Joe Neumaier

This is crucial work, evidenced by a line on a wall of R.I.P. graffiti that reads simply, "I am next." This film of common folks fighting the seemingly inevitable is just as moving.

The twists and turns involve a high-level assassination, corrupt cops, squint-inducing violence and plenty of fearlessness.

Dominic Cooper gives a riveting dual performance in The Devil's Double, but the movie is a relentless one-note drama that loses its momentum halfway through.

Azaria channels his inner Charles Nelson Reilly, which helps, as does an evil emoting cat. Kids under 7 will likely giggle at some too-harsh pratfalls, not care about a grown man's fear of procreation, not get all the tiny innuendos and possibly miss how the movie is a fairly successful tourism ad for New York.

The sole treasure of Cowboys & Aliens is that director Jon Favreau ("Iron Man") has fashioned an actual rawhide ride from a graphic novel (that took six writers to wrangle to the screen).

Alas, this learned woman of letters - her expertise became the work of Dostoyevsky, whose major novels Geier nicknames "the five elephants" - is ill served by a trudging approach and dry-as-dust, procedural style.

Weithorn, a sitcom vet whose credits include "Ned and Stacey" and "The King of Queens," makes sure even the quiet moments in the unassuming "A Little Help" move things forward. And that every one of Laura's missteps is in the right direction.

A dramatic tale of survival and horrific memories struggles against distracting melodrama in Sarah's Key, and unfortunately, melodrama wins.

This muscular, red-blooded adventure has a decent heart and the stuff of Saturday afternoon serials running through its veins.

Director Oliver Schmitz's rhythms take a while to ease into, and admittedly, there is never a bright moment.

Unfortunately, its present-day tale, involving a career woman seeking to mend her 20-year bond with a girlfriend injured in an accident, is lax and clunky, and its story-within-a-story - a tale of two laotong, or soul sisters, in oppressive mid-1800s China - is gorgeous but simplistic.

Falls short of being revelatory, yet has a mysterious, sturdy power that grows on you.

There's no bells and whistles here, no 3-D or useless grey fluff, just Pooh as he's always been, silly and true.

If only this were a media-fueled tall tale and not one poor creature's lifelong nightmare.

Even those who never joined the cult of A Tribe Called Quest will find this clear-eyed chronicle of their career irresistible.

Carpenter's economical but mundane chiller is possessed more by previous ghoul-friend flicks than it is by his better work.

A children's comedy about talking animals that feels as if it were written by children or, perhaps, by talking animals.

Has raw action and urgent performances, but loses power due to an amateur approach.

Maddeningly mundane, this Romanian drama aims for an antiseptic look at random violence and, unfortunately, achieves it.

If one performance could tilt a movie the direction it needs to go, John C. Reilly's expertly left-of-center turn in Terri is it.

It put-puts along like a moped in busy traffic, content to amble around but not go anywhere.

Riding in to save almost every scene, though, are recent Tony Awards host Harris and the wild and woolly Sedaris, who goes too far, but in a good way. Shelov could learn from them.

Director Michel Leclerc's comedy plays like one of those foreign-movie spoofs Jerry and the gang would go to see on a "Seinfeld" episode. Only here, there's no "young girl's journey from Milan to Minsk" - just from madcap to moronic.

It can sometimes be hard to sit through, but another song is coming soon, and anyway, close your eyes and imagine you're on vacation, sipping vino in a piazza, soaking in the street life.

Full of unenlightening snippets and blithe but banal asides, what the movie is missing is edge.

This savvy and sensitive company has unapologetically made a movie for (very) young moviegoers.

Director Sue Bourne belabors the judges' final decision to such an excruciating length, it makes the whole movie feel a bit more cloddish than it should.

Emphasizing the importance of new media, Stelter is ready to bring the paper back to the future, though this terrific tale of an establishment in transition ultimately plays like "All the President's Men," with the intrigue coming from inside the building.

A gripping documentary about how unnecesary real estate development can change the soul of New York, brings us inside the lives it touches.

Well-meaning but dreadfully executed movie.

The effects are so omnipresent it's like Reynolds' perfect hair is floating in CGI limbo. Yet when they need punch, as in a "Superman"-ish display-of-powers scene involving a helicopter, there's no flair.

This hard-working film may not be a balm, but it can help.

Unfortunately, despite the sweaty, tense atmosphere, Viva Riva becomes derivative of the duller scenes in other gangster flicks.

This is what happens when the Norwegians try to make their own "Blair Witch Project": We get three-headed trolls that hate Vitamin D and references to "Deliverance."

A young Aussie actress who seems as all-American as a Magic 8 ball, successfully walks the tightrope from precocious to exuberant, never once falling into obnoxiousness. That could describe this crackerjack of a kids' movie as well.

This uneven but often charming movie produced by Spielberg gets so many things right, including its practiced naivete. What's missing, however, is a crucial sense of connection to itself.

A charming indie that combines dreamy aspiration with mucky, hilarious reality.

Actors are left with too much time to play emotional symphonies, while inevitably having to hit too many required notes.

Beginners is filled with crises of identity, but underneath it all is a beautifully humane, sweet and intelligent movie that knows exactly what it is at every moment.

Like so much in this astounding, consistently beautiful and challenging movie, the answer depends on what you bring to it. Think of it as the Ultimate Anti-Summer-Blockbuster.

Kung Fu Panda 2 plunks down squarely in the spot marked for "chop-socky action with heart."

Though it's rough around the edges, it is also, undeniably, a nervy, confident debut.

As in "Purple Rose," the film works best when tweaking the disparate worlds thrown together, though "Midnight" is frothier, and so Wilson shines.

It appears that turning the John Ford/John Wayne classic "The Searchers" into the church-vs-vampire adventure Priest was not an altogether god-awful idea. As long as we don't get "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" as an elegiac zombie drama, this adaptation of a graphic novel has some bite.

Hey, isn't summer a good time for a salad?

Murphy also reveals one more gem when she interviews the New York couple who gave their friend Nell Harper Lee a financial gift in the '50s that allowed her to quit her job and finish the book, an act of generosity that is also one more kindness surrounding this most humane of artworks.

Director Justin Chadwick ("The Other Boleyn Girl") shows admirable restraint bringing this true story to the screen, and Litando does much with glimmers of emotion and wells of dignity.

Any way you slice it, writer-director Spencer Susser's movie is bad company, full of wanna-be-outrageous anecdotes from the fringe.

Alba certainly tries her best at portraying not just a beauty but also a beautiful mind, yet very few things add up despite director Marilyn Agrelo's efforts.

Nonetheless, if you're a Force completist, this is as crucial as a bootleg of 1978's "Star Wars Holiday Special." Which, by the way, was awesome.

History can be an equalizer, so director Roland Joffe ("The Killing Fields," "The Mission") makes sure saints and sinners all get painted with the same uninteresting brush in this fact-based drama.

Writer-director Michael Goldbach fills the story with too many distractions, but Dennings, known for "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist," is feline and fun.

Oddly engrossing, off-kilter drama.

No matter how the filmmakers move Heaven and Earth, this comic-book adaptation looks cool but contains very little thunder. The fault is a script by a five-headed beast which contains fateful missteps.

A movie that's so anachronistically mushy and awkward, it earns extra credit simply for being so innocent.

Director Werner Herzog's latest cinematic mind trip blows you away with its beauty.

Though Bloom feels like he dropped in from another movie, it all spins on screenwriter Thornton's charismatic performance, which also accounts for the survival instinct inside the film.

This sweet if limited film has an agreeable attitude.

Only the extremely naive will be shocked, shocked by director Morgan Spurlock's dissection of product placement in movies.

Filled with striking images and the ghosts of lives lived in hardship and war, Incendies is tough but impactful.

An earnest but undeniably eye-rolling documentary about the denizens of this odd pocket of show business.

African Cats, while often adorable and at times gripping, is more of a TV-ready experience.

Haroun is achingly conscious of day-to-day decisions that seem small when they're made but can suddenly loom large.

Sometimes a bit of befuddlement is exactly what you need. That's the driving idea behind writer-director Steven Peros' off-kilter, off-the-beaten path comedy, which owes a lot to 1980s indie cinema.

A streak of "Cinema Paradiso" runs through this Italian dramedy - and while it lacks that film's overflowing emotion, it's filled with its own artfulness and warmth.

A twisty Italian thriller that takes some liberties with its now-you-see-'em/now-you-don't plot points, but no matter; the way director Giuseppe Capotondi keeps us guessing is deliciously, maliciously deft.

The main reason this gorgeous-looking, sweet-hearted but so-so movie remains grounded is a herky-jerky, cobbled-together story that squawks when it should sing.

Director Malcolm Venville, who made the British gangster flick "44 Inch Chest," has a strong handle on the tone, so even the familiar twists feel fresh.

The deepest chord is hit by Cattrall, who almost manages to wipe away the memory of "Sex and the City 2."

Dennis Quaid lends some needed saltiness as Hamilton's supportive dad.

The forced coming-of-age parable that filmmaker Joe Wright laces with fairy-tale symbolism is heavy-handed from the get-go.

This Arthur is missing a soul.

Trust - a drama about the dangers of teen sexting and online predators - plays as prurient, ham-handed and amateurish.

Kline, who has done a lot of chewy character roles after several stage ­triumphs, is as sly and leonine as ever. His performance here obliterates that phony accent he used in "French Kiss."

World is grounded, offering up a rare case of well-earned hopefulness.

Insidious doesn't feature the lazy, home-video-style terror of "Paranormal Activity," thankfully. But it's also pretty normal activity for a ghost story.

The first film in a while to have a decent heart while quickening your pulse.

Shares a spiritual link to the Japanese works of Hayao Miyazaki but lacks his films' narrative drive and magical overlay.

Any film as politically specific as Miral needs to be addressed on two levels, as a movie and as, from a certain viewpoint, a polemic. If a viewer can separate one from the other - and some may not - there's an intense, novelistic drama here.

Often static and follows a familiar trajectory. Yet it has power, partly because Simmons does a fine job of showing how hurt Henry is that his taste didn't imprint on Gabe beyond grade school; what was their music became, simply, dad's music.

There's a wonderfully steely spine inside of Tom McCarthy'sWin Win," but it's hard to see at first because it's inside the doughy, everyman person of Paul Giamatti.

There's a reason potboiler paperbacks don't make good movies - there's too much outlandish plot, even for Hollywood.

Despite the ominous feel, this is a mystery about losing or gaining lives and unknown detours.

Gugino is having a ball, but every scene feels like an oh-so-arch one-act.

The amazingly awful dramatic thriller Red Riding Hood could, with tweaks, be enjoyably bad in a "Plan 9 From Outer Space" kind of way. Instead, it's M. Night Shyamalan-style bad, which means despite all the unintentional snickers, you feel trapped.

This one isn't original, or even bearable. By its thudding end, audiences may wish they could be zapped from the theater to escape the buzzing in their ears.

While not every family film can plant a flag here, the happily offbeat Mars Needs Moms turns out to be a charming, subversive, minor addition to the club.

There's less to Beastly than meets the eye - and what meets the eye is no great shakes, either.

Unfortunately, the fantasy-thriller they're in eventually falls apart, becoming a much sillier, less substantial movie than its lead actors deserve.

Faith-based audiences may find comfort here, but the film's heavy-handedness is a burden it can't overcome.

The emotions veer from bawdy to sweet and then to obvious, though the film is stylish, and Dolan's artfulness helps when the movie loses focus.

Quiet, soulful and wrenching.

More serious-minded than expected, with a unique and savvy point of view.

This gruesome, allegorical drama is dark and unsettling, but not so original that it begs to be let in.

Riveting, especially since these animals' population has horrifyingly dropped from 450,000 to 20,000 in a half-century.

I Am Number Four, with its gangly title, seems like a dimwitted cousin to those hipper properties - a Superman-come-lately tale of puppy love, extraordinary powers and puberty that's duller than a chalkboard and less powerful than an extraneous Jonas brother.

Twisty, engaging thriller.

This rambling, unfocused, shuffling documentary paints the famous standup in broad strokes, only occasionally providing worthy examples of how Winters inspired generations.

This rather elegant movie, like a bold new 'do, is both not what you'd expect and exactly what you feared.

This is perhaps for Shakespeare completists only.

This old-fashioned sword-and-sandal drama has all the bread and circuses we've come to know from the movies. It flirts with interesting story choices, but ultimately, all roads lead to boredom.

Director James Keach's movie is so annoyingly dipsy-doodle that TV veteran Bilson, trying hard to look haunted and angsty, is boxed in.

More mournful than alarmist, Arthus-Bertrand's film goes beyond global warming to look at life out of balance, through a lens darkly.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't have enough going on to keep us engaged, but writer-director Aaron Katz has a confident style and a way with small moments.

If you're able to think of characters as just air bubbles to get past, then dive in, the excitement's fine.

To use carnival lingo: Thrilling? Not quite; since Levi's film has no clear goal for Stan to reach. Spectacular? Truth be told, those skeptical of Stan's abilities may still walk out as nonbelievers. Fascinating? Absolutely, because if you take time to listen, everyone's life is a three-ring circus.

Kekilli sensitively portrays Umay's conflicted despair, and the relationship with her son is beautifully rendered.

The good-natured cast helps distract from a barely sketched plot and outrageously cheap production values.

With action this strong, the script just needs to be serviceable - and that's exactly what it is.

Terminally silly, even more so for being "inspired by actual events."

The only bit of machinery that makes the film move is Jason Statham, who's provided the steely saving grace in so many modern action movies.

Steen, her face full of remorse, does a great job of portraying someone unclear of where to go or what to say without a script.

What emerges is a portrait of the "psychic risk," as her father says, of living a creative life - and the intense feeling that entails.

The man-versus-the-natural world story is in Weir's wheelhouse, and Harris and Farrell get into a scene-stealing duel. Worth the trek.

By the time Barney gets one final, heartbreaking chance to screw things up, this rich, satisfying film has you hooked.

This tonal mishmash cripples The Dilemma almost immediately, though there are many other speed bumps, including Vaughn's irritating, fast-talking prattle.

A steady thrum of anger pervades this Romanian film even in its quietest moments, but the ending and captured-lost-boys setting ultimately fail to surprise.

At least "Witch" offers Perlman's easy, early-hominid charm, and a semi-suspenseful rickety-bridge scene.

Here, it's all Bardem, and this great actor's careworn face and sensitive presence counts for a lot. He ultimately can't save the soul of Biutiful, but he makes the journey easier.

Halfway into Blue Valentine, a work so beautifully acted and emotionally honest it is my choice for best movie of the year, there's an amazing flashback scene you hope never ends.

Our time spent with Nenette feel as stifling and airless as hers.

Director Lee Chang-dong's soulful, affecting film is as quiet as a tomb and has a disturbing, critical underside that's hard to shake off.

A wonderfully entertaining, beautiful Western drama that lets the quirks of the genre gallop freely as it keeps a tight rein throughout.

Kidman is able to draw you in even as the movie's solemn, morbid obviousness wears you out.

Bridges is enjoyable as he gives the older Flynn a Zen hero quality, and even breaks through the effects to make his younger-Clu-self oddly engaging.

Plays out like a clunky, not-so-incredible "Incredibles," or a more-despicable "Despicable Me."

While Lomborg is an engaging though sometimes smug subject, director Ondi Timoner allows a coterie of scientists to spend too much time puncturing Gore than propping up Lomborg - who comes off as charismatic and engaged but, ultimately, merely a contrarian.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is overhyped as Billy Bob Thornton is slow and steady.

If Welcome to the Rileys were a thicker-skinned movie -- if it were the movie it thinks it is -- so much of the outcome wouldn't be telegraphed the minute you read the premise.

Despite being about a royal family at a critical moment in history, The King's Speech doesn't shout about its many strengths. Rather, it urges you to lean in close, where its intelligence and heart come through loud and clear.

Less the opulent retelling she (Taymor) intended and more like a high-minded midnight movie, filled with Ricky's-style costumes, black swans, sprites that flit across the screen and a cave filled with boiling beakers.

The Company Men recalls 1946's great post-World War II drama "The Best Years of Our Lives," and the reason isn't simply its trio of protagonists.

By far the most rousing, expertly cast movie this year, David O. Russell's movie takes a roundabout way of telling its true story.

There could have been more side trips on the road to self-discovery, but the plentiful lessons and derring-'do make Tangled a lock for playground pastimes. And maybe even some knotty parent-kid chats about finding your part in life.

Goes about its game so bloodlessly, the result is some of the most unexciting action and seduction sequences in recent memory.

The film ends up wrestling itself into a corner, though it's saved by a corrosive central performance from Ryan Gosling and a disconcertingly hypnotic feel.

I Love You Phillip Morris not only blasts gay stereotypes back decades, it could actually make people wish for a third "Ace Ventura" movie. Both of those are an accomplishment, though neither is a compliment.

Without excessive emotion or drama, director Javier Fuentes-León's film - and Mercado's performance - gently captures the power of emotions whose silent rattle is even stronger than reality.

A slow, solid movie that, like Rita, sneaks up on you with its intelligence and pluck.

It's laughably, eye-rollingly absurd.

It's finally here: The most boring alien-invasion movie ever.

The final fate of Adolf ­Eichmann is certainly a compelling subject. But its dramatic impact is severely diminished here by stilted filmmaking and wooden performances.

Spottiswoode relays this tragic story with respect and sadness. But Michael Donovan's script is stuffed with clichés, and Dupuis is unable to convey the depth of Dallaire's emotions.

Every generation gets a "Big Chill," and this tired but well-meaning indie contains many clichés of the "pals-pondering-life" movies that came before.

Director Jaak Kilmi's remembrance of growing up under Soviet rule never tries to be anything more than a curiosity.

This often-witty baby-of-"Broadcast News" tries hard to be liked, like the TV fluff it's built around. The news is that, often, it succeeds.

Gibney puts mystery back into a story we thought we knew.

Once Franco's on his own, everything is played across this terrific actor's deceptively goofy face.

Wiseman films it all without comment, letting the rhythm of the place tell the story.

Half-assed, halfhearted attempt to copy the Farrellys' out-there style is missing both their jackassical riffs and their heart.

The film awkwardly mixes political, social and medical issues and ends up being less than the sum of its parts.

Based on a true story, the movie's best scenes involve its heroine breaking down barriers by force of will as much as by legal wrangling.

Without giving anything away, much of the excruciatingly teased-out tension here echoes the first movie without upping the ante.

It doesn't help that Eastwood's laconic style is as torpid as it was in such misfires as "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and "Changeling."

Norton, too, keeps us guessing, though his pseudo-tough-guy line readings (and cornrowed hair) are initially distracting. But his scenes with De Niro -- who fills every twitch or glance with Jack's long-buried guilt -- are the guts of the movie.

There's an art to making a good spoof, but good luck finding it in Dance Flick, not only because the movie goes for easy toilet humor, but because it often relies on it to stay afloat.

Gets old fast.

One of the best indie films of the year, Humpday is a lighter descendant of "sex lies and videotape," yet burrows just as deep into the male psyche and the human capacity for self-deceit.

Like a more personal, less pretentious version of Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Babel," this spiraling dissection of circumstance, choice and fate is more about thoroughness of vision than tricky storytelling.

During all of the film’s oh-so-long 97 minutes, Year One, barely earns a snicker.

Adds to the sad realization that this once-vibrant and witty actor (Cage) is completely controlled now by his inner teenager.

Even the youngest viewers, not to mention their parents, will appreciate the buffoonish villainy of the dogcatchers (still useful villains more than half a century after "Lady and the Tramp"), and the movie's nice anti-kill shelter message is as it should be.

Since Bullock coproduced this masochistic venture, it seems she buys into the idea that fluffer-nut ditziness is what she does best. Except it isn't.

While the vocal performances of Hanks, Allen and company make up a perfect ensemble, and its visual leaps astound, TS3's real power sneaks up on you.

Amid all the hokey hill stuff, Lawrence's hard eyes and manner draw us in.

Johnson is convincing as a swaggering, jokey Lennon, but the photos of young John, Paul and George that end the movie ultimately have more punch than this bubblegummy montage.

The oh-so-out-there mentality earns some chuckles, but that, along with Piven's preening, gets very trying. A hard sell is still a hard sell.

The kids' story gets out of control, but Andie MacDowell is a pleasantly earthy mess as Victor's out-of-it mother, and familiar New York faces (Ann Magnuson, Mark Boone Jr., Richard Edson) lend quirky support as the out-of-it elders.

Though every frame is great to look at, Bolt's script - by the co-writers of "Mulan" and "Cars" - lacks the wit of its closest Pixar relative, "The Incredibles." Rhino and some goofy pigeons provide the few laughs once the tale goes cross-country.

Wallace layers on some era-specific meaning to Chenery, who seems to be simply following her lineage, thanks to Lane's quietly dignified performance. Malkovich is more fun, though Laurin isn't as outrageous as the movie thinks he is.

A memorable, monstrous fable that's consistently gripping.

Rotates around a rusty little robotic hero who's built, as the movie is, with such emotion, brains and humor that whole universes exist in his whirring tones and binocular eyes.

Utilizing copious film footage of her puckish subject and new interviews with Haring's contemporaries, gallerists and mentors, director Christina Clausen makes her fascinating movie as big-hearted, city-centric and energetic as its subject.

If there are Nazis fighting other Nazis in a movie and it's still boring, something's gone wrong. Valkyrie has a coterie of problems, and represents a whole new front in Tom Cruise's public relations war, but first and foremost there's the tedium.

A pensive and searching drama that explores how deep into the national psyche these murders in the Katyn forest went.

More deft than it first appears, director John Crowley's gentle-but-not-sappy drama features another late-day masterpiece-in-miniature from Michael Caine.

Avatar clears the hurdle in terms of being optical candy. Its story, though, is pure cheese.

In what world does Smart People exist? Clearly not the real one, though this dramedy wants to think it's filled with ironic insights about love and family.

This taut but cliched little thriller is like "Wait Until Dark" with neo-Nazis.

When a movie is this strange, it's gotta count for something.

Writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez seems to think his characters are oh-so-edgy, and maybe they would be -- if it were 1982.

This empty, immature romantic comedy ultimately feels as if it's filled with all the hot air that separates New York and San Francisco, yet still manages to be a suffocating bore.

Giamatti is one of the few guys who could take a joke about a chickpea-sized soul and make a meal of it.

Writer-director James Mottern's drama has a lived-in feel, but is notable mainly for Michelle Monaghan's glam-less turn as Diane.

Can't overcome mythic stupidity.

Only viewers wondering if James Van Der Beek has finally outgrown "Dawson's Creek" will be at all satisfied by this dreadful police procedural that contains good history lessons and bad TV-cop-show drama.

The result is a paper-thin alliance between the old-school Cal and the new-media Della. Crowe, husky and whisky-voiced, is warm amidst all the plot mechanics, and McAdams, perky and efficient, is a smart foil for him.

Directing the film of Doubt, Shanley is able to put an even finer point on his Tony-and Pulitzer-winning play about suspicion and guilt at a Bronx Catholic grade school in 1964.

While the film is slightly better than similar efforts Allen made between the ’90s and his recent time in Europe, it’s both too broad and too shallow.

The comedy of discomfort that runs through Cyrus is often about several things at once. But the most prevalent emotion in this quirky yet genuine movie is the awkwardness that comes with trying to fit into someone else's life.

Well-acted and grounded in reality, Brick Lane is never overly emotional, even when it deals with the days after 9/11.

Entertaining, inventive and old-fashioned in the best way.

A documentary with too much dead time between the arduous tasks at hand, never grabs a viewer because -- sad to say -- it's too dull.

The earnest attempt at family drama doesn't benefit from the abundance of movie-of-the-week cliches.

Too many threads are woven together here, but occasionally, it just connects.

Trippy in the right way, and wholly enchanting.

A good-ol'-boy civics lesson that's too scattered to achieve its predictable goals.

Patric and Baldwin react to all the morbidity with restraint, and Vassilieva keeps her bald head high. But they won't be able to help this barefaced vulgarity earn any terms of endearment.

Too bad its wide net ultimately results in diminishing returns.

A little more variation in the script, though, might have yielded something truly great.

Unfortunately, its positive attributes are thrown out of balance by its abundant negatives - including chintzy effects, lumbering storytelling and an overstylized, earnest incompetence that evokes "Speed Racer."

Mary's search drives The Tillman Story, and throughout this taut, true epic, we see a smart, sometimes angry, always loving family find their destiny: to speak truth to power, to call wartime myths what they are and to show how the American character is not about blind obedience.

His (Bateman) performance is fun. Too bad The Switch is not.

A lot of heart, a jaunty mariachi score and a lush Eisenhower-era look help as the family-friendly story follows the usual sports-drama plays.

Noble but dull.

A kind of historical detective story made up of haunting montages, including a theater performance featuring a heartbroken musician that's absolutely chilling.

It reads like a Cinemax special event, and as good as Leguizamo and Waterston are, the skeevy, fantasy-fulfillment plot that drives David Ross' movie is uncomfortably risky business.

An emotionally devastating drama that isn't for the squeamish.

It's amazing that in an era of oversharing and reality TV, a doc consisting mostly of cable TV clips and personal reminiscences can be so resonant.

Heartening, and yet, a year after being filmed, unintentionally aggravating.

This lumbering, ha-ha-look-what-we-remade action-comedy is a high-concept disaster.

Unpleasantly icy film based on a true story.

For the uninitiated, this fun French documentary detailing the camaraderie and division between filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard reveals a time when "the cinema" was something to get excited about and literally fight over.

The loping pace, inconsistent tone and lack of imagination are all deadly.

The rhythms of this comedy-drama may be familiar, but besides its fratty title, it's surprisingly sophisticated.

The movie gets repetitive, and when it calls an audible and goes somewhere unexpected, it pulls back quickly. Too bad.

Every parent in New York should see this movie and then ask why, when solutions exist, our woefully broken school system has yet to be fixed.

Amusing as it is, it never feels real.

The class issues make them pariahs, the love scenes belong on Cinemax After Dark, and the emotions writer-director Catherine Corsini believes are so adult are clichéd. Still, Scott Thomas is beguiling as usual, the one expected thing that's welcome here

Low-budget, grubby and gleeful, but with a nice sense of style and apparently an endless supply of dry ice. Points deducted, though, for a too-easy alien-corpse joke.

Though diligently paced and sharp to look at, the mysteries inside Mother are, finally, bloodless.

Though it takes time to find its courage and heart, Gigante, like its oversized hero, merely has a slow, shy way of doing things.

"Parnassus," while not unwatchable, is also an elephantine mess.

Despite the limitations inherent in the genre, it actually delivers.

A taut drama that manages to be thoughtful without forgetting it's a creep-out.

Haunting ideas and efficient storytelling, but director-cowriter Alex Rivera needed to fine-tune a bit more.

Digs up familiar ground without adding any fresh dirt.

Freeman is so in-tune with the former South African president's persona you can't take your eyes off him.

Fascinating and, when you see Afghan versions of Simon Cowell and Co. reacting to tryouts, a reminder of how fame and the thirst for it is the same in any language.

If it were just Hurt's show, it'd be a helluva trip.

This is just one nutso, painfully unfunny family flick.

The American, a movie as coiled as a snake and as still as a sleepy villa, is the rare grownup thriller that knows the link between peace and danger and the tension that comes from both.

Even with all the inconvenient truths exposed, Stone's film is still, sadly, inescapably crucial.

There’s visual poetry here and haunted performances from Mezzogiorno and Timi -- who plays two roles, and is especially gripping as Dalser’s grown son.

Marshall shows off the breathtaking landscape, but with interiors, he populates the ale houses and encampments with cliches - like dueling female warriors, one a mute and the other a white-haired vixen.

So that's three snickers, not counting the Bush quote, 'cause including that one ain't fair, man.

Though much of the film's power is tamped down by the passive storytelling style, Dillane's performance as the adult Jakob is compelling, and Ayelet Zurer is beguiling as Jakob's late-in-life soul mate.

Hopped up like a Bugs Bunny cartoon on mescaline and as chatty and uppity as a 5-year-old, Burn After Reading could be seen as the Coen brothers' need to let loose after the tightly wound "No Country for Old Men."

Smith ("American Movie") sees the poetry in everyday people, and lets his rambling story find its own rhythm.

Has warmed-over chills and a muddled, zombie-like execution.

Well-intentioned but as earnest as a college freshman discovering campus politics.

This macabre-yet-moving Argentinian drama from director Juan Jose Campanella is nuanced and full of intelligence and emotion; just when you think you have a bead on it, it gently swerves into richer places.

Intense and, yes, depressing - and earns every minute that it rattles inside your head.

Martin starts at the outrageous accent and spins out from there, and that's fine for this. And there are a few snicker-worthy scenes.

One sickening piece of garbage.

Downey has a winning take on Holmes: He's always on.

not a good comedy. But there's no airbrushing out the funny surrounding its star.

Eisenberg - seemingly in every other movie nowadays - gives his best performance since 2005's "The Squid and the Whale" in a film that dramatizes a fascinating New York story.

Where on the evolutionary scale of wacky-dudes-learn-to-grow-up movies does Role Models fall? Certainly less evolved than "Meatballs," but head and hairy knuckles above "Daddy Day Care" or "The Benchwarmers."

The cast is uniformly appealing in out-of-left-field ways, but writer-director Brooks Branch lets the story amble lazily, which -- like Gabriel and almost every character like him you've ever seen -- gets a little tiring.

The overlapping stories, the emotional disconnect, the heavy-handed symbolism -- no, it's not a movie from the makers of "Babel," its a mumbling, stammering copycat drama from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson.

Every performer is tough and charismatic, especially Honglei Sun, who, as Jamukha, gives so many neck-cracks, guttural howls and conspiratorial smiles he's like a Chinese Marlon Brando.

Filled with second-rate Brian DePalma twists, noirishly blurred lights and usually solid actors mouthing potboiler brine, The Lodger resembles bottom-shelf '80s dreck.

When "Pineapple" goes from ganja to genre, it sours.

The big problem here is that dark sci-fi satire works best when it aims for several targets. Repo Men aims at corporate greed, which is good, but doesn’t fill in the details.

Never achieves the David Lean style of epic it aims for - exterior vistas and interior dramas - but it has two charismatic performances, beautiful Chinese locations and an admirable lack of sentimentality.

Overshoots the mark by spinning its implausible, hyperviolent tale around too tight a family circle.

Hey, Michael: It's the robots, stupid. Despite all the mechanical mayhem, none of the Transformers stand out.

Stein's schlumpy presence is disarming, though his know-it-all nature is at odds with his free-speech posing.

Like a dime-store holiday card, this Christmas Carol is well-crafted but artless, detailed but lacking soul.

A work deeper than its nickname, "The Facebook Movie," hints at - coils around your brain. Weeks after seeing it, moments from it will haunt you.

The film is an exasperating bore.

To call MacGruber"a total bomb is a bit much, but this comedy-action flick sure feels like it was put together with gum, shoelaces and a couple of sticky Twizzlers.

Noise ultimately becomes a slice of city life instead of a great satire.

The 6- to 10-year-old audience this movie is aimed at deserved better.

Don't expect to taste anything surprising.

This quietly poetic little gem contains many beautiful things, not least of which is leading lady Zoe Kazan, who lets every scene billow and swirl around her effortlessly.

Predators tries to spice up the hunt-or-be-hunted thesis, but from the get-go, director Nimrod Antal's movie has nowhere to run.

Cenac is witty and Heggins has a wary stillness, but the movie itself seems too shy to let them really engage each other.

Overlong but ambitious, Woo proves he's as good at tactical maneuvers as he is at close-quarters combat.

Proudly matter-of-fact but, sadly, far from gripping.

As a virtual tour of what Earth Day is about, kids ought to be entranced. If it helps them get greener, even better.

This dour, hyperactive family film is joyless, overly busy and starchy.