There's room enough for both Pete's Dragons in this big old world.

'Arty,' to be sure, but it's not pretentious: rather, it's expressive of the scattered state of mind, the reflective state of mind, that attends grief.

Pinpoints a creative community that’s never been explored in a narrative film...its wistful, naturalistic presentation of a thirtysomething turning point—a forced maturation of sorts—rings true.

The graphic intensity of Orson Welles' black-and-white 1948 film of Macbeth, then, isn't merely for show, but a carefully considered symbolist staging for screen, meant to complement the Bard's immortal poetry.

The film works as well as it does on the strength of its acting. De Niro is in fine, grounded form, and his verbal sparring with Ramírez, [et al]...elevates the film, the overlapping dialogue highly effective in infusing naturalistic energy.

Once Don’t Breathe detonates its big twist...some audience members will feel the film stops being fun while others will feel the fun has started in earnest.

Could be fairly branded exploitation pictures in their quantity of sex and violence (and nudity and gore), but they also qualify as comic-book movies, and perhaps the first in the modernistic style to which we've become accustomed.

An amiable, gentle, light drama with coming-of-age and outsider elements...a movingly attentive Robinson has never been allowed to be this warm on screen.

A gleeful exercise in nostalgia, a fun and family-friendly Batman story in its own right, and a running commentary on the character's flexible interpretation.

As per a recurring Season One line, 'We're just getting started.'

Lee brought a distinct elegance to the wuxia genre of mythic, lyrical martial arts pictures...a breathtaking visual and emotional experience for the viewer...

Universal's new three-disc The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection Restored Blu-ray Edition offers the best chance yet on home video to appreciate the Brothers and their brand of anarchic, sometimes surreal comedy...

For all its wild comic abandon, Duck Soup has darker implications than the usual Marx Brothers comedy and, as such, feels the most relevant and sharp in its satire.

Keeps plot at a minimum, anarchy at a maximum, which is a good place to be for the fearless foursome of 1930s screen comedy. 

More so than any of the other Paramount films, Animal Crackers is Groucho's picture.

The opening ten minutes of Horse Feathers have more laughs than most comedy features muster in their entirety. And there's more where that came from...

Sophisticated absurdity and sublime nonsense.

Deep reserves of humor and heart...a sophisticated comedy with an often blazingly fast pace to its dialogue, a quintessential Gary Cooper performance in the title role, and an especially tenacious leading lady in Jean Arthur.

Try not to giggle when...Langdon is being called in for '[his] expertise, [his] erudition.' The guy from Bachelor Party? Just kidding, Tom, we love you—just not in this kind of pricy but conspicuously soulless crap.

Cinematic poetry...As that greatest of screen rarities—a potentially mainstream experimental film—the writer-director earns a bit of slack in gratitude for the strange and wonderful gift Boyhood is...

Too measured to be lively, too skittish to be provocative, too dramatically slack to be more than a ploddingly literal book-on-film.

A sturdy but uninspired crime docudrama that’s neither convincingly colloquial nor thrillingly stylish.

The main draw remains Serling, whose story seems every bit as relevant—indeed, more so—today. There is efficiency but also music in his theatrical language...

The fact that Mike and Dave will inevitably turn into a rom com blunts its potential as a black comedy of comeuppance for the titular jerks.

Simpleness and crime have consistently fascinated the pair, who may as well be praying at the temple of Atë...the Coens preach a healthy respect for the randomness and chaos that ensues from our desires.

As far as 'Classic Disney,' Beauty and the Beast pretty much has it all. Y'know, for kids (of all ages).

A direct sequel to Captain America: The Winter Soldier...a crazy-cool superhero team-up/smackdown movie to make Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice look like a tea party, and a franchise-launching introduction to the new Spider-Man...

The significant visual appeal and magnetic turns by the leading players make this four-hander a diverting dip into human nature: specifically, jealousy and the folly of opting for interiority over communication.

Why is Marguerite so funny to us, and why is her public humiliation allowed to continue for so long? The answers plumb both the best and worst instincts of human nature, and give Giannoli’s film a strong heartbeat.

The story, the effective acting, and the period-specific recreations of Kabuki would be enough for most films, but this one has Mizoguchi behind the camera, applying his rigorous formalism.

Double-crosses and disguises, captures and escapes make up the momentum of Reed's nicely pacy adventure.

A story that succeeds in the telling: in the work of Hiddleston, Laurie, and Colman and the steady hand of their director: notable feature-film helmer Susanne Bier.

Not only can the center not hold, but there is no center to begin with...The story mostly speeds along at an obnoxious rate and pitch, the better to misdirect from the next dumb abracadabra plot twist, but good luck hanging in for over two hours of it.

A dreamy fable of just-so proportion and asethetics...this literate and richly strange film has layers of meaning available to the viewer.

An abundance of fun, with high-spirited action (including dazzling space battles and impressive lightsaber duels), dry wit, and dramatic contributions to the Star Wars mythology. 

Favreau and Marks have obviously put some thought into the film’s visual approach and the messages...: the animal kingdom’s unexpected threats and opportunities...the work Mowgli puts in to come of age...his casual kindheartedness...

Too closely resembles the narcotic world it depicts. Without ever doing anything conspicuously wrong, Equals plays like one big miscalculation...

I'll say this for Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon. It's a film that takes a big roll of the dice. Is it wrenching? Is it wacky? Well, it's definitely weird.

It's difficult to imagine how Ash vs Evil Dead could be any more fan-pleasing than it is...packed with all sorts of looney fun that conjures back up the "splatstick" style Raimi and friends popularized.

Pushed the culture-shock of kitchen-sink drama further with its female protagonist and depictions and discussions of interracial coupling, teen pregnancy, the possibility of abortion, and homosexuality.

Bergman's effortlessly poetic diary and letters provide more evidence, though patently unnecessary, of her artistic temperament, her lyrical view of experience.

It's comforting to know Once Upon a Time is there as an entertainment families can rally around, and one that will challenge them thematically as much as it panders by playing in the Disney sandbox.

Season Three of The Blacklist upped the show's game with slightly more adventurous writing that made the show a more consistent bet from week to week.

A movie so far up its own posterior that it includes the threatening exchange 'They made a womb float for Mother’s Day?' 'I can’t wait to see what they do for Father’s Day!' Well, I can.

Needlessly starting out on such a false, bombastic note emblematizes the film's mistake of blowing up the character past what made her recognizable, and thereby funny, in the first place.

For Zeus's sake...as warm and fuzzy and comforting (or not) as a Disney Channel show marketed more to parents than to their kids.

If Zootopia only reluctantly comes around to its crime-solving story, that’s understandable: the good stuff resides in the characterizations and the morality play around them, decrying fear of the other.

As adapted by screenwriter John Niven from his own novel, Kill Your Friends has a decidedly been-there, killed-that feel to it.

In a way, the amusing, preposterous Hail, Caesar!, for all its arch postmodernism, becomes what it pastiches, resembling the kind of '50s film we can now watch and admire for a kind of cultural reflection without exactly considering it a success.

A dark crime drama the rough-and-tumble Samuel Fuller no doubt would have loved.