Despite...misguided commercial instincts, Flight offers much that's productively unsettling, anchored by Washington's old-school movie-star performance...

The Wachowskis and Tykwer are determined to make you understand eternity, and in that and only that, they succeed: by the time you get to the film’s endless series of endings, you’ll feel as if you’ve lived lifetimes.

There’s a nobility in a well-made teen movie, not least because of the rarity of the breed...[this] sports movie concerned with the physical, emotional, and moral development of a young man fruitfully aspires to the likes of Breaking Away.

Foreign-film comfort food...at its best in exploring the psychology of the adopted.

Maybe Prometheus is deep, after all, with Weyland Corporation standing in for 20th Century Fox in an allegory for Scott's artistic aspirations: funding and undermining his ambitions at the same time.

Smart enough to work on multiple levels: as a witty salute to masculine '70s cinema...as a deconstruction of same...and as an existential consideration of the role of self-expression in ascribing meaning to life...

Entirely larky...for Beatlefans, what's not to like?

'Eat Gray Love'...the whole enterprise [is] too platitudinous, but with powerhouse actors like Dench, Nighy and Wilkinson, even a critic can agree it's better to be plucky than a sour stick-in-the-mud.

The ludicrous plot devices that allow Mills to go from point A to point Z insult the intelligence of the character and the audience.

Murphy and Falchuk don't go after anything deep...they just want the reflected glow of America's collective nightmares as they peddle their own ambitious, at times affecting, but generally klutzy serialized/recurring bad dream.

With its deathless car chase, Friedkin's film became an instant American classic...

What have I learned? High school movies can be duller—and more sour—than previously thought possible...The least generic element of General Education is its openly hostile attitude toward gay people.

Part religiopolitical satire, part smalltown sitcom, with a hint of romance, Where Do We Go Now? is pleasingly populated with 'characters' and light farce that occasionally breaks out into a movie musical.

While fully embracing the single-camera and mockumentary trends that have all but taken over modern sitcoms, the show hearkens back to...snugly-fitted farcical plotting and traditional sitcom writing...

The milieu End of Watch introduces as 'Once upon a time in South Central' may feel a bit old hat...

Since the halfwitty Damsels in Distress wants to have it both ways, its satire is about as cutting as a plastic knife through a porterhouse.

Playing a character that's almost entirely unsympathetic, Gere demonstrates the outward charm that's allowed Miller to accumulate his wealth and status, as well as the abyss-staring soul his showmanship conceals.

This psychodrama of ill-advised behavior may well leave you feeling dirty...for what you've watched helplessly and perhaps for what you've countenanced as an American citizen.

A fairly straightforward yarn with bluntly articulated themes of Regret, Guilt, Misplaced Trust, and the Vagaries of Fate.

An anti-musical...based on The Who's 1973 "rock opera" concept album...all the more brilliant for this seemingly counter-intuitive approach.

It's good that Sons of Anarchy has pointed itself more clearly in the direction of an end game, as narrative wheel-spinning doesn't serve the show well.

Film demonstrably isn't the best medium for this story...but [it] remains resonant, with its hidden-in-plain-sight metaphor of drifting unconsciously through life.

Tough-minded...In recounting 'the Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,' Lawless does not lack for local color and local legend.

Imagine The Manchurian Candidate as a television series, and you have a pretty good idea of what you're in for with Showtime's paranoid thriller Homeland, adapted from the Israeli drama Hatufim (a.k.a. Prisoners of War)

The reach for epic status sets Once Upon a Time apart; one hopes that reach will result in more grasp during the upcoming sophomore season.

Eighty-eight minutes of sublime silliness...should appeal in equal measure to adults as to children.

A sensitive and fairly subtle work, with the deceptive simplicity of a well-honed short story.

Above all, Farhadi’s parable teaches that a rush to judgment inevitably turns back on the judge.

It's easy to root for Bernard and Bianca...The sequel also tweaks the formula with a brisker pace, and development of the leading characters...

Cold-staring with a black, reflective visor, a robot helps a fading old man to see life, and himself, more clearly.

Yee-haw, and so forth.

Decide for yourself if the narration is a necessary concession for kids: it's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition that doesn't make but also doesn't quite break Chimpanzee.

It's hard to excuse the reconception of the eleven or twelve-year-old Pocahontas...as a statuesque supermodel, especially as kids don't need their stories to be hung on romance to deem them, err, shapely.

If The Hunger Games on screen doesn't exactly catch fire (as does its hero Katniss Everdeen), its savvy pop culture mash-up and the charge of teens in life-and-death peril remain intact.

Cohen's act wears thin...still, The Dictator has several memorable moments...

Proves that even the studio's halfhearted larks still have life in them, thanks to golden-age animators...tunesmiths...and vocal talent.

In its third season, Glee tenaciously held its ground as one of TV's most ambitious shows, in terms of production value and the sheer size of the ensemble it sets out to serve.

A kinder, gentler divorce comedy...Jones' commitment to portraying Celeste at least as much for her flaws as her strengths winds up making the character more likeable.

Despite the dirty jokes hidden in plain sight ('Never underestimate the power of the Schwartz!'), Spaceballs is a PG-rated comedy that makes silliness sublime.

Anyone allergic to high-fructose corn syrup might do well to stay away, but the winking humor and musical gusto of this pop-artful camp standard-bearer still carry the day.

The show has meandered back over too-familiar ground in its fifth and sixth seasons, stalling for time when it should be daringly advancing its storyline.

Plays dated these days, though what now seems like a pitch straight down the middle probably seemed more like a screwball fifty-two years ago.

Friedkin’s pretty shrewd himself, in how he teases out the humor without indulging Letts’ immature glibness, and how he sidesteps Bible Belt baptism to waterboard us in the sewer of selfish human nature.

There’s a weirdly riveting intensity—and a palpable sense of privilege—to the way the movie takes us into squirmy private moments...

If Clue falls a bit short of the mark, it remains a likeable artifact of talented people giving a ridiculous task the old college try...

You know, for kids! Best to repeat that mantra-style if you’re an adult sitting down to watch 1964’s kiddie flick The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

Kubrick again turns his unsparing eye to the dread of existence...of a godless universe...of moral frailty and civilization gone wrong...

In a time of mind-numbing rom coms, Ruby Sparks uses fantasy to get real about modern romance.

Stranger than fiction...simply by presenting us with the facts as they unfolded, Layton winningly encourages more questions than answers.

'A boy and his dog' is a storytelling trope that goes back for centuries, but there's never been a 'boy and his dog' story quite like Wilfred.