Jennie Punter

The disturbing thing in this preposterous piece of family fluff from writer-director Steve Oedekerk (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, the Oscar-nominated Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) is the sight of bulls with udders.

Creepy, cool and loaded with style.

An unforgettable portrayal of the unglamorous gangster life, which is often short and never sweet.

Authentic, fresh and utterly relevant.

As confusing, horrific and unsettling as a nightmare can be, at least you wake up and the memory fades. Darwin's Nightmare, tragically, is not a dream, but rather a haunting, beautifully made reality check well worth waking up to.

Features an excellent cast, in particular the child actors. These elements, as well as the director's light unsentimental touch, make the struggles and triumphs in Small Voices ring truthful.

Riveting and courageous documentary.

It's an exquisite, humanistic and subtly topical work of cinema art that manages to keep the intimate, revelatory sensibility of a one-man play intact while fleshing out the characters and creating a very realistic and richly detailed school community.

Shamelessly cross-promotional "extreme" sports flick.

Relentless, thorough and devastating.

It's kind of fun but the twists and turns are all too familiar.

My Summer of Love may sound like the title of a hot teen flick, but it is a truly refreshing grown-up big-screen film, a rare gem in this summer of duds.

Unlike "Microcosmos" (all insects) and the acclaimed nature doc "Winged Migration" (all birds), Genesis is bogged down by its intentions and too vast a "cast."

Turns out to be one of the most compelling, finely orchestrated and oddly enchanting films of the year so far.

Presented the usual way, the film would be enchanting. In 3-D, however, Coraline is completely engrossing. Selick uses the technique brilliantly to enhance the comedy and horror that mingle in his more "family-friendly" version of Gaiman's dark story.

At two hours, After the Wedding stretches out family flux too thinly and waits too long to reveal the final, devastating secret that we already know.

Swords cross, blood spurts and bosoms heave in The Princess of Montpensier, French director Bertrand Tavernier's thoroughly ravishing drama.

Its rhythm is deliberate and unhurried, yet the film is rich with detail and with small, meaningful character revelations -- the running time of more than two hours feels just right.

Just as the book is usually better than the film, one suspects the video game is probably more entertaining and coherent than the movie. In the case of Alone in the Dark, this is a certainty.

Like its predecessors, Under the Sea is family-friendly viewing -- the great white shark swims by, as opposed to tearing prey to shreds. Its goal is to show biodiversity and offer information on how reefs grow, reminding us of threats to these environments.

Thrilling and beautifully crafted.

An unabashed crowd-pleaser.

Ever so subtly, Schock gradually transports us beyond the exotic and into gripping universal storytelling, aided all the way by the evocative music of Tucson songsmiths Calexico.

A combination of timing, access, a visual aesthetic that reflects ATCQ's Afrocentric "surface philosophy" (as the crew's look is described) and, most importantly, story-conscious editing elevates the doc above the norm.

While the newer version's darker ending lends a more contemporary twist, overall 3:10 to Yuma is reverent to the original – a few more bullets and more spilled blood notwithstanding.

One of the most irresistible films of the year so far.

Speaking of moves, A Better Life is an interesting one for Weitz, who produced "American Pie" and directed "The Golden Compass" and, ahem, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." Whatever the reason (his grandmother was a Mexican movie actress), this film feels more personal that just a gig.

They really pulled out all the stops on this one.