Joe Williams

It's got a grown-up artfulness, but Winter in Wartime could become a lot of boys' favorite movie.

A high-wire act that could crash if the actors were out of sync, but under this big top, the never-better Segel keeps everyone aloft.

The first half of the film dusts off some kitschy picket-fence footage and alarmist news reports to invoke an era when homosexual acts were illegal in 49 states, and gays were subjected to arrest, electroshock and sterilization.

When a man whose wife was killed by cultists invites us to laugh at life's absurdities, the particulars are almost incidental.

He might be guilty of showboating, but De Niro's knockout performance is a declaration that the star of "Raging Bull" isn't ready to hang up his gloves.

The Great Gatsby is both swooningly romantic and giddily energetic.

What animates this dramatically constrained film are the lively words and the vitality of nature. An image of butterflies blooming in a bedroom is Keats' worldview in miniature.

Notwithstanding its storytelling stumbles, Sleepwalk With Me points in a positive direction for this likable comedian's career.

With a child’s perspective on war, Lore deserves comparisons with “Empire of the Sun” and “Hope and Glory,” and with a feisty female protagonist it stands virtually alone.

Draft Day isn’t quite a comedy, but it’s got a similar kind of flow that makes it as easily consumable as lite beer.

Jenison, who had never painted a thing in his life, does indeed produce a beautiful work, but we should never forget that Penn and Teller are professional bamboozlers, and their attempt to re-frame the definition of genius might be nothing but smoke and mirrors.

This showcase for Wiig is sufficiently absurd to make real-world parallels laughable.

While Black is painfully effective as the dork who drops slangy kudos on his new BFF, Marsden is a revelation.

A director whose breakthrough was the story of a madman's last stand has exceeded that feat with the story of an angry man's next step.

It’s Belgian actor Schoenaerts who will leave the target audience atwitter. Seemingly incapable of cracking a smile, he fits securely in the stoic-farmer tradition that stretches from John Wayne in “The Quiet Man” to Russell Crowe in “The Water Diviner.”

This hand-drawn French import is fresh evidence that you don’t need computers and singing princesses to make a charming animated movie.

The iconic actor may be too gruff for sainthood, but Murray still retains a secret stash of soul.

With stately surroundings and hissable villains, director Amma Assante imbues the finale with such dramatic resonance that Belle becomes a ringing proclamation of human dignity.

While the PG-13 approach to the most brutally sustained war the world has ever known makes it suitable for mature children, some cynical adults may resent the tug of the reins. Me, I cried like a grandmother.

Unlike the benchmark sports documentary "Hoop Dreams," Undefeated doesn't have a deep penetration of poverty and race in its playbook, but it does have enough heart to make substantial forward progress.

As predictable as a 3-and-0 pitch down the middle, but when it’s baseball season, who wants dark clouds?

In recording the timeless traditions of Jewry, he created a new one: the identity crisis that rides on the back of laughter.

The world-class mechanic is Brad Bird, who applies the pacing and spatial freedom of a 'toon to a live-action thriller.

For better or worse, the whole exercise in lurid leg-pulling goes out with a bang.

You can tell by some loose threads and hurried workmanship that God’s Pocket is a knock-off, but it’s so stuffed with value, it’s an offer you can’t refuse.

As an exercise in craft, it's surprisingly successful, thanks to the strong cast and the vivid depiction of a modern leader's security apparatus. But as a political statement or personal drama, The Ghost Writer is nearly invisible.

Even more than most versions of Anna Karenina, this chamber piece is heated by two combustible characters, not by the winds of war and peace.

A textured and unexpectedly entertaining drama about the human toll when racial assumptions crash.

What makes this low-key movie memorable are the pitch-perfect performances.

Broken Embraces is stylish and sly, an engaging exercise that gives us less than meets the eye.

Bad Words is often very funny, thanks to Bateman’s brick-wall malevolence and screenwriter Andrew Dodge’s inventively rude dialogue.

In place of a rousing adventure, Blackthorn is a haunting ode.

Although there are gentle detour discussions about advertising in classrooms and school buses, Spurlock's ironic approach can't convince us that ads are toxic. Indeed, when he visits sprawling Sao Paolo, Brazil, where all outdoor advertising has been banned, it seems as sterile as Stalingrad.

While Banderas' dark intensity overshadows the potential poignancy of the story, Almodovar is such a skilled surgeon that he extracts a juicy nugget of pleasure from a purely distasteful premise.

Of course, there's a kind of reverse snobbery in touting cheap movies over polished ones. But if Not Quite Hollywood is not quite convincing, it is quite entertaining.

This affable comedy is a healthy alternative to tearjerkers.

The troupe's first film in more than a decade, is a more aggressively absurd antidote to what it calls "a hard, cynical world." Happily, it works.

This very male and methodical movie is like the anti-“Gravity,” as the un-moored hero is quietly in control of his options and at peace with his possible failure.

This Swedish sensation is a magic trick that jolts the murder-mystery genre back to life.

While the movie sometimes seems like faux Fincher, the symbiotic acting, artful imagery and punchline ending turn True Story into credible entertainment.

Marley is thus a valuable history project but not a definitive or analytical one. For that, we await a film that's less "One Love" and more "Stir It Up."

Few mainstream movies, let alone disability dramas, are so frank about sexual mechanics, yet notwithstanding the nudity, The Sessions isn't voyeuristic or sleazy.

Monkey Kingdom tugs our heartstrings to the top of the trees. With a lot of patience, and perhaps a little trickery, directors Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill have produced a simian “Cinderella.”

In the context of confounded expectations, director Maxime Giroux may have intended the what’s-next ending to be ironic.

Although Tomboy is as tightly constructed as a short story and as seemingly straightforward as a documentary, the parable about a small fib that grows out of control is so rooted in the rich soil of sexual identity that it entangles us.

A good nature film - and a great technical achievement.

A bit undernourished to fit into the crown of a comedy classic. But the sharp wit, soft-focus cinematography and slow-motion lyricism lift it into the realm of this summer’s nicest surprises.

The documentary offers undercooked subplots about Gruber’s mostly Hispanic staff and his romance with a health-conscious Catholic acupuncturist, but Deli Man is best when it sticks to the menu.

But even without world-class smarts or amusing mutations, the next generation of “Jurassic” is an enjoyable ride.

How could you not marvel at a movie that includes a revisionist explanation of the JFK assassination, a football stadium floating over the White House and the sight of Richard Nixon firing a .45 at a villain in a Christ-figure pose?

The Messenger is the debut film of writer and director Oren Moverman, but it's worldly wise, with two well-rounded characters.

Gibney is as dramatic a storyteller as the Hollywood directors with whom he competes for our attention, and he employs a big bag of tricks.

A fanciful French cousin to Allen's "Zelig" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo," yet the fulfilled wish for a better life is high-concept absurdity without high-anxiety guffaws.

Just when this black-and-white, microbudget movie seems poised to spring an indictment of the Dickensian social order, it ends, but in a redemptive ray of color.

Although there's a skeletal story, A Cat in Paris evokes a mood instead of a moral. Like a cat nap, it gives us a brief, refreshing dream with little to remember.

Neither as magic nor as trippy as the culture quake that it documents, but it's a valuable flashback and a pleasurable contact high.

This debut film is fun, and everyone involved can proudly declare, “Honey, I shrunk the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

The campus comedy Pitch Perfect harmonizes high-end performance with low-brow spoofery. It's like a National Lampoon parody where the targets write the jokes.

If you want to see a great movie about a political campaign, starring the smartest heartthrob of his era, rent "The Candidate." If you want see a very good one, buy a ticket for The Ides of March.

While director Michael Roskam lays the groundwork for a heist thriller, The Drop is fueled by character, not plot.

The Immigrant is not unlike a Prohibition-era “Taxi Driver,” with Cotillard as the apprentice hooker, Phoenix as the sweet-talking pimp and Jeremy Renner (playing the theater’s magician, Orlando) as the would-be savior.

Aiming for a middle path between drama and comedy, The Way Way Back is so overloaded with jokes that it could sink in the water hazard, but on the final scorecard, sure enough, it’s in the hole.

Gleeson is great as the troubled, conscientious priest, but until an abruptly shocking finale, his fatalism turns the ticking clock into a congested hourglass.

What Barrymore brings is good-natured, girl-powered subversion, a sense of when to flaunt clichés and when to flip them over the rails.

Sticks to the syllabus of a decidedly minor movie, but its humanities faculty is first-rate.

Even with a large cast, groovy clothes and cool pop songs, Hawkins holds our attention with a combination of modesty and moral strength.

The sharp writing and tag-team antics lift 22 Jump Street to a high level.

A minor revelation.

It’s a measure of the movie’s success that we never stop to question how or when the trickery is employed.

In steering a course between the rock of rude humor and the hard place of perilous drama, How to Train Your Dragon flies high.

This well-executed sequel is sneaky. While it distracts us with Chinese backdrops and buffoonish humor, it sucker punches us with a message about belonging.

More benevolent than Bill Maher's snarky flick "Religulous" and a heaven-sent affirmation of our common humanity.

Within the bloodshot-eye perspective of their other stoner comedies, it’s bluntly funny and ever-so-slightly sweet.

Although it starts slowly, the accumulated tension and thematic resonance leaves us breathless.

The rare film that flows from a wellspring of ideas.

Indeed, most of the famous faces are surprisingly adept at singing. Even when the actors are not lip-syncing (which seems to be about half the time), the dense, clever lyrics are intelligible.

Perhaps the spookiest thing in this slyly scary movie is the word-for-word way that Patrick's followers regurgitate his pablum.

Like "The Squid and the Whale," this character study pushes the definition of comedy to the breaking point, and unlike the far less successful "Margot at the Wedding," it leaves us faintly smiling after the workout.

The debut creation of director Ritesh Batra, it’s a lovely little film from a place where the little things linger.

These wars being fought in our name may be dirty, but this courageous film reminds us that as long as we have a free press, they don’t have to be secret.

Like black coffee that's flung in our face, The Killer Inside Me silences the question of whether it's good or bad. But for darn sure, it's strong.

With a greater emphasis on sex than violence, Spring Breakers is a more enjoyable guilty pleasure than “Natural Born Killers” and just as acute about our cultural devolution. For all its seeming stupidity, its masterstroke is making us complicit in the corruption of its young stars (who include the director’s own wife).

In telling a true story about hapless thugs who are the embodiment of Michael Bay fans, the director has made the most fiendishly enjoyable movie of his career.

The Women on the 6th Floor shouldn't work, but this efficient flick whisks away our cynicism.

Streep is astonishing, conveying Child's gusto, her quavering voice, even her height.

The edginess here isn't merely facile. Goldthwait's movies, including the under-appreciated "Shakes the Clown," are about reclaiming dignity from the dung heap. And he's found a fitting collaborator.

Like psychoanalysis, A Dangerous Method takes its time as it circles an opening to unexplored depths. To reward our patience, Cronenberg gives us some honey-hued eye candy and rich dialogue, but if you're seeking instant gratification, I prescribe "Shame."

As a critic who complains about painless and brainless action movies, I hoist a glass of mead to the men and maidens of Ironclad.

In one of the most wickedly funny scenes in sci-fi history, Koba uses monkeyshines to bamboozle some gun-toting yahoos and scuttle the peace treaty.

Until the sci-fi switcheroo, the versatile supporting cast puts Gary in such a ridiculous light that we can’t help laughing at him. Then suddenly this subversive movie challenges us to laugh at our own assumptions.

Succeeds as both advocacy and entertainment by focusing on the family.

The movie is best enjoyed as a minor-key operatic, not a coherent story. While Law bellows blasphemous poetry, his director orchestrates a noirish light show with a cockeyed rhythm.

With its mix of true-blood romance and full-moon madness, Let Me In should hasten the twilight of the twerpy pretenders.

What enriches the recipe is that no one is quite as cagey as they seem. Colin is officially thuggish, but he's a blinkered romantic. Archie is a mama's boy, Meredith is gay, Mal is impotent, and Peanut wears dentures.

For modern moviegoers, the earthy Mr. Turner may seem like slowly steeped tea with an unpleasant aftertaste. But while some are impatiently waiting for the paint to dry, astute viewers will see a cinematic landscape bloom.

Post-Dispatch classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller told me that Gould's music is as divisive today as it was 50 years ago, when the pianist publicly clashed with conductor Leonard Bernstein over the tempo of a performance.

Taking potshots at American Sniper is like shooting fish in a barrel. So why should war-weary Americans see it? Because Eastwood remains a masterful action director, and this may be his last hurrah. Because Cooper is one of our best young actors, and he poured a lifetime of craft into stilling his character’s heartbeat.

The inspirational movie named for Robinson’s number is too dignified to throw audiences a curveball, let alone a knockdown pitch, but its solid fundamentals make it a winner.

Two things that the British know that most Americans don't: Michael Sheen is the best actor in the English-speaking world; and soccer is the only football that matters.

Sometimes macabre and sometimes manipulative, but the way it speaks to the spirit is miraculous.

This thriller is both skillfully familiar and chillingly strange.

This deadpan police story produces unexpected chills.

Some may scoff when the boys exhibit traits and interests derived from the biological parents they never knew, but The Other Son is such a disarming feat that cynics will get left at the checkpoint.

In a poignant and potentially depressing film, it’s redeeming to see that when they are with their kindred spirits, even the saddest skeletons can dance.

One man’s mirth is another man’s poison, this critic can only consult his belly as the barometer. On a gut level, Ted 2 is a funny film.

While it's satisfying to see fat cats tamed by science and an enraged public, the movie misses the opportunity to sustain the pressure.

There will never be another Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor, but Hollywood may have found a new Lee Remick in Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Goodbye First Love is like a postcard from a lost Eden, a painfully pure oasis where we're not allowed to linger.

Photography — and thus filmmaking — is painting with light. The connection is illuminated in the lovely Renoir, a twilight-years biography of the great French Impressionist.

Fortunately, Fish Tank feeds us more than crumbs and leaves us feeling like we've come up for air.

Scabrously funny yet essentially gentle, as the main thing that it's probing is our collective ignorance.

At its heart, this is a compassionate character study. Robbie’s tenderness toward his son and his remorse for a street fight are the raw ingredients of a ripening consciousness.

A genuinely touching and occasionally powerful film, not least because the boys are so disinclined to pity themselves.

Periodically deviating from its fly-on-the-wall aesthetic, the film does a noticeably better job than the Joan Rivers movie of incorporating old footage and photos to underscore its subject’s importance.

Brazenly funny in its own right - until it turns into a goody two-shoes.

Arbitrage is never the nail-biting thriller that it could have been.

Alba is a showstopper in a fringed cowgirl outfit. But nine years wiser, we know that pretty things aren’t always worth killing for.

While it's both too crude and too commercial to be mistaken for journalism, the good news is that the headliners deliver.

Cars 2 is like a gorgeous sports car with a toxic tailpipe, a busted navigation system and a loud stereo that plays only commercials.

Three actors portray the clumsy-but-limber Li in the years of his arduous training, when he is pulled between a teacher who's inspired by Mao and another who's inspired by bootleg videos of Mikhail Baryshnikov.

For better or worse, this is a straightforward performance film.

Compared to most teen comedies these days, Fun Size is almost touchingly tame.

As phony as a poodle-skirted waitress at a mall diner, yet it's as sweet as a malt. A vanilla one.

It still has cool creatures and 1960s set design, and the 3-D is the best of the season, but if you try to remember the story or jokes, you'll find that you've been hit by a neuralyzer beam.

Bully is a good start to a necessary conversation, but its loving voice is likely to be drowned out by haters who hide their own wounded hearts behind Internet pseudonyms and broadcast microphones.

Be forewarned: The 100-Year-Old Man is edgier than its title would lead you to believe. Bad guys are bludgeoned, blown up and even crushed by an elephant, and the two duffers take a lassez-faire attitude toward disposing of them.

Built on shaky and blood-soaked ground, but if towering technique is all you want from an action movie, then yippee-ki-yay.

A true story of animal rescue, and it even stars the sea creature to whom it happened. But it's the humans who do the cutesy tricks that make it a mixed blessing.

This long, ludicrous soap opera is also a mighty spectacle, a new standard in disengaged destruction.

Although the characters are three-dimensional, the simultaneous crises and last-act resolutions are a little too neat for a movie about the messiness of life.

You would expect an epic with brains and hearts. Instead we settle for sturdy craft, with a stellar cast struggling to breathe life into the cold material.

After some overly talky revelations, the cornered writer/directors are forced to shatter their absurd shell game with a final act of violence that spoils the breezy, capering mood that prevailed for much of the movie.

It's deliberately difficult to untangle the crossed allegiances of the people that Kelly interviews, and it's melodramatic that he tries to smuggle Ming and a surrendered assassin onto a plane bound for the United States. But dramatizing such a complex situation is a necessary evil.

The Woman in Gold works, largely because of the odd-couple chemistry between Mirren and Reynolds. It just goes to show that broad strokes are appealing when they’re in the right frame.

The Hefner we meet here is the likable rogue we already know.

With its references to other properties in the Marvel universe and to classic tales of redemption, this no-surprises summer movie might appeal to those who've been bitten by radioactive spiders or the Shakespeare bug.

Finally the film tips its hand and becomes a bet-the-house warning about climate change.

Like the politicians it tries to pull into the big picture, Killing Them Softly promises more than it delivers.

Unfolds like a fable instead of a believable slice of life. Mexican TV and film star Bichir gives a poignant performance, but he's distinctly more European than the cholos and Chicano laborers on the sketchy edges of the hero's plight.

Without the kindling of character development, Planes: Fire and Rescue is no smoldering success, but if Disney’s flight plan is to share Pixar’s airspace, it’s getting warmer.

On a minute-to-minute level, it's an engaging mystery, the kind that rewards our participation with eye candy and adrenaline shots. But when we pull back for an overview, we see that it's flat and that pieces are missing.

Although Besson, the director of “La Femme Nikita” and the producer of “Taken,” indulges in some operatic violence, the film is more spacey than pacey.

Michael as a character is defined almost solely by his helplessness and gratitude. He's as lovable as a lost puppy, but a more perceptive movie than The Blind Side would have let us see him from another angle.

Despite some gruesome images and the psychotic fervor of Rakes, it's a frustratingly slow boil.

Too modest to become a worldwide phenomenon, but sensitive teens and their older kin who pine for the '90s may want to take it for a spin on the dance floor.

The Road has the signposts of an important film, but it lacks the diversions of an inviting trip.

Barney's Version has episodes instead of plot, outbursts instead of wit and alibis instead of growth.

There’s plenty of talk about sex — even from Brandy’s supportive mom (Connie Britton), who offers her lubricant — but not much nudity or consequence. In The To Do List, sex is just another dubious achievement to outgrow.

It's pure speculation on the filmmakers' part that Gaelic pagans were adorned with bones, blue mud and Mohawks, but the fire-dancing spectacle is a welcome respite from the beefcake of the journey scenes.

Moore's voice is weak and fuzzy, directed at a choir that should already know the words by heart.

Because he's the protagonist of the movie and played by the likable Matt Damon, we keep an open mind, but Promised Land is morally ambiguous to a fault.

Obviously a labor love, and its very existence in a godforsaken marketplace is a minor miracle.

Chartered to provide both sides of every debate, CNN has positioned itself as the middle ground for discussions of current events. But without a knowledgeable teacher (or filmmaker) to lead such discussions into new territory, they devolve into noisy bull sessions.

It's no classic, but Shrek Forever After is a pleasant reminder that every time a cash register rings, this ogre turns angelic.

It’s amusing fluff, but from an Oscar-winning dramatist, this return to comedy is a bit of a letdown.

Redford is an adequate director, and he keeps things moving at a moderate pace, passing up exits to more spectacular vistas or hotter issues.

The result is only half as hip as hoped. Yes, this Holmes is leaner and meaner, and Watson (Jude Law) is nearly his equal. But there’s still something fussy about the result, as if bobbies had broken up the party at 11:59.

By the time the meta-movie and cute-dog subplots collide in the desert, this high-concept vehicle has run out of gas. Movies about the filmmaking process may never get old, but self-referential hit men smell like yesterday's fish story.

Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell do yeoman work on behalf of their late friend and, as usual, Gilliam's film is a feast for the eyes. But all the king's men can't corral the horses running roughshod over basics like plot and character.

If what you seek from a samurai film is the friction between communal duty and personal honor, join the orderly queue to see 13 Assassins. But if what you seek is action, spend the talky first hour at a sushi bar before barging into the theater for the bloody good finale.

A passable popcorn movie, but fans of the first film who expect lightning to strike twice are liable to get burned.

There's little that's new in the retelling, except mellowed musings on Environmentalism 2.0.

Elles is provocative company, but it leaves us feeling hustled.

Surviving Progress reiterates arguments made in movies such as "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Inside Job," it marshals minds such as Jane Goodall and Stephen Hawking, and it utilizes artful imagery reminiscent of films such as "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Up the Yangtze."

If the world were really coming to an end, we'd spend it with Knightley and tell her tag-along friend that there's not enough food for a 50-year-old virgin.

We're left with an impression of a vivacious pioneer; but warm shouldn't have to mean fuzzy.

While the underrated Brosnan is effective as the cold-hearted produce mogul, the character starts as such a sourpuss that after he softens in the Sorrento lemon groves, it’s still hard to root for his inevitable hookup with Ida.

Eccentric enough to get mistaken for an uplifting fantasy, but it's Plaza who belongs in the penthouse.

There are audiences for movies that amuse us, and arouse us, and scare us, but the career of Todd Solondz ("Storytelling") raises the question: Is there an audience for movies that make us feel icky?

X-Men: First Class is a mutant movie, half fun and half fearsome. For those who have developed an immunity to fanboy hype, the contradictory traits may seem to weaken rather than strengthen this beast, but readers of the "X-Men" comics will hail an origin story as satisfying as "Thor."

Reilly is very funny as the sarcastic mentor, and director Paul Weitz strikes a loopy tone in the scenes at the freak encampment.

As a testament to traditions that are usually kept hidden from Hollywood, Holy Rollers is a mitzvah. But as a thriller, it's bubkes.

This loony 'toon is dizzy with wonderments, especially in 3-D. The spindly-limbed character design owes more to Charles Addams' family than to Walt Disney's kingdom, while the story and settings evoke James Bond on laughing gas.

Successful in small doses, but the full regimen needed more testing.

Unfortunately, producers (including James) went for the easy layup, showing so much on-court action instead of trying to hustle for insights about sports and society.

Although the characters don’t lapse into stereotypes, neither are they sufficiently funny or fierce to engage us in the issues they raise.

What's most conspicuously missing from this ensemble is some input from the advertisers who subsidize Wintour's tyranny, and the readers who are seduced into buying her beautiful four-pound paperweights.

For all its professionalism, I found it as cold as the ice rink at Rockefeller Center.

Director Dereck Joubert gleans a valuable thread that connects us to these endangered creatures.

The thread connecting the ambitious girl to the acclaimed woman is enough to make us wish for a sequel titled "Chanel No. 2."

A solid sci-fi/horror hybrid, but this iceman doesn't deliver enough to chew on.

Raises more questions than it can answer in its travelogue format. It's because the premise is so intriguing and the drama is so compelling that the result is so confounding.

Maybe in his native language, Dujardin is no funnier than Steve Martin's "Pink Panther." But with subtitles, his deadpan delivery is hard to resist.

Trollhunter has a lot of down time as the crew treks to the fjords, but it's also got dryly subversive humor and, eventually, some impressive special effects.

Crowe is effectively restrained in his acting, but in his debut as a director, he overdoes the manipulative music and the pretty images from cinematographer Andrew Lesnie.

Tangled is lovely to look at, but if you're not a pre-teen girl, you may be distracted by the split ends.

Salt goes down easy, but it's lacking both nourishment and flavor.

Between the carefully trained animals and their computer-animated mouths, the movie doesn't have much room for realism; but the 3-D effects are surprisingly effective, and this playful pic earns a pat on the head.

There's an alliance of interesting stories fighting for dominance here, but instead of a clear victory, Hyde Park on Hudson is the site of a muddled truce.

This homey construct is warm, exactingly crafted and painted with pop-country tones, but it's lacking a deep foundation where the issues that it raises can resonate. For a movie like that, we may have to depend on the Danes.

Fading Gigolo is like two different movies on an awkward blind date at a jazz club. While Allen charms us with a parody of “Broadway Danny Rose,” Turturro is off-key in his lounge-lizard riff on “The Piano.”

Yet notwithstanding its derivative dolefulness and PG-13 timidity, The Art of Getting By is smart and sweet enough to become the favorite film of some Midwestern adolescent who wrongly believes he's already seen the dark side.

Even as Bard, filmmaker Milos Forman and Ferrara himself bemoan the changes, the lobby is filled with fine art -- and guests who aren't likely to harm you.

The saving grace of Biutiful is Bardem.

The Hunger Games is dressed as a dark satire of soulless entertainment, but like Katniss' adversaries in the PG-13 hunting scenes, it doesn't have a distinctive identity or go-for-the-throat.

The film confirms it's hard to do brain surgery on a battlefield. But it doesn't take a brain surgeon to think it could go deeper.

Neither a comprehensive guide nor consistently good, but because the theme is romance, most of these small bites of the Big Apple are easy to digest.

Notwithstanding some allusions to "Lady and the Tramp," the characters and their comic high jinks are nothing special, but the the getaway gives us spectacular 3-D images of the city.

Cue the folky music and the two eccentric locals who are the only other characters, and Prince Avalanche is a molehill that dreams it’s a mountain when it’s really, really stoned.

Directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra were weaned on earthy comedies like "Bad Santa," and every moment of mature insight in Crazy, Stupid, Love is answered by a scene of formulaic farce.

Hits most of the markers of a flashback film but not enough of the beats.

Gordon-Levitt is a victim of his own success here. He plays such a convincing cad that we don’t believe or invest in his redemption.

Extract has some flavor, but the comedic kick is diluted by flat characters and a thin story.

Although this sober film spares us some of the grim, survivalist details, the harrowing adventure from a girl's perspective is so compelling that Julia's simultaneous sleuthing seems like an unnecessary distraction.

July is a provocative and honorably independent filmmaker, but given the meager rewards of investing our time, The Future wasn't worth the wait.

Ultimately a movie that could have been a little jewel is unpolished.

A lot of care went into crafting the handsome production but not enough into making the handsome hero come alive.

It does induce a few giggles like cheap champagne.

This broadside against sharia law lacks the finesse of an import, but it's effectively melodramatic.

A Knight's Tale succeeds as light entertainment if not as historical record. [11 May 2001, p.F1]

I Am Love is easy to savor but tough to swallow.

Although this stylish and ominously paced vehicle starts with a full itinerary, it never makes a vital connection.

The fiery finale is good enough to leave the legions smiling. But when a movie is expected to lift an entire industry, "good enough" shouldn't be good enough.

In skewering the neuroses of New York bohemians, Durham has left us too little to care about.

The double deception of suppressed personality and repressed sexuality could have been the basis for a rewarding character study, but after Albert meets a kindred spirit and dares to dream of a happy ending, her denial and naivete become too much to swallow.

Draining most of the blood, sweat and tears from a true story, this music-minded movie capably covers a song we’ve heard a hundred times before.

To their credit, the creative team has retained the handmade look and unruly spirit of Maurice Sendak's bedtime fable; to their discredit, they haven't added enough narrative or emotional dimension to make it an effective movie.

A bait-and-switch comedy. It poses as a naughty "no-mance" about friends who use each other for casual sex, but at the moment of truth it goes limp.

The premise is pure formula.

Like other so-called "mumblecore" movies, including Bronstein's own "Frownland," this is an unnervingly intimate glimpse of dysfunction, with a shaky-cam aesthetic and seemingly improvised dialogue.

It's a pleasure to watch Ryan resurrect her trademark persona, a mix of perkiness and pique, as she flounces around the room. But it's shaded with a middle-age desperation that's half real and half chick-flick shtick.

While it may not be a smorgasbord of red herrings and red meat, Flame and Citron is often chilling.

This quasi-horror film has the great director's usual craftsmanship and a stellar cast, but ultimately it's an infuriating trick that makes its most provocative ideas disappear.

It’s admirable, but Monuments Men just poses on a porous foundation like a statue.

The movie looks like it was made for broadcast television, the place where words and pictures go to die.

The actress and the aviatrix are a match made in heaven, but surrounding the soaring performance is a movie that's mostly earthbound.

It's funny but (sorry, ladies) unrealistic that Jake continuously sneaks away from his young wife to canoodle with Jane. Baldwin is a blast, but the role requires him to indulge in indignities such as a naked webcam conversation.

Like a taxidermied owl, Stoker is lovely to look at, but in the end it’s hard to give a hoot.

There's some laughing gas left in the cupboard, but this series may require an infusion of new blood to last until "American Funeral."

This movie may be sickly sweet, but it's harmless; and as a handcrafted antidote to a toxic toy story like "G.I.Joe," Paper Heart has healing properties.

Although the outcome is as predetermined as a prix-fixe menu, the storytelling is as smooth as goose-liver pate through a pastry nozzle.

The CGI effects are a familiar sort and so is the heroic-quest motif. The principal virtue in this modest entertainment is that the young characters act like real teenagers.

It's a credit to the cast and to the worthiness of the idea that this overlong movie works at all. But those of us who already know that racism is bad could use a little more challenge and a little less help.

Strange hybrid of science lesson and Saturday-morning cartoon.

While Green is force-feeding us this hard-boiled hokum, he doesn’t distract us with many memorable images, as he did in his earliest films.

The best excuse for watching The Gunman is Penn. His first mainstream leading role in a decade is worthy of comparisons to Matt Damon in the “Bourne” movies; yet it’s also disappointingly shorn of the humor and humanity of which this great actor is capable.

Hit and Run isn't a catastrophe, but it leaves loose ends and a more adventurous map by the side of the winding road.

The difference between McKay and Efron is like the difference between a Broadway spectacular and a high school musical.

This topsy-turvy flick is fitfully funny, but more often it's just odd, like the first draft of a "Twilight Zone" episode that's missing its moral.

The plot is murky, the acting is melodramatic and the movie is way too long, but the target audience will salivate over the inventively choreographed set-pieces.

A colorful indictment of corporate infestation, but it's missing a prescription.

If you'd pay to see a film called "Hotel Rwanda: Maniac Manager," you might be receptive to this mixed-message movie, but skeptics should keep one eye on the exit.

With its seductive images and smart dialogue, The City of Your Final Destination has the setting and circumstances for a ripe family drama or a literary love story, yet it never awakens from its siesta.

Like an acquaintance couple's baby pictures, Friends With Kids induces coos but isn't as cute as they think.

This true story fills a needed niche, spotlighting women's basketball in the era before Title IX promoted equal treatment.

Penn has created a colorful tour guide, but in This Must Be the Place, there's no there there.

Happy, Happy has the makings of a Norwegian "Ice Storm," but it goes out with a whimper.

There's little that's new, revealing or stylish about this basic-black horror story, but if you've got a Goth sensibility, it might suit you.

If you haven't seen a wasting disease in real life, you might think Restless is romantic. If you have, you might diagnose it as terminally cute.

Toast is lovely to look at, evoking both the gray-green milieu of Midlands life and the sensuality of good food, but it's like a whipped topping with no base.

Canadian director Denis Villaneuve knows how to stoke a hot debate about the legacy of violence. But in this case, where there's smoke, there's not enough air.

Compared to other Marvel characters, Thor is a difficult sell.

It's a compelling tale of surf and survival.

Easy to watch but hard to pin down, like a creature with eight legs going in different directions.

There’s a lot of comic and fantasy potential here, but much of it gets squandered.

The Bay is better than a shallow exercise, but crabby horror fans may have preferred that Levinson took a real plunge.

This true-ish story adds a romantic subplot to the prosecution of Japanese war criminals by American general Douglas MacArthur, but neither the love nor the war are completely baked.

Christopher Nolan's "Memento" was a movie-lover's dream come true, a puzzle that was engaging both intellectually and emotionally. But his Inception is a wake-up call, a blaring reminder that cheap tricks can't compensate for personal investment.

Home delivers like a mailman on Valentine’s Day. But when we scratch beneath the sugary surface, there’s something tart inside that’s difficult to digest.

Like a newborn planet, Melancholia is magnetically beautiful, but it's also an unformed mass of hot air.

The moral lesson that this movie feeds us smells fishy - because it's not in the book. But the backbone story about a guy who inherits some penguins is enough to tickle the kids.

Non-Stop: It is what it is.