Connie Ogle

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.

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

It's a warm, skillful excavation of what look like ordinary lives, ones that aren't so simple once you dig a little deeper.

Screenwriter Shawn Slovo -- whose white parents were anti-apartheid activists in South Africa -- ends his finely tuned screenplay on a note not of violence and anger but of forgiveness. It's a breathtaking coda that reminds us of that undeniable human beauty: the ability to survive, to fight for right -- and then move peacefully on.

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.

Once you're among them, the Tenenbaums -- and Anderson -- cast quite a spell.

Turns out to be a lot less tiresome than it sounds, aided by a wonderfully appealing cast and a strong message.

Dismal.

Funny in the juvenile, crass way we expect.

The Constant Gardener is difficult to watch, literally. Meirelles' lens leaps and jitters too much, as if it's anxious it might be bludgeoned to death, too.

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

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

Norton isn't the first guy who comes to mind when you think ''period piece,'' but he's starred in two such films this year (in addition to The Painted Veil, he stars in "The Illusionist"), and he is terrific in both.

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.

A romantic comedy so rote, dull and predictable that it makes "You've Got Mail" seem innovative and fresh.

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

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.

Being Julia is really about the fear of aging and the battle to remain relevant professionally and sexually.

If you're going to be offensive, by all means be offensive. Be tasteless! Be "There's Something About Mary." But at least stick to your guns, and don't wuss out when it counts.

Made with an unerring visual dazzle -- its dark corners are shadowy, deep and melancholy, its brilliant seascapes the sparkling embodiment of why we must all find a reason to carry on.

Never has the sight of naked women been so innocent.

One of those blessedly rare films based on a self-help book, is remarkable in one sense: It prevents "The Lake House" and its magical mailbox from being the most ridiculous concept on screen this summer.

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.

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