Lisa Alspector

Hokey.

Nicely toned.

Its ponderous explanations about why there are vampires in Arizona in the new millennium (blah, blah, blah).

Because so many female characters spend so much time trying to seduce Harrelson (usually successfully), the notion that multiplicity enhances intrigue is pretty worn out by the time any duplicity is revealed.

Drew Barrymore's virtuoso performance smooths over the plot holes.

The music's great, but frequent tight shots of actors ostensibly blowing their horns look phony enough to be distracting.

This blunt comedy suffers from poor pacing, colorless dialogue, and subpar performances by the two leads that reveal just how much a director contributes to our perception of what a star is.

Sometimes come together exquisitely.

Mined for comedy and milked for drama, though what results is diminished by the very framing device contrived to punch it up.

The rest of these animated sequences...depend on gimmickry, cuteness, or facile ideology, and don't come close to demonstrating the complex relationship between sound and image found in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

Funny, moving, and insightful look at questions about identity and community.

Scary and exciting.

Poor execution sometimes points up the difference between the telling of a story and the story itself--in this case, without diminishing the power of the latter.

In a perfect marriage of player and part, Reese Witherspoon is Elle Woods.

Elmo's obsessive reaction is never examined, compromising the ability of this rambling minor spectacle to put across its obvious lesson about sharing.

Few things are more enthralling than unrequited love, as demonstrated by this drama.

The coincidences that make the destined lovers' paths cross aren't contrived with much finesse, but the characters get in some decidedly clever lines.

This terrifyingly beautiful movie blends metaphor and stark social commentary to achieve a spontaneous grace.

A graceful, understated sense of period allows the behavior of the characters in this love story to be unusually nuanced, making their experiences seem uncontrived as well as archetypal.

Though it suggests intriguing ideas about the nature of performance, humor, ambition, and the consumption of spectacle, the movie only superficially explores them.

In a lumbering way, this depressing feel-good drama about the impact of cancer on two children, their divorced parents, and the father's girlfriend offers some useful insights into how feelings of jealousy and betrayal can limit the potential of family relationships.

The script, which infantilizes one of the older siblings as much as the father does, undermines its own admonitions against parents and adult children meddling in one another's lives.

A painstakingly crafted nonrealist story, which doesn't seem to imply anything beyond what it depicts.

The new sexism -- the old sexism plus the idea that everything is ironic -- is getting old.

The characters seem both reduced and idealized, and the plot has turns a dispassionate dramatist would avoid.

Cathartically disgusting adventure movie.

Cliched narrative, which isn't funny as often as seems intended.

Tedious mockumentary.