Carina Chocano

The real problem with "Phantom" is the problem with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals in general. It's a slow-moving orgy of lowbrow grandiosity that's as tedious as it is overblown and pretentious.

Chalk avoids some of the pitfalls of the mock-doc by showing real affection and empathy for its characters, whose funny lives of quiet desperation inspire more than their share of tenderness.

Impossibly long and angular, with a brutally beautiful face, she represents something that's been rare in the popular culture in the past decade: an artist with a voice and a vision.

What's missing is less a sense of the protagonist's inner nose (which is very well-trammeled) as a sense of his inner life, motivation or desire.

15 minutes into it, you are spellbound, heartbroken and unaccountably cheered -- your faith and admiration in humanity restored.

The Painted Veil has all the elements in place to be a great epic, but it fails to connect, to paraphrase Maugham's contemporary E.M. Forster, the prose with the passion. It's impeccable, but leaves you cold.

28 Weeks Later lacks the streamlined thrust of its predecessor but makes for compelling, adrenaline-fueled viewing just the same.

The wave-like "Rashomon" structure of the story, combined with the steady pace and moody look of Vivere are lulling, but in the end the situation is neither believable nor fantastic enough to be very compelling.

The final twist does more to unravel what's come before than to tie it all together, making what's come before feel like a cosmopolitan goose chase.

Why aren't there more American movies like this? I mean smart, unpretentious, sophisticated, un-condescending and cheap.

A sweet, funny and gripping romantic adventure, it's about the limitations of political activism in this day and age, and what happens when your girlfriend and your best friend fall in love.

Gently seductive, genuinely tender and often moving without being maudlin.

Includes a few scenes of impressively choreographed mayhem, but they're all but buried in Freeman and Condon's mystical grandpa and weirdo teeny bopper routines.

Charming and antic, Russian Dolls doesn't quite cohere in the way of "L'Auberge Espagnole" into a clever snapshot of contemporary Europe.

Captures comedian and pundit Al Franken evolving from satirist to activist.

The movie doesn't purport to have her stand for all women, just the crazy ones, and as such, G-Girl is pure, soul-cleansing id catharsis.

The appeal of the cast, the witty dialogue, the gorgeous costumes and production design, and the refreshingly grown-up subject matter can't be discounted. Maybe it is about compromise, after all, because though Married Life has its moments, it's bewildering as a whole.

Polanski's version, though handsomely realized, is a fairly conventional rendering of the novel that probably won't be counted among his best films.

A surprisingly wry, contemplative movie.

The strange, funny and sad story of a bipolar jazz musician and his long-suffering teenage daughter, reunited after his two-year stay in a mental institution.

The action, heavily influenced by Hong Kong martial arts films, is beautifully choreographed.

The sweetest thing about Fred Claus is that the message about filial love feels genuine. I wouldn't have expected that watching Giamatti tell Vaughn, "You're the best big brother anyone could ask for," would make me choke up, but it did.

A confoundingly mercurial figure, Fujimori is a fascinating subject. But in her focus on the man, Perry fails to paint a broader picture of a racially diverse and extremely complex country.

Enthusiastically smutty and lyrical, the movie attempts to capture the way we unconsciously set the emotional moments of our lives to pop music, turning fits of passion, anger and righteous indignation into elaborate musical numbers in our heads.

Spritely, tender and unpredictable.

John Leguizamo steals the show as its sleazy trainer -- not that there's much to steal from John Schultz's joylessly schematic paycheck.

A self-consciously zany dysfunctional family comedy, When Do We Eat? strains so hard to be outrageous that it sacrifices characters for caricatures. They might have had something if they'd let everybody relax, be themselves and enjoy dinner.

Dear Frankie's surprises are few and low-key, but the story wraps up nicely.