Kevin Crust

The twists and reversals that pile up, stirred by greed, friendship and betrayal, fail to register any meaning, simply accumulating -- so that ultimately Autumn is as dry and lifeless as the leaves that fall to the ground in its opening images.

"Inspired by" is an interesting phrase because the movie is more inspiring than inspired. The man's struggles are emotionally engaging, but dramatically it lacks the layering of a "Kramer vs. Kramer," which it superficially resembles.

Hurting the film is the fact that the central character, Anthony, is so self-absorbed.

The strongest scenes are those between Elliot and Richard, which give Second Best a verisimilitude lacking in the rest of the film. The truest thing here is that these two guys have been friends forever and always will be.

There are a number of sharp political and philosophical points made, but they are undercut by “The 11th Green’s” overload of history, speculation and fantasy that strands it in a narrative Bermuda Triangle.

Instantly forgettable.

The movie has a lot of the elements that might make it thrilling and it's visually arresting, but it's missing the emotional connection necessary to make it interesting.

Though it lacks the sophistication and depth its subject merits, Angels Within does suggest the possibility of reconciling some of the cultural divisions that face the nation if we are willing to drop the labels and judgments and see one another as human beings.

Though the film aspires to the epic with pretensions of deeper philosophical meaning, it ultimately settles for being the "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" of historical romances.

Barker and Borten have chosen to retain the documentary’s framing device of the rescue attempt. In the nonfiction film, it served as a propulsive engine, carefully balanced against the interviews that told Vieira de Mello’s story and its tragic conclusion. Here, it feels abstract, disjointed from the scenes with him and Carolina, thus weakening and muddying the story.

The movie leans too heavily on quirk to express character and we are left as annoyed at Timmy’s antics as the adults in his life or the kids in his class (save the one girl who finds him “fascinating”).

There's a dry humor underlying the absurdity of Koistinen's experience. When things cannot possibly get worse, they do.

Crass, vacuous exercise in grind-house stylistics.

Hawkes is terrific with a softer-edged character than we’re used to seeing from the actor (“Deadwood,” “Winter’s Bone”). He’s heartbreaking in scenes where disappointment and resignation play across his face. Lerman is a fine foil, energizing scenes with his edgy impatience and willingness to be unlikable for the majority of the film.

As good as the leads and the supporting cast are, and as much action as gets packed into the film's relatively brief running time, none of it draws us in dramatically.

Ultimately, it’s an inspiring account of an elite athlete with the tenacity (and resources) to battle adversity and keep his dream alive.

Once the movie shifts gears, it’s less about the working man and more about the human. That sounds like a good thing, but the further Working Man creeps into emotionally over-calibrated basic cable territory, the less real it feels.

More athletes than actors, Raffaelli and Belle are terrific when their bodies are in motion but the movie grinds to a halt when they open their mouths.

Deliberate silliness is hard to sustain, but Undertaking Betty pretty much succeeds.

A curious film in multiple ways, Cielo does not always achieve its lofty ambitions of transcendence. However, accompanied by the eerie silence of the desert and the plaintive wail of Philippe Lauzier’s mournful score, McAlpine’s visuals transport the viewer to a state of reflection while reminding us of the sublime beauty of the space above.

Within the confines of a straight-ahead, handsomely designed and photographed biopic beats the heart of a more adventurous presentation of Holiday’s tragic life. It’s hinted at in Day’s performance, the dreamlike memory sequences and a cheeky, meta-coda that plays out during the end credits but never quite pierces the film’s more varnished surfaces.

The Negotiation unravels from the inside out, lurching from improbable to implausible to just plain ridiculous, and writer-director’s Lee Jong-Suk’s by-the-book filmmaking does little to raise the stakes.

The bulk of the movie is a series of sight gags and set pieces that wreak much havoc but little else.

The feature debut of music video director Ninian Doff is probably best viewed late at night under the influence of a mind-altering, preferably hallucinatory, substance.

Movies about male friendship are often trivialized with the "buddy" tag, but this one resonates beyond that.

The new live-action rendering of E.B. White's perennial children's favorite, Charlotte's Web, is so carefully spun that it's lifeless.

While an effective rebuttal to media stereotyping, especially in its own portrayals of people of color and the LGBTQ community, Hillbilly feels less assured in dealing with the election, a subject that is getting a little tired but no less confounding.

The disappointingly pedestrian computer-animated Over the Hedge will be more entertaining for little tykes than their older siblings and parents, and would not seem out of place on Saturday morning television.

Black is interested in big themes -- including guilt and redemption -- and is helped by a strong cast capable of carrying the dramatic sequences.

All three look great and the filmmakers deliver a certain artiness, but their overall triviality and the unpleasantness of the first two make for an extremely distasteful experience.

The film never really delves beyond the level of observation and the simplistic explanations it does offer are not very satisfying; cloaking possible mental illness in religious zealotry simply clouds whatever the directors meant to convey.

Detailed and intensely researched documentary.

If the segments are uneven, Moncrieff -- with the help of her excellent cast -- nevertheless crafts a gripping overall narrative that exposes a shared dissonance among the protagonists.

A good supporting cast — including Isiah Whitlock Jr., Harris Yulin, Tom Everett Scott and Josh Lucas as a hindrance to John’s plans — gives Kelly much to play off, but the story is too rote to get worked up about any of the conflicts.

The film’s initial non-judgmental perspective eventually sounds more like a public service announcement for Louisiana’s nutria control program.

This family adventure about a team of sled dogs abandoned in Antarctica naturally invokes the traditional shout of "Mush!" urging the canines to go faster, but it's also an apt descriptor of both its shameless sentimentality and ineptly structured story.

Adept at wringing maximum suspense and might have reached the heights of the Korean monster film "The Host" but for the limitations of the camcorder ploy. While it injects the film with a run-and-gun urgency, the device grows tiresome and ultimately leaves the film shortchanged.

Reinforcing the adage that looks aren't everything, the live-action animal drama Arctic Tale arrives in an impressive visual package and even boasts a timely message, but its undistinguished storytelling is a big letdown.

The movie nicely captures the area around Baldwin Hills, is crisply written by Kriss Turner and portrays the upper-middle class black community seldom seen in mainstream TV and film. However, the characterizations, even the leads, rarely rise above archetypes.

For fans of Nunez's previous work, it's almost as if he put in all the clichés he would normally avoid and left out the wonderfully textured internal moments that made "Ruby" and "Ulee's Gold" unique.

Morelli uses plentiful flashbacks drawn from the earlier movie and television series that are at times intrusive to the narrative but eventually serve to deepen the relationship of Ace and Laranjinha.

Yates’ verité collage approach naturally leads to an elliptical narrative. But it occasionally feels frustratingly indulgent, like being cornered in a one-way conversation where you can’t ask a question.

Provides little insight beyond hanging out with its super-sized star and would not be out of place as halftime filler except for its nearly 90-minute running time.

Brosnan and Neeson make fine adversaries mining the terse dialogue for veiled dramatic fervor.

It takes some big swings at a big subject and almost — not quite — pulls it off.

Overall, the film lacks cohesion and a true point of view. Further muddling the film's meaning is a voice-over attributed to Jiang Qing, which we learn at the end is fictionalized.

It's a bare-knuckled crime drama set in 1988 that stylistically could have been made that year and emphasizes Gray's strengths as a director while drawing attention to his limitations as a writer.

And though the film also quotes Wiesenthal's exhortation "Hope lives when people remember," the filmmakers are most interested in drawing attention to what is happening now, primarily in Europe, and what it may mean for the future.

Cohn, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, likely was aiming for subtlety, but these are not subtle times. Trying to get a spark from a damp match is a lot harder than holding a flame to dry kindling.

Maddeningly exploitative, the film takes a provocative subject -- pedophilia -- and wraps it in a sterile, vacuum-sealed package, devoid of meaning.

The film’s themes of extinction and survival are worthy of thoughtful treatment, something that eludes the ambitious movie as it succumbs to a schematic and sentimental telling that overreaches for a grand gesture and obscures the more meaningful ideas.

Most successful in capturing the emotional elements of its story, the film relies on its excellent cast to balance out sketchily drawn characters and the unfortunate obviousness of its plot.

Ripped directly from Disney's playbook of inspirational sports movies, it's devoid of any original elements that might deter it from that successful formula, hewing closer to the sentimental cliches of "Remember the Titans" than the much better "Miracle" or "The Rookie."

Arcan wrote prolifically about beauty and female identity in essays and articles, as well as her books, and Émond uses those words extensively in the film. But what may have been profound and poetic on the page feels redundant and banal on screen. It’s a sad tale that never manifests much more than that singular emotion.

A visually wondrous experience in high-contrast black and white, bogged down by a slow, underwrought story and uninvolving characters. It would be easy to dismiss it as another great-looking film with little else to offer, but that wouldn't be entirely true.

Tanne, who tackled the relationship of a young Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama in “Southside With You,” also hits the physiological explanation of the pain of heartbreak (from which the book and movie draw their titles) pretty hard.

The film's tone is on the sitcom side, but its likable cast and zany subplots make it palatable.

Grounded by a gutsy, over-the-edge-and-back performance by Paul Kaye as Frankie, It's All Gone Pete Tong takes the long way around before finally redeeming itself.

An initially promising horror film that turns exploitive, Wolf Creek fails to deliver the requisite payoff considering its leisurely pace.

There is a guilty-pleasure quality to watching Atkinson at work even when Mr. Bean has overstayed his welcome. The film's lightness makes you wish you were the one headed to the beach.

Delivers a heckuva story marred by some credibility problems but lands the majority of its punches via subtly powerful performances and a moving undercard of paternal connection.

Paxton and Frost lay the schmaltz on thickly, but the deal-breaker is the overuse of special effects, which make the game in question look more like pinball than golf.

Despite a fine cast, the film feels as lost as Howard, unsure of its direction or tone.

Not only screams out to be a midnight movie, but one in need of, shall we say, an herbal supplement, and we aren't talking ginkgo biloba.

No surprises await, but the performances by Scott Thomas, Horgan and company and some pleasant harmonizing make Military Wives palatable Memorial Day weekend viewing.

The teenager's journey through a nightmarish reverie presents hallucinogenic imagery that simultaneously dulls the senses and hot-wires the imagination, but it never fully engages emotionally.

Bisexuality certainly increases the geometric possibilities of the romantic comedy, completing its triangles and allowing for quadrangles and other, more amorphous layers of amorous involvement.

It's an ambitious film drenched in sincerity and oozing with nostalgia that, despite the energy provided by its title icon via archival footage, falls flat dramatically in nearly every other way.

The film -- buoyed by its cast of excellent actors -- loses its momentum in the final half-hour when it starts to take itself too seriously.

Has little to offer in the way of entertainment or originality.

Never quite works as a film. The failure to create appropriate cinematic metaphors reduces it to "happiness is a warm puppy" superficiality.

The result is that they never truly find the innate drama in Pimentel's story, instead simply recounting four or five decades' worth of events that shaped the man.

In a film with several over-the-top characters bordering on camp, Timberlake's Frankie is the only one who approaches three dimensions, adept at convincingly dishing out some of the movie's disturbing violence as well as registering subtle shifts in Frankie's allegiance.

The film’s higher aims never take hold. The breeziness feels at odds with implied gravitas.

Not Brooks' funniest film, but it possesses his trademark wry humor and is slyly observant.

Lucky Number Slevin is an attempted cinematic sleight-of-hand that has its moments, but is finally just plain annoying, wearing its influences too broadly on its sleeve.

Not as bad as Bobby's mother's lasagna, neither is Brooklyn Rules anywhere near the best you've ever had, though at times, it may remind you of it.

Writer-director Nic Bettauer hits upon some important themes, including homelessness, environmentalism and the plight of the elderly, but not enough care has gone into developing the subsidiary characters who merely come across as types.

The film strives for some type of a girl-empowerment message that equates trading one type of conformity for another with self-determination but muffs the dismount and stumbles on the landing. In other words, it fails to Stick It.

The characters are familiar movie types sufficiently fleshed out and well performed to hit all the emotional and comedic cues. The fight scenes and stunts — especially a masterfully choreographed motorcycle chase throughout the stadium — and a lack of obvious CGI provide the requisite thrills.

The overly familiar plot points also make the film feel a little dated.

A persuasive if not groundbreaking drama.

Though Black Snake Moan is unadulterated deep-fried silliness from "Hustle & Flow" filmmaker Craig Brewer, Jackson makes it indisputably more palatable. It's still not a very good movie, but it's intermittently entertaining (and sometimes unintentionally funny).

Whereas the original film is gleefully crass and energetically paced, the movie musical, weighing in at a robust two-plus hours, is bloated and self-satisfied. Whatever spectacle the stage musical possessed to make it such a box-office behemoth fails to transfer to the screen.

A movie-of-the-week treatment of race and class, the film credibly portrays the day-to-day workings of an urban ministry.

An undeniably odd film, this ode to pooches is more than just a dog calendar come to life.

An uninspired if perfectly watchable drama.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan milks the film's one joke for all it's worth - which isn't much - before settling into the rote rhythms of a buddy picture.

Despite the creakiness of the vehicle, there are some genuinely funny moments and observations.

An amusing if slight excursion into nature with a group of animals who turn the tables on their collective nemeses, the hunters.

In essence, you get "It's a Wonderful Life" meets "Wings of Desire," swapping out the substance for self-help platitudes. If you can get past that, you can enjoy it as a 90-minute look at a lovely postcard.

What might have been a complex story dealing with greed and high-stakes betrayal among the young intellectual elite in America's gaming playground is instead treated as a slick, glossy romp.

The force of the film is not as profound as Shakhnazarov clearly intended, and The Rider Named Death is easier to respect than enjoy.

The film is haphazardly structured, undercutting its potential power.

While endearingly heartfelt and G-rated to boot, its storytelling suffers from a lack of locomotive force and characters that feel disappointingly two-dimensional.

Sweet but dramatically inert.

Everything has been significantly amped up -- bigger, louder, further removed from reality -- but it also feels that much more forced. Cage and Kruger seem like they're not having much fun this time around, and Bartha still gets the best throwaway lines.

Despite strong performances by Gerard Butler and Wes Bentley as the leaders of the two factions and crisply directed soccer action, the movie lacks a powerful central presence to carry the drama.