Connie Ogle

A nice set of drapes and a striking ballgown or two are not enough to provide this interesting love story any serious heft or insight.

It's easy to work up a good head of feminist steam over the misogyny and downright idiocy of a story that suggests that the tyranny of a righteous man can prevent an abused girl from making poor and whorish fashion choices. But it's hard to dismiss completely this atmospheric and persistently intriguing film.

The movie still manages to unearth laughs, some of them pretty big, especially once Shanté's program is under way.

What sets it slightly apart is a willingness to deal with a potentially tricky subject -- race -- in the context of light-hearted fluff.

Once you get past the intriguing fact that although Whip's job puts hundreds of lives into his hands on a daily basis yet he's cavalier about protecting them, the movie doesn't feel much different than any other exploration of addiction.

Though it's entertaining when the tone is light, The Joneses can't quite keep up with this sort of complexity.

Fails to offer a single moment you don't see coming but its cast is appealing, and it provides a welcome respite from young wizards, talking robots that turn into trucks and other staples of this long, hot, boy-focused summer.

The Iron Lady never delves deeply enough into the politics or the people, preferring instead to make us feel bad about the unfortunate way in which old age levels us all.

Not a bad movie - everybody wants dreams to come true - but its platitudes sound awfully hollow sometimes.

Steeped in pitch-perfect nostalgia and propelled by equal doses of comedy and tragedy.

Focus is a shiny, stylish shell game of a film that, much like its protagonists, relies on breezy chatter, a good sense of humor and a lot of misdirection to succeed.

Shares an important slice of German history that is largely unknown.

The Safety of Objects doesn't carry the power of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm," a similarly themed work about WASPS in crisis. Objects is too artificial, clunky with too many preposterous situations.

The humor tends to be broad, but the spritely pace doesn't allow for too much lingering on the jokes that don't land (really, we've seen enough morning sickness bits to make us gag).

Call it a victory for sincerity and style: Despite its familiarity, Blonde 2 doesn't make you want to pull out your hair by its (touched-up) roots.

Goes too far in its slapstick efforts to please mainstream audiences, but there's no denying the genuine appeal of -- and I can't believe I'm actually writing this -- Richard Gere and ballroom dancing.

Evan Almighty may not be enough to make you shout ''Hallelujah,'' but it's not the cinematic equivalent of a plague, either.

Green Zone is just an excuse for director Paul Greengrass to haul out his jittery hand-held camera as Miller and Co. sprint through the streets and buildings of Baghdad in pursuit of one villain or another.

Whether you'll enjoy this loud and rowdy remake of a 1974 Burt Reynolds film depends on your tolerance for three things: football, Adam Sandler and unabashed product placement.

House of Wax won't give you nightmares, but it upholds teen horror traditions with flair and energy.

You can’t shake the feeling the script is trying too hard to please, upping the drama despite the fact that what made the first film so enjoyable was its relative simplicity.

There was a fine family drama to be made here, but what we get instead is too sweet to swallow.

Frothy as it is, SATC2 is best when it's about the women, not the wardrobe.

The film's opening credits are terrific, and the first 10 or 15 minutes -- in which Ford and Arthur speedily load up on beer at the local pub -- are absorbing and funny. It's such a promising start that it's doubly deflating to realize that once they land on Zaphod's spaceship, the humor vaporizes.

Late Marriage's stiffness is unlikely to demonstrate the emotional clout to sweep U.S. viewers off their feet.

Next begins to seriously embarrass itself and its stars -- except for Biel, surprisingly, who manages to escape with a shred of dignity, possibly because her role requires little beyond looking gorgeous -- once it rolls to its climax.

If you're making a movie that purports to be about real love, at the very least, you have to make the audience care whether the lovers work out their problems.

Smart People tastes as fake as a Wal-Mart corn dog. Besides, it doesn't even know the work is Faerie Queen, not ''Fairie.'' Somewhere, Edmund Spenser is turning in his grave. You don't even have to be smart to know that.

The biggest offense in the somewhat unimaginative but serviceable legal thriller High Crimes is that the venerable Morgan Freeman simply does not get enough screen time, and when he's up there, he doesn't have enough to do.

If nothing else, Broken City manages to pull off a difficult feat: It's too convoluted to follow and simultaneously too simplistic to be believed.

Sobieski manages to make Jennifer's inevitable transformation more than a little bittersweet. Apparently even clichés click sometimes.

There's no real artistry to this: It's as though Parker has just seen "Seven" and suffered some sort of David Fincher flashback.

Compare Sylvia to another, more powerful film about a tragic literary death: "Iris," about Iris Murdoch's descent into Alzheimer's, leaves you with an aching heart and reddened eyes. After the equally sorrowful Sylvia, we are entertained but unmoved.

The film improves once the assassination attempt goes awry, but the audience is never truly invested in the actions of these heroic men.

On the Line's cutesy premise is no more ridiculous than that of most romantic comedies.

The film's failure to adhere to one of the most important rules of humor -- never give extensive screen time to someone who is not the slightest bit funny -- prevents it from being a completely enjoyable, if silly, romp.

Don't expect perfection, and you'll emerge from this goofy movie all in one piece, with reasonably entertained kids and a milder headache.

Everyone, including the candidates, will recognize the importance of civic duty, leaving Swing Vote to end with swelling music and uplifting speechifying but on a completely unsatisfactory note.

You might call My Sister's Keeper manipulative, and you would not be inaccurate.

The fact that you won't remember any of these names for more than a minute should indicate exactly how much depth each character displays.

Neurotic New Yorkers, messed up relationships, inept analysts, infidelity -- Ira & Abby has them all, and it's anything but refreshing to trudge through this well-worn territory again.

The cast, which includes Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) as a coach who pushes her daughter too hard, is likable and energetic, and the film's messages are entirely reasonable.

As it is, Gemma Bovery is as dry as day-old bread: Not inedible, but why bother with it if you can find something fresher?

The film is well-scrubbed of anything resembling sexuality, more a nonthreatening fairy tale than the romantic drama it aims to be. Its appeal flies straight to the hearts of 13-year-old girls.

Casanova doesn't seduce so much as lull the audience into a stupor with tedious blather about the battle of the sexes, intermittent but pointless swordplay and clumsy slapstick.

The good news is, The Vow is not excruciating.

The film moves jerkily, in fits and starts, squandering its promising setup and bogging down in explanation.

The misery is there, all right, in every woozy, spaced-out shot of Hoffman clutching his gas-soaked rag. But in the end, do we really care?

Better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways.

Unfortunately Miracle is long on cliché and short on originality.

It's possible to achieve hilarity and pathos, but it's not easy, and Litvak isn't quite skilled enough to make the sex jokes rest easily beside the final grandiose and pat confessions. As a result, When Do We Eat? merely whets your appetite for a fresh take on family matters.

The few jokes it does land can't make this more than a look-what's-on-late-night-cable event.

Unlike Uncle Nino's garden, the film never blooms into anything special.

It's pretty much a waste of everyone's time, especially yours.

Amusing at times but never more than a modest diversion, lacking the cleverness and imagination required to turn it into more than a one-joke movie.

There are not enough thrilling musical interludes, and few come close to capturing the sly joy in Porter's music.

Overall, the film's sheer mediocrity prevents Thurman from flying to its rescue.

It's unimaginative, crude and so derivative it hurts.

In the wake of TV's powerhouse "The Shield," Dark Blue comes off as something of a retread, with little of "The Shield's" electric fury, edgy camera work or deft characterizations.

Flamboyantly over-the-top, visually kinetic.

The film, bound to bore the socks off impatient viewers, mistakes reserve for depth and ends up hamstringing its talented cast into playing characters you never care about all that much.

Shakespeare's rich language does not fit soundly inside every mouth.

The movie does miraculously end up making good use of a couple of running jokes, and the cast soldiers on, though the laughs are meager. But mostly, Girl Most Likely is a case of good actors in serious need of worthwhile material.

Watching A Late Quartet feels more like sitting through a Classical Music 101 lecture than entertainment.

If you can get past the ludicrous fantasy — well, wait, that’s the problem. You can’t get past the ludicrous fantasy.

The sins of the inspirational Saint Ralph are venial, but they undeniably prevent the small Canadian film from stretching beyond the boundaries of an After School Special.

The cast is impressive, and the story even soapier than "The Tudors," if you like that sort of thing.

Despite all the flying bullets, which are admittedly entertaining at times, Shoot 'Em Up doesn't offer enough bang for your bucks.

Nobel Son is not good. Nor is it bad. It exists, instead, somewhere in the middle ground of interesting enough to hold one's attention without actually providing any fresh, sensible or nonderivative developments.

The only positive thing about the aimless film The Yellow Handkerchief is the idea that William Hurt may be ready for his Jeff Bridges moment.

Chéri never fulfills its emotional promise.

An uninspired, sporadically funny adaptation that falls short of the book's winsome, frisky chaos.

For most U.S. audiences, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, an Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, is going to feel more like a history lesson than a movie.

Rapidly devolves into a pedestrian thriller in which almost nobody behaves in a recognizably human way.

One of the problems with Rampart is that we've seen guys like Dave in movies and on TV for years now. The bad cop psyche has been delved into pretty deeply on all fronts, most notably in FX's brilliant series "The Shield."

The Age of Adaline is a modern romantic fairy tale set in San Francisco, marred by bad narration and an unnecessary desire to overexplain random magic.

Little happens that you don't see coming, down to which cast members will get picked off and in what order. It's a dumb action movie in a summer full of dumb movies, and yet it's always entertaining. And you won't really miss Arnold at all.

Features one of the more pointless cameos ever when Tom Waits shows up abruptly in the desert to spout mystical nonsense about Domino trading her life for somebody else's. The scene has absolutely no place in this jarring, violent movie; Waits is just another of Scott's distractions.

Only in the execution does Madonna stumble: Despite the undeniable romance of the historical material, she has made a movie more concerned with how things look than how they feel. Which should not surprise anyone.

Except for Spacey's talent, elements don't add up.

Feels every bit as cheap and flimsy as Edward's hospital.

I Saw the Light, though, doesn’t live up to Hiddleston’s efforts; it’s shallow and disjointed, handicapped by a weak, cliche-sodden script.

Pearce gets into his groove swiftly, owns it and remains entertaining throughout. The rest of the movie, however, would work better as a video game.

This is getting old.

Premonition is actually more daring than you might expect. Not bold enough to be memorable, maybe, but just enough to keep you from falling asleep in front of the TV.

Think "Cruel Intentions" in period costume, or better yet, Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette," which managed to take its subject matter lightly and seriously at the same time.

Paranoia has a promising foundation — betrayal, danger and corporate espionage are solid building blocks of suspense. But the movie turns out to be more exasperating than exciting.

Only two characters are worth much notice; neither is a prince, and one is a really big mouse, which tells you something sad about Narnia's royal family.

Johansson is magnetic enough to make this batch of Southern-fried corn almost digestible.

The film hardly aims to be serious entertainment, and, to its credit, it's never uninteresting visually.

You can tell they're desperate when they unashamedly resort to showcasing cutesy sea-creature behavior. Sandler is a funny guy. Let him work for his own laughs. He doesn't need a puking walrus to prop him up.

Detention has a frenetic visual style that's fun and appealing in a lot of ways, but there are way too many elements fighting for attention.

There are a few flashes of wit in the romantic comedy Austenland, but for the most part, the humor lands not with Dear Jane’s grace and style but with all the subtlety of a cholera outbreak.

As it spins along at a reasonably good clip - no one is going to mistake it for the slicker, more action-packed "Salt" - The Double unravels its secrets, which prove to be its undoing.

Fool's Gold isn't so much a film as an opportunity to pay homage to Matthew McConaughey's impressive physique.

May be dumb, but it must be noted that the screenwriters of this slight, silly comedy have borrowed from the best.

A film based on this information is potentially interesting, but Conspiracy of Silence, set in modern-day Ireland, is incoherent and often hard to follow.

Ends up as colorless as Reeves' first Superman suit.