Kevin Maynard

For all its wit and sharp casting, State and Main is way too pleased with itself to be funny or endearing.

A detective story without a solution and a coming-of-ager without discernable characters.

An audacious but underconceived blend of fiction and documentary that questions the idea of race and identity in America.

There's nothing remotely bizarre about this boy meets girl meets boy tale.

Writer-director Harmony Korine seems more interested in churning your stomach than in warming your heart.

On the whole, this documentary is best-suited to hardcore fans.

As classic romantic comedy goes, it ain't no "Tootsie."

Only Elaine May shines, in a weird and wonderful turn. Her loopy character has such a struck-by-lightning demeanor that she's always delightfully off in her own comic orbit even in the tritest of scenes.

Badly photographed, clumsily edited, and lacking any discernable cinematic style.

This avenging cat gets no action whatsoever. Neither does the movie, despite a terrific cast and a heap of street style.

At best a vaguely Semitic episode of "The Wonder Years."

The movie is as schmaltzy as I'd feared, and yet De Salvo does elicit some nice performances from her ensemble cast.

Eventually succumbs to fatal overlength.

At their trenchant, tuneful best, the Barenaked Ladies take flip comic spins on serious subjects (alcoholism, heartbreak). But offstage, they have nothing of substance to reveal.

A sleek rip-off of "The Birds" that is fast, furious, and watchable, but lacking in the two elements most essential to a silly screamfest like this: scares and laughs.

Startlingly shallow even for a summer movie.

The script is pure Disney formula. Dinosaur offers next to nothing in the way of variation.

Shows its roots early on: Mixing the high camp of "Strictly Ballroom" with Monty's gritty milieu, the film comes off as little more than a contrived composite, despite the best efforts of pros Rickman, Richardson, and Griffiths.

Starts as light, fluffy fun but becomes so blithely preposterous that it ceases to exist.

Despite the film's impressively epic look and an interesting cast of young and old actors, it ringingly sounds the same dour note over and over again.

The movie's still thinner than a supermodel's waist. It's not just that the results are less than heavenly; it's that we don't know what the hell they are.

It plays out like an endless series of scenes we've seen before.

There's no spirit of adventure to separate this one from the pack.

But jaw-dropping trailer aside, there isn't much movie here.

Every frame of Scott's film is gorgeously lurid and baroque, but it just hangs there like bad art, even during the gore-spilling, Grand Guignol climax.

Only really comes to exuberant life during the musical numbers.

Wholly predictable and implausible plotting, thin characterizations, and stilted dialogue.

Deserves to be applauded for not casting Freddie Prinze Jr., but this sloppy, somnolent, strung-together flick pales when compared to such other teenage riffs on classic literature as "Clueless" and "10 Things I Hate About You."

A barrage of dangling plot strands, inconsistent characterizations, and suspense-free shootouts.

Despite being full of Oscar-winning talent, this is still just a better-dressed, drawn-out episode of "Touched by an Angel."

Li's light touch and explosive fighting skills deserve a better vehicle than this overcooked pot of New Jack suey.

Never the heart-wrenching emotional experience it seems intended to be.

It's so plot heavy it never finds its nimble comic rhythm.

Sentenced its audience to a maudlin death.

Captures the embarrassment of foreplay, but it could use a few lessons in the art of seduction

Never better than middling, despite its best intentions.

"Footloose" meets "The Full Monty" in Bootmen, a cliché-ridden tap dance drama.

Like its accordion-filled score, it's nothing but a golden moldie.

There's really nothing more to this by-the-numbers, ailment-of-the-week fodder dressed up with a classy cast.

A watery cocktail of second-rate, Ab Fab-style bitchery and shameless schmaltz.

A punishing tragedy that could best be described as the anti-"Shine."

For all its pretense of critiquing our tabloid culture, it amounts to much ado about nothing.

The only reason to sit through On the Line is for some entertaining, if fleeting, musical moments.

Oddly, Bully's only moments of power come at the film's end, after the crime takes place.

A big disappointment. It's toe-tappin' tripe aimed squarely at the undiscerning Britney Spears set.

One more attempt to pass off chopped liver as foie gras.

It's dull, two-dimensional, and totally toothless.

A mockumentary about small-town beauty pageants that's so confidently unfunny it's DOA.

This predictable romantic comedy outing has occasional flickers of ingenuity.

This one's all labor pains, and, in the end, nothing gets delivered.

This is nothing more than one more run-of-the-mill, surprise-free, suspense programmer.

Reitman has truly lost his gift for comic rhythms, cluttering up the film with running yuks that aren't that funny the first time and certainly don't improve with repetition.

By the time Rock Star reaches its cop-out, "All About Eve"-ish ending, the only thrashing that should be going on is of the filmmakers, for bungling such a promising premise.

All that this really amounts to is a lot of hot-headed, hairy men threatening each other -- whenever they're not dancing on table tops, that is.

The most obvious casualty ends up being Jennifer Jason Leigh, an actress known for her fearless choices, who is literally pissed on for her trouble.

A matted hairball of a kiddie flick that's alternately maudlin and slapstickishly violent.

Game boys and girls will be disappointed by this fast-paced but shockingly dull adaptation.

Offers nothing but tired "Red Shoe" Diaries-style sexploitation for the art-house crowd.

Relevant message aside, there's no good reason to sit through photographer Neal Slavin's directorial debut.

Ultimately, Grateful Dawg will only be of real interest to musicology students and diehard Deadheads.

It's all well-acted and eerily compelling, but the shocker ending is patently implausible.