Lisa Alspector

The plot keeps switching tracks.

This realist fairy tale of impossible love has a fair amount of nuance and charm.

Not even supercool Robert De Niro can enliven this boring tale about a team of mercenary operatives.

Fast-paced editing doesn't compensate for unconvincing dialogue.

It's hard to be diverted by a tale whose emblematic romances and terminal cuteness serve an agenda that seems particularly dated today.

This terrible live-action comedy based on Jay Ward cartoons has its moments and its near misses.

This early-1900s costume drama surely differs from Henry James's source novel.

This grasping comedy targets kids of all ages but will please no one as it exploits exhausted ideas about adolescence.

Realist fairy tale.

All the comedy, tragedy, and various obstacles to romance seem to have been contrived to divert the story from its tendency toward pulp erotica.

Told from too many perspectives, the narrative puts suspense above substance, and its social consciousness seems contrived.

This culinary fantasy is mildly inspired.

Writer Philip Stark ("That '70s Show") and director Danny Leiner ("Freaks and Geeks") apply mature comic instincts to an adolescent genre.

The tone -- a combination of earnestness and gallows humor -- is strangely appropriate.

This engrossing animated thriller (2000) somehow displays realist gore, nudity, and sexual violence in a tone not too far from that of a children’s adventure; its innocence stems in part from the convincing naivete of the heroine.

Though the questionable motives and bad planning of offscreen characters who far outrank Gibson make it difficult to take at face value one soldier's last words -- "I'm glad I could die for my country" -- some viewers will, which may be as the filmmakers intended.

The unusually thoughtful dialogue and soul-searching performances make this romantic drama seem deeper than it is.

The best short on this program of five is Bradley Rust Gray's 18-minute "Hitch."

In this inept thriller...the script is a coloring book, and the director's careful to stay within the lines.

The lush, emotional scenes are enhanced by the sound track.

The wavering style and tone fragment the movie, undermining both characters' development, though each retains her power as a symbol.

The earnestness of some of the drama in the only deceptively unsophisticated narrative may be more shocking than any of the gross-outs.

Dizdar inventively examines bigotry, combining daring humor and hyperbole, dark realism and shining idealism.

Deftly realist character study.

It's scary and hilarious, with a magical, nonrealist tone, and it emphasizes physical comedy as much as disturbing, beautifully integrated metaphors.

A movie whose story may be even more innovative than the superreal solidity of the animated characters.

Though it isn't so much funny as clever, the parody will hopefully discourage some aspiring teen-movie makers from doing the same old thing.

Grossly unimaginative.