Betsy Sharkey

Sheridan seems as conflicted as the Cahills about their virtues and failings. The underlying themes -- love, loyalty, decency, duty, honor, betrayal -- that screenwriter David Benioff will use to both bind and break this family seem to bedevil him more than inspire him this time out.

While Fading Gigolo periodically threatens to come apart at the seams, it is Turturro's most disciplined and delightful work yet.

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.

The good thing about All Good Things - that would be Kirsten Dunst, for if there is one thing this strange and creepy film does well it is remind us of just what a talented actress she is.

After the sharp bite and harsh light of most American-style guy-based funny films today, Paul comes as such sweet relief.

The result of Zhang's experimental theater will be a rich brew for some, weak tea for others - a divide that will largely depend on your taste for a blend that is lighter on the subtext and heavier on the slapstick.

The kind of comedy that goes down easy even as it looks at the hard stuff.

Sarcastic, sanctimonious, salacious, sly, slight and surprisingly sweet, the black comedy of Bad Words, starring and directed by Jason Bateman, is high-minded, foul-mouthed good nonsense.

An intriguing and intelligent first effort from indie filmmaker Robbie Pickering, digs deep into the heart of Texas for its soulful tale of small town saints and sinners and a road trip to redemption.

The secret, which "Part of Me" captures quite nicely, was to just let her be.

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.

There are some crowd-pleasers - but Hotel Transylvania never becomes the great monster mash that seemed in the offing.

It is an absolute wonder to watch and creates a warrior princess for the ages. But what this revisionist fairy tale does not give us is a passionate love - its kisses are as chaste as the snow is white.

Beautifully envisioned, badly constructed, the only truly terrifying things in the new horror movie Mama are the fake tattoos, short black hair and black T-shirts meant to turn "Zero Dark Thirty" star Jessica Chastain into a guitar-shredding, punk rocker chick.

The Company You Keep is a shrewder, more satisfying piece of filmmaking than we've seen from Redford in a while, though not quite in the league with his best behind-the-camera work.

The problem with It's Complicated, a romantic comedy about the menopausal crowd starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, is that it's not nearly complicated enough.

On the face of it, tackling the warring sides of science and the spirit seemed a good fit for the writer-director, who continues to be drawn to existential themes. There are occasional flashes of the exceptional, but the film's dodgy story can't sustain them.

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.

Ultimately the documentary falls short of explaining why Vreeland not only made his choice but maintained it.

A breakup worth going through.

For all of the substantive issues underpinning the documentary, it still feels a slight film for Berlinger, and very unlike the documentary veteran's best work, found in his dogged following of the West Memphis Three case.

This funny, sick twist of social satire is certainly locked and loaded, even if its aim is sometimes off.

The film is breezy from start to finish.

The look helps provide a little subtext, but not enough. For such an emotional piece, the dialogue stays too close to the surface. More problematic, the trio's encounters feel contrived; you can see the filmmaker's hand staging each one.

The division between the personal and scientific stories is not a clean one. It gives the film an uneven rhythm as it at times lurches between the two women's very separate lives.

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.

Romance, or the desire to find someone special, isn't a bad thing — if it's not the only thing. But as it stands in DUFF, the denouement at prom has cliché written all over it.

The heat that should saturate the film as betrayals mount and boundaries are broken flickers and dies many times over Miss Julie's languid two-plus hours.

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

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

Though it never plays like a polemic, the film has so much it wants to say the emotional power that might have made it a classic is undercut.

There is an appealing nyuk, nyuk nostalgic spirit to The Three Stooges. To fully appreciate this paean to slapstick and silly nonsense simply requires that cynicism be temporarily shelved and the thinking side of the brain shut down.

Between Law's performance and Shepard's script, which brims with explicit and expressive dialogue, the movie is remarkable for its ability to exhaust, irritate and also entertain.

I'm So Excited! will not stand as one of Almodóvar's defining works. But for some completely frivolous, naughty nonsense, it may be just the ticket.

What are in very short supply, though, are the central chords of Dickens' carol: Crachit's generous spirit, Tiny Tim's sad plight, Scrooge's emotional arc as he finds his humanity. Oh, the scenes are there amid the action, but they are fleeting. By the time A Christmas Carol finishes piling its many shiny presents with their many bells and whistles under the tree, there's no room left for tears for Tiny Tim. Bah humbug indeed.

In sitcom savant Phil Rosenthal's world, truth is at least as strange as fiction and usually it's funnier, which works to his advantage in the very entertaining cultural exchange that is Exporting Raymond.

The road is rocky when the story speeds up to take care of business, with the end a mad dash to tie up loose ends. Still, there is enough saving grace on these craggy shores to let the mists and the legends roll in and envelop you for a while.

Good stuff comes when bad stuff happens; that's when some of the movie animation prowess kicks into high gear. But too many of the "solutions" the guys concoct are so impossibly complex or just downright ridiculous — puppetry comes to mind — that like the continents, it's a little too easy to drift away.

A love story that is actually worth falling for, with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal excellent at steaming up the screen in Love & Other Drugs.

It's a strong directing debut for Barber, who uses the poignant power of Harry's experience to take a universal cut at decaying communities and the poverty of soul as well as pocket.

The bookish group at the heart of this talky film is having such a grand time trading tart exchanges their mood proves infectious. The sparring helps offset some of the contrivances that make Liberal Arts less buttoned up than it should be - so an A for effort and a C for execution.

This drama, about an ordinary guy trying to keep his infant daughter alive in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, is sincere but struggles as much as its hero.

Tension is one of Home's biggest issues. There just isn't nearly enough of it. Story is another.

The séances are great fun, and the cast is charmingly eclectic. But as to whether "Moonlight" is magical — it is, but ever, ever so slightly.

This is a film done right by just about every measure. The extremes of the story seep deep into your bones -- the beauty, the allure, the desperation and especially the cold in this world where life literally hangs on rope and what Mother Nature chooses to throw at you.

Thanks for Sharing is a bit like the recovery scene it digs into — filled with intoxicating highs and dispiriting lows.

In its own strange way, All Is Bright pulls you in even as it frustrates. This is far from a picture-perfect Christmas story, mind you, but there is a spirit in its celebration of disappointment that is quite special.

It's amazing what a little story and a little substance add to a movie. It might not be a giant leap for mankind, but it is a small step for one old man.

All the Wilderness seems tailor-made to play to the actor's strengths — Johnson's script is as lean as Smit-McPhee, both proving adept at doing more with less.

Despite Almereyda's invention in approaching this tawdry Shakespearean tale, he misfires badly. All that is left is the semblance of Cymbeline.

At the moment, modestly amusing does not stave off that desire for a really great live-action family film after years of watching the terrain land-grabbed by animation.

There are moving moments as Cornish channels the slow self-enlightenment necessary for Ashley's character arc. And the actress is particularly good in the scenes with the promising young Hernandez.

By boiling too much down to black and white, Camp X-Ray's ability to say something significant is diluted.

Don't let the title of this indie gem fool you, Small Time has humor and heart big time.

It's almost impossible not to be swept up by the exuberant fun of this singing, dancing, irony-laced ode to the repression, reeducation and resistance of Australia's indigenous tribal peoples circa 1969.

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.

Wisely, Hancock has given the film as much humor as heart.

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.

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.

Piranha 3D is trying so hard for the laughs and the allusions amid all the gore, and endless bloodbath of bare naked ladies, that it completely forgets to frighten anyone.

Oh, there are sword fights aplenty (as bloodless as ever), but instead of a real story, we are left clinging to individual moments.

The pun is a gun for Penguins' writers. Not a sharpshooter rifle, but a machine gun that unloads a nonstop quip barrage, mowing down the real promise of this 3-D animation action comedy.

The Occasionally Amazing Spider-Man 2 might be a better way to think of the not-always-spectacular but sometimes satisfying Spider-Man sequel.

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.

Little more than torture porn tricked out in art-house finery. That is the bigger crime here.

It is billed as a comedy, but it's really a lipstick-smeared drunken tragedy. The humor is so caustic you won't know whether to laugh or cry.

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).

There's a confusion that you can sense as well, with the film pulled between its light and dark sides just as the owls struggle with forces of good and evil. That hesitation keeps "Guardians" from reaching the deep, emotionally rich center that confers greatness in the animation world.

Peirce has done a remaking rather than a reimagining.

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.

The banter between Brian and Arielle is easy and often amusing. But despite all the tangled sheets and entwined bodies during assignations at the St. Regis hotel, the relationship never moves beyond the look of puppy love.

On the surface, Anderson seems to have all the necessary pieces for a surreal psycho pop. But the fear factor eludes him, leaving Stonehearst Asylum more insipid than insane.

In the hands of two of the craft's best, the most ordinary of moments become illuminating, penetrating.

Filled with unrealized possibilities and fraught with flaws, Final Destination seems destined to be little more than a footnote in the anthology of extraordinary films to come out of the long creative collaboration between producer Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Aniston and Bateman keep things both light and dark when they should, and Robinson's Sebastian steals everyone's heart.

Some of the language is smart, sinister and ironic in just the right ways, particularly when Addison, Eric Bana's serial-killing mastermind, delivers it. In other cases, the dialogue is so ludicrously off - either unnecessary, or unnecessarily misogynistic if a cop is doing the talking - that it's hard to believe the same person wrote it.

About 33 minutes in, I couldn't help but think, if they do another close-up of your watch as it tick, tick, ticks toward another three, I will scream. But honestly, any screaming should be directed at Paul Haggis, who both wrote and directed this mess.

The plot is lean, the dialogue is spare and there are some intriguing stabs at intellectual and emotional terrain. But the pacing is deadly, so slow there might be time for a catnap or two without missing anything important.

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."

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.

The dialogue remains spotty and sappy, the effects still haven't caught up to modern-day standards, but "Twilight's" popularity is such that even when it falls short, it doesn't seem to matter.

The kills themselves are both bountiful and bloody, the movie references are brilliant and bloody, the funny is very frequent and very frequently bloody, but to say any more would ruin the boo.

When the movie should touch the heart, it just misses. When moments should produce gales of laughter, it struggles for a smile. When panic and fear should set the heart racing, it doesn't.

The film finds its footing as the weekend progresses and the temperature and tension — outside and in — rise.

Although the movie isn't a complete disaster, it's not your father's RoboCop either.

Maybe there really are supernatural forces at work in this world. How else to explain Beautiful Creatures? The movie is an intriguing, intelligent enigma — three words not typically associated with teen romances.

Not "An Affair to Remember," mind you, but a welcome change from the Nicholas Sparks brand of mush that has overtaken the hearts-and-flowers corner of movieland.

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.

The man was not, by most accounts, pedestrian. In trying to follow so closely in his footsteps, the film, however, is.

This kinder, gentler Allen is still clever, still amusing, and the film itself is a confection tempting enough to consider a taste. Yet there is that empty-calorie letdown after it's over. Maybe it's time to book another trip to Spain.

This is a disappointing turn coming from Phillips, particularly since "The Hangover" was such a fresh, bracing brew of black comic fun.

A wildly whirling martial arts spectacle with an endless array of exotic knives, a penchant for Zen philosophizing and an unquenchable thirst for blood. It may just be one of the best bad movies ever.

The movie version of karaoke. It sings the same tune as the 2007 British underground hit, but it's a little, and at times a lot, off-key.

All the talking would be fine, but the dialogue is preachy, the drama too earnest and the action kind of sluggish, though it's hard not to get a jolt when Johnson jumps behind the wheel.

The script, written by director John Slattery and Alex Metcalf, drifts too quickly into blue-collar cliches, leaving its interesting collection of characters only half-drawn at best.

If you allow yourself to drift with it, rather than get frustrated by all the non sequiturs, Nobody Walks becomes a more enjoyable film.

Though the film is peppered with one-liners tailor-made for Spacey to sling with stinging effect, it doesn't so much leave you laughing as just weary, and wishing this weren't a true story at all.

The prospect that this role would officially shift Bettany to a bigger stage, taking him from the character roles that have become his specialty to leading man status, dies a sort of Darwinian death from bad plotting.