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... 
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. 
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. 
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... 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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... 
'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. 
The shakedown cruise of Star Trek: The Next Generation—may have been a bumpy one, but it got the newest incarnation of the U.S.S. Enterprise into action while winning over the 'Trekker' fanbase at large. 
At its best delineating the absurdities of immigrant life lost in the London rat race. 
The cast is impeccable from top to bottom, and the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat reliably go for the gut. 
This bouncy Western musical-comedy adventure is long enough on charm, but wisely short and sweet at 76 minutes. It's also totally bereft of innovation... 
The awkward trappings of this Disney adventure mechanize and blunt the tale's humanity. It pops and squeaks and rumbles, but Treasure Planet lacks the strength to transport audiences. 
Boorman's interpretation of the material resulted in an American cinematic classic built not only on shock and awe, but emotional subtlety. 
A pretty much ideal big-screen adaptation of the material, which becomes convincingly cinematic. 
After a critically acclaimed first season, emboldened writer-director-star C.K. doesn't fix what ain't broke, and remains agreeably irreverent about his own creation. 
The conflict between The Elite's way of doing things and Superman's sets up a 'might makes right' allegory wrestling with national and global politics as well as, on a more personal level, civilian tolerance of capital punishment. 
With straits at least as dire as those in The Diary of Anne Frank (and moral dimensions far more murky), In Darkness deals with survival at whatever cost, including compromise of personal principles. 
Just a cut above the typical, but it goes without saying: your mileage may vary. 
Were it not for a horribly transparent bit of narration in those opening moments, Thin Ice would have a better shot at working on its audience the way the filmmakers obviously hoped it would. 
If you can get past the naked exploitation of this mercenary sequel, U.S. Marshals is a sort of brain-rotting kind of fun (how's that for an endorsement?). 
Tells the tale of an escaped convict and his eight-year-old hostage and, in the process, considers the cycles of disappointment wrought on sons by questionable fathers: abusive ones, absent ones, even a well-meaning 'daddy state.' 
This vehicle—the cinematic equivalent of a supermarket paperback—plays like the best-ever episode of Matlock rather than a truly distinguished feature film. 
Stands out as one of Wayne's best-remembered features, a smooth Western co-produced by Wayne and shot at the tail end of the '50s 3-D craze. 
An undeniable disaster...of marketing. Join me on a tour of media headaches, and why they don't necessarily reflect the quality of the movie itself. 