On Chesil Beach can feel like observing a deli worker slice a small piece of rancid cured meat, in increasingly transparent slivers of prosciutto-like thinness, and then holding them up to the light for inspection.

It would be nice to know if the troubling images we see are a sweeping problem or just a small glimpse of a minority.

Seven Veils doesn’t crash to Earth, but it also never quite frees itself from the notebook of its ideas to become the gripping emotional thriller it seems to want to be.

Gets more and more complex until it's almost laughable; it has too many beats, too many reverses, and in the end seems unbelievable.

The ending is neither outlandish nor foreseeable, which is its own impressive accomplishment.

An American teen encounters peculiar horrors at a remote German resort in Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo,” a kooky sci-fi genre hybrid that crackles with offbeat turns and creature scares as it unfolds against a backdrop of deceptively serene forests and cheeky Euro-kitsch.

It’s a fun movie to see with a rip-roaring midnight crowd; watched on its own, it’s a little depressing. You can only shock the monkey so many times before the shock wears off.

A blandly middling crowd pleaser.

In addition to presenting a parable about the collapse of society, Amirpour’s film is also a kind of postmodern Adam-and-Eve story.

The problem with S.O.B. is that it reveals another sort of failure on Edwards' part: his fondness for dwelling on this low point in his career. He neglects to update the scenario or liberate it from the self-pity he overindulged in at the time. In fact, it's residual self-pity that undermines S.O.B. as a promising satire of Hollywood mores and hypocrisies. Edwards' tendency to feel sorry for himself keeps intruding on the potential wackiness. [2 July 1981, p.C1]

By lovingly examining these dishes’ cultural underpinnings, Hawk serves up an insightful introduction to a food scene at the cross-section of political strife and culinary excellence — not a full meal, exactly, but an enticing appetizer.

Passionately anticipated and much ballyhooed, the film, alas, is little more than a foppish, fang de siecle costume drama. Its pulse barely registers.

How many times can we be awestruck by Day-Glo Gumbies? And why do these creatures always travel with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

A whodunit so bafflingly constructed that you can't even figure out what it is, so the whodun part is superfluous.

Although “As I AM” sometimes gets lost in the weeds of the club scene and Goldstein’s personal entanglements, it approaches the central irony of his life with both clarity and sadness, honoring its subject with a frankness he would have appreciated.

In The Man Without a Face, Mel Gibson reminds us that he doesn't need one-liners and explosive special effects to warrant our attention. Gibson, as actor and first-time director, is not only self-assured in these dual roles, but he seems relieved to let the drama carry him, rather than the reverse. The result is a movie that's both heartwarming and heart-wrenching.

In some ways, Contact is just like the universe: big, star-bright and seemingly endless. Not to mention that it begins with a big bang, gradually falls into a lull and finally succumbs to entropy.

Major League is shamelessly formulaic. At the beginning, when it uses Randy Newman's ironic ode to Cleveland ("City of light, city of magic"), the movie has a lovely tone, and briefly, you feel a surge of anticipation, as if the people making it might actually have an original point of view or some feel for the game. All hope is dashed, though, early on, when you realize that they are cannibalizing every other baseball movie. (Newman wrote the music for "The Natural.") This is movie-making by rip-off.

Streep makes it work. Streep makes it fun .

Hello I Must Be Going isn't heavy lifting, to be sure. But it's still worthy of a little end zone dance.

Touched With Fire is by no means a perfect film. The production values and melodrama sometimes seem better suited for a small-screen movie. But the drama deserves points for its measured, realistic view of mental illness.

An action thriller that adamantly refuses to deliver action or thrills, instead engaging in a brand of arty, self-conscious formalism rarely seen outside repertory theaters or cinema-studies classrooms.

Ultimately, this is a universal story about how these wild mothers, like their human counterparts, sacrifice again and again - all to make sure their children are happy, healthy and well fed.

A sometimes inspired but sputtering parody of the fashion industry. It's desperate to please, yet never unzips the fancy pants of haute couture.

Hoffman introduces a memorable sensuality to the movie.

Nicholson looks severly overmatched against Lange but the basic problem is that the filmmakers miss the mutuality of the obsession envisioned by Cain -- an attraction that enslaves Frank and Cora, inspiring murder and betrayal in the wake of adulterous passion. [20 March 1981, p.C1]

It's a remarkably entertaining movie, thanks in part to a first-rate cast and a director who knows you can't make a point without calling everyone to attention.

When Words on Bathroom Walls is at its sunniest and most blithe, the moral of the story feels a little more like a punchline than is appropriate.

The film's real problem is that it can't seem to make up its mind about whether it wants to frighten us or make us laugh.

Dragon imparts these pearls of wisdom with verve and delight, in a telling that is as visually impressive as it is emotionally stirring.

The Good Shepherd is serious adult moviemaking, a truly surprising effort from De Niro, a man deeply interested in the art, craft and psychology of espionage. He seems to believe that we'd better be interested in it, because it's interested in us.

Surprisingly mawkish teen film.

Efficient, precise, carefully calibrated and terrifically entertaining.

A crashing letdown.

In the end, we're treated to an overture of possibilities rather than a satisfying film.

As the minutes tick down, the sentimentality picks up. But chalk that up to the enigmatic creatures, which grab hold of human hearts no matter one's politics or affiliations. Whales just have a way of bringing people together.

For audiences interested in an earnest, inspirational story, full of timeless messages and beautiful animation, this is a lovely reminder of how to live life with purpose and joy.

Ambitious, affecting, unwieldy and haunting, it's an eccentric, densely atmospheric, morally hyper-aware masterpiece that refuses to follow the strictures of conventional cinematic structure, instead leading the audience on a circuitous journey down the myriad rabbit holes that comprise modern-day Manhattan.

Though there’s no reinvention of the genre here, Louder’s mesmerizing mouse proves more than a match for the assembled tomcats — all exuding machismo — with whom she must deal.

Under the direction of George Tillman Jr., these two young performers exercise remarkable restraint, never milking the material for unearned tears.

Reinhold, as a little boy in a big man's body, looks and acts more like a sheep in shell shock. Savage, however, is an able comic when he takes on his father's yuppie persona, demanding Grey Poupon at the school cafeteria and downing martinis after a hard day in the principal's office.

Part cop caper, part coo-fest, it is a feel-good movie, a jolly little button-pusher about a street-smart cop who brings law and order to a classroom full of unruly but adorable youngsters.

Stallone is feral this film, physically powerful; he's muddy and bloody, but he's still pretty even in a tarpaulin. He's the wild child coming home. First Blood is good to the last drop, if you like that sort of thing. [22 Oct 1982, p.17]

Full of visual dazzle, engaging characters and a reasonably sprightly narrative.

The story of The Boxtrolls, in lesser hands, might have turned out only so-so. Under Laika’s loving, labor-intensive touch, it takes on a kind of magic.

As a rule, the filmmakers manufacture fake climaxes every 10 or 15 minutes, poop out and lapse into forgetfulness, just as if they were structuring the material for television. Norma Rae seems to reflect the confusion of veteran filmmakers so eager to please that they cease to think straight.

All the world is a farce, Ansari seems to say, while suggesting that it can still be saved. But like a breezy sitcom episode, his big-screen creation doesn’t feel the need to offer solutions.

If there’s a quibble with the film, it’s that it glosses over what it’s like to grow up in the glare of worldwide celebrity.

An animated feature (showing in 3-D in select theaters), has a couple of clever tricks that make it worth wearing those dumb, uncomfortable glasses. But this would be as delightful and attractive a production without the gimcrackery.

There are corners of this quiet little film — less a plot-driven narrative than a two-person character study — that feel powerfully true, in ways that surprise.

The question is why the time, talent and treasure of such energetic and even gifted artists have been marshaled in such a disgusting and trivial genre exercise and what viewers are supposed to get out of it. Isn't life hard enough?

A boring, choppy dramedy.

A truly satisfying holiday picture, the kind everyone can enjoy.

The Natural is a likable baseball saga, a big, old messy metaphor that says: You may be middle-aged, America, but you can still hit one out of the park. [11 May 1984, p.25]

The movie's very smoothness may set viewers up for a letdown. It's a low-key exercise in genre suspense and romance that fails to generate a high level of excitement or deliver classic dynamic thrills. [06 Mar 1981, p.C1]

The dopest thing about The Wackness is Thirlby, who, after supporting turns in "Juno" and "Snow Angels," is quickly becoming reason enough to see any film she's in.

A diverting hit-and-miss satirical anthology in the same spirit as The Groove Tube and Tunnelvision. [13 Oct 1977, p.B15]

There’s no doubt that Villeneuve can make a movie; he’s developed a strong cinematic voice. It’s tantalizing to imagine what he could do with a really fine story.

A low-key, high-tech, out-of-touch tale of a teen who builds his own personal nuclear projectile for a science project. It's an ambivalent adventure patterned on the likes of WarGames, but without the humor or action. [13 June 1986, p.29]

Tost can’t match the oddball inspiration of his influences, and the results simply feel forced.

Sad to say, the new Matthew Barney opus, Drawing Restraint 9, made in collaboration with his main squeeze, Bjork, doesn't advance the Barney oeuvre an inch past where he left it with his massive, megalomaniacal opus known as the "Cremaster" series.

Even at its most contrived, The Hero exerts a soothing attraction not unlike the man at its center.

A film that gets in your face and stays there, it ultimately subverts all that effort with its improbably upbeat conclusion. Still, the performances are technically knockouts, the kind that leave your underbelly churning.

"Spring, Summer" fans should only have their appreciation of that film expanded by seeing this rougher take on similar themes.

Slap Shot comes at you like a boisterous drunk. At first glance it appears harmlessly funny, in an extravagantly foul-mouthed sort of way. However, there's a mean streak beneath the cartoon surface tha makes one feel uneasy about humoring this particular durnk for too long.

Listening to “Sweet Caroline” feels like a hug — warm and fuzzy to some, smothering to others. Watching Song Sung Blue has a similar effect.

Before You Know It isn’t a deep movie, or a hilarious one, and Utt and Tullock probably don’t expect it to be. But it is, in its undemanding, almost effortless way, warm and wise and watchable enough to be just this side of wonderful.

Even as Brick Lane manages to sidestep one formula, it falls prey to another.

Once Were Brothers is enormously valuable, if only as a reminder of what an extraordinary run this extraordinary convergence of talents enjoyed until their final show on Thanksgiving Day in 1976 (meticulously captured by Scorsese in the magnificent documentary “The Last Waltz”).

10 Years doesn't completely avoid the road-not-taken theme. It does, however, neatly navigate around many of the potholes, finding a novel and nuanced approach to addressing the ways that our mistakes make us better, wiser and more human.

The plot simply doesn’t have enough juice.

This is a one-riff movie and instant cult classic.

A mediocre production that nevertheless will strike a deep and resonant chord with viewers.

Like most plays transferred to screen, Oleanna still bears traces of grease paint. Actually, all the cold cream in the world wouldn't make this verbose material in the least cinematic -- not that Mamet has put much effort into adapting the original anyway. Most of the action takes place in the professor's office. Luckily, it has a window through which we, like bored grade schoolers, can escape from time to time.

Broken Arrow, a deafening, brain-deadening action thriller, takes a mighty blase approach to nuking Denver.

Binder has set a difficult bar -- to make a funny, sad, original movie about the healing power of not necessarily healing -- and he just manages to clear it.

The love language of the Russo family is shouting — one of several cliches deployed here — but Romano and his co-writer, Mark Stegemann, deftly deflate and dodge most other stereotypes, creating a funny and touching father-and-son tale about aspiration and finding your own path.

The humor is generic. And the film’s most obvious comparison — it’s been called “Toy Story” with animals — only points up the one thing “Pets” lacks, and that any animal lover will tell you their furred and feathered friends have, in spades: personality.

Buried inside this grab bag of hits and misses is a pretty good point about the descent of television news into a miasma of 24/7 speculation, fluff and, most of all, hype.

The "Godfather" films transcended their mobster genre; New Jack City doesn't, but it's a great genre film, edgy, vibrant and full of urgent color.

For my taste a little bit of Steve Martin goes a long way. Moreover, a rickety vehicle like The Jerk is apt to wear out as aspiring comic star's welcome in one swift stroke.

For all its melancholy and grey, snowy landscape, The Motel Life never feels totally hopeless, thanks in large part to colorful ancillary characters (not to mention occasional trips into Frank’s mind).

As the tropes pile up faster than tears in a Nicholas Sparks novel, so do the bodies, dispatched in increasingly inventive and grisly ways.

Servin and Vamos clearly have a healthy sense of the absurd, which they use, like good satirists, to highlight hypocrisy, greed and corruption.

Like so many recent films — “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “Belfast,” “The Fabelmans,” “Empire of Light” — Babylon wants to pay tribute to the medium that brings us all together in the dark. But it also doesn’t miss an opportunity to alienate the audience at every turn.

Some of it sounds, quite frankly, nuts. And a few of Lomborg's enemies have said as much. But throwing tons of money at the problem with little result? That also sounds kind of crazy.

As filmmaking, the movie is straightforward enough — unobtrusively shot, sensitively scored, lacking only a sense of urgency in its pacing. As a memory play and a launchpad for both a writer-director and the young actress playing her, it’s a very good start. And as your latest reminder that Laura Linney can do just about anything, it’s a bracing kick in the pants.

A misbegotten marriage of sweet and sour.

Red Heat is poorly, or even indifferently, made. It's a joyless exercise, and too much angry resignation seeps in for it to be very funny or very entertaining.

Oculus director Mike Flanagan has crafted a satisfyingly old-fashioned ghost story that, in its evocation of shivery dread, is the most unnerving poltergeist picture since “The Conjuring.”

Without the benefit of deeper psychological spadework, The Kings of Summer stays resolutely on the surface, resembling more of an extended sitcom than a memorable movie on a par with the films it references.

The film only succeeds in establishing a remarkable new low in remakes.

If Broken English occasionally falls prey to a bit too much self-conscious lethargy, it's still a welcome chance to see Posey at her flighty, edgy best.

The filmmakers’ focus-shifting approach to telling this story is smart and effective. But its true power lies in the history lesson it eventually segues to, landing with a gut punch.

Director Geoffrey Wright, who also wrote the script, is thoroughly ambivalent in his storytelling. It's in his deft filmmaking that Wright slips: By whipping up a visceral ride through a tunnel of hate, and by making several characters likable, he creates a parable of race and rage that offers no moral position.

Let it swindle you; it's part of the fun. In fact, it's all of the fun.

The worst mistake is the screenplay, which not only cuts everything into superficial pieces but fails to make authentic moments of anything. In the end, White Oleander isn't an adaptation of a novel. It's a flashy, star-splashed reduction.

It never really feels like we've gotten to know the man himself, leaving the figure at the heart of I'll Sing for You a cipher.