J.R. Jones

Director Oliver Schmitz is particularly attentive to the superstition and ingrained sexism that make life miserable for these people, though he also seems to view women as the country's best hope.

This French kidnapping drama drags on for so long I'd have paid the ransom out of my own pocket just to wrap things up.

By accident or design, the resolution here is morally ambiguous and vaguely distasteful, which may be the reason I liked it.

A strong cast fails to rescue this ponderous Oscar bait.

This absorbing PBS-style documentary by Joseph Dorman follows Aleichem from his early years in the Russian shtetl of Voronko through the pogroms that would drive the Jewish diaspora of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Joffe, a British screenwriter (The American, 28 Weeks Later) debuting as director, hits some of these notes in his adaptation of Brighton Rock, but the movie's religious flourishes seem more rhetorical than heartfelt.

Like Nicole Holofcener's "Please Give" (2010), this turns on the friction between an unusually altruistic character and the self-centered people around him, though screenwriters David Schisgall and Evgenia Peretz never pursue their premise into the sort of moral comedy that so distinguished the other movie.

Michael Webber's documentary "The Elephant in the Living Room" (2010) makes such a powerful case against private ownership of exotic wild animals that this portrait of circus owner David Balding and his beloved elephant Flora seems sentimental by comparison.

Watchable but not very gripping. Patricia Clarkson does her best with an underwritten part as the young man's terminally ill mother, and British actor Ken Stott is excellent as the grieving husband she leaves behind.

This remake is good fun, aided in no small degree by Colin Farrell's strutting, dead-eyed performance as the bloodsucker.

This is worth seeing, but only if you think you can tolerate the precious voice-over narration from the couple's wounded cat, delivered by July in a high, scratchy voice.

This low-budget sci-fi item was produced by some of the Brits who made "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," including their writer and director, Edgar Wright, but it hardly compares, despite Nick Frost's brief appearance as a mangy pot dealer.

Reilly's performance here is hilarious: he's located the character in the bursts of shouting he uses to do his job and the warped sense of humor he needs to deal with the weird kids sent his way.

The best thing I can say about this sleep-inducing kiddie comedy is that the need to bring in a PG rating must have precluded the endless series of giant-turd gags promised by the title.

Morris's trademark device of superimposing giant type over his talking heads - Willing! Manacled Mormon! - often made me wonder if Morris were exposing the world of tabloid journalism or participating in it.

Writer-director Michel Leclerc keeps stressing how political all this is (the heroine labels almost everyone a "fascist"), but the movie never really decides what it's about, and its odd-couple romance is stale and unpersuasive.

The story is so packed with over-the-top characters (including a hit man and hustler played by Jamie Foxx) that no one gets a chance to breathe.

A rare dud from Pixar.

As an avid media watcher, I didn't come away from this with any new insights, but the movie is a pretty good snapshot of the daily newspaper business in transition and turmoil.

There's some cute stuff involving Hanks and some teenagers who tool around campus on scooters, but an utter lack of chemistry between him and Roberts dooms the movie.

Diaz, costars Jason Segel and Justin Timberlake, and a sharp supporting cast manage to deliver a crappy good time, mercifully devoid of any heart-tugging teacher-student subplots.

This documentary on the history of gospel music can't measure up to George T. Nierenberg's colorful "Say Amen, Somebody" (1982), but it's so jammed with great archival performances, most of them included in their entirety, that it's worth seeing.

Possibly the touchy-feeliest cowboy movie ever made.

Throughout the tour O'Brien makes it a point of pride to oblige his fans, though even this comes off as self-centered.

Like the incessant ringing of cowbells in the first two segments, the film may either hypnotize you or drive you stark staring mad.

Wexler emerges from all this with the commonplace wisdom that laughter and a positive outlook both prolong life and make it worth living, though his vocal concern with his own aging keeps the film from growing pat.

The beloved 1938 children's book about a house painter who becomes guardian to a dozen penguins has been turned into a standard-issue children's comedy with Jim Carrey.

The most daring aspect of the film, fully realized in Bello's grave performance, may be the notion that a parent can invest endless love in a child and one day find him unfathomable.