Connie Ogle

Unfortunately, the film's climactic finale grows repetitive and goes on a little too long; once you've seen bodies flying and crashing through buildings once, you've seen it plenty.

Albert Nobbs is not a movie about gender politics; it's about trusting in the fundamental goodness of others and accepting one's need for companionship, and the way in which Close slowly reveals Albert's closed-off heart is poignant and often surprisingly funny, though never in a mocking way.

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.

Joyful Noise is too tone-deaf to put its few blessings to good use.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the anti-Bourne of espionage movies, a deliberate, cerebral, grim and utterly absorbing film that makes covert operations appear as unsexy as the Bourne films made them seem fast-paced and thrilling.

Something of an overlong, overblown, disorganized mess, despite being slightly better than its predecessor.

New Year's Eve is not unbearable. It's not bad, but it's not good, either. It delivers exactly what you expect: pretty faces, shallow romance and a mythical fanaticism about an event in a friendly Manhattan unblemished by hyper-vigilant security measures, obnoxious drunks or New York Jets fans.

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.

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.

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

A big, rambling, entertaining love letter to the late Hunter S. Thompson.

It's full of lively and crude sexual banter, discussions of hookups and sex and Joel McHale's bare butt. Oddly, all this makes the film funnier and more accessible than you might imagine.

50/50 is crude and funny, and it demands that you laugh. And you will.

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).

Higher Ground is ultimately a proponent of the human spirit, of the individuality and honesty that must be claimed, even at a high price. That's a lot of substance to stuff into one little movie, but Farmiga makes it fit astonishingly well.

Contagion may be the most expensive public-service ad ever filmed, but it's also a surprisingly light-on-its-feet action thriller.

Director Lone Scherfig (An Education) doesn't have such luxury, but she infuses her snapshots of their relationship with humor and poignancy.

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.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan moves slowly, languidly; its art direction is often lovely, and despite their truncated screen time Lily and Snow Flower do make you care about their fates. But you would have cared more without all the distraction.

Uproariously funny.

Slow-witted, clumsy and almost pathologically reliant on crude name-calling for laughs - Horrible Bosses represents the lowest end of the comedy spectrum.

McGregor hasn't been this appealing or vulnerable in ages, and in both of the film's love stories, he exemplifies Mills' message.

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.

Thank Segal in part, because the guy is always funny, and Timberlake gets some of the biggest laughs in a particularly crude sex scene (though the song with which his character woos Miss Squirrel is perhaps the film's funniest moment).

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.

Something Borrowed commits the most fatal mistake of all: Its characters are so deeply uninteresting that the audience can't get invested in their eventual happiness.

"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.

It's a good, solid family film.