Betsy Sharkey

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.