While never uproarious, Punching the Clown exudes the clever, warped sincerity of its star, eschewing uppercuts for a series of playful jabs.

There's a simple story about lovers from different tribes, and Welch grunts beautifully clad only in a few bits of bunny fur, but the real stars are Ray Harryhausen's superbly animated dinosaurs.

While the story is formula cornball, director Mark Waters sells it confidently, handling the unruly antarctic denizens as amiably as he handled Lindsay Lohan in his "Freaky Friday" remake and "Mean Girls."

As with his previous film Golden Door (2006), Crialese proves that he’s more adept when evoking a lyrical naturalism practiced by his directorial ancestors than when he’s hand-wringing over social issues.

The movie’s never tastier than when screen vets Mirren and Puri are sparring, pettily buying out each other’s produce at the local market or bellyaching to the town’s mayor.

It’s such a loopy endeavour overall that Annette will likely have some audiences running from it screaming as much as it will have others worshipping at its altar. It’s a hard film to adore, but an easy one to thank for its very existence.

It’s unfortunate that Stelling and his cast aren’t able to lift the story much above mawkishness.

Though it’s been two years since they collaborated on "The Heat," Spy makes the case that Feig and McCarthy are still just warming up.

For a while it’s a low-key fish-out-of-water comedy (with McDonald’s as one of its many obvious punch lines), then it morphs into a cumbrously sentimental tale of redemption.

Ultimately it's a tribute to a woman well-loved, and to the family who will never forget her, even if they slip slowly away from her mind.

Dreams like Garriott's shouldn't be available only to the highest bidder. If you end up taking the kid in your life to go see it, urge them to start saving their allowance.

Such overall familiarity makes the over-the-top soap-operatic elements, such as a histrionic screamathon between mom and daughter, that much more grating-and Hrebejk's upending of cathartic clichés that much more gratifying.

There’s fascination in watching the always-intense Michael Shannon burrow into the singer’s interiority—he plays Elvis like a bored icon who’s outlived his usefulness. Spacey’s Nixon is a variation on his devious Frank Underwood, not in itself a bad thing.

Arid, crowd-pleasing stuff, in which the soul-searchings take place very conveniently on annual holidays in France and in a variety of luxuriously furnished interiors.

The old-fashioned vibe, in fact, does more than just distinguish the story of skinny runt turned supersoldier Steve Rogers (Evans) from every other comic-book movie out there, though its fetishization of retro-techno gizmos and getups-call it leatherbucklepunk-immensely adds to the fun.

The film is overcrowded with story lines and short on thrust, but fortunately, its protagonists carry the day with their candor and precocious poise.

I'd trade much of The Master for one extraordinary moment played by the ever-improving Amy Adams, in front of the bathroom mirror with Hoffman.

For all its surface effectiveness, however, The Blue Room never quite makes that intangible leap into greatness. It’s a phenomenally executed exercise that, like its protagonist’s memory, is too wispy for its own good.

The film develops into a sweet, surprisingly persuasive comedy about friends transitioning into family.

Fortunately, Reich, who was Bill Clinton’s first-term Secretary of Labor, is an unflaggingly engaging speaker, and his class has higher production values than most independent films. (He has walk-off music. Walk-off music!)

Chastain is a wonder. Her character could give Cersei Lannister in "Game of Thrones" lessons in cunning and wreaking vengeance.

Like its predecessors, Paranormal Activity 3 demands to be seen with a crowd: Being able to hear outbursts of nervous laughter and irrepressible panic ripple through a packed house is the reason movies like this exist.

As a thriller, however, the film only comes alive in fits and starts.

Results is the work of an elusive talent who’s built his entire career on the strength of his curveball. This seriocomedy of self-improvement clarifies how all of Bujalski’s stories are unified by characters who are trying to camouflage their loneliness.

On the whole, it's passable stuff, a surprise, given how mechanical the masked character seemed.

Outside of its cracked psychology (well conveyed by papa Bill Sage), We Are What We Are is horror leftovers, neither inedible nor piping hot.

It's pure comic-book malarkey, adapted from a graphic novel by French artist Matz. But the skeletal plot affords Hill the opportunity to go atmospherically hog wild.

Writers Ganz and Mandell (Parenthood, City Slickers) go pleasingly light on the syrup and sentimentality.