Betsy Sharkey

The writing-directing brothers are usually interested in the small stuff of everyday, but perhaps they've gone a little too small here.

This is definitely animation for grown-ups - its look is voluptuous, sexy and sultry; its Latin-inflected Dizzy Gillespie sound is seductive; and its story of young lovers whose passions are tested is timeless.

That John Carter is so hit and miss, and miss, and miss is unfortunate on any number of levels.

The film has a grand cast, with Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas and Amr Waked at the center of this very clever tale of modern eco-issues intertwined with old-style political intrigues and New Age romance.

Starkly beautiful and exceedingly demanding, The Turin Horse, which Hungarian master Béla Tarr has said will be his last film, is both easy and impossible to define.

Paul Weitz has dialed things down considerably for Being Flynn, writing and directing with an earnest sensitivity that at times suits, at times undermines, the complexities of the story at hand.

If anything, the manic energy and aggressive sarcasm of Wain's "Role Models" (2008), which also starred Rudd, has become much more refined in Wanderlust, (well, as refined as something this raw can be).

If you can get past the rough patches - a slightly sluggish start and a coda that feels like one punch line too many - there is some sinister fun to be had in watching Kinnear skating toward disaster on ice that is very thin indeed.

If you can get past the gross invasion of privacy issues that would exist if this were real life and not just a frothy confection, what you have is some bittersweet fun peppered by bursts of sharp patter, the best between the boys.

The Swell Season emerges as an incisive cut at fame's effect on the real-life music and romance of Hansard and Irglova. It's an accomplished piece of filmmaking from the trio, who are making their feature-length documentary debut.

This mind-and-fork-bending sci-fi saga comes from the freaky imaginations of director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis, who've packed their feature debut with smartness.

It's a bit precious in its narcissistic point of view, but still a kick to watch the hopelessly devoted astronaut wannabe fulfill his wildest dream.

By making the movie as much about the women as Yunus and his theories, the filmmaker brings a sense of balance to Bonsai People that would have been easy to lose given the international economist's long and much-honored career.

This is a movie that leaves you wanting more. To care more, to cry more, to love more.

This is a far more brutal film than Wheatley's first, 2009's "Down Terrace." Though it had crime at its center as well, it was balanced by a dry irony and far less blood. There is no offset in Kill List, with one scene so relentless in its gore that it makes the notorious elevator scene in "Drive" pale in comparison.

In Man on a Ledge, Leth does well in taking us to dizzying heights. If only he had found a way to ground that thrill in some real pathos as well.

What the film captures so effectively is the cultural reality of Mexico's ubiquitous underclass.

Haywire doesn't measure up to the best of the director's work - like, say, his Oscar-winning drug drama, "Traffic." But watching Carano kick, spin, flip, choke, crack and crush the fiercest of foes - mostly men about twice her size - is thoroughly entertaining, highly amusing and frankly somewhat awe-inspiring.

So super complicated (implausible?) that in the wrong hands it would be laughable. Instead, this very gritty bit of greased action does a decent job of shaking the sluggish out of January.

Really more of an effusive autobiography of the 84-year-old singer-actor than a traditional documentary, so be prepared for something close to sainthood in its tone.

The film catches her long after she's left the public eye, and rather than an examination, or an assessment, of her politics, it instead offers up an affecting if not always satisfying portrait of the strong-willed leader humbled by age.

At its soulful heart, Pariah is a stinging street-smart story of an African American teen's struggle to come of age and come out - to the father who still calls her "daddy's little girl" and the mother who quotes the Bible and buys her pink frills.

Director Stephen Daldry has taken great care in looking at it through the eyes of a precocious New York City boy in a film filled with both sentiment and substance.

Has the sweep of a classic John Ford movie, the sentiment of Frank Capra and a spirited steed named Joey who will steal your heart. The film itself is more difficult to love.

An intelligent family film, a rarity, and while not quite Crowe at his absolute best, it carries his humanistic imprint and benefits from a strong acting ensemble that keep emotions in check.

When the filmmakers move into Nobbs' isolation, though, the movie flags - a surprise given Garcia's excellent work on HBO's minimalist personality study "In Treatment," on which he wrote and directed extensively.

A few shades brighter than its predecessor, and the action bits certainly closer to the full-throttle "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels" mode director Guy Ritchie didn't quite capture the first time.

I fear the furry singing sensations may have finally run completely aground. If only they were truly stranded on that desert island…

I'm going with the filmmakers as the folks most responsible for perpetrating this terribly unfunny and overwhelmingly raunchy film that stars the normally likable, or at least comically forgivable, Jonah Hill. He is neither here.

W.E., Madonna's second go at directing a feature film, leaves one wishing she'd find other creative outlets for those times when she's bored with the pop-star life.

The film is very much like a home movie in trying to tell its story of families and feuds complete with the bad lighting, bad camera angles and meandering observations. Though you will wish for more polish and insight, its unruly action is hard to resist.

When it's done right, as it is in Young Adult, there is something absolutely mesmerizing about watching a train wreck unfold on screen. When the wreck in question is a narcissistic beauty played to scheming, sour, downward-spiraling perfection by Charlize Theron, cringing is definitely called for, but so is laughter.

We have a fumbling and fawning - if sincere - tribute to the living legend and a director who has never seemed more out of his element.

If you give yourself over to that clash of style and sensibility, something magical happens as the power, the prescience and the precision of Shakespeare's words take hold of modern problems.

It's lush and vibrant when Williams is onscreen, mostly fussy British discontent when she's not.

For all its sharpness, the movie has a very sweet streak.

For all of its punishing pathos, the movie does not have the clean lines and elegance of another cut at crime in this city, "L.A. Confidential" (based on an Ellroy novel). As the day of reckoning approaches, the film spins out of control, careening between convoluted subplots, with the emotional pitch of the piece swinging too wildly.

If this low-budget indie is any indication, the younger Levinson's creative sensibilities appear to be darker than his dad's, the voice clearly his own.

It is the kind of film that leaves you limp, exhausted and feeling battered by the end. But its wrenching performances make the beating worth weathering.

The film doesn't have nearly the bite - ferocious or delicious - that any self-respecting vampire movie really should. It's as if all the life has drained away.

It makes The Descendants a tragedy infused with comedy and calls for a balancing act from filmmaker and star alike, a tightrope they navigate with nary a wobble.

That the plot is the problem comes as something of a surprise given Monahan's pedigree. The well-regarded screenwriter ("Body of Lies," "Kingdom of Heaven") won an Oscar for the deliciously conflicted cops and crime twister of 2006's "The Departed."

I realize that making Immortals immortal was way too much to ask, but frankly, just a shade more plausible, not to mention pleasurable, would have been nice.

Firmly rooted in the filmmaker's esoteric, frustrating, provoking, demanding narrative style, the movie is also amazingly romantic - lush, ripe, rich, delicious.

What is missing is something new - clarity, insight, outrage. Instead, its understatement is ultimately its undoing.

Tower Heist might not be a classic (it's not), but at least for a little while it will make you laugh instead of cry about the current state of affairs, which is more than you can say about a lot of things.

What's missing are the kind of moments that actually matter, the ones that are so gripping that you want desperately for time to stop - to savor them, to feel the fear, the passion, the regret. Ah, well … maybe next time.

William Shakespeare - whoever he was - I think would probably be at least a little amused by Anonymous. For amusing it is - along with bawdy, brazen, politically outrageous, plausible enough and occasionally graced with something close to Shakespearean cleverness in an absurdist sort of way.

In every move, Depp makes you believe this was a passion project for the actor, one he dedicates to Thompson.

The humor is sly and not overplayed either. Typical is the English class with Mr. Angelo (Adam Goldberg) trying to prod his bored students into parsing the difference between satire and irony, which is what the filmmakers are up to as well.

Sometimes the facts can get in the way of the drama, and that's the central problem here. That sense of needing to be true to the record is reflected in an overwhelmed screenplay.

A film of rough edges and no easy answers, nearly perfect in its imperfection.

As good as Worthington, Chastain, Moretz and Morgan can be as they try to untangle the morass and the menace - and get caught up in it - they just can't quite pull it off. The real killer, sadly, is the script.

If you're in the mood for some feathery fluff of the happy-sappy-and-not-wholly-unpleasant sort and need a break from snark, there is The Big Year.

There's a strange sort of diffidence that seems to inhabit Dafoe and Roberts' performances, and the disconnect between the two Janes is simply insurmountable.

There is that allure of the Old West that is hard to resist, and there's plenty of grist in the story worth milling and mulling.

As it happens, this recycled reclamation of underdogs saga is neither as bad as it sounds nor quite as good as it could be.

The barbs feel stale at best, squandered at worst, and the ominous music that accompanies each sounds as if it has been lifted from the silent movie era.

Lonergan has created a forceful yet extremely fitful film that teases with moments of brilliance only to frustrate in the end. Margaret is an unrealized dream, one you wish he'd gotten as right as his 2000 debut, "You Can Count on Me."

A not very good romantic comedy made somewhat bearable by Faris.

If anything, watching the film is like attending an old-style Southern tent revival - you want to believe in the fight against all that fire and brimstone. Heck, you want to join the righteous brigade. But when the lights go up and the fever dies down, it feels more like you've witnessed a show than a real showdown with the devil.

The film is a reminder of the pleasure to be found in simple things - reading a book, sitting on a park bench with a friend, spending an afternoon with Margueritte.

At times, Happy, Happy is cutting comedy at its brutal best; at times, it slips on the black ice. Still, the love of life is exuberant, the pain exquisite.

The better moments are fleeting. More often, the film feels flat-footed, and the story plays out as you'd expect. Long before Tanner Hall ends, you may well find yourself wishing for the final bell.

McLaughlin, who has a good eye for the minimal, manages to bring out the haunting beauty of empty places littered with the discards of forgotten lives.

At best, the jokey bits are occasionally funny.

Bristling with dangers both corporeal and cerebral, The Debt is a superbly crafted espionage thriller packed with Israeli-Nazi score settling.

All of that combines to make Colombiana into a scandalous blend of action, sex and violence. My apologies in advance for having so much fun.

Really, truly, very scary … At least until about 30 minutes in, when you start to be distracted by the lack of logic in the storytelling and the fact that the nasty little gremlins responsible for all the bumps in the night can be offed pretty easily.

The comedy isn't always as crisp as it should be, but Peretz has the perfect partner in crime in Rudd.

As so often happens with love, what you hope for is not even close to what you get, and in this case we are left with a heartbreaking disappointment of a film.

Brutal, bloody beyond belief, and has no socially redeeming value. So it is with a certain amount of guilt that I say it's kind of a wicked blast to watch, especially if you're in the mood for some righteous revenge.

FD 5 did not raise even a single goose bump - which for a movie that bills itself as horror is not a good thing. The camp factor, however, is high and makes the 95 minutes pretty much fly by.

With Snow Flower, the filmmaker is forever torn between two childhoods, two adulthoods, two distinct political and social eras, and two complex relationships, unable to make both equally relevant.

Laughter, which is ladled on thick as gravy, proves to be the secret ingredient - turning what should be a feel-bad movie about those troubled times into a heart-warming surprise.

Life in a Day has an earthy and at times euphoric appeal. Helping on that front is the editing artistry of Walker (and an expansive team), the man in charge of all that splicing and dicing keeps things moving at an entertaining clip.

This animated-live action hybrid is really more 3-D disaster than family comedy. Even Neil Patrick Harris, who has proved he can save just about any sinking ship, cannot make this boat float.

Between the writing, acting, directing and the rest, it works. Not crazy, not stupid, and filled with love. Period.

Even with all their huffing and puffing, this very salty, often funny affair is never quite as satisfying as it should be.

Quietly and movingly out of this world. Director Mike Cahill has woven sci-fi imaginings and quantum physics theories of parallel universes into a provocative meditation on the prospect of rewriting your life history.

It's potent stuff, laced with smart, sensitive humor, and extremely well handled by Wysocki and the excellent ensemble of young actors that become Terri's intimates.

The franchise remains as much an endurance test as a movie, but at least a better Bay has delivered a leaner, meaner, cleaner 3-D rage against the machines.

A frustrating mix of smart flash and smirking impudence.

The film, like the tour, will satisfy the Conan cravings of hardcore fans the most, and prove an enjoyable enough diversion for the rest.

The film is deeply moving yet never maudlin in telling this hard-knocks-but-hope-infused story.

The-impossible-to-upstage stars are the penguins, a combination of real Gentoos specially trained for the film and some computer-generated counterparts. The special effects gurus blend the two seamlessly, making it easy to believe there was no digital wizardry involved, which is perhaps the niftiest trick of all.

Coogan and Brydon are either quite brilliant at this or just serving up slight variations of their very witty selves. Either way, their travels and squabbles are great fun to watch, the countryside is bucolic, the food mouthwatering. You just wouldn't want to go on a real road trip with them.

A buoyant and disarming drama about sons and fathers, death and dying, living and loving and all the ways we find ourselves starting over, hoping to finally get it right.

A tedious two-plus hours. There were such possibilities in the origins idea.

The big action pieces, particularly the final face-off, are masterful both for their cleverness in bringing down the house and the detail jammed into every frame. Even composers Hans Zimmer, who's scored a zillion movies, and John Powell seem to be having more fun than usual.

Lost is the fresh, perverse, painfully politically incorrect R-rated pleasure that came when "The Hangover" ate up the summer of 2009.

The documentary is fascinating as a museum piece with Berge serving as docent.

Johnny Depp, back again as the swashbuckling miscreant who favors guy-liner and gold, somehow manages to keep this ship of fools afloat. But just barely.

Anchored by a lovely performance from Oliver Litondo as Maruge and an exuberant Naomie Harris as Jane Obinchu, the school principal who champions his cause, the result is a tearful, joyful, imperfect, yet nearly irresistible ode to the human spirit.

The cast Rush has assembled around Ferrell helps as well. There are tiny gems contributed by Laura Dern as the long-lost high school crush Nick looks up, and Stephen Root as a prickly neighbor with some unusual proclivities.

From the first overheated moments of Bridesmaids...it's clear we're in for that rarest of treats: an R-rated romantic comedy from the Venus point of view.

It is a third man, a revolutionary, who nearly steals the show. Which might have been all right if writer-director Roland Joffé hadn't been so conflicted about whose story he wants to tell. But indecision can be deadly, and it proves to be here.

An emotional runaway of a film that carries neither the insight nor the uplift to make the weight of its dark journey worth it.