Joe Williams

Hitchcock is an amusing lark, but the clumsy way it dissects the director is for the birds.

There are a few beguiling moments in Holy Motors, particularly a martial-arts sequence and an erotic dance while Mr. Oscar is dressed in a motion-capture body suit, but the road between those moments is so strewn with stalled ideas that audiences who care about character and plot are liable to take the exit to a movie that makes sense.

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

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

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.

When films are good, actors and directors get a lot of the credit that should go to the screenwriters. In the case of Silver Linings Playbook, which is one of the best films of the year, there is a popcorn bowl of glory to go around.

This world is divided between the makers and the takers, and after just a few minutes of Red Dawn, you'll realize there's not much more you can take.

It's not a good film, but viewed from a cockeyed angle, it's a great guilty pleasure, and director Bill Condon is in on the joke.

For his complex portrayal, Day-Lewis is likely to have roses thrown at his feet, but for the dreadful film in which he's enslaved, emancipated onlookers will reach for the grapes of wrath.

Ultimately Skyfall is rooted in tradition - and in British soil. A pastoral drive to Bond's boyhood home (in a kind of car that will delight purists) opens the gates to some psychological background, and given the true-love subtext of "Casino Royale," it's not surprising that there's an emotional payoff here.

War of the Buttons is handsomely crafted and it's touting tolerance, but as long as we open the gates to the Trojan horse of historical simplification, there's a danger that Hollywood could attack us with "The Goonies Go to the Gulag." Be vigilant!

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

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

We can quibble about the punitive punchline of John Gatins' script, but keeping complexity aloft for so long makes Flight a miraculous feat.

It's as if there's a missing reel of film that could tie the story together and give it the emotional impact it takes for granted.

If your inner amphibian craves a wave, you have the right kind of brain to appreciate the elemental story and scenic backdrops. But advanced mammals might smell something fishy.

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.

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

If you root for documentaries with heart, The Other Dream Team is a slam dunk.

Although the story is mournful, the movie is buoyed by a heaven-scented surrealism.

Formulaic serial-killer crapola.

Loud, incoherent and unfunny, Here Comes the Boom is the sound of American culture imploding.

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.

Before it turns into a great escape flick, Argo is an amusing spoof of the movie biz.

While it claims to be exported from New Jersey, The Oranges is peddling an alien motto: When life hands you lemons, fuhgeddaboudit.

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.

While the big-headed, spindly puppets don't evoke enough emotion to make the movie a must-see, Burton's 3-D design team pours its heart into the monochrome surroundings, from the suburban décor to Victor's laboratory to the carnival midway.

A movie with no surprises at all, a streamlined chase flick that is running on the fumes from recycled fuel.