The otherwise sober-minded film relies heavily on music cues that are sometimes a little too on the nose, as when a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” plays under scenes of Weigel preparing to testify in front of legislators who see gender only as black and white.

Unfortunately, the story isn't inventive and Newell's methodical approach to it verges on monotony.

The acting, especially by Costa, is first rate. Exuding both a childlike openness and a tendency toward the recklessness of young adulthood, the actress backs up even her character’s most questionable choices with conviction.

I sat through "Courage" with interest, but I wasn't particularly moved or riveted with suspense.

Remains one of the most estimable mystery movies of its period. [25 Mar 2005, p.D03]

Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s follow-up to “Shoplifters,” his Oscar-nominated 2018 film about a family of liars, cheats and thieves, is, like that unexpectedly heartwarming drama, a story whose darker themes of social dysfunction and fissure are sublimated into a fable of surprising sweetness.

Because of its adorable protagonist, laugh-out-loud gags and touching premise, Paddington succeeds in a way most CGI/live-action hybrids do not.

With skill and sensitivity, Polley turns an on-the-nose political debate into a bracing declaration of independence.

Mississippi Grind winds up being an improbably satisfying, even heartwarming character study.

While not exactly a cop-out, Virgin may leave some viewers who crave traditional closure with the same hollow ache described by the narrator as follows: "What lingered after them was not life but the most trivial list of mundane facts."

Wetlands has only a sketchy plot, based largely on Helen’s dreams, fantasies and childhood memories. It isn’t terribly clear where the movie — or its hedonistic heroine — is going, but getting there is one wild ride.

It's more a collection of episodes that build to a complex, richly layered picture of these girls' lives. And the more time we spend with them, the more endearing they become.

Whiny, quirky and urbane.

Oh, there's no doubt about it, Clark is manipulating his audience right down to those "Jingle Bells," but only an unreformed Scrooge would hate him for it. "A Christmas Story" is a joy to the world, right down to the moment Mom slips downstairs to unplug the tree lights.

Block, an experienced documentarian, does an outstanding job walking the knife-edge between personal and self-absorbed.

Mostly gentle but occasionally turbulent comic drama, which is primarily about the ways people fail their families, friends and themselves.

Szifrón handles the tone and presentation masterfully.

What ensues in Corpus Christi, Jan Komasa’s absorbing and spiritually attuned drama, turns out to be a fascinating exercise in fake-it-till-you-make-it, with a hefty dose of fatalism and small-town hypocrisy thrown in for maximum provocation.

If there’s one drawback to The Sound of My Voice, it’s that Ronstadt herself declined to sit down with the film’s directors, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman.

Stand and Deliver is inspirational, but never sentimental. It resists all too many temptations. It cries out for schmaltz. But this is a drama as honest as its hero, a work that comes from the heart -- the heart of a computer programmer.

Best of Enemies exists mainly as an occasion to replay the footage of Vidal’s smug taunt and Buckley’s seething response. It’s great television, but it has been available on YouTube for some time now.

Thanks largely to the dexterity of director John Badham and the irresistibly fresh attractiveness of the young leads, Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, WarGames contains enough entertaining suspense and more than enough personality appeal to finesse many of its implausible plot twists. [3 June 1983, p.B1]

Given the current heightened tenor of religious rhetoric and paranoia, it may well wind up pushing brand-new buttons today. To quote Michael Palin quoting Jesus, "There's just no pleasing some people."

But this whore-and-the-innocent friendship, set in Shanghai during the 1930s, is too trite to pull us in. And the gangster scenario around it (Bi Feiyu wrote the script) is similarly unconvincing.

Hairspray is definitely self-congratulatory, like the message movies it aims to spoof. But there's a sweet morality mixed with the camp clumsiness of this nostalgic goof. Waters couldn't care less about the subtleties of plot or character. He writes and directs the way a kid finger paints. As usual, he's gathered a tantalizing cast from the so-out-they're-in crowd. [26 Feb 1988, p.b1]

You don’t need to be familiar with Assayas’s previous work to enjoy Personal Shopper. It works in two realms: as an engrossing ghost story and a drama that addresses profound matters of life and death.