Ken Fox

It's rendered in shiny, state-of-the-art CG animation, not the charming pen-and-ink drawings with which Seuss illustrated his own books or the hand-drawn artistry Chuck Jones brought to the 1970 Horton Hears a Who! short. But considering the messes that came before, that's a minor quibble.

However you feel about her character and what she may or may not have done, Tamblyn's portrayal of Stephanie Daley is softly devastating.

Though impressively ambitious and making the most of a small budget and talented cast, director Ari Taub's feature concentrates so intently on the day-to-day minutiae of infantry life on World War II's European front that the bigger picture gets lost.

Writer-director James Ponsoldt's first feature is a small, modest movie structured around a fairly simple situation that leaves plenty of room for some fine performances.

Needless to say, anyone who's not entirely down with the beastly noise of the Beastie Boys will hate every second of it. This one's strictly for -- and, for the most part, by -- the fans.

We can only hope that the time frame is meant to be sometime before 9/11, and not after. Either way, it's a troubling vision of how terrorism and "martyrdom" occur on both sides of this ghostly war, and is both perpetrated and facilitated by the very forces enlisted to stop it.

For all the gushy feelings, the plight of women like Kiranjit, bound not only by domineering, often physically abusive husbands but by racism and oppressive cultural traditions as well, is poignantly portrayed.

Naturally there's plenty of adolescent drama both on stage and off, and if the film ultimately feels a little thin, that's also to be expected.

Serrill wisely divides his film into chapters according to year, which helps structure the story's natural repetitiveness.

The period detail is evocative, Watson and Etel are particularly good, and baby Crusoe -- a computer-generated image seamlessly woven into the live action -- is a slippery little star in his own right.

It's wholesome fun for the whole family.

Berman and Pulcini, who turned Harvey Pekar's graphic memoir into the visually inventive, Oscar-nominated "American Splendor," dress this film as an anthropological field diary and add several fabulous touches.

Interestingly, the real heart of the film is in the finely drawn adult characters.

Rossier's film leaves the dispiriting impression that democracy simply will not be tolerated in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Armenian-American quartet have taken it upon themselves to teach their fans about what happened to their families in that now-forgotten time, a deeply personal mission that has proven effective in politicizing their audiences.

An enjoyably ironic rethink of a beloved fairy tale.

Kenan and Kel share a wonderful comic chemistry that has a lot in common with the anarchic goofiness of Abbott and Costello or Martin and Lewis, leavened with a good deal more mutual affection.

The movie's refusal to treat young girls like silly tramps-in-training is almost radical: It's just good, clean fun and actually offers children of a certain age a role model even adults can feel good about.

A lot fresher and bit more sophisticated than the ordinary run of maudlin chick flicks and crude gross-out sex farces that now pass for romantic comedies.

Dramatically simple but emotionally complex.

By the film's downbeat climax, Cerda's dread of death and uncertainty about digging too deeply into what's better left buried have become palpable, and The Abandoned lingers beneath the skin as any decent horror movie should.

Efron's remarkable performance as a wild child who seems to truly exist somewhere betwixt and between is riveting.

Singaporean writer-director Eric Khoo's third feature is a beautiful, contemplative study of love -- unrequited, unfulfilled and reborn.

Equal parts "Oliver Twist" and "Pinocchio," Russian director Andrei Kravchuk's fictional hearttugger exposes a troubling real-life practice in contemporary Russia: the buying and selling of abandoned children to rich foreign couples.

The mystery is marvelous.

Aside from some unnecessarily crude stereotypes, Eddie Murphy's least-painful comedy in years has a certain peculiar charm.

Razvi, once a pushcart vendor himself, is particularly good; he brings a visceral poignancy to a character who comes to represent every desperate soul who ever tried to make it in the land of plenty.

The result is a rich and touching exploration of the vagaries of fortune, literary reputation and, above all, friendship that works on several levels at once. The soundtrack includes songs by Joy Division, New Order and Le Tigre.

Clad in dull khakis and a polo shirt, the always reliable Kinnear is his (Brosnon's) perfect foil, while Davis' neat turn as a suburban wife with a penchant for guns and the men who use them turns what might have been a cliched supporting role into something worth watching.

Hypnotic, culturally pertinent drama.

Exchanging Buddhist mantras like diet tips, they thoughtlessly destroy themselves after destroying each other.

Thanks to some first-rate acting from its stars, it ranks among Perry's best.

Winner of the John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature Under $500K at the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards, Henry's film is beautifully shot and extraordinarily well acted by Williams.

It's beautifully shot -- the sweat-drenched jukejoint scenes are particularly evocative -- and features a terrific performance by Ricci, one that deserves to be seen by a wider audience than the one certain to be reeled in by those torrid ads.

Charming, if slight, Venus-and-Mars romantic comedy.

Ending the film with a perfunctory run-through of Lennon's murder on the doorstep of his Manhattan apartment building, however, foregrounds an unfortunate irony: Had the INS succeeded in forcing Lennon out of the U.S., he might be alive today.

Zizek as a larger-than-life figure who manages to engage you even when you're not entirely sure what he's going on about.

Hamburger's earnest effort offers interesting perspectives on Jewish life in South America's most populous city as well as the fate of political dissidents during a particularly dark period of Brazil's recent past.

Actor-turned-first-time-filmmaker Liev Schreiber tosses out most of what made Jonathan Safran Foer's too-clever-by-half debut novel so precious, rooting out the heart of Foer's story from the precocious bombast.

Some four decades after the birth of the gay-rights movement, the excess and sexual abandon of gay life in the '70s seems more an aberration than an accurate picture of out-and-about gay life at the end of the 20th century.

An intriguing, if flawed mystery set in the shadowy subterranean world of undocumented Mexican immigrants.

You'll laugh and hate yourself for it.

The film does, however, assemble an amazing array of recorded conversations and vintage newsreel, and offers up enough press conference footage to make one nostalgic for the days when an uncowed, penetrating press really did serve the public interest, and the president was a smart, inspirational and often very funny figure who could think on his feet and fearlessly take on all comers.

This is Hunt's show, and she delivers a strong performance that captures all the seriousness and absurdity of the avalanche of circumstances that comes crashing down on April's head. To say she's only half the director she is an actress is actually paying her quite a complement.

For the most part, the result is a smashing success, filled with great performances and exquisite production design. But those final moments, in which the true nature of the story is revealed, are an unmitigated disaster.

It's fun, fast-paced, educational entertainment that's fit for the whole family -- American boys included.

Audriad's film articulates an uncomfortably familiar vision of a nation desperate enough to believe its own lies, where the copy is inevitably much better than the real thing and heroes are only as genuine as one needs them to be.

Peddle captures a vital and increasingly visible community that's easily misunderstood, and his film will undoubtedly help novices further understand the complex differences separating gays, transsexuals and the transgendered.

Odd but never dull.

While not easy to watch, and at times even harder to follow, Haas' film is an important attempt to accurately capture the confusing reality of contemporary Iraq.

A romantic victim to the end, this Ian Curtis is all that worshipful fans could ever hope for.

With his ersatz-gangsta swagger, the once-again buff Bale gives it his all -- he's got to be the most committed actor in Hollywood -- but the real surprise here is Rodriguez, who has all the talent and charisma of a major star.

With an often very funny story line that eventually touches on parental disappointment and suicide, it's clear that, his debt to Hess and Wes Anderson notwithstanding, Waititi has learned a thing or two from fellow antipodean Jane Campion as well.

Simultaneously shocking and deeply religious, Carlos Reygadas' follow-up to his acclaimed 2002 debut, "Japon," tells the story of one man's battle for spiritual redemption through a series of explicit images rarely seen by even the most jaded art-house audiences.