Bill Goodykoontz

Welcome back, Whit Stillman -- with Damsels in Distress, the hipper-than-thou club is back in session.

Jiro Ono is a magician.

It is gripping from the start, not just because of the quality of the music, but because of Marley's magnetic, challenging personality, as well.

Fothergill and Linfield capture plenty of humor and drama.

What ultimately waters down a movie like Touchback, aside from a really sappy ending, is that we know the answers going in.

As its title suggests, This Is Not a Film may not be what we're used to in a movie, but in many ways it's much, much more.

The movie is content to simply mimic the old Stooges, bringing nothing new to the table.

If you like martial-arts films, it's well worth your while, a non-stop orgy of brilliantly choreographed fight scenes. Eventually it's all too much, a blur of fists, blades and snapped bones that run together. Still, it's a wild ride.

Movies like this are supposed to be ridiculous on some level. It's part of the fun. But, dang. Falling through space, popping your parachute and landing on the one empty stretch of freeway in some bustling future city? C'mon. We all have our limits.

The Cabin in the Woods is a fantastic poke in the eye of our horror-movie expectations.

A delightful discovery, a charming little film about fathers, sons, New Zealand and Michael Jackson.

The film is not without charm, much of it provided by Larson as the sneakily demanding Brie. Liu is also funny and vaguely dangerous, while Henke is an agreeable presence. As for Hall, he's not asked to do much more than mope.

American Reunion depends more on the audience's feelings for recognizable characters than telling an original story, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

It is an offbeat gem.

Intruders promises much but delivers relatively little.

As reinventions of fairy tales go, this one has some pretty big holes. Not all of the twists on the story work, but for the most part it's well-meaning, goofy good fun.

An improvement. Not a gigantic leap forward for cinema but, armed with a new director, a new story and the return of a trying-harder Worthington and good ol' Liam Neeson as a put-upon Zeus, a marked upgrade in quality.

Far-fetched? Yes. A little sugary? Also yes, especially if Thomas were removed from the equation. Happily, she is not, and that, combined with the performances of McGregor, Blunt and Waked, makes Salmon Fishing in the Yemen a charming little movie.

Some of the behavior of Uriel and Eliezer will make you squirm. But Ashkenazi and Bar-Aba are so compelling in their performances of difficult men that you'll gladly suffer.

There are few issues more bitterly divisive than abortion, with emotions and rhetoric running at fever pitch. October Baby is a faith-based movie that resides staunchly in the pro-life camp. Yet directors Andrew and Jon Erwin, who also contributed to the story, rarely let their film get didactic, instead going for a more low-key approach.

Lawrence is a tremendous talent, and she is what makes The Hunger Games ultimately worth spending time with. She doesn't elevate the film to the heights to which one might have wanted, but she takes it a lot higher than it would have otherwise risen.

Good in spots, overall Cage is fine. Nothing more, nothing less. Kind of like Seeking Justice.

The story is gripping, compelling. One wonders what De Niro might have done with such a role 30, 35 years ago. De Niro -- whatever happened to him?

This isn't a movie for everyone, but for fans of quirky charm leavened occasionally by uncomfortable, realistic exchanges, it's a small delight.

Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller get nearly everything -- the tone, the self-referential nods to the shoe and the dead-solid-perfect surprises -- just right.

It's an interesting premise, if a bit far-fetched for anyone who has spent long nights washing sheets and pillowcases that kids have thrown up on.

It's all too much, and it's too hard to follow. Less is more, and this movie proves it.

Brown is a sick man, but Harrelson makes him so interesting, so charismatic, so ... watchable, that you can't look away, even if his actions make you want to (and they will).

There is no denying that the environmental message is heavy-handed.

Newton's character is the only one we really become invested in. At least that's something. But Good Deeds leaves you wanting much more.

Wieckiewicz is outstanding, his open face expressing a full range of emotions, often within the same scene, sometimes within the same conversation.

Beyond the shooting and running around, the film works because Beattie never loses the perspective of Ellie Linton (Caitlin Stasey), through whose eyes the story is told.

It would benefit greatly from having real actors in the major roles. That the bad guys -- who are actors -- are more charismatic is certainly not due to the fact that we are on their side. It's because they know how to make us want to watch.

The production is nice looking, and telling the Edward-and-Wallis story from her side is an interesting idea, but it's one that Madonna simply can't pull off here.

It's an entertaining film and a deceptively gritty thriller, and Kinnear conveys Mickey's mounting desperation in winning fashion.

Individually they are all good here, though Hardy's skills don't necessarily translate that well to romantic comedy -- which could have been used to good effect, but McG doesn't have the touch to pull that off.

Chronicle plays like an extended episode of "The X-Files" might; DeHaan in particular comes off like one of the series' more-memorable characters. That's a compliment. It isn't a great movie, but one could imagine -- and hope -- that it becomes a cult favorite, outlasting other films of its ilk.

Too often Washington is made to simply sit and observe -- which is not a fatal mistake because he is such a good actor that even then he's worth watching. Worse, though, at times he's gone altogether. That's not the only flaw in the fairly straightforward thriller, but it's the biggest.

It works, both as a character study and a BOO! made-you-jump exercise in horror.

A great movie, a look inside a world so foreign that it might as well be another planet, yet so universal that its observations are painfully familiar to anyone, anywhere.

Subtlety may not be Watkins' strong suit, but he knows how to frame a scene for maximum tension and dread.

It's not easy to make such a downbeat movie compelling, but that's what Ramsay, with great help from her star, has done.

Close's performance is a study in repression -- too much so, really.

Too bad. You sense that someone could have made a good movie with this material. Unfortunately, Leth didn't.

Don't be mistaken -- this isn't an artsy thriller. It is still, at heart, men vs. wolves, and the wolves definitely have the home-court advantage.

Luckily, Horn is so good -- as is Max von Sydow, in a wordless role -- that the film resonates in spite of the tear-jerking strings Daldry pulls.

In truth, the story isn't much. Just betrayal and revenge, basically. But a couple of things make Haywire a lot of fun to watch. One is the cast.

The performances, by Brenda Blethyn and Sotigui Kouyaté, are outstanding.

Especially rewarding about Oduye's performance is how she's able to portray that frustration while retaining hope and optimism.

Where In the Land of Blood and Honey falls short, then, is in the story itself. Too many coincidences and, ultimately, too narrow a focus. But it is a genuinely noble effort, a worthy attempt to make some sense of the inexplicable.

A curious misfire, a stylized biography of one of the most powerful women in politics, portrayed by the greatest actress of our time, that asks more questions than it answers.

Ribisi has become the go-to guy for movie psychos, giving everything to performances like this one or as Moburg, the dissolute reporter in "The Rum Diary."

It's very much an old-time moviegoing experience; the film could have been made in 1940, and that's a compliment.

The Artist is such an engaging, delightful film that, if you like movies, you will walk out of the theater with a smile. You just will; it's that inspired.

It's just as accurately described as a bunch of British guys sitting around acting. But what actors! The cast includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Mark Strong,Ciarán Hinds and Toby Jones.

What's surprising here, and pleasantly so, is the restraint shown by Mortensen and Fassbender -- and by Cronenberg.

Damon can elevate just about anything in which he appears.

Busy, busy. That's The Adventures of Tintin boiled down to its essence.

The movie plays to Fincher's strengths, with its dark elements and cool feel, combining for a bracing pop-culture experience.

Young Adult is a horror movie disguised as a dark comedy.

There is nothing erotic about it, nothing sexy, nothing but a brutish satisfying of carnal desires. Without an astounding performance from Michael Fassbender, it would be almost too painful to watch (and at times, too boring). With him, it's not exactly easy.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is big, it's loud and so relentless in its action that it reminds me of an old joke. Why do you hit yourself in the head with a hammer? Because it feels so good when you stop. In this case, the headache is worth it.

Ultimately, the best relationship in the movie remains that of Holmes and Watson, which is to say, Downey and Law. Their pairing is what makes the movie; the explosions and bells and whistles Ritchie employs are mere distractions.

Yes, it's that sappy, in between the F-bomb barrage. But Hill brings an infectious confidence to his performance, even when he's supposedly down and out.

Melancholia is an intense, exhausting experience. That may not sound appealing, and for some, it won't be. But nor should it be off-putting. Proceed with caution, perhaps. But proceed nevertheless.

You know it's not working when you don't care about any of them. Sadly, that's the case with Answers to Nothing, Matthew Leutwyler's dud about a revolving cast of characters in Los Angeles.

Her (Williams) performance is so engaging and complete, it's worth all the other shortcomings.

The real draw of Arthur Christmas is simpler: It's really funny.

What Scorsese has really made is a beautifully crafted love letter to movies, the passion of his life. What sounded like an odd pairing winds up being a perfect fit.

It is particularly rewarding to see Clooney outside his comfort zone of self-composed cool in The Descendants, Alexander Payne's beautifully gentle, funny and moving film.

Clever and current without being cynical, smart without being condescending, funny without being exclusionary to grown-ups or to kids.

Isn't the happiest movie about a band you'll ever see, but it is one of the more entertaining, and thanks to directors Lev Anderson and Christ Metzler, one of the most original.

For the most part the film is an interesting, and occasionally fascinating, look at getting older and taking on responsibility.

A jumbled, messy movie that has some winning moments but jumps around too much to hold your interest for long.

Overall the film is goofy, slight, without a truly deep thought in its pretty little head. And for a movie with vampires and werewolves, the only scary thing is in the title - "Part 1," which means "Part 2" is on its way. Shudder.

Le Havre is a small bit of movie magic, a story that plays more as a fable even as it deals with something as topical as immigration.

Intense people behave in intense fashion, and that's that. No guns, no bombs, no noises louder than an argument or a father who likes to drink.

It is flawed but ultimately captivating.

Olsen makes us understand, as best we can, Martha's plight. She has a tenuous grip on reality, and, thanks to Olsen's performance and Durkin's sure hand, by the film's end, so do we.

There are plot twists and turns, some of which amuse, some of which disgust. Issues of gender and identity take an eventual backseat to gruesome experiments -- gruesome because of the manner in which they're conducted, by an unfeeling monster.

What you would expect from the third film in an unlikely franchise: less of the same.

You can't help leaving the film with the following thought: Man, it's good to see Murphy being funny again.

Burke and Hare is a waste of a good cast and a better story, as well as a hollow reminder of how John Landis seemingly has lost his touch.

A terrific piece of entertainment. The financial lingo will please money wonks. But the film as a whole focuses more on the people and personalities who went into such a catastrophic failure.

Not just a fascinating character study but a kind of horror movie as well.

Tremendously entertaining.

You also get drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. By the time the movie is half over, you'll feel hungover.

A surprisingly delightful adventure romp.

The Woman isn't simply a gore-fest. It's just mostly a gore-fest, with a little more going on, as well.

The story simply doesn't stand up, with its combination of well-worn plot elements and confusing red herrings -- or maybe they're just details that don't add up.

More of the same, using the found-footage tricks the first two films employed to try to shock the audience. But man, are those some good tricks.

He's often called the Yiddish Mark Twain; supposedly Twain, upon hearing this, said to tell Aleichem that Twain was the American Sholem Aleichem.

The Big Year is better when it is examining the obsession of the birders, and Martin, Black and Wilson are enjoyable in toned-down mode.

While this version, listed as a "prequel," has a few gross-out moments, it lacks any sense of warmth. Which might be an odd criticism of a horror movie set in Antarctica, but there you have it.

This Footloose it's a pleasant reminder of the past for fans of the first one, and an agreeable-enough experience for everyone else.

Fantastic acting by the likes of Garret Dillahunt, Chris Cooper and Joel Torre lift characters above the cliched, offering a one-sided history lesson that is still well worth learning.

What an interesting failure Margaret is.

With Sarah Palin: You Betcha! director Nick Broomfield manages to screw it up.

Some elements of the film are too melodramatic, but there's not a bad performance in it -- look at the cast and that's not surprising -- and Gosling is outstanding.

It's a sometimes-hilarious send-up of slasher movies that buries a surprising amount of sweetness under buckets of gore.

Director Marc Forster moves from one thing to the next so quickly the movie plays like a two-hour-plus trailer. Something feels like it's missing here, even at that length.

50/50 is a tremendous movie. It's also a really funny one, which doesn't mean it won't make you cry.

Igawa is almost a magical presence, projecting a calm in Ozu that is infectious.

On some level Moneyball is about loyalty: loyalty to an idea, loyalty to a partnership forged by desperation, loyalty to the values you believe in. Whether that was Lewis' intention in the book, or Beane's intention in taking the risk, doesn't matter. It's the formula Miller came up with for the film, and with the team of Pitt and Hill, it's a winning one.

If you're willing to accept Killer Elite as a shoot-'em-up action movie with good actors taking the spots of the usual lunk heads (but spouting the usual nonsense), you'll be pleased with the film.

All are good, Damon in particular, but there are so many of them we don't see anyone for very long at one stretch. And all are given at least some bad material to work with before the movie is over. For the most part, they make the best of it.

It's a surprisingly moving film. While the fight scenes are unquestionably thrilling, the movie's best bits are not about winning and losing but about pain and, ultimately, forgiveness.

Cavaye is relentless in his quest to entertain, to thrill.

Told in such predictable and bland fashion it dulls the effect. And this in a movie with Robert Duvall, Lucas Black and Melissa Leo.

It's always entertaining, and it boasts a terrific performance from Sara Forestier.

This is real edge-of-your-seat stuff, in a throwback way - no booming special effects, just old-school timing and execution.

Bursts at the seams with wild creativity.

Kapadia does an outstanding job of getting at what Senna meant to Brazilians and to his sport. The man himself was a tougher nut to crack, but maybe that's best. A little mystery suits a good story, and Senna is definitely that.

Wants to scare you, but it can't quite seal the deal.

The rest of the cast is fine, actually, but Rudd spares nothing in making Ned a lovable loser, with the emphasis on "loser."

Some people will find Miranda July's film a poetic triumph, a meditation on responsibility and disappointment. Others will find it hopelessly pretentious, one of those movies only pointy-headed critics can abide. I found the film to be more of the former than the latter. Except when the cat talks.

A fantastically entertaining movie.

It's a somewhat goofy movie that also manages some real scares. Best of all, it makes excellent use of an element of vampire stories effective since Count Dracula confronted Van Helsing in Bram Stoker's novel: I know that you know, and I also know there is nothing you can do about it.

There's just not a lot to like here, with the exception of what may be one of the all-time best bad movie lines, one Conan utters to Tamara as a kind of personal credo: "I live. I love. I slay. I am content."

For much of the movie Morris simply lets the loquacious McKinney talk, and she never, ever stops. And she never disappoints.

There are scenes here and there that are worthy, but many that aren't. Lipsky tries to use dialogue to cover up weaknesses in other areas - such as why these people behave the way they do. Some of the movie is inviting, some of it off-putting.

Director Ruben Fleischer, who directed Eisenberg in the worlds-better "Zombieland," never finds that kind of successful groove here, instead bouncing from one set piece to another, with vastly inconsistent results.

The acting is uniformly excellent, and the cause - dragging the beginnings of civil rights into Jackson, Miss., at great risk - couldn't be nobler. What the film lacks is a strong point of view.

One of the things that pushes Jig beyond what it might have been otherwise is that not everything works out as you might have liked.

Terri is almost an anti-teen-coming-of-age teen-coming-of-age movie. And it's terrific.

Once you see that ape, named Caesar, riding a galloping horse in triumph, it's awfully hard not to get sucked in. It's not dumb fun, exactly. It's smart dumb fun.

It's hard not to be disappointed with The Change-Up, which in the end follows the basic conventions of the switched-identity genre, if more profanely, changing up not much at all.

He's always on - this is a documentary, after all, so even when O'Brien is offstage, he's still performing in some capacity, cracking wise at the camera, of whose presence he is acutely aware.

Stone is becoming a dependable go-to choice for comedies, brimming with charisma.

Exactly what it sounds like: a cowboy movie and an alien movie thrown together, a genre mash-up that's more fun than good, but pretty good nonetheless.

A Little Help is worth watching, mostly for Fischer.

Patricia Clarkson is kind of funny as Jamie's mom, an unreformed hippie. And Timberlake and Kunis get in a few good laughs before it's over. But with such a well-worn story, you can't shake the idea you've seen this kind of thing before.

At times hilarious but ultimately heartbreaking, Project Nim is a great chronicle of the 1970s and all the nutty ideas that implies; academia in particular comes in for a hard reckoning.

Sweet, gentle and defiantly retro (the 2-D hand-drawn animation is superb), the movie is irresistibly charming.

With shifting loyalties, unlikely heroes, truths revealed and a little help from friends, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 winds the series up in a most-satisfying fashion.

For most of the film, Weitz, riding a fantastic performance by Demián Bichir as the landscaper in question, succeeds in showing the day-to-day struggles that exist beneath the political rhetoric and upper-case headlines.

Let's not pretend otherwise: The comedy here is profane, juvenile, silly. Fine by me, because some of it also is hilarious.

It's stupid, then it veers toward the absurd, but with James at its center it remains sort of sweet throughout. You can't hate James or the movie; both are just sort of dopey but well-meaning.

The film is interesting and at times enlightening, but it's all over the map.

Queen to Play falls somewhat into the "Pygmalion" template, but watching Bonnaire's Helene find herself makes it worthy in its own right.

If there is a saving grace to Monte Carlo, it's that the frothy film strikes a nice balance between the ridiculous and the, well, slightly less ridiculous.

The movie falls flat, playing like the best-cast bland romantic comedy you've ever seen.

This "Transformers" is better than the second film (though that's not saying much), with some enjoyable bits here and there.

As much as his admirers praise him, they also say they don't know much about him or his private life. Press opens a small window into that world.

If there is a common thread, it's that for all these people life is not a passive activity. They live their lives, largely in the ways they've wanted to, and don't just wait around to see what's next.

A beautifully made, glorious mess.

A delightful film - gentle, playful, creative and ultimately happy - though it's a tricky journey.

Probably it's a combination of those and other elements that leads to Diaz's bad teacher not being as bad as she might have been and Bad Teacher not as good as it could have been.

What Cars 2 lacks is that moment the best Pixar films have, when parents and children alike stand slack-jawed with awe at something wonderful happening on-screen - when the films move beyond mere entertainment and become something more, something better.

Thanks to Highmore's performance, George is worth sticking around for - and thanks almost exclusively to Highmore and Roberts, so is The Art of Getting By.

What Sheen and Bello provide, however, is searing acting. Their performances - genuine, awkward, difficult - are not always easy to watch but never are less than tremendous.

There's nothing bad about Skateland, in fact, particularly for those old enough to remember the clothes, the feathered hair and the soundtrack. There's just nothing new, or anything that hasn't been done before, and better.

Director Mark Waters manages to wring some charm out of the film, and out of Carrey.

Beautiful, baffling, poetic, pretentious, it's one big ball of moviedom. Malick tackles the whole shooting match, pondering (and showing) the creation of the universe, life itself, death and the afterlife, and everything in between.

The story is a grab bag of only-in-the-movies kid problems and ridiculous adult behavior.

It is just a tremendous amount of fun.

An unapologetic love letter to the popular board game. It's also almost - but not quite - something more.

A tremendously entertaining take on film noir, with all the usual elements of the genre in play - crime, death, possibly murder and doomed romance.

Greenwood is fantastic; his Meek occasionally lets down his facade of omniscience - but only occasionally. And Williams gives Emily not dignity exactly, but a calm, steely insistence on survival.

Yun's performance is genuinely beautiful, a haunting expression of life, of its disappointments and its possibilities, rendered in a way that befits the title.

Gibson's performance, at times subtle, at times showy and never less than remarkable, is what makes The Beaver worth seeing.

Depp's performance is still one of the few bright spots in the movie. Richards is back, too, in an all-too-brief appearance as Sparrow's father.

Everything Must Go leaves the resolution open, not telegraphing Nick's future. It is as unsettled as life, and the film is all the better for it.

Villeneuve's telling of her story - and of her children's - is painful, searing and something close to brilliant.

There are laughs aplenty, some disgusting, some rather sweet, some both at the same time.

Maybe Rubber is an homage, maybe it's a statement on horror films and their audiences, maybe it's a total goof.

Humor is the most powerful weapon deployed by director Kenneth Branagh in Thor, his rollicking take on the comic.

A funny, if slight, documentary.

Add romantic chemistry to the list of things that fall flat in the film, alongside dialogue and acting.

Can we ever get innocence back once it's lost? The ending suggests that we can. But at enormous cost.

There are lots of laughs - a commercial Spurlock makes for Mane 'n Tail shampoo is hilarious.

The cast is uniformly outstanding, a pleasure to watch. It's a more toned-down role for the often-fiery McAvoy, and it suits him.

It's oddly emotionally detached, easier to admire than to become involved in.

The acting is so poor and the story so badly told that the viewer's feelings about Rand's novel - an epic ode to free-market fundamentalism - are almost immaterial.

A fast-starting film that quickly piles meta, self-referential elements on top of each other until they no longer make much sense, and the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own coolness.

Overall, Kill the Irishman is an entertaining look at a brutal time in an ugly place.

Brand ultimately can't make a watered-down Arthur as sweetly charming as the original, but he certainly makes it better than it would have been otherwise.

It's an ironclad rule for comedies: Stupid is fine, as long as it's funny. But if it's not? Well, then it's just . . . stupid.

An unorthodox delight.

Shaffer's inexperience pays off. He's completely natural as a mixed-up kid (and great on the mat).

Check your driver's license - if you have one, you're probably too old to get the most out of it. If not, you may find your satisfaction a little harder - though not impossible - to come by.

What's really cool about the film - in addition to Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as Stevens - is how Jones makes sure that we don't know any more than Stevens does, right up till the end.

No blood, no gore, no hacked-off arms and legs, but plenty of creepy set pieces, quick cuts and blasts of music that will have you both squirming in your seat and jumping out of it. Until the bone-headed part kicks in.

Manipulative, overly sentimental, sometimes ludicrous and almost completely irresistible.

An improvement over its predecessor.

Some of its conceits may not hold up under intense scrutiny, but, generally speaking, it's a good time at the movies.

The story, based on the Michael Connelly novel, grows increasingly far-fetched - at times it plays like an expensive pilot for a TV series, maybe a "Young Barnaby Jones" or something.

There is a sweetness to Radnor's character and to his film. What there is not is a sense of urgency, of a desire to find out what happens next.

Unfortunately, screenwriter Christopher Bertolini has given Eckhart and Liebesman a story so riddled with war-movie cliches that it contains almost nothing else.

There is a sort of unintentional campy fun to be had in places. Just don't go in expecting much, in other words, and perhaps you'll live happily ever after.

It's funny enough, and Grace is an engaging actor, always making a good impression but never quite getting over the hump to become the star it seems like he ought to be.

Ultimately it's not the lives of the characters that need adjusting here. It's the story itself.

It's refreshing to see an animated movie that doesn't look as though the idea for the Happy Meal came first.

An epic film about Algeria's fight for liberation from France, with three outstanding performances and a grand, sweeping feel.

Mean-spirited.

A really entertaining effort, aided by some terrific performances.

There are a couple of intriguing ideas floating around here and there, but that's all they do - float around, unmoored by any sense of reality and, thus, suspense.

It strains both credulity and patience in its attempt to be different, and it leaves you feeling creeped out as well.

Just Go with It provides not only the title of the film but a one-step instruction for how best to enjoy it.

The voices are outstanding; the story demands British accents, and with such people as Caine and Smith providing them, so much the better.

Chomet's defiantly two-dimensional artwork is warm, inviting, beautiful, establishing immediately a comfort level, at least for audiences of, ahem, a certain age.

What it has instead is really bad acting set against often-stunning cave-wall backdrops and underwater action sequences.

Whatever it is, Giamatti finds it and sells it. And despite a few dead ends with the story, I'm buying.

It's Bardem's portrayal of his search for those answers that drives Biutiful forward.

Hafstrom creates a nice, creepy vibe, especially for the first part of the movie, which has a menacing atmosphere. Too bad he doesn't sustain it.

The action is entertaining enough, and it's kind of fun to follow the intricate plotting and planning of the jobs.

That's not a pretty story, of course. But it's a compelling one and, thanks to Wells and a cast that includes Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper, an entertaining one.

It leads exactly where we think it will on a sometimes funny, ultimately predictable, journey.

The acting is uniformly terrific, just a marvel to watch.

Once it's done, you feel terrible for these people, for their lives, for their daughter, especially. Is that entertainment? To each his own, but it is compelling and, yes, rewarding.

The Green Hornet, which strives to be a different take on the superhero genre, is an interesting film - until it devolves into abject stupidity.

Coppola's audacity in not only portraying the unmoored nature of Marco's life but immersing the audience in it proves satisfying over time.

Several good performances are left adrift, as the characters roam from scene to scene, singing (quite well) as they go. Even as a sort of long-form music video, it's disjointed.

The film is quiet, patient, allowing for lived-in performances that get at the enormous change in the characters' lives.

A gorgeously shot, well-acted Western that resonates more the more you let it settle.

A host of British acting royalty, meanwhile, roams around the film: Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Claire Bloom as Queen Mary, Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill and so on.

This is Ferrell's movie, meaning some inspired laughs sandwiched between annoying bits that stretch on well past their usefulness.

David O. Russell's film makes use of some terrific performances - Christian Bale is brilliant, as is Melissa Leo, even by their lofty standards.

TRON: Legacy may well satisfy the fanboys who have waited almost three decades for its appearance. Enjoy. Who knows, maybe one day if you wait long enough they'll make a "Super Mario Bros." sequel, too.

From its bland title to its fair-to-middlin' story, mediocre is the word that fits How Do You Know perfectly.

Due Date should be a disaster, derivative of every road-trip movie you've ever seen. What prevents that are the efforts of the two stars.

With a movie like this, trying to guess how it ends isn't the point. Enjoying the ride is, and on that front, Unstoppable delivers.

Zwick can't seem to decide what the movie is - a refreshingly frank comedy about sex and commitment, or a more-serious look at illness and its effect on relationships.

A stripped-down affair, from title to characters to plot. It never strives to be more, instead concentrating on making the most of its self-imposed limitations.

A flawed script prevents Welcome to the Rileys from being the effective meditation on grief and healing it wants to be.

The bad news - it's not interesting enough to be a disaster.

It's all or nothing with Black Swan. Either you embrace its headlong descent into madness brought on by the pressures of artistic perfection, compounded by smothering anxiety, or you reject it. It's that simple.

Star power can cover up a multitude of shortcomings in a film. Turns out stupidity isn't one of them.

It's not a bad movie, but it is very much a transitional one.

To say that the film is uncomfortable to watch is an understatement. It's searing. Yet it's also invaluable.

127 Hours is based on Ralston's memoir, and it's a really good movie because director Danny Boyle is a genius.

There are some things to admire in the film, based on the French movie "Pour Elle," most of which involve developments that would give too much away.

It's a slight movie that makes "Broadcast News" look like "All the President's Men" in comparison.

There's no question that Black women are underrepresented in movies. There's also no question that when they get a chance to perform, they deserve a better movie than For Colored Girls.

Scarier than anything you'll find in a horror movie this time of year.

It delivers its considerable moments of terror in the same way the original film did. But it does deliver.

Swank and Rockwell, both typically great in almost everything they do, act as if their lives depended on it - their lives, not their characters'.

Damon's portrayal is perfectly understated yet powerful. It's also sneaky; you don't realize how invested you've become in it until the final act, when the characters' stories merge in what seems like too much of a rushed coincidence.

A movie that makes little sense, is dumb when it's not being stupid and yet is still at times laugh-out-loud funny.

One of the creepiest horror films ever. [24 July 2009, p.2]

It's one of the best movies of the year, one of the best entries ever in the Way We Live Now oeuvre.

Does the movie have anything new to say, anything different from John G. Avildsen's 1984 original, with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita? Not particularly.

Slow, stark and sometimes surreptitiously beautiful, Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon is as cold and clinical an examination of evil as you could imagine.

The Runaways broke new ground. And if "The Runaways" doesn't, it's still a movie worth watching - and listening to.

Awash in mawkish sentimentality, Dear John still will move you deeply - if you're a 12-year-old girl.

It is fun, a hodgepodge of styles and technique and feathered hair that really evokes the late ’70s.

Succeeds in portraying a life so solitary that, even when he knows what's going on, that's a deal Owen is willing to make.

True enough, she's trying to do the right thing. But she never quite gets there. And that gets old, making "Ramona" wear out its welcome long before it should have.

Writer and director Ti West accesses all the hot buttons for fans of the genre in a manner that doesn't make fun of it (and its followers) in a "Scary Movie" way, but instead treats it with the appropriate amount of respect. (Key word: appropriate.)

It offers Bratt maybe his best role ever as Che, a tough-guy neighborhood personality struggling to come to grips with his son's homosexuality.

Forget Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. I'm backing Team David, as in David Slade, the director who has finally managed to breathe some life into the "Twilight" series, heretofore a deadly dull undead undertaking.

Settles for simply being goofy good fun.

A lot of fun for horror fans, a nice little jaunt through paranoia and conspiracy theories.

Maybe your kids will insist that you see Furry Vengeance. Then again, wouldn't this be the perfect time to let them test their independence and sit through it alone? Otherwise, good luck. You have my condolences.

The movie is fun, it's smart and there's plenty of action. There are enough knowing nods to old-school fans to satisfy them, but the nods don't get in the way. In fact - and a feel for this kind of thing is what makes Abrams so good - they're perfect, nice accents that won't slow down the uninitiated.

The results of her work are predictable yet pleasantly played out.

There are a couple of good performances and a few funny bits, but mostly the film just bounces back and forth until coming to a flat, trite close.

If you found "Shrek the Third," the third film in the "Shrek" franchise, tired, it will probably come as no surprise that Shrek Forever After is downright exhausted.

Carroll purists and freshman English majors may be aghast at the change in story, but for those who watched "Avatar" and marveled at the images but were left wanting by the wooden acting and tired story, "Alice" is a treat.

If you're game, "Parnassus" is a richly rewarding experience. If not, it comes off like pretentious nonsense.

Machete is insanely violent, insanely over-the-top. It's pretty much flat-out insane.

The interviews throughout are the best part of the movie - the least heavy-handed, yet most effective, element. There is a message here of the necessity for tolerance, but 8: The Mormon Proposition would have been better had its makers presented it in a more consistent, artful fashion.

Eventually, all of the stories will come together in a somewhat contrived way. The film's parts are greater than the whole. But the parts are worth the effort.

The problems with the narrative begin early. [Review of re-release]

There's not a lot of humor here, just violence and more violence. The acting is fine enough - Whitaker, of the talented bunch, seems to be having the best time - but the slicing and dicing overpowers the cast, the story and everything else.

A perverse delight, the rare film that makes you feel good about feeling bad (or at least watching others do so).

It's effective, entertaining in a remarkably uncomfortable way but entertaining all the same.

The Secret in Their Eyes never lets you forget that you're watching a movie - and never lets you wish you were doing anything else.

Timothy Hutton is a good actor. So whom to blame for Multiple Sarcasms?

A pretty good action movie for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it lasts 106.

Daybreakers isn't a great film, but it's a good one, and in a market oddly lousy with vampire tales, it's an original.