Connie Ogle

This melding of comedic minds is one of the better holiday gifts we've received, cinematically speaking.

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.

Better than its trailers indicate. Forget the seemingly silly Chapstick moment: Any film that sends a cold shock to your system is doing something right.

Excruciatingly unamusing.

Gridiron Gang is not imaginative, but neither is it painful to watch.

The Lake House overflows with heart-stopping thrills, if by ''thrills'' you mean ''watching attractive people wait around for letters to be delivered by mystical forces.'' Which, come to think of it, makes this romantic melodrama sound a lot more interesting than it is.

It is entertaining enough to send intelligent viewers (but only the intelligent ones) in search of the book.

Serendipity's finale is a perfect crowd-pleaser, sweet and unlikely and over the top.

Guggenheim managed to turn a Power Point presentation into a crowd-pleasing Academy Award winner, but he can't do much to free Gracie from its constraints and clichés.

Unlike "The Ring," Dark Water -- which features one of the mad, whispery ghost children who populate such films -- is never actually frightening.

While the attentive art direction of Running With Scissors pays scrupulous and imaginative attention to period detail, the film overlooks its greatest asset: Burroughs.

Predictable but enjoyable comedy, which succeeds largely on the charm of its star.

By the time it's over, Insidious is less scary than a mortgage payment.

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.

"Twilight's" Robert Pattinson gets a chance to shed his sparkly vampire persona and play a romantic lead with a pulse. The change suits him.

Half-hearted satire of Hollywood and small-town life, and Bosworth is not particularly memorable in it.

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

There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths.

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.

Too much of the breezy humor that made the book a delight is stripped away, replaced with predictable jokes and broad slapstick, sitcom-quality encounters with women and bears and a pushy, grating sentimentality.

That rare biopic that’s shorter and swifter than it should be. This turns out to be both a blessing and a curse.

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.

Mostly due to luminous writing, Baxter's novel evoked a sense of magic, but this Feast, though never completely uninteresting, leaves you hungry for enchantment.

A competent but utterly unnecessary retelling of the story.

The film, with its uniformly terrific cast, stern Gothic overtones and steady but measured pacing, is a crisp, old-fashioned delight, eschewing cheap tricks for repeated tiny pricks of unease that work up to a continuous gnawing dread.

Won't make you forget Kidman's better work, but it's not a film you long to excise from your memory.

This is an insignificant film with a passably entertaining premise that goes wildly to hell the instant it strays from its comic ideals with brief, unsatisfying detours into the realms of art and high-end lingerie.

It's all about making everybody happy. If that's not grounds for a good relationship, then I don't know what is.