Betsy Sharkey

Herzog has become a master of the understatement — knowing just how long the images can sustain you without a word being said. Vasyukov and his team of cameramen gave him a stunning range to work with, so the filmmaker keeps his own narration to a minimum.

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.

This sloppy sentimental journey is long on beauty shots, short on depth and seriously intent on tugging your heartstrings. Indeed, it demands you reach for those tissues. Sob.

The heart of this film is on the road with Bateman and McCarthy. If not for their brilliance, Identity Thief would be running on empty.

In doing a little genre bending of romantic schmaltz and horror cheese - some fundamental zombie mythology is turned on its head - the film breathes amusing new life into both.

If you're going to saturate a film with so much violence, at least it's nice to see an action hero - or antihero - actually feeling the pain.

At first Tabu is intriguing. But the enigma gets wearing as the director's attention is divided between the homage to the silent film era and the film's underlying exploration of the regret of old age.

Nothing clicks, nothing resonates, everything's broken.

The soul of the era is missing, and with it any reason to care. In Fleischer's hands, the high-stakes shootouts are as stylish as a GQ spread, but it's nearly impossible to figure out who's zoomin' who.

In "Django," Tarantino is a man unchained, creating his most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet.

Bayona achieves a rare sense of balance between the big and the powerful as well as the small and the intimate in the family's survival against impossible odds, no doubt the inspiration for the title.

There will be many who won't be able to get past the language in This Is 40. There will be others who will worry that the king of callous has gone soft on them. I'm just happy to see one of this generation's most influential comic minds back on track - the laugh track.

So thrill-less, so chill-less is Jack Reacher that it is unlikely to spark interest, much less controversy.

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.

Cumming is the linchpin, and the actor does an exceptional job of moving across the vast galaxy of universal emotions about partners and parenthood. He takes us to the heart of the matter in ways that matter most.

While the action is brisk, the film never feels in a hurry. Walken and Pacino amble through their paces. Arkin ups the adrenaline any time he's around, and he is not around quite enough.

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.

Romance and capers exist in Lay the Favorite, they just aren't played well.

Quartet is very much a performance piece, which plays to Hoffman's strength - as an actor he knows when to allow this excellent ensemble breathing room and when to tighten the belt.

At some point you hope the actor (Butler) will find a movie that will give him the right material to make hearts truly beat faster. Until then, it appears we'll have to settle for films with more flaws than his characters.

The writer-director becomes so intent on hammering home the parallels between economic decay, political disappointments and petty criminals, there is nothing soft, or subtle, about it. He should trust his audience more.

There is a lot to savor in Rise of the Guardians, but sometimes too much of a good thing can be exhausting.

There are always moral crosscurrents in Lee's most provocative work, but so magical and mystical is this parable, it's as if the filmmaker has found the philosopher's stone.

In the end Anna Karenina lets you down - visually stunning, emotionally overwrought, beautifully acted, but not quite right.

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.

Two things to keep in mind when considering Barrymore, starring Christopher Plummer as the great John B: It was brilliant as a one-man stage show; it was never a good candidate for film.

While his breakthrough documentary, "Dogtown and Z-Boys," cracked open the window on a largely unknown world in vibrant and visceral ways, Bones feels like an epilogue.

Perhaps Switch's greatest strength is in giving us enough information to try to come up with better questions of our own.

In Skyfall, Mendes has given us a thrilling new chapter in a franchise that by all rights should have been gasping for air - which really makes him the hero of this saga.

The movie's subversive sensibility and old-school/new-school feel are a total kick.

Zilberman's minimalistic approach fits the idea of the film better than it fits the actual film. It leaves this melancholy mood piece with some beautiful moments, but unlike Beethoven's work, A Late Quartet ultimately feels unfinished.

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 Other Son is a case of good intentions overwhelming the inherent drama - quite simply, political correctness got the best of it. The French director is so focused on covering all the bases, and ensuring a sense of equal empathy - and screen time - for the plight of both families, she leaves the film struggling to get beyond a log-jam of life lessons.

Bernal and Furstenberg exist within this meditative space with all the ease and unease of a couple still trying each other on for size. The forces that push and pull them feel so rooted in reality that if not for the layers of meaning it might seem a complete improvisation.

The footage itself, particularly of the surf, is spectacular, with veteran cinematographer Bill Pope handling the camerawork. But the drama is soggy, overreaching for the heartfelt and overdoing the inspirational.

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

In a country that embraces cinematic violence with such ease but blushingly prefers to keep sex in the shadows or under the sheets, the grown-up approach of The Sessions is rare.

The best of the Alex Cross mess suggests that as an actor, he has the talent to move beyond the world of Madea should he want to. He just needs to look for much better material.

It's just that there isn't enough story - the book shouldn't be required reading for the film to make sense.

It is a striking and moving study of "what was" versus "what it has become" as the filmmakers try to get at the whys.

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.

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.

One of those documentaries that is sad and hopeful in equal measure and exceptional in its storytelling.

What helps offset the predictable in this very predictable movie is a series of show-stopping numbers, so props to the folks who oversaw music and choreography. But the true saving grace is a few of the central players.

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

A visceral story of beat cops that is rare in its sensitivity, rash in its violence and raw in its humor.

Back in the director's chair for only the second time, the filmmaker, like his main character, is a little unsteady on his feet. But thanks to his stars, the film - like the book - is a smartly observed study of a troubled teen's first year in high school.

Remarkably, much of that sizzling sensibility was caught on film and has been stylishly stitched together with her personal history in the scrumptious new documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.

Breathtaking moments give way to boring ones; searing emotions vie with the exceedingly bland.

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.

Writer-director Nicholas Jarecki squarely lands that punch, creating a tense and chilling horror story for financially fraught times.

The film is only slightly more boorish than the racy cult hit was on telly and would probably not be worth the celluloid expended were it not for the bookish, brainy Will McKenzie (Simon Bird).

It's a snooze.

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.

Having seen the show on stage, I wondered if Birbiglia could morph the ideas into an equally funny movie. He hasn't quite, but he's come pretty close.

The action is inventive, extensive and exciting, a bang-up job by cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen, one of the town's hot new shooters.

In truth, the film fizzles as much as it fumes.

A strange, but strangely entertaining combo of drag racing machismo, slapstick silliness, raunchy riffs, politically incorrect rants and sweet nothings.

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

It is a disappointment coming from writer-director David Cronenberg, who has proved such a master at mind games. Cronenberg is perhaps too faithful to the book. The topic is provocative and certainly timely, but the film never achieves the incisive power of his best work, "A History of Violence" for one. Even an A-list ensemble that includes Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton and Paul Giamatti can't save it.

It may be the most fun you'll have with ghosts and zombies all year.

Like the relationship she has chosen to dissect, the film is promising, disappointing, touching or frustrating, depending on the moment.

An unusually intelligent cut at the relationship game.

There are moments when the film is a little too precious, taking time to preen at just how clever it is.

By far the film's deadliest weapon is McConaughey. The way the actor leans into threats, dropping his voice, wrapping eloquence in sinister tones, is skin-crawling. The muscles in his neck literally seem to tense one by one. And if the eyes are the window to the soul, you really don't want to peer for long into his. It is not an easy performance to watch, but it is unforgettable.

The truth-is-stranger-than-fiction saga has been a hit on the festival circuit, winning top documentary prizes at Sundance for Sweden's Bendjelloul. What sets Searching for Sugar Man apart, though, is the way in which the filmmaker preserves a sense of mystery in the telling.

Some of the phallic jokes work, others are really lame. Fortunately there are many other funny bits that have nothing to do with body parts that keep the laughs coming.

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

In Continental Drift, the filmmakers have gone a little crazy too, but in a good way. Smack dab in the middle of things there's a big Broadway-style number involving pirates.

Somehow it is the waiting - for the fall that you expect is coming, for the marriage you figure will fall apart - that makes Take This Waltz one to make room for on your dance card.

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

Young's almost mystical musicianship is what saves it.

The comic targets run the gamut - race, religion, relationships, reality, etc. While nothing is sacred, the sacrilege comes with just enough sweetness to offset the salt.

Director Benh Zeitlin and his co-writer Lucy Alibar, a playwright whose "Juicy and Delicious" was the inspiration, have created characters that are wondrously indelible, distinctive of voice and set them inside a story that will unleash a devastating hurricane, and a flood of emotions, before it is done.

Starts imploding long before the massive asteroid hurtling toward Earth is due to deliver annihilation.

It's not "On Golden Pond" by any stretch, but it is nice to have Fonda back in the fractious family way.

Here that soul-baring, soul-searching is the centerpiece of the film. Unfortunately, not much else about Lola Versus matches that standard.

The animation artistry of Madagascar 3 is at its best under the big top, all cotton candy fluff and razzle dazzle. The character development of this edition is the best of the rest as well.

It's not your typical animated fare, but since the filmmakers can't quite decide whether its tale should be serious or silly, "Cat" trips and stumbles unsteadily between a bit of both.

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.

Good trippy fun.

Here the writer-director's tendency toward the allegorical casts a magical spell with Anderson finding a near perfect balance between the humanism and the surreal that imprints all of his work.

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.

Rather than the engaging enlightenment of the source, the film becomes bloated by confusion.

By turns hysterical, heretical, guilty, innocent, silly, sophisticated, teasing and tedious.

Given all the impossible choices the young jockey had to face, The Cup should have been a weepie if ever there was one - but the filmmakers stumble on their way to the finish line.

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

There is a lot of hope in the air in I Wish, but the film never feels sappy. The very appealing score by the Japanese indie-rock group Quruli brings a kind of upbeat energy that matches the clean, open style of director of photography Yutaka Yamazaki, a frequent Kore-eda collaborator.

The film's single saving grace is Turner, who channels that legendary Catholic guilt like there is no tomorrow.

It all makes for a movie whose infectious charm outweighs some of the predictability that slips in around the edges.

rRegrettably falls prey to its grand and grisly ambitions - it's neither grand nor grisly enough to seriously satisfy Poe-ish cravings for murder, mystery and literary allusions.

This is writer-director Richard Linklater at his wry, whimsical best, and considering he was the filmmaker behind 1993's "Dazed and Confused," that makes the movie something of a milestone.

In many ways, "Engagement" reflects both the best and worst of Stoller and Segel's creative collaborations.

Like Freeway, the lovable stray dog at the center of this very teary comedy, Darling Companion has lost its way. Even the marquee ensemble anchored by Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, Kevin Kline and Richard Jenkins is not enough to rescue this motley mutt of a movie.

The Sparks-styled romance has almost become its own movie genre - predictable, pure of heart, sentimental and never straying from the boy-meets-girl basics, or the surface, for that matter - and in that The Lucky One delivers.

Mostly Lockout is lost in space.

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.

The laughs come easily, the screams not so much. It's as if the filmmakers got so wrapped up in the satire they forgot to include the intense sensation of rising dread that creates all the thrills and chills that are part of the attraction.

The ambiguity is refreshing. And despite the complicated emotional story at the center of this film, the Dardennes, who wrote and directed, have opted to handle it all with a minimalist narrative style.

Miller and Lord clearly understand the push-and-pull and hyper-competitiveness that make guy friendships both complex and stupid. That it comes to life so fully in 21 Jump Street is what gives the film an endearing, punch-you-in-the-arm-because-I-like-you-man charm.

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.

Despite the pretty overload and the smoldering blue-eyed handsome of Egglesfield, the heart-pounding, palm-sweating, heavy-breathing chemical reactions that should be causing major blackouts in Manhattan, where this story unfolds, are nowhere to be found.

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 sheer audacity of Fast Five is kind of breathtaking in a metal-twisting, death-defying, mission-implausible, B-movie-on-steroids kind of way. Not complaining, just saying.

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

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.

A lyrical poem for some, like watching paint dry for others. I'd argue for embracing the poetic, a rare commodity in American films these days.

What we have here is truly a rare bird, and I'm not talking about the world's last two blue macaws...No, the nearly extinct species of which I speak is the G-rated family movie - nice for a change to sit through a film with literally no cringe or fear factor.

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.

Meanwhile, Mirren, that grande dame of cinema, just seems tired. And who could blame her? She's in the midst of this disaster, literally and figuratively dying right in front of us. Made me want to cry, just not for Arthur.

To fully appreciate the extreme lowness of Your Highness, it's best to accept that this sometimes witless and sometimes winning comedy has absolutely no socially redeeming value.

A wonderfully wild provocation - an imperfect, overlong, intemperate and utterly absorbing romp through the id that I wouldn't have missed for the world.

The intricate plotting that distinguished the book overwhelms the movie.

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

Smart isn't all it's cracked up to be and soon the movie is unraveling faster than all of Eddie's grand schemes.

Instead of breathing life into cartoonist Berkeley Breathed's cheeky kids morality tale, the movie - with all its 3-D motion capture animation flash - flatlines.

Gorgeously shot, smartly conceived, cleverly cast, badly executed - the lush medieval beauty here is at best only skin deep.

The city's skyline is blown to bits. Burning, broken, blackened bits. So if that's what you're in the mood for, that is what the film delivers, endlessly, but in that cheesy-campy way that can make a bad movie good fun.

There are risky plot choices all along the way, but the risks are what keeps the pot boiling as the complexities of the relationship triangle heat up and cool down.

Verbinski's greatest triumph is that he allowed the animation to free rather that confine him. There is indeed a new sheriff in town, with Rango destined to become a classic.

Overall Take Me Home Tonight represents a lateral move at best for its 24-hour party people, a step back at worst, and not worth your time either way.

Anderson spends most of his energy creating a mood - making "Vanishing" more cerebral than white-knuckle, though a few more shrieks (mine) might have been nice.

After scoring big in 1998 with "Mary" - the zipper issue, the "hair gel" mix-up, the roving troubadours - their (Farrelly brothers) raw inventive edge has never been quite as sharp. Hall Pass, starring Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis, continues that creative slide into everyday crude.

The appealing new kid-on-the-teen-angst block, reverberates with much of the same dark combustible mix of action and romance that's been fueling the "Twilight" vampire mega-franchise for a while now.

Like an exquisite minimalist painting - its beauty will move you, its simplicity will fool you. For there are layers and complexities to be found in the film, like the many mysteries it slowly exposes.

If that all sounds like a lot of good, clean fun, a word of warning. In what seems to have become the genre's raison d'etre, the dialogue is so blue at times that you'll probably feel the heat of the blushing cheeks on either side of you, especially whenever Reilly's fast-talking savant of smut shows up.

If you're a Sandler film buff, the comedy is classic Sandler and will probably satisfy. Still, the best thing about the movie remains Aniston - she is reason enough to just go with it.

It is a singular performance and a deeply affecting if imperfect film.

Sadly, an obsession with raunchy one-liners trips everything up, turning a clever conceit into something closer to a sleazy, cheesy affair.

What makes this intriguing, yet woefully uneven film so relatable is that there is nothing about Ned's experience that seems extreme.

Whatever the film's flaws, and like its protagonist, there are times when things get a bit out of control, watching Giamatti use Barney to wrestle with success, failure, friendship, love and increasingly with time is exhilarating.

What The Dilemma ultimately does best is create a platform for Vaughn to drag that iconic character of his into full-blown adulthood.

Sometimes it seems as if Iñárritu is literally carving out his actor's heart, so tangible does Bardem make Uxbal's fears. Iñárritu has so much that he wants to say - too much, in fact, and the film's central weakness - that he has created an emotional tsunami for both the actors and the audience.

That meandering dialogue can be difficult to control, and at times the film feels as if the director has stepped away from the vehicle, leaving it to veer off the path. Still, it's an experiment that works more than it fails by giving Gosling and Williams both the motive and the means to create something extraordinary, a valentine that actually says something true about being in love.

Oone of those movies that falls between complete disaster and loads of fun. Mild amusement is probably about right.

Country Strong is Feste's second film, and she infuses it with an earnestness that swings between too too much and appealing, the same earnestness that swamped her filmmaker debut last year with "The Greatest."

It is incredibly tempting to resort to the implied off-color word play made possible by the Focker name and suggest that this third edition is totally - but I won't.

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.

New players, a new story line, a new director and nearly three decades of improved technology including all the whiz-bang-wow the latest 3-D has to offer. Unfortunately, there's not nearly enough new life.

More impressive than the multi-dimensions is Megamind's minimalist, modernist look. It creates a crispness that feels more contemporary than retro, which not only is very aesthetically pleasing but makes it easier to savor the film's many sight gags.

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

By bringing in a diverse group of big thinkers to take part in a very animated, sometimes agitated, discussion, the filmmaker has succeeded in bringing what could have been a very dry mountain of data, theories and experimental research to vibrant life.

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.

In the face of The Tempest, the stormy tragicomedy of rage, romance and redemption that is among Shakespeare's last and greatest works, Julie Taymor, a filmmaking savant of extraordinary vision and voice, suddenly and surprisingly folds.

Should you find yourself in the mood for Big Musical Numbers by the score rather than a film, there's a lot to like about Burlesque.

You might want to tuck Damien Chazelle's name into your memory bank if his filmmaking debut, the terrific jazz improvisation that is Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, is any indication of what his future might hold.

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

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.

What the film does well is capture the confusion of the identity abyss of twentysomethings of a certain social class.

As for the many loose ends the director leaves, you can either tie them or leave them loose, either way is fine since the experience as much as anything is what Antoniak was after.

It's clear from first frame to last that the filmmakers decided to go broad, very broad, with a story that swings between hysterical, hyper-sexual, bizarre, surprisingly tender and just plain awful. This is one mixed bag of a movie.

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.

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

In the end, 127 Hours is one man's incredible, unforgettable journey; it took the extraordinary alchemy of Boyle and Franco to also make it ours.

Whatever stumbles there may be, they are offset by moments when For Colored Girls soars.

Nighy is usually a treat to watch navigating life's bad turns, so it's especially frustrating that the filmmaker so often leaves him at loose ends.

Fortunately Stewart seems to thrive in water over her head, and when she pulls Gandolfini in with her the movie gels. It makes you wish the filmmaker had left them in the deep end longer.

Rapace moves through the escalating exposure with a series of subtle shifts that are both painful and exquisite to watch. The actress can make eye contact seem like salt in an open wound.

The film falls short of delivering the outrage and uplift that should have come easy for this true-life fight against justice denied. Unfortunately, that makes Conviction more a trial than a triumph.

Self-discovery always comes with a cost, and in Bliss the price is a great one. It is mesmerizing to watch it unfold in the lives of these two young people.

The narrative arc swings between light and darkness, from the sheer joy of the Persian rappers who practice on top of an unfinished skyscraper, to Nadar's arrest and interrogation for his black-market DVDs. In Ghobadi's hands, though, it always feels real.

The satire is sagging, the irony's atrophied and the funny is flabby.

There are so many wonderfully unconventional things to like about this tiny independent film, Monaghan's earthy and uncompromising performance chief among them, its depth surprising you at every turn.

There is enough ridiculous fun in the Tracy Morgan- Bruce Willis pairing as two of Brooklyn's "finest" to get many of you past the squirm-inducing stuff.

Here the filmmakers are in fine fettle, which goes a long way to make much of the low-brow silliness and slapstick infectious.