Carla Meyer

Payne's little marvel.

The film doesn't always work, but it captures the buzz of moviemaking, and that's infectious.

A masterful portrait of the seasons of a life.

Absurdity and poignancy merge in the carefully observed Czech film Up and Down.

Offers a thrilling, informative history of a sport-subculture.

Delightful.

Teen sex comedies always have more homoerotic moments than you can shake a ... whatever ... at, but Eurotrip seems overly concerned with penises and predatory men. This brand of humor, a time-honored crutch for comedy writers, is both lazy and unseemly.

Can be enjoyed if you don't mind a little manipulation.

Dax Shepard from MTV's "Punk'd," in his first major big-screen role, steals Without a Paddle. Not that it's too hard to do.

Succeeds anyway, by putting a poignant human face on the struggle for equal rights.

Self-indulgent and admirable.

A British costume film that's funny but not at all fusty.

Swayze's presence crosses the line from curious to bizarre and adds a heavy layer of cheese to Havana Nights.

The slasher scenes, though relatively few, are amazingly evocative for such a low-budget movie.

It's engaging and transparent at once.

A snapshot of the festival, one that radiates good cheer and offers moments of true, godly goodness.

In White Chicks, the gross-out humor is minimal, no character comes off too badly and lessons are learned. Oh Wayanses, where are thy teeth?

The always fierce Bassett is a little too fierce here, reacting with unwarranted emotion to each romantic twist and turn.

Delivers laughs most of the way through.

A street-dance film that's lively and silly and about as "street" as a Britney Spears video.

Not as profound as it is pretty, Hero nevertheless gives us something to ponder beyond Zhang's feat in mounting such a magnificent production.

An intriguing brain-teaser.

Intoxicating and flawed.

The visual and emotional hues are darker [than previous Pixar films], and the focus rests more on middle age than coming of age. The adventures of a family of superheroes are likely to thrill and amuse children, but the film's more grown-up themes might go over their heads.

A dreary, distasteful exercise, "Off the Leash'' favors dogs over humans, framing canine high jinks with an ugly story of domestic abuse.

A heartbreaking, powerful drama.

Goes disappointingly soft despite two dynamite lead performances.

A famous French actor using his art to work through the loss of his wife and daughter in a car accident. The strategy works, at least for a while.