An ad-agency workaholic (female) inherits an infant from her only living -- but now dead -- relative. The feminist movement would seem to have made great strides when a woman can be portrayed as being the equal in parental ineptitude of the men in, say, Three Men and a Cradle …

Writer-director John Singleton grabs the young African-American man by the shirtfront, and gives him a good shake: Grow up! Take responsibility! Be a man! The case-in-point narrative is short on development, long on naturalistic detail -- long on invective and expletive -- long on attitude and brutality -- just plain …

Criminal mastermind Doc (Kevin Spacey) never works with the same crew twice, but he wouldn’t think of doing a job without Baby (Ansel Elgort) behind the wheel. This raises the question of how the plucky Bambino became top whip, when all of the robberies he’s involved in end with the …

Barbara Stanwyck stars as a sexually exploited dame who turns the tables on her male counterparts by sleeping her way to the top in this fleet pre-Code marvel. Directed by the criminally overlooked Alfred E. Green.

And babybabble to go with it. Henry Jaglom here again shows his unctuous sensitivity to Women's Issues by staging a party -- a baby shower -- and listening raptly to women rattle on about the subject du jour. (In Eating it was food, at a birthday party.) All together, the …

John Sayles has done the inevitable and has upped his standards of professionalism. This accomplishes nothing so much as to make his movie look more ordinary -- less needy, in other words, of the critical charity that so benefited The Return of the Secaucus Seven and (less so) Lianna. The …

Does Damien Chazelle like the movies? His big splash, La La Land, told the story of a gal who gives up true love with a true artist (a jazz man, as it happens) to pursue stardom, because c’mon, it’s stardom. (Come to think of it, it’s all there in the …

Futuristic thriller wherein a world-weary mercenary escorts an angelic nymph of indeterminate powers, and for unknown purposes, from a Mongolian convent to New York City. The hyperkinetic camera and overinflated action create the wrong climate for the apocalyptic solemnity. With Vin Diesel, Melanie Thierry, Michelle Yeoh, Gerard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling, …

Finally, a film that is not afraid of the nut-shot montage and the "Jesus is watching you masturbate" joke. The plot — guy's sperm go bad on him, so he goes on a quest to regain a healthy sample he once donated to a sperm bank — is a wall …

SNL alumnae Tina Fey and Amy Poehler form a babymaking pact across the class divide, the barren career woman and the fertile prole. Broad, predictable, and pallidly photographed, yet an agile and energetic playing of the angles. Strong supporting part for Steve Martin, plus ponytail, as a self-mythologizing health-food tycoon: …

If Home Alone, or more relevantly Home Alone 2, was a riot, wouldn't it be twice as riotous with a smaller fry? (And three stooges instead of two?) A big if. And the smaller fry — a crawler fry — adds mainly impossibility. Joe Mantegna, Lara Flynn Boyle, Joe Pantoliano; …

Young wholesome clean-cut American couple competes with old depraved whiskered Britisher for the Scientific Find Of The Century: a brontosaurus family (papa, mama, and little baby) in Darkest Africa. The creatures — as light on their feet as marionettes, but as lubberly in movement as if they all slept wrong …

Wholesome, otherwise known as insipid, comedy about a septet of barely or nearly pubescent girls who, between school years, expand their baby-sitting service into a full-scale day-care center. Conflict is padded-gloved: one of the girls needs to pass a make-up exam in order to continue her membership in the club; …