cast probably won't mind too much.

This isn’t really a movie, but a delicious wallow, and regular movie rules don’t apply.

Big, bold and bordering on the unbelievable, Gladiator II delivers, big time.

Patriot Games doesn't set any new standards for its genre, but it delivers the goods, announcing a sequel with a hokey but wonderfully domestic cliffhanger. [5 June 1992, p.24]

This film celebrates Halston’s work but shows more interest in the man — and the unexpected corporate drama — behind it.

There seem to be entire worlds behind every sentence in this film, floating somewhere just past our line of vision, calling to us as they slip away.

The emphasis here is on the splashy spectacle with those insider-knowledge elements jammed together in a frenetic hodgepodge.

Writer-director Ti West brings not an iota of originality to his handling of this material. Plods, the picture does, through its predictable paces.

The Muppet Christmas Carol is cute rather than touching. It could have been both. [11 Dec 1992, p.24]

The characters are well-defined and Rockwell holds the picture together as he conveys Mr. Wolf’s shifting emotional states: suave, vexed and morally conflicted. Kids will love The Bad Guys and there’s plenty of substance for adults as well.

Serial Mom isn't much of an ensemble piece. More so even than Waters' Divine pictures, it's a star vehicle. The other actors rarely get a chance to do much more than register stupidity, yet it works out because Turner so craftily tunes into Waters' rarefied wavelength. [15 Apr 1994, p.D3]

Anyone who's been starved for Albert Brooks' brand of anxiety-ridden humor will not be completely disappointed. [24 Oct 1991, p.D3]

You know what you're in for, and you get what you want (especially those die-hards who read ALL of the end credits), but you'll also get the feeling that you've seen it all before. [18 Mar 1994, p.D3]

Does “Anna” deliver on its billing? Well, it does for a while. For its first half, the movie’s blend of earnest teen crooning and dismembered blood-geyser heads is pretty entertaining.

It’s a good story, well told, though you have to forgive Hood for indulging in a little journalistic cliché.

There are lots of ideas rattling around in it — about artificial intelligence, about racism, about American aggression on the world stage, about the future of humanity. And rattle and clang they do. And also clunk. The various elements are not well integrated.

For all its contagious energy and surface authenticity, this early-Beatles docudrama comes off as the kind of biographical movie in which a group of unknowns appear to be all too aware that they're on the verge of international superstardom. [22 Apr 1994, p.D3]

The flowers in Flowers are touchstones, reminders of a person, but more significantly of the conflicted feelings shared by the three main women in the picture.

The picture is essentially a brief for Wise’s case. And as such, it’s as dry and uncinematic as a dusty legal document.

This movie, while perhaps not quite as charming as the 2000 original “Chicken Run” (lightning rarely strikes twice, even on chicken farms), is a hoot.

It’s pretty, it’s melodramatic-verging-on-silly, and if you like this sort of thing it’s great fun.

Nobody in this movie would be out of place in a glamorous old-Hollywood drama, which is kind of what On Swift Horses is trying to be — and, most of the time, coming pretty close.

Ultimately, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is made enjoyable by its human and feline actors, despite the sadness of the material, and it left me wanting to know more about its subject, which I suppose is the point.

Ultimately Denial works, thanks to its strong cast — particularly Spall, who gives Irving a slightly mad gleefulness, and Weisz, whose smart, tough Deborah chafes against the quiet acquiescence expected of her.

Hall’s performance is remarkable, full of shadings and intimations of significant emotional depths.

Downton Abbey: A New Era is a chaste, mannered soap opera that feels like a relic of another time in more ways than one, but perhaps, that’s the entire appeal.

The light approach almost derails the movie; without being cheap or misleading, Mistress is a feel-good movie that could've had a sharper sting. It's less satirical and probably more realistic than The Player, but it's also more predictably diagrammed. [28 Aug 1992, p.26]

The picture is a no warts-and-all look at Francis’ papacy, but rather emphasizes his humanity and humility. Those personal qualities and his words are sources of hope In this politically fraught and fevered age.

While it’s still an enjoyable novelty to spend time during an action movie wondering where I could buy the hero’s boots, it’s no substitute for a good story.

Bad Influence is easy on the eye and snazzily scored by Trevor Jones. But it never really rises above genre. [09 Mar 1990, p.24]

There's so much blood, sweat and craziness that you stop laughing with first-time screenwriter Harry Bean's script and begin laughing at it. Long before it reaches the fever pitch of a hysterical finale, you may also find yourself looking at your watch. [12 Jan 1990, p.21]

Shyamalan’s latest cinematic confrontation with mortality and meaning, Knock at the Cabin, is among his best work.

Condon doesn’t shy away from the violence and tragedy at the heart of this story, but he lets us see the tender, hard-forged connection between Molina and Valentín, and also lets us disappear into a world of tinselly Hollywood beauty, just as they do.

I.F. Stone, an underground journalist who died in1989, left a rich legacy that is celebrated in a timely new documentary, All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I.F. Stone.

Eating is American independent film at its best. It's one of those eccentric home-grown efforts - Roger and Me, and Sherman's March are others that come to mind - that spring straight from the American vernacular. [29 Mar 1991, p.3]

The pleasure of Bergman's style comes from the extremes that his characters must endure to arrive at that predictable point, and the new tricks that Bergman can teach to an old-dog story line. The airborne climax of "Honeymoon in Vegas" - involving those Flying Elvises (Utah Chapter!) that you've probably heard about by now - turns the ending of countless other movies into something new under the setting desert sun. [28 Aug 1992, p.3]

Filmed in Oregon and Montana by a first-rate crew, The River Wild puts you in the hot seat of its white-water climax, and through a combination of deft camera work, snappy editing and genuine derring-do, the stellar cast is right there with you. Even when you know it's filmmaking trickery, you'll wish you'd brought a wet suit. [30 Sep 1994, p.H3]

Unsane has an uncanny way of reflecting the world through Sawyer’s eyes, sometimes amplified by the medication she’s forced to take. It’s not a pretty place.

Sommers is so busy spinning his camera, crowding the soundtrack with animal noises and piling on the cheesy visual effects that he can't stop for a reflective moment or a character-revealing touch.

If you were to subtract the strikingly mature and subtly nuanced performances of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Single White Female would be almost indistinguishable from the majority of half-baked, pseudo-psychological thrillers that Fatal Attraction brought into vogue. [14 Aug 1992, p.3]

It all adds up to zany, wide-eyed, quintessential Waters havoc - the ``kinder, gentler'' 1990s brand, perhaps. But the genuine article, nonetheless. Enjoy.

Field, carrying the movie on her shoulders and handing it to us for our approval, makes us root for wistful Doris. Single-handedly, she makes the movie work. I didn’t always believe Doris’ behavior, but I knew I wanted to see her smile again.

Much like David Lynch’s “The Straight Story,” a broken-down Abraham is forced to accept the kindness of strangers along his journey. In return, this proud Jewish tailor bestows the life wisdom that came at a terrible price.

You can see why McAvoy was drawn to the role — it’s as if he’s playing every character in a very populated if not particularly well-scripted play — and he demonstrates a shellacked creepiness that’s effective. But Shyamalan can’t find much else that’s new or appealing in this overlong girls-in-peril exercise.

The irony and meaninglessness of the violence rankles, especially when Ulysses is presented as such a nice guy who is prone to de-escalation and community care in his day-to-day work.

Despite all of the personalized Wenders touches, it ultimately resembles many a top-heavy, star-laden, special-effects-driven production from the major-studio assembly lines.

Hughes’ handling of the material is unfailingly serious but the picture’s tendency to stray into the ridiculous robs it of the majesty the director so clearly hoped to achieve.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 gives us a lot to look at, and Hathaway and Blunt in particular are a pleasure (they have a scene together, late in the film, that’s almost worth the ticket price right there), but it’s flat Champagne: maybe worth drinking in a pinch, but unsatisfying.

Its take-no-prisoners pacing [takes] it up a notch from the average low-budget shoot ’em up.

Key and Peele’s fast-talking chemistry, as they shift their language instantly from suburbanite to street (a theme in many of their sketches), make Clarence and Rell’s transformation into bellowing, gun-wielding tough guys and back again feel fresh and often very funny.

As always, it’s a pleasure to watch Branagh’s Poirot as he watches, never missing a thing; may he return, with a more worthy corpse next time around.

Wachowski has taken the familiar and modified it in such a way to make it seem new. It’s a brilliant act of transformation.

By the time the big reveal comes along, it’s almost beside the point. The audience, so numbed by the gore, is likely to barely care who indeed did it.

It’s a horrifying tale, and Maras, a Greek-Australian filmmaker, does not shy away from showing the carnage.

Incisive, insightful and very funny.

Good fun, and all that, but its flawed central performance ultimately makes “Solo” a distinct disappointment.

Depp, who has never looked so angelic, is covering familiar ground here, playing another Gilbert Grape type who's involved with an older woman. [9 Sept 1994, p.H34]

It wants to make a joke at its source material’s expense, but all it ever accomplishes is making you want to watch those classics instead.

This small-focus film proves that Alec Baldwin can be convincing as a sensitive New Age kinda guy instead of the gloating scumbags he often portrays. And it suggests Hollywood can occasionally adapt a hit play to celluloid without contorting it beyond recognition. [10 Jul 1992, p.20]

Spanish director Jorge Grau's take on "Night of the Living Dead" is set in the English countryside and starts off slowly but has a tense last half. [27 Oct 2000]

Polanski has created his funniest and possibly his cruelest movie: a thoroughly warped tale of sexual obsession that leaves its quartet of lust-driven characters with nowhere left to hide. [18 Mar 1994, p.D3]

It was a pleasure to become happily lost in this unique film’s world of color and line, and to see two filmmakers’ mad dream come true.

This may not be quite the movie that Ederle deserves, but it’s the one that we’ve got, and it’s definitely a story worth telling.

The film has a certain charm, and fans of folk music should be more than happy.

White Fang is one of the best family films around right now. The violence is not too intense, the harshness of the frontier is downplayed without being ignored, and the wildlife footage is reminiscent of the best Disney documentaries. [18 Jan 1991, p.22]

Should you be looking for narrative cohesion, look elsewhere. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is bananas, in its high-end way — bananas wrapped in gorgeous Colleen Atwood costumes, and performed by actors who are clearly having a ball.

To paraphrase a song that pops up in the film — of course it does — during one of countless swoony moments, you can’t help falling in love with this movie.

It's wry and stylish and perfectly cast, and only occasionally does it fall into the trap of taking itself as seriously as its characters sometimes do. [05 Oct 1990, p.26]

Its honesty and power makes it feel large; you live among these characters in their weary trailer park, aching for them.

Kong: Skull Island won’t win any points for the brilliance of its writing (or for the way it reduces a terrific actor like Larson to a personality-free camera-clicker) — but oh, that ape

Somewhere around the middle of Something to Talk About, I stopped believing or caring about the people on the screen. Almost imperceptibly, the movie's engaging characters and sharp dialogue slipped into artificiality, betraying themselves as puppets of a movie forcing them toward a predetermined outcome that doesn't quite mesh with their established reality. Up to that point, the movie had been a lot of fun. [4 Aug 1995, p.C1]

In the central role, Miles Teller is impressively bulked up, but there’s a flatness in his performance. It’s a dogged, rather than an inspired, portrayal. The best work is done by Aaron Eckhart, who plays Vinnie’s trainer, Kevin Rooney.

Ultimately, her run and Roseanne for President! meet the same fate: not quite entertaining enough to qualify as comedy, nor quite thoughtful enough to take seriously.

The script, attributed to four writers, is based on stories of cats who roamed the Warners back lot, begging for food among the discarded sets of "Casablanca" and "East of Eden." Imagine any storyline designed around that studio legend and you're likely to come up with a more auspicious plot than the one this team has created. [26 Mar 1997]

By the time Donner crowds his climactic poker game with a bevy of veteran Western character actors, decades of movie tradition have been reduced to window dressing, and Maverick leaves you hungry for the real thing.

Greenaway keeps his wits about him. His vision of human evil is as droll as it is unrelenting. Trained as a painter, he can't help making this particular hell look gorgeous. "The Cook, the Thief, etc." is, paradoxically, a beautiful, drily witty film about monstrous vulgarity and ugliness. [6 Apr 1990, p.22]

Those who love books, picturesque English villages and getting lost in actors’ faces should be very happy

An oddly overblown, semi-operatic adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s once-banned 1964 novel about life among the abused prostitutes, lonely sailors, lonelier drag queens, repressed homosexuals and gay-bashing pimps along the hellish waterfront district of Brooklyn in 1952. [11 May 1990, p.22]

The plot may be nothing special, but Reynolds most certainly is. He’s just so relatable, genial, nice, in an unforced sort of way that he makes the movie, which he also produced, a fun ride.

None of these stories feel monumental, and all of them resolve themselves neatly in a quarter-hour or so. But they have a kindness to them; a way of seeing people as they are, with their flaws and their goodness.