Joe Williams

There Be Dragons is tethered to the earth by a tangled plot, wooden acting and the heavy burden of healing old wounds.

Imagine an opulent movie palace that was 30,000 years old, with posters preserved on the curving walls and the bones of the Stone Age patrons peacefully sleeping in the fairy dust. That's essentially what archeologists found in a French canyon in 1994 and what Werner Herzog brings back to life in the extraordinary documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

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

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.

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

Although the choice of interviewees skews the movie in a New Age-y direction, there's less pseudoscience and more heart than in the kindred documentary "What the Bleep Do We Know?"

Mostly "Hoodwinked Too" is playing to young video gamers, with overblown action sequences and slangy 'tude.

Fast Five represents Yankee ingenuity of the brutally stupid kind.

Builds beautifully from a farcical premise that requires a suspension of disbelief to a musical climax that washes away our cynicism in a wave of honest tears.

Because we don't know or care much about the characters, this Israeli film never fulfills its potential as either an absurdist comedy or a humane drama.

The most rewarding way to watch Water for Elephants is to focus on the sideshow of costumes and craftsmanship, because the romance in the center ring smells like trained animals going through the motions.

This melodrama about spousal abuse and honor killings might be too grim to bear, but Kekilli keeps it centered.

The libido and bloodlust flowing from the pint-size Page is the funniest thing in the movie, but elsewhere, the mix of the goofy and ghastly is hard 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.

The few Jewish characters are cartoonishly evil, but even the Palestinians are sketchily dramatized or, in the case of a terrorist, clumsily legitimized.

Instead of entertaining us, director Robert Redford offers us a handsome history lesson that's as dry as a hardtack biscuit.

Call it "On the Lakefront." Or "Pretty-Good Fellas."

Beauty comes to us unexpectedly. That's the message of Poetry, a Korean movie about an aging housemaid that turns out to be one of the best films of the year.

A good nature film - and a great technical achievement.

It's a compelling tale of surf and survival.

With such a thin excuse for a leading man, Arthur is a dud.

Cunningham's answers to pointed questions about romantic love and religious faith are so open-hearted, we understand that he's bigger than just New York.

Although the film has elements of a puzzler by Michelangelo Antonioni and a psychodrama by Ingmar Bergman, it never becomes compellingly intellectual or unnervingly emotional.

A medical drama that pays lip service to the healing power of music but never finds the rhythm.

It's supposed to be sweet, but Hop is a headache waiting to happen.

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

Strikes an uneasy compromise between liberty and justice. It marches at an efficient pace, but there's too much collateral damage to believability.

Rooted in empty materialism, but it never evokes the heady rush of a guilty pleasure or the precipitous payback of a thriller.

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

Europeans have a taste for both the mechanics of trickery and the machinations of power, and the politically astute Spanish film "Even the Rain" belongs in the same conversation with Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" and Pedro Almodovar's "Bad Education."

Such a sorrowful attempt to resurrect the marketing magic of "Twilight" that it ought to be titled "Career Eclipse."

Im Sang-soo has crafted an erotic thriller whose cool beauty speaks for itself.

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

Rango is iconic like a spaghetti Western, smart like a '70s conspiracy thriller and lively like a Coen brothers comedy.

Paul Simon and a Parisian orangutan tell us the same thing: It's all happening at the zoo.

Has a welcome message of personal growth and racial tolerance. And it's ably made, with evocative Memphis locations. But in the final sermon, it proffers some plot twists that are supposed to be miraculous but may strike a doubting Thomas as lame.

Like the middle-aged dads in this flaccid fiasco, Hall Pass is a decade behind the curve of what's happening.

To ensure customer loyalty, Hollywood should promote more movies about workaday life in the provinces, but until there's a new wave of midcoast comedies, Cedar Rapids is the big kahuna.

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.

The cheap, indifferent, teen-alien thriller I Am Number Four delivers none of the spectacle of a competent sci-fi film, none of the emotion of an effective teen romance and none of the giggles of a kitsch fiasco.

Stays too low to the ground to become an animated classic, but if there's a fairer midwinter's tale, wherefore art thou?

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.

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

You might expect a cartoon about a man and his dog to be strictly for kids, but My Dog Tulip, based on a memoir by J.R. Ackerley, has a psychological richness and anatomical explicitness that is very grown-up.

The saving grace of Biutiful is Bardem.

This humane movie is an ode to joy, albeit of the mature sort.

The Illusionist has surprises up its sleeve that are unusually nuanced for an animated movie.

Even by the sloppy, soulless standards of hit man movies, The Mechanic is a mess.

Summer Wars has engineered a truce between the familiar and the fantastical.

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.

A distinctly European exercise in observational nuance and tonal restraint in which Coppola stretches static images to the breaking point.

It's true that the movie is both emotionally violent and sexually explicit. Yet these scenes from a marriage are crafted with such attention to detail and overarching honesty that Blue Valentine touches the heart.

It's classic sitcom shtick, and The Dilemma is a painful reminder that director Ron Howard was trained in television.

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

The King's Speech is the epitome of prestige cinema, an impeccably crafted and emotionally compelling drama that deserves the many laurels it surely will receive.

There's a fascinating story here for a bolder filmmaker, but after so much meandering it's a relief that "All Good Things" must come to an end.

True Grit is just a couple bloody gunfights removed from an old-fashioned Disney yarn. Yet it's still unmistakably a Coen brothers movie, from the stray weirdness of a bearskin-clad dentist to the bulls-eye delights of the dialogue.

If instead of story and characters, your movie wish list includes projectile vomiting and erection gags, this lump of coal has your name on it.

It's a tart trifle, but in the madding crowd of year-end movies, Tamara Drewe rocks.

In the infidelity drama Leaving, British reserve gets overtaken by French passion, and the subsequent events have the horrific momentum of a slow-motion car crash.

Hogancamp's alliance with director Jeff Malmberg in this artful and poignant film marks a victory in the war against the self.

Here, Dan Aykroyd mimics the original voice, but the three-dimensional CGI isn't loose and lively enough to compensate for the unimaginative story.

It's a triumph of streamlined design, but TRON: Legacy never enters the fourth dimension where it's worth a plugged nickel to humans.

Megamind falls flat.

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

While we await the definitive documentary about the glut of garbage, Waste Land reduces this global catastrophe to touchingly human scale.

An utter shipwreck, a would-be adventure with meager rations of magic and a listless crew.

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

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

It's a worn-out show-business fairy tale piggybacking on a nonexistent trend.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is slower and stranger than any of the previous films, simultaneously raising hopes for a haunting finale while dimming hopes for a magical one.

A road-trip comedy that somehow renders both promiscuity and racism harmless. While we're soaking up the sunny surroundings, we're getting nowhere.

For a nation at war with its own values, Fair Game is a compelling, pertinent and scrupulously true political thriller in the honorable tradition of "All the President's Men."

Mainstream moviemaking at its most proficient, with a zippy script, comfort-food casting and a breakout performance by a deserving star.

His (Eastwood) first boring film.

The story is sustained by the stubborn love between the siblings and by the conviction of the two fine actors who portray them.

This true story does a great service by honoring the memory of 22 brave men and women and by dramatizing the internal debates within the French population. But in staying true to life, it sacrifices some of the pacing and clarity of a conventional thriller.

Like the recent "Greenberg," Cyrus is not the jokey, polished production you would expect from its Hollywood cast and LA setting, but audiences who are comfortable with discomfort should find it "funny."

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

While the plot is as flimsy as a hooker's halter top, it's buoyed by two actors with attitude and timing.

In the new Clash of the Titans, the effects are computerized, the hero is questionable and, instead of an owl, we get a turkey.

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.

It's almost offensive that Danny Glover is relegated to playing the mysterious old confidante who haunts the same fishing hole as Cal. By the time Glover's character delivers the homily, Legendary is pinned to the mat.

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

Ultimately, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe is a defense, not a prosecution, and the principal witness remains a shining star.

It's more like a shelved episode of "Touched by An Angel." The sappy script is a disservice to the naturally effervescent Efron, whose character is so mopey he makes Robert Pattinson seem like a song-and-dance man.

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

Ajami is neither a puzzle nor a polemic. It's an admirably even-handed portrait of life in an occupied ghetto that is bounded by checkpoints. Everyone we meet is a more or less honorably motivated victim of circumstance. That the circumstances were inscribed centuries ago makes Ajami a tragedy of biblical proportions.

Winter's Bone is the best film of the year.

The kids in the movie, from musicians to marital artists, are unusually skillful, and Smith seems assured of more starring roles. By the end of The Karate Kid, we can't help cheering, even when we know we've been sucker-punched.

It's often obscenely funny, but it tickles more than it stings.

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

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

A miniaturist's masterpiece, the ebb and flow of familial love distilled to its essence.

Titanic technical achievement.

Duvall is a powerful actor, and this folksy fable could have been a career-capping feat, but the movie is toothless and slow.

The sharpest parts of the movie hack through the Hollywood jungle with an insider's certitude. But Apatow is so grounded in the comedy circuit that he can't quite capture the emotional wavelength of the life-and-death drama.

This gravely serious drama is as insular as a tomb with Muzak. It takes a particularly heavy hand to make us numb to the abduction of two children, but that's the effect of the wall-to-wall music and earnestly dour performances.

What makes it special is Eastwood's ability to artfully and concisely tell a story, and Morgan Freeman's wonderfully understated turn as South African President Nelson Mandela.

This stylish film reminds us that great images endure after bodies and buildings crumble.

The documentary ends on a hopeful note, as Indians themselves have taken control of their image.

Soul Power is both a funk-tastic time capsule and a timeless celebration of the human spirit.

The message that needs to be posted at the theater door is "No trespassing."

While Walt and El Grupo is less than a penetrating analysis, it's more than a Mickey Mouse advertisement.

Because the movie captures the period so well and argues so convincingly that the Runaways' very existence was revolutionary, it doesn't have to exaggerate the highs and lows to create a more salable story.

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.

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

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

Although it's sly and sardonic, Police, Adjective is as rigorous as a tea ceremony -- or a Stalinist re-education camp.

Given the creator and the cast, "Morgans" is as drearily predictable as a plague of locusts.

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

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.

Near the two-minute warning, Big Fan becomes chillingly unpredictable.

Because of some sentimental backspin, Affleck doesn't quite hit it out of the park, but he may provoke the green monster of envy in lesser directors.

Here's a riddle: What's Alice in Wonderland without wonder? It's a beloved character landing in the rubble of wrong-headed revisionism.

It's eerie rather than wondrous.

Sadly, The Last Song is badly out of tune with real filmmaking.

It's not exactly aiming for the moon, but in a marketplace where surpassed expectations are as rare as unicorns, Despicable Me is delightful.

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 Repo Men could have sustained its ghoulish humor, it might have been a guilty pleasure.

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.

Of all the films to come out the conflict, Afghan Star is the most provocative, because its message that people are essentially the same is a dubious, double-edge sword.

The macabre comedic undertones are reminiscent of a Coen brothers film like "Blood Simple." But a more apt comparison is to an obscure Canadian bank-heist flick called "The Silent Partner," in which teller Elliot Gould pockets some loot from thief Christopher Plummer. Both movies imitate an American idiom with a provincial accent.

With exquisitely simple images and minimal dialogue, Seraphine is both haunting and humane.

It would be a disservice to describe "Perfect Blue" as a well-made cartoon. It is simply one of the richest and most suspenseful films of the year. [03 Aug 2001, p.E2]

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

When the smoke clears, heady Farewell stands tall among the movies that view the Cold War at close range.

It's smart, heartfelt, handsome and just mutated enough to sustain interest in a specialized subject.

Given the stormy milieu, The Yellow Handkerchief could have been a sordid slice of life or a maudlin metaphor. But the unhurried direction of Udayan Prasad and the unafraid choices of the sure-footed cast keep this character-driven drama afloat.

Vincere, which translates as the battle cry "Win!" is like invisible ink on the ledger of war, a secret record of love and loss.

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?

Ondine is dipped in whimsy and might have drifted out to sea, but it's bounded on four sides by love stories -- between a father and a daughter, a man and a mermaid, an actor and his co-star, and a director and his country.

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

Although it has some memorably disquieting scenes, this story of long-delayed justice is sustained by its melancholy more than its thrills.

The multiple cameras that shadow Anker and his novice partner provide unprecedented images. But they also raise unintended questions about the vanishing frontier.

Unexpectedly poignant.

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

The clichéd script doesn't develop the secondary characters or the critical theme of the mutants' alienation.

The surprisingly rich documentary Best Worst Movie views the phenomenon from a unique perspective.

It may not be original, but Adam could leave a lump in your throat.

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.

There's nothing cinematic about this turgid tearjerker except the slumming presence of movie star Harrison Ford.

The kind of working-class, character-driven drama that few American directors would dare to make. It's tough and unsentimental, with a documentary aesthetic that belies the craft of the calibrated tension.

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.

The beauty of October Country, beside its artful images, is how it compresses the windblown fortunes of working-class America into the fallen leaves of one forlorn family.

This movie, which was made by an animation studio in Spain, isn't trying to make a social statement; it speaks in the international language of lightweight comedy.

In a movie of murky surfaces and deep loneliness, the redemptive surprise of A Single Man is how it becomes a clear endorsement of the Buddy System.

This jam-packed picture is too zippily scripted and edited to get stuck in message mode, yet the stellar cast achieves a rare harmonic convergence.

We are reminded: War is hell. But at their best, war movies can be cool and beautiful.

It sustains a palpable fatalism in such recurring details as a whirring buzz saw and the cry of a loon, while the static camera and lack of musical cues enable some unforeseeable plot twists.

Although Precious is based on a novel, it's an act of truth-telling on behalf of a character in hellish enslavement.

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

Up in the Air may not end up as the best picture -- that will be decided by the Academy -- but it has landed in the middle of the discussion because it's laser-focused and right on time.

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.

Hot Tub Time Machine isn't a good movie, but like a bubbling bath it keeps pounding at us until our resistance wears down.

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.

This amateurish action flick is so lacking in personality or punch, it ought to be titled "V for Video Store Discount Bin."

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

Whether you're betting on action or laughs, this is a lose-lose scenario.

A movie that will be discovered, embraced and shared with friends like a favorite record album.

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 a running joke that this epic of also-ran heroism is set in eternally modest Toronto; but its real locale is an alternate universe without parents or the unhip.

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.

It's a wholly successful sequel - audacious, entertaining and bracingly pertinent.

With its exploded notions of heroism, torture-rack dramatics and kamikaze gusto, it's a fiendishly entertaining flick.

The secret in this case is the jokes, which are ferocious. Marrying a monster flick with an adolescent romance has produced a merry mutant.

Here most of the punishment is inflicted on the audience, which gets nailed to a cross of boredom.

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 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.

It's zippy, and the movie version has both a computerized sheen and handcrafted detailing. Because the details are cribbed from classics, parents can enjoy this 'toon as much as their kids.

The diabolical sadist of the team was director Joe Carnahan.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee sees the '60s through a rose-colored telephoto lens, but his sympathetic spirit extends the generous message of the hippie era like a passed joint.

It's a worthy cause and an honorable film, the first full-length Disney cartoon with an African-American heroine. But without a strong story, it's a case of one step forward and two steps back.

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

Yet so much about The Lovely Bones is so skillfully orchestrated, from the chillingly methodical villainy to the thrillingly paced manhunt, we can accept that we're in the hands of a higher power.

Whether true or a hoax, I'm Still Here represents real risk-taking that I can only applaud.

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

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]

"Beverly Hills Chihuahua," we owe you an apology. Among talking-dog movies, Marmaduke is the runt of the litter.

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.

A charming throwback filled with authentic characters.

Weaver is a natural as the imperious Ramona, but the rest of the cast is flattened by the script, particularly White, who is just window-dressing in a movie that could use the rude humor she's displayed elsewhere.

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.

The combination of a literate script, an adroit cast and an economical style is simple addition that achieves an alchemical feat: the best film of the year.

The kiddie audience will laugh a few times, but it would take an electron microscope to find an original idea or joke in this entire cartoonish movie.

The funniest movie of the year.

Although it alludes to romantic conventions, with overt references to Hollywood history and an overemphatic jazz soundtrack, Wild Grass is neither poignant nor zany. It's an exercise in artifice, not unlike David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" set in the City of Lights. I'm sure the French have a word for it, but je ne sais quoi it is.

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.

Anyone suggesting that an Italian film could rival the style and grandeur of "The Godfather" might end up sleeping with the fishes. But Il Divo delivers.

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.

Ultimately it's sunk by the hole in the middle: Paul Campbell (presidential aide Billy on "Battlestar Galactica") who substitutes smarm for charm as the archetypal player who gets played.

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.

An evolutionary leap forward, a visually exquisite film that doesn't ignore the truths of pollution and predatory survival.

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.

Red is an insult to our memories and to our intelligence, an unfunny farce whose veteran cast is cashing a retirement check.

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.

So friction-free that it slips from memory before the credits fade.

In my old New Jersey public school, the first thing we learned was the smell of baloney.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A bland family-feud potboiler with no sign of the cook.

An exciting cloak-and-dagger thriller.

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

Technically proficient enough to keep us intrigued; but we shouldn't have to Google a movie to know if we were scared.

Letters to Juliet has about half as much Shakespearean content as "Shakes the Clown" and even less sincerity.

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.

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.

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.

For the many mavens who aren't familiar with Varda, this autobiographical documentary will be puzzling, in the best and most literal sense.

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.

Despite the title, My One and Only is irritatingly repetitive.

Initially, the puzzle structure and a pair of Oscar-winning actresses distract us from the dark vacuum at the center of this enterprise, but when it implodes, it doesn't reverberate.

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

Maybe I enjoyed the similarly themed Kick-Ass because it took me back to that innocent time. Or maybe it's because this is the most brazenly funny bloodbath unleashed on the public since "Pulp Fiction."

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.

What might have seemed like a lively idea -- an all-star roundelay about love in Los Angeles -- is as fossilized as the wooly mammoths in the La Brea Tar Pits.

Although it's stuffed with subplots, gadgets and bad guys, this tinny contraption is half-hearted.

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

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.

Mired in phoniness up to its neck. And above that, there's nothing.

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

What's finest about Everybody's Fine is to watch a good fella groping hopefully toward old age.

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

May be too sterile and stylized to elicit real tears, but it's got brains and heart to spare.

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

It's not quite infectious, but some of the high notes manage to drown out some of the guttural lows.

Waiting for Superman raises important questions while wearing a big red heart on its chest, but inconvenient facts are its kryptonite.

Two incompatible movies duke it out in Bandslam. Although it's the wimpy teen musical that prevails, it's the misfit coming-of-age story that leaves an impression.

Weaving between freshness and formula, The Boys Are Back earns a gentle pat on the head.

By turning a whistle-blower into a tragicomic figure, Soderbergh sustains our interest in a complicated financial scheme and rewards it with a kickback of ghastly laughs.

Old Dogs is so oafish, when it tosses us a biscuit, it feels like we've been smacked with a newspaper.

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.

Director Philipp Stolzl worked in the same dangerous conditions as the original climbers, and we can feel the chill and peril in our bones. It's a shame, then, that the screenwriter, unlike the camera crew and the characters, was afflicted with such timidity.

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.

Its mean-spiritedness, stupidity and squandering of talent is uniquely Hollywood.

In Couples Retreat, it's Favreau, not Vaughn, who is wound up, and this vacation comedy goes nowhere.

It's a calculated crowd-pleaser that skims over the surface of the era like a cruise-ship production of "American Graffiti."

As much Fosse as Fellini. It’s a shadow of a shadow, refracted through a fun-house mirror. For all the noise and color, it feels like an exercise and not a natural expression.

It's a little black dress of a movie, an elegant hint of something sensual that is ultimately denied to us.

For a public that's been bullied by the tastemakers, the mystery is a gift. Once we exit this fun house, the only giant left to obey is ourselves.

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

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.

A bizarre buffet of buffoonery, brutality and beautiful landscapes.

As a diversion, Babies is like a wind-up toy that will tickle anyone with a pulse. As a documentary, it's like a cache of home videos that will frustrate anyone with an inquiring mind.

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.

Like Ernest Borgnine, Philip Seymour Hoffman is an unconventional leading man with an Oscar on his mantle, and his bittersweet Jack Goes Boating has elicited comparisons with "Marty."

This shrill caper is more like a blind date between fingernail and chalkboard.

Prince of Persia is woven of recycled fibers, but by the slipping standards of summertime entertainment, it's a magic carpet ride.

A vigilante/torture-porn potpourri, is particularly toxic because it's scented with phony importance.

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.

Offers about as much flava as a Dr. Pepper commercial and about as much drama as a “Sesame Street” rerun.

Terminator Salvation is a tale told idiotically, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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