Betsy Sharkey

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.

Delivery Man, a heart-tugging new comedy about fatherhood and family, is warm as well as wry.

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.

Though the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve, the music and the cast, many of them members of the real Les Muses, as Marion-Rivard was for a time, are simply so charming that it makes Gabrielle hard to resist.

The filmmaker is at his best unspooling the politics of independence, which he does with such confident fervor that you always understand the fight.

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

He (Burton) has used that tonality deftly here, it keeps Frankenweenie visually stunning and the sensibility light. It's too bad the tale, like Sparky's wagging appendage, keeps falling off.

The result is a film that unsettles as often as it seduces, though it does very well with both.

There is such unflinching passion in the piece that The Paperboy deserves to be seen even though it can feel almost as flawed as its characters.

Even with slightly heavier issues, like its predecessor, Despicable Me 2 is light on its feet, visually inventive and very fast with the repartee. It requires actors who can pull off the many peppery lines at warp speed and in that the film is lucky with its voice cast.

Hawkins' performance as "Dagenham's" unassuming heroine, an amalgam of several key figures who stepped up back in the day, is first-rate and already generating some Oscar talk.

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.

In a roundabout way, St. Vincent delivers, though less as a film than a platform for an object lesson by St. Bill in effortless acting.

Directed by "Kick-Ass" action specialist Matthew Vaughn with slightly more vigor than necessary and a shade less restraint than needed, it's a bit too too to be "brilliant," as the Brits say. But it's not half bad either.

The past is where all the intrigue of the movie lies, and that is where the film is at its most compelling, with the present sometimes wilting in the desert heat.

It is clear in every frame that the filmmakers and actors really appreciate that loyalty. It doesn't make for a particularly ambitious film, but it is a satisfying one as it moves easy, breezy over familiar terrain.

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.

Spurlock creates a good time along with some surprisingly salient observations as he tries to keep his balance on this very slippery slope.

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 film is breezy from start to finish.

There is a great deal of playfulness between the couple that will touch the romantic in most.

It's been a long time since Ryan has had a romantic comedy that gave her room to move and though the scale is smaller here, the humor blacker and Ryan well beyond the first blush phase, you'll be glad that Serious Moonlight came along.

McKay, a British stage actor who was doing an off-Broadway production about the movie legend when casting started, and Danes, whose acting always seems so effortlessly good, are the best things about the film.

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

Somehow all that testosterone-infused blow-'-em-up craziness turns out to be kind of a kick.

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.

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 Bier isn't as comfortable with the lighter side of life, the film is a lovely little lark with a good head on its shoulders.