Connie Ogle

Observe and Report conveys an essential truth about Rogen: Like every other actor on the planet, he needs good material to do good work.

Smart, entertaining update.

You won't necessarily applaud The Notebook's excesses, but its final moments of grace will leave you in a sodden heap on the theater floor.

Despite the increasingly annoying presence of the mugging, fatuous Cuba Gooding Jr., The Fighting Temptations pulls off what feels like a major feat: Its musical sequences could make the most hardened atheist want to go to church.

Fast and funny, and grown-ups will not suffer sitting through it.

It's a good, solid family film.

Delicacy bears a slight whiff of Anthony Minghella's fantastic "Truly Madly Deeply," but while Minghella's film is a romantic comedy classic, Delicacy hovers just this side of memorable.

No rose-colored memories can improve this tedious interpretation of the famous girl detective's adventures. Nancy Drew falls somewhere between "The Haunted Mansion" and the live-action "Scooby Doo" movies in terms of quality but is more irritating than either.

Based on a graphic novel, 30 Days of Night opens with a premise so promising it seems almost impossible to screw up.

Turns out to be a more disappointment than joyful reunion, a tedious and desperately drawn-out affair that tests your patience even as it brazenly courts (and often earns) your contempt.

In Keeping Mum, the writers poke gentle, broad fun at the absurdities of English country life and manners while creating a cozy malevolence that's all the more engaging because it lies so far from reality. We know we mustn't murder our loathsome neighbors. But how much fun it is to imagine that we might.

Lost and Delirious doesn't need metaphors for the power of strength and healing. All the passion and pain it needs glows ferociously in the eyes of its young women.

With more time and a dash more cynicism, the film just might have achieved the thrilling allure of Becky Sharp's perfectly icy heart.

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

Solondz's determinedly removed eye for the graphic and shocking is by now practically a cliche. If Solondz really wants to outrage anyone, he'll have to make a sweet and heartfelt drama.

Equally thrilling and wrenching, the film is an absolute must for anyone who loves sports and an eloquent explanation for those who don't understand what the fuss is about.

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.

This film and Miller's vision remind us of the danger of giving in to fear.

Penguins are intrinsically amusing. In general, Jim Carrey is amusing, too, provided you can overlook that whole "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" debacle. In Mr. Popper's Penguins, he and they add up to surprisingly fun family entertainment.

A witty and engaging bit of fluff about sex, scandal, idleness, gossip, blackmail, guilty secrets and, most surprisingly, redemption.

The film is also less bloated than "Bridesmaids" - a comedy is always more nimble at 90 minutes than two hours - and it's less maudlin, too. It's the aberrant, foul-mouthed child of "Superbad" and "Young Adult."

There's no real reason to see this movie. It's exhausting and pointless and not amusing enough to make up for its failings. You can do better. The filmmakers could have done better. Honestly, you're better off staying home and making hummus.

It's not quite layered or weighty enough to fill the aching hole left in our psyches by the end of "The Sopranos," and most of the developments are as obvious as sauce on spaghetti. Still, Brooklyn Rules is a decent, if derivative, movie.

Has nothing new to say, but it has a lot of fun covering the same old territory.

Limps along, spinning not a silken web but an extremely derivative, tattered one not likely to snare anybody's interest.

Marley & Me gets so many of the details right, particularly in its final act, when it turns into a five-hanky weeper.

This is getting old.

A star rises in the east. A savior is born. Two thousand years later, a surprisingly dull film is made.