Gregory Weinkauf

The confusing, demanding role finally brings the actor home, and us with him.

Since the narrative's destination is awkwardly obvious, and the tone occasionally melts into a sticky-sweet mess like cotton candy in the sun, the movie is most often saved by its generous helpings of clever dialogue.

The striking graininess of the film stock, the near-documentary style of the setups, and Michael Nyman's attentive score add up to a relatable and ultimately hopeful experience.

Ultimately, it's the hip cast that keeps things hopping.

What's in it for you? Mostly a bunch of astronauts and cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station, floating around filming each other.

Too bad it commits the crime of being so intensely average, because what could have been sensational turns out to be merely this week's heist movie.

This sensuous, exotic film is more like an issue of "National Geographic" come to life, rich with cultural detail and insight.

Pustules, puberty and pregnancy...seven stories tall! Mostly grand but occasionally grody

It's definitely an enchanting spectacular for Potter fans anxious to ride the Hogwarts Express toward a new year of magic and mischief.

A thrilling tale smartly told, with an abundance of wit and invention. It's a classic.

While it's marvelously refreshing to observe Mother Nature obliterating L.A. and New York along with caricatures of ghastly world leaders, almost everything good is in the trailer, save perhaps brief run-ins with malevolent wolves and Ian Holm.

Lars von Trier's latest thingamabob is a large, pretentious blob of coulda-been. As in, it coulda been deep and insightful. It coulda been sociologically challenging. It coulda been formalistically thrilling. But it isn't.

A loud and ghastly movie to sit through and not short on gratuitous hideousness, but Darabont has also done his best to baste it with humanity and sweetness.

What do you get when you cross a passé "swinger" (Will Stewart), an exhausted "lost in L.A." setting, a sloppy "screenplay" and dull "direction" (by Paul Duran)? This!

The movie is smart, funny, romantic, and rousing.

This is a powerhouse of a film, but not for the obvious reasons that it's about a female serial killer, scampering lesbians and whatever. The project's strength instead emerges from a sense of nobility and purpose in honoring its characters.

Visually it's wild fun, since fledgling feature director Len Wiseman started off in production design, and creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos's diverse credits span from "Godzilla" to "Stuart Little." Yet with Underworld's guilty pleasures come copious clinkers, from its nuts-and-bolts narrative foundation to Wiseman's inability to direct actors beyond cartoonish interaction.

Funny, sad, moving and, above all, astute, making I Capture the Castle a fabulous film. Even the cars are tasty.

A sharp and pungent distillation of the book. However, as far as the theme of childhood under duress goes, I found "My Life as a Dog" or the stridently Irish "Into the West" to be significantly more fulfilling.

Gentle and gorgeous, honoring atmosphere over attitude.

Equilibrium improves as it rolls along -- either that or, ironically, it wears down the senses until the viewer succumbs.

Offers considerable charm and an obvious desire to please.

The filmmakers' investment in their weird visions is wildly unorthodox, but the payoff is oddly satisfying.

This Trinity may be the least of the three--sound familiar, Matrix faithful?--but it's the closest in style and attitude to a pulpy comic book, an art form that doesn't need to be lofty, perfect or even sensible to tickle a dork's fancy.

In this bolder, longer new cut, characters are allowed to finish scenes previously left as DVD extras, effects are creepier, and the theories of "the Tangent Universe" are explored in greater depth. Friends and neighbors, this is a Great American Movie.

Technically, the movie occasionally rises to become awe-inspiring, and while sometimes you can smell the acting (especially from Matthes), the performances are often soulful.

There's a somber tone to Petroni's work here--enhanced by Roger Lanser's shadowy cinematography and handicapped a bit by a schmaltzy Hollywood-type score--and there's also plenty of episodic life stuff.

While the movie is indeed touching and very politically significant, there's something peculiar about never learning exactly what made ace reporter Guerin so intensely obsessive about this topic.