Connie Ogle

This mostly upbeat crowd-pleaser soothes the audience with glistening harmonies and familiar songs and doesn’t always handle the ugly past simmering just below its surface gracefully.

Sweet, amusing little film.

Still, though it's crude and juvenile in ways that makes you vaguely ashamed at laughing so much, The Campaign is versatile enough to sneak in a good shot or two at the American political system.

A breath of fresh air in this musty spring movie season.

Bradshaw, who is funnier than you might suspect, also turns out to be the most fearless of performers.

Despite the film's sloppy structure, it feels weirdly good to hang out with these losers again.

The Lady in the Van doesn’t give in to platitudes. It’s unnervingly honest about its subject.

The movie is slightly more sappy, and the characters are necessarily less fleshed out than they are in Audrey Niffenegger's dazzling novel, but neither shortcoming detracts from the film's appeal.

Descended from a long and healthy line of high school-sports and academic-achievement films, a hip-hop "Hoosiers" bolstered by a generous helping of "Stand and Deliver" and "Lean On Me."

It's not always an easy movie to watch, but its characters are unforgettable.

Best of all, the film never makes its characters into stoic or tragic heroes, choosing instead to highlight what makes them human — their hopes, their fears, their anger, the way they learn to live with knowing they’re going to die.

Predictable but amusing. The painfully awkward, stubby Gervais as romantic lead is a funny enough concept, but the actor's ongoing banter with Kinnear is engaging, and their styles mesh entertainingly.

It's a good, solid family film.

Despite the fact that the film is not graphic, you won't want to watch Darfur Now over dinner with your family. But you probably should anyway.

The real genius, if that is what it is, behind Sacha Baron Cohen's crude, shocking and explosively funny Brüno is the fact that the filmmakers actually found enough gullible human targets.

Pirate Radio does what it sets out to do. It rocks.

Wonderfully energetic.

August: Osage County is easier to watch on screen, and maybe for that we should be grateful.

The Invisible Woman offers a compelling glimpse at a life once hidden.

Reveals little about the personal aspects of the deeply troubled man behind the sunglasses -- it naturally deals with none of the darker aspects of Jackson's life -- but it deftly underlines his commitment to showmanship.

Though its violence is searing and brutal, the film, about four FBI agents investigating a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, shows a conscience and a brain, and if it explains things a bit simplistically at times, so much the better.

Screenwriter/director Tornatore is best known for his nostalgic "Cinema Paradiso," which won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1990. But The Best Offer is completely different in style and tone; it’s dark instead of light, a psychological thriller of sorts, only with Virgil’s heart and orderly life in peril instead of his life.

Mom (Elisabeth Shue) suffers from the fatal movie ailment of being so underwritten she's practically see-through.

The Help will make you laugh, yes, but it can also break your heart. In the dog days of August moviegoing, that's a powerful recommendation.

Just plain fun. Don't miss it.

There's nothing offensive about Barbershop 2, and maybe there should be. But even if the film plays it safe, it remains a cut above other mainstream comedies.

Surprisingly sweet and, dare we say it, old-fashioned, with an engaging sense of humor that's a definite improvement on lame, lowbrow efforts such as "Little Nicky."

Despite its humble nature, the film is downright uplifting without being vulgar, flashy or embarrassing.