Lou Lumenick

With Paul Newman gone, you couldn't ask for a better senior-citizen representation of Butch Cassidy than Shepard. In his best performance since "The Right Stuff'' turned him into a reluctant movie star, Shepard makes Blackthorn worth seeing.

The best end-of-August movie I've seen in years.

There are moments of brilliance, like a claymation sequence that manages to simultaneously send up '60s holiday cartoons and "Ghostbusters'' (with Frosty the Snowman instead of Marshmallow Man).

Secretariat ultimately delivers where it matters, in the home stretch.

For my money, Furious 6 is more fun than “Skyfall" and a lot more fun than the deadly dull “Star Trek Into Darkness,’’ both of which ask you to take their silly plots way too seriously.

An intermittently interesting drama.

It's what Hollywood calls a 'tweener - not quite edgy or artistic enough to satisfy the art-house crowd, but a tough sell for family audiences because of its extensive subtitles, two-hour-plus running time, and a (tastefully rendered) male rape scene.

Jacobs keeps the action moving rapidly and gets solid performances from an ensemble cast, especially the rumpled Reilly.

Worth watching primarily for Blunt, the delicious scene-stealer from "The Devil Wears Prada."

Like its monstrous hero, The Incredible Hulk gets the job done with minimal artistry and a lot of noise.

Adult World proceeds by fits and starts, but fans of Cusack won’t want to miss his performance as the petulant poet, whose resistance is inevitably worn down by his persistent fan.

Grows on you like kudzu.

Contains impeccable performances, especially by the frightening Ifans.

Fast, furious and often funny. But no blood is truly shed (except literally in a playground fight during the opening credits).

Lust, Caution could have done with a lot more lust and a lot less caution.

Deafeningly loud and proudly silly epic.

The performances by the attractive ensemble cast are uniformly solid.

One of the best films released so far this year, At Any Price signals the arrival of Iranian-American Ramin Bahrani in the ranks of major US directors.

Disappointingly, Bourne never resurfaces in this less-than-satisfying series reboot. The film is more a talky, convoluted, action-starved two-hour subplot.

A lively and poignant comedy with lots of laughs and juicy roles for a roster of seasoned performers who should be seen more often.

A Southeast Asian thriller that positively reeks of atmosphere - but is woefully lacking in narrative credibility or character development.

Alan Taylor ("Palookaville"), an American, directs with a playful touch, and Denmark's Hjejle is far more assured acting in English here than she was in "High Fidelity."

Pandaemonium plays like a bus-and-truck version of such Ken Russell's '60s classics as "The Music Lovers."

Slight but charming.

“A license to kill is also a license to not kill,” M lectures his new boss in the 24th James Bond film, Spectre. Well, it’s not a license to bore as much as this bloated drag manages to do.

Has its moments, but overall it's depressing.

Hanks is terrific giving his first flat-out comic performance in years as a wildly eccentric criminal mastermind.

IF you ask me, Shane Acker's post-apocalyp tic animated film 9 is better than the live-ac tion flick "District 9." Beyond their similar titles, these sci-fi social commentaries are both expanded from shorts under the sponsorship of a world-class director.

A devastatingly straightforward chamber piece that goes straight to the heart of what this city was feeling in the days right after Sept. 11.

Brutally funny documentary.

A bit too shaggy to totally live up to the potential of its fine cast. But there are moments of comedy gold - especially as Segel, who went full-frontal for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" endures endless humiliations as the title character.

Bryan Cranston finally translates his critical acclaim for “Breaking Bad” into an Oscar-caliber performance in darkly comic Trumbo, playing an eloquent, witty screenwriter who bucked the Hollywood blacklist and triumphed.

Light summer fun with a Flemish accent.

An extremely well- acted thriller that simply fails to thrill.

Let us now praise Anna Kendrick, who is positively great in the small-scale The Last Five Years — so utterly wonderful that this adaptation of an off-Broadway musical deserves better than a token theatrical release to support its distribution via video-on-demand.

As plodding and pretentious as it is ambitious.

The misleading trailers for the supremely goofy The Adjustment Bureau promise action-packed sci-fi. What you actually get is a love-struck Matt Damon running for the US Senate as he's stalked by fedora-wearing angels.

Following his triumphs in "The Constant Gardener" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Fiennes is superb as Todd.

The ideal date movie for the Passover-Easter season and beyond, guaranteed to keep audiences rolling in the pews.

The kind of lush, epic romantic weepie that Hollywood used to deliver on a regular basis for packed matinees at Radio City Music Hall.

The ironically titled A Perfect Day isn’t entirely successful, but Del Toro is wonderful and there are many well-judged moments, some involving a 9-year-old (Eldar Residovic) whose return to his home underlines the tragedies of this particular conflict.

The Heat, which provides enough opportunity for wholesale mayhem as well as laughs, is pretty much a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

Cameron Diaz redeems her reputation somewhat in In Her Shoes, Curtis Hanson's schmaltzy, but reasonably entertaining dramedy about mismatched sisters.

The film never adds up to the sum of its parts, effectively a two-hour trailer for a movie I’d still be interested in seeing.

Love Is All You Need is entirely predictable, and that’s OK in a film as lovingly made, well acted and enjoyable as this.

Would have benefited from a tighter focus. There are too many interviews with crazies - and Levin's failed attempt to get Jewish entertainers to discuss "The Passion of the Christ" should have ended up on the cutting room floor.

Writer-director J.S. Cardone's low-budget mishmash offers precious little in the way of thrills and chills, much less coherent storytelling.

Few of the increasingly far-fetched events that first-time writer-director Neil Burger follows up with are terribly convincing, which is a pity, considering Barry's terrific performance.

Starts out promisingly, but quickly sinks under the weight of its own plot twists, ponderous pacing and Val Kilmer's monotonous performance as a ruthless special-ops agent.

Earnest and predictable.

This is an overlong film interesting chiefly for its performances.

This rousing, fact-based Norwegian movie covers an unusual subject -- the resistance movement in that country during World War II, whose best-known depiction came in "Edge of Darkness," a 1943 Hollywood adventure movie starring Errol Flynn as a stalwart fisherman outwitting the Nazi occupiers.

Unpretentious and unexpectedly moving.

This bizarre little movie is all over the place as drama - but genuinely compelling as a one-of-a-kind piece of public self-flagellation.

Excellent performances redeem Jordan Melamed's gritty teenage version of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

May be boomer-baiting formula, but this ingratiating, big-hearted holiday treat is as British as plum pudding - and the closest thing on the market to the famous Ealing comedies.

There's a winning emotional truth in the father-son scenes in this Spokane-shot sleeper, directed with skill and sensitivity by Jonathan Segal.

The overall effect tends to be as chilly and monotonous as Shannon’s demeanor as Kuklinski — a real disappointment.

This is an exhausting, eyeball-gougingly ugly 90-minute assault of non-stop action, with an all-star voice cast shouting witless lines and a wide variety of objects lobbed at the audience in the crudest 3-D fashion.

You'd think it would be hard to make an uninteresting movie based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton... But the terminally bland Soul Surfer comes perilously close.

How the feds inadvertently resurrected the performing career of stoner comic Tommy Chong by busting him is the ironic subtext of Josh Gilbert's one-sided documentary a/k/a Tommy Chong.

Good value for the money, a funny, character-driven action comedy with three disparate stars -- who have great chemistry together.

The animation is also a hybrid: almost quaint-looking, traditionally animated characters plopped into elaborate, sometimes quite stunning computer-animated backgrounds.

Luke Wilson, who has appeared in a long run of bad movies, seizes on his juiciest role since "The Royal Tenenbaums" here.

Too much of the film is given over to the soap opera of Elmer's life.

It may have the faintest relationship to any kind of reality, but Jones' tart performance cuts through the saccharine.

There is only one joke here, milked endlessly.

Should appeal more to those who like to watch stuff blow up than understand exactly why the carnage is transpiring.

More than lives up to its clever positioning as the first movie of the new millennium.

Captures some remarkably vivid present-day performances by the aging performers.

This is one perfectly terrifying movie, an instant classic.

Highly entertaining - but far from classic.

Pacino demonstrates considerable comic chops in The Humbling — which has some interesting similarities to “Birdman.’’ It loses some momentum in its third act, but provides plenty of juicy material for a terrific cast.

An unexpectedly disarming, extremely well-cast little variation on "E.T."

Thanks to Jordan's bravura storytelling, Breakfast on Pluto is one of very few movies this year truly worth remembering.

Overly long and complicated, it's packed with crowd-pleasing moments and satisfactorily wraps up the trilogy - without quite capturing the magic of the first two installments.

Check your brains at the popcorn stand and hang on for a spectacular ride.

While there are some giggles in the film-within-the-film (also called "Road to Nowhere"), the artsy-fartsy direction and flat-as-a-pancake acting (including a cameo by Variety columnist Peter Bart as himself) invites invidious comparisons to "Mulholland Drive."

Awfully poky, even for an art film.

Well-meaning yawn-fest.

Harris can be a brilliant actor, and there are flashes of that here. But he's done in by a script that lacks any subtlety.

A powerful, decades-spanning epic about that country's fight for independence centering on three brothers.

Far more worth seeing than most of what's out there.

Well worth seeing for the incandescent Portman.

Grows ever more manipulative and predictable.

A charming if overlong romantic comedy.

Excellent performances in an entertaining if less than totally plausible story.

This masturbatory exercise is the least revealing "documentary" since Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedian."

Michael Moore makes many of the same points, with far more impact, in "Bowling for Columbine."

As in Allen's films, the extensive shooting -- mostly at locations in and around Central Park -- takes place in a whitebread world where the only person of color is Rosemary's nanny.

DiCaprio may well receive a Best Actor Oscar for his tour de force as the conflicted FBI director -- greatly abetted by Hammer (who played the Winklevoss twins in "The Social Network'') in his first major role as the flamboyant but frustrated Tolson.

Loaded with improbable cultural references (Sherman totes a Stephen Hawking lunchbox and uses words like “eponymous”), I fear Mr. Peabody and Sherman may be a bit too brainy to fully connect with contemporary movie audiences.

Has its laughs, but pretty much every single one of them is in the trailer. And even more unfortunately, the improbable new romantic comedy team of Steve Carell and Keira Knightley works about as well as you'd guess - like oil and water.

One of those painfully earnest -- and pretentious -- little indies in which a pair of emotional cripples neatly resolve all of their problems within 48 hours of meeting each other.

Starts out a lot like an expensive-looking episode of "CSI" before morphing into a solidly entertaining time-traveling romance.

The rare sequel that is better than the original.

Though Mantegna can't quite lick the essential staginess of Mamet's adaptation of his play, even with lots of scenic shots of Lake Ontario, the performances are what one would expect with such a consummate actor in charge.

A beautifully crafted, white-knuckle, roller-coaster ride of old-school filmmaking -- the kind that believes that the less you show, the better.

Elvis & Nixon is the funniest Nixon movie since 1999’s forgotten “Dick.” That comedy was a Watergate-era fantasy, but as incredible as it seems, this one is based more or less directly on fact. A photograph of the meeting is the most requested image at the National Archives.

An overstuffed menu from a master chef who's trying way too hard to please himself.

Quirkily likable comedy-drama about a family trying to coping with loss, contains three of the best performances you're likely to see in an American movie this year.

Good enough to almost overlook a so-so ending.

Features all too much footage of the scowling Burns, who has a narrower range than almost any actor working in Hollywood these days.

Michael Brandt's soporific thriller is making a token stop in theaters before its January DVD debut. Miss it if you can.

Though overlong, there are many stunning special effects, including a car chase up the side of a building, as well as the sort of wild animated subtitles that turned up in "Night Watch."

The title of the overlong Fifty Dead Men Walking refers to lives saved by Sturgess' character, who is still in hiding years later.

A calculating crowd-pleaser that sometimes feels like a movie equivalent of the corporate chains it's decrying.

Despite an empowered female protagonist, manages in its own way to be as misogynous as "In the Company of Men."

Hollywood's umpteenth tale of robots run amok is surprisingly smart, cool-looking, nicely paced and well-acted.

Playing for only one week. Parents of tweens, you've been warned.

Too much screen time is devoted to producers Lloyd and Susan Ecker, fans who serve as on-screen narrators and serve up tidbits from Tucker’s 400 scrapbooks, some of which, frankly, seem highly improbable.

On the plus side, Definitely, Maybe has an appealing cast, some amusing scenes and at least tries to do something different.

Should entertain less jaded youngsters.

It's basically left to the viewer to figure out the historical significance of this drug-fueled odyssey.

Grant hasn't had any real chemistry with a female co-star since Julia Roberts in "Notting Hill," but Barrymore works so hard at it and is so charming that you might be fooled.

More funny than scary.

Doesn't have a particularly well-defined point of view, but it is a succinct, entertaining and valuable record of a time that in some ways now seems as remote as the Roaring '20s.

An ultra-predictable if essentially painless romantic comedy.

This generic exercise in computer-generated animation may provide passable entertainment for very young children, but adults will be less than enchanted by its preachiness, talkiness and Communist Party-line political views.

For anyone with an interest in racing, "First Saturday" is a sure bet.

These are characters with whom it's a pleasure to spend a couple of hours.

A long way from his TV portrayal of John Adams, Giamatti seems to be having an especially good time as a splenetic King John, who would not be out of place in a Monty Python movie.

While recollections of the participants in the rescue are often riveting, the subject of Jonathan Gruber and Ari Daniel Pinchot's film remains elusively out of grasp.

A triumph of misguided moviemaking, starting with a grotesquely miscast Mira Sorvino, who arguably gives the worst performance ever by an Oscar winner.

It's hard to imagine hardened New Yorkers actually paying to see this totally uncritical, gee-whiz celebration of stock car racing, its fans and its history, breathlessly narrated by Kiefer Sutherland and perfunctorily directed by Simon Wincer.

To enjoy this film, it helps to check your brain at the box office.

This maudlin, fact-inspired and anti-feminist dramedy is no "Far From Heaven" or "The Hours."

There is still enough venom spilled in August: Osage County to make this drama relatable to anyone who’s suffered through a wildly dysfunctional family dinner — and who hasn’t, especially at this time of year?

A real crock.

Mostly about extending a Hollywood franchise with ever-diminishing returns.

An oddly endearing little chamber piece that provides a terrific showcase for Hoffman, surely the best actor who has never been nominated for an Oscar.

Treads water.

Vol. 2 isn't anywhere near as self-indulgent as its predecessor, but it still plays like the work of a man too in love with his creations to decide which of his darlings to kill - so he ended up with merely a very good movie.

Be warned that Wolf Totem, featuring one of the final scores by the late great James Horner, is probably too brutal for younger children and more sensitive animal lovers.

While he takes an evenhanded approach, the filmmaker appears on camera far too often and goes off point as frequently as Moore.

Goes down smoothly.

This promising premise is turned into basically an overgrown TV movie.

A serious, wrenching and oddly poetic documentary.

Alas, the complications don't arrive nearly quickly enough for the overlong and slow-paced Lucky to really cook.

A fresh, fast and funny little fable.

A preposterous mix of sentiment and brutality that casts martial-arts star Jet Li as a music-loving killing machine, turns out to be his most entertaining movie in quite some time.

As for Baron Cohen, he's a great comic but his acting can still use work - most of his funniest lines appear to have been dubbed over other actors' reaction shots in post-production.

Certainly watchable, but don’t go expecting much in the way of surprises.

A crass, heavy- handed and -- most unforgivably -- largely laugh-free adaptation of The Master's infrequently revived 1924 comic melodrama.

Tepid tale of star-crossed lovers in 1910 Wales.

Michael Berry’s Frontera offers an unsparing look at the plight of illegal immigrants, even if the ending seems too patly convenient.

Rarely has a documentary been so pleased with itself - with so little justification.

The simple, highly effective gimmick of this straightforward shocker is a malevolent clawed spectre named Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey), who only appears in the dark.

Despite a fierce lead performance by Naomi Watts, The Painted Veil is a quaintly bloodless, picture-postcard adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 China-set novel - more Merchant Ivory than David Lean.

The film isn't remotely scary. That's a shame, because it has top-notch performances by Peter Mullan and David Caruso.

That his dialogue is often deliberately anachronistic is part of the joke -- and Wilson's sly delivery is often funnier than the lines themselves.

Less a conventional biography than a performance film - one that stuns and delights.

This only mildly bloated and convoluted action comedy has enough inspired moments to wipe out memories of the abysmal 2002 first sequel as surely as one of the black-suited heroes' neutralizer.

It's hard to make a movie about moonshiners that isn't entertaining, but the lethargic, generically titled Lawless comes perilously close - at least a third of its two hours is devoted to "arty'' shots of landscapes.

The chief attraction in the overlong 20 Centimeters, besides ample soft-core sex, are the well-staged musical numbers.

Looks great, and the performances are solid, but the disparate elements in this oddity - which created a minor stir at the Sundance Film Festival last year - never entirely coalesce.

The sort of movie where all of the best jokes are in the trailer, but these days a romantic comedy with anything worth quoting at all is something of an accomplishment.

English-language remakes of foreign films are usually suspect, but Tortilla Soup is the exception that proves the rule - a flavorful comedy about a food-centric Latino family in Los Angeles.

Manages to build interest as it goes along, leading to a spectacular climactic battle with all those elephants.

This one is often more interesting than involving.

It's déjà vu all over again for Aussie actor Guy Pearce, returning to motel rooms in the American Southwest to sort out metaphysical issues in the thriller First Snow, to somewhat less original effect than he did in "Memento."

Piles on enough eye candy and action sequences to please fans, plus more humor than the three "Rings" films - even if it only occasionally achieves the trio's grandeur.

The true story behind a Coast Guard rescue depicted in Disney’s The Finest Hours is amazing enough that it didn’t require corny romantic embellishments that threaten to capsize everything.

Basically the Mike Tyson saga reduced to its B-movie essence.

Li is powerless when the film slows to a crawl to provide a little drama.

Forget the plot of Ocean's Twelve - you will by the time you leave the theater, if not sooner. This slickly entertaining sequel is all about savoring eye candy.

Basically, the whole thing can be summed up as an epic midlife crisis.

Genuinely charming, treacle-free family films are tough to find these days, so I'm happy to heartily recommend We Bought a Zoo as heartwarming holiday fare that even jaded adults can share with the kids.

Liev Schreiber's film version of "Everything Is Illuminated" achieves the impossible — it's even more annoying than Jonathan Safran Foer's gratingly precocious novel.

A good cast and disciplined direction add some distinction to Ric Roman Waugh's Felon, which is basically the old tale about an innocent man corrupted by a stay in prison.

Though the movie doesn't use real names and the press notes say it's "inspired" by the Durst case, it seems to follow many of the facts rather closely -- all the while mixing in not a little provocative speculation.

Christopher Walken is in top form as Paul Lombard, an aging romantic crooner.

Genially preposterous, with stunt players outnumbering actors by something like a 3-to-1 ratio, the action thriller Crank is surprisingly watchable.

Rappaport does a yeoman's job in this tonally confused oddity. The wonder is that Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore's Special is making it off the festival circuit and into theaters at all, however briefly.

A sitcom with enough big laughs and emotional truth to get audiences past awkward pacing and some slow spots.

As far as I’m concerned, death couldn’t arrive quickly enough for these eight stereotypically self-absorbed Los Angelenos gathered for Sunday brunch at which the hosts (Blaise Miller, Erinn Hayes) plan to announce the demise of their marriage.

Rambles a bit, but it's a real slice of New York history.

The plot contortions that very slowly unfold under Michael Radford's arthritic direction in Flawless are not much more entertaining.

A soggy cannoli of a domestic dramedy.

Pinto's lack of dramatic range (she basically has two expressions) and an awkward third act do not provide a solid foundation for Hardy's tragic ending.

Great fun for the first 20 minutes - which include Kubrickian tracking shots and music from "2001" and "A Clockwork Orange" - but seems long at 86.

Gut-bustingly funny.

Nearly stolen by the veteran Stamp's gently fatuous John.

A stylish but distressingly generic and not particularly scary American remake of a phenomenally popular Japanese supernatural thriller that spawned two sequels and a TV miniseries.

A sluggish and murky sub-Polanski-esque psychodrama.

As misconceived as it is corny and predictable.

Aside from a nifty new way to avoid surveillance in the middle of the desert, there's nothing here we haven't seen in many other movies - including "Spy Game," directed by Scott's brother Tony before 9/11.

A blackly funny provocation.

An anti-date movie if there ever was one, Teeth is a darkly engaging if uneven horror movie spoof centering on men's fear of castration.

The frequently funny The Grand Seduction is a thoroughly pleasant way to pass a couple of hours.

The pleasant but forgettable Adult Beginners strains a bit too hard for a happy ending, and tends to lay on the schmaltz and metaphors (like the swim class that gives the film its title) with a trowel.

Despite reams of maudlin narration, McKidd's powerful performance as a conflicted man makes this beautifully shot low-budget feature worth checking out.

Way too long, too convoluted and too peppered with title cards...Even so, it's hard to dislike Don Roos' "Magnolia"-inspired triptych of interconnected comic tales about lies, sex and video.

An uneven quasi-weepie.

Isn't great. But I had fun watching.

A surprisingly edgy comedy.

An above-average entry in this niche genre, wherein groups of working-class people band together against adversity.

Page and Church work so brilliantly together as a comic team that it's worth enduring the leads' utter lack of chemistry together - not to mention the fact they're both wildly miscast.

Coogan is often very funny as the libertine Raymond, whose real estate holdings made him one of the UK’s richest men at the time of his death in 2006. But tragedy simply is beyond his range at this point.

Safe in Hell doesn’t offer anything extraordinary in the way of skin or innuendo, but it’s chockablock with the kind of situations and characters that would be verboten on screen for nearly three decades commencing in mid-1934.

Well, nobody said The Grand was another "Best in Show."

There was no need to edit it in overly slick ways that often make the story line seem contrived, accompanied by gag-laden narration that frequently made me want to gag.

The Secret Life of Bees showcases Fanning, who is growing into an impressive teenage actress - even if a scene where she licks honey off an older boy's finger is, well, creeptastic.

Zellweger dusts off her Bridget Jones accent - and a constellation of annoying vocal and facial tics - for Miss Potter, an unrelentingly mediocre, TV-movieish biopic of beloved children's author Beatrix Potter.

Even if Corben hadn't photographed Gatien with lighting that makes him look like a horror-movie villain, he'd hardly come off as innocent.

This morbid and self-consciously literary adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's Pulitzer-winning novel is no crowd pleaser.

Though it tries — with a much too heavy hand — the new Evil Dead is far less humorous than its predecessor.

More than a few will agree with the penguins, who netted the film a PG rating with the utterance, "Well, this sucks."

Among the variations of gags from the original are a threesome involving Harold, Kumar and a giant bag of marijuana.

Undercut by funereal pacing and an ending that seems more than a little contrived.

Quietly persuasive and very timely documentary.

While Amen works as a history lesson, it's less effective as a thriller, since the outcome is sadly all too well-known.

An intriguing, if seriously flawed, film noir.

A lesson in the perils of trying to cram a hefty Canadian novel that spans decades into a movie running just under two hours.

On the plus side is a good cast, including Eddie Marsan and Helena Bonham Carter as Bernie's hapless parents and Stephen Rea as a sympathetic doctor.

Compelling documentary.

Toggling between the tonalities of "Donnie Darko," "Ghost World" and the collected works of David Lynch, the blackly witty Daydream Nation takes its title from a Sonic Youth album.

G.B.F., which concludes with a clumsy parody of the prom climax from “Carrie,’’ offers an admirable message of tolerance for teen audiences — too bad it’s been absurdly saddled with an R rating, even though there’s far less innuendo than in “Easy A.’’

It’s only fitfully entertaining as an all-star indie team led again by director Jon Favreau, who gets swallowed up by the same sort of overproduced overkill as “Spider Man 3.”

The most entertaining 3-D movie I've ever seen.

Director Adam Green's genuine affection for the genre helps make Hatchet a cut above average.

Based on a memoir by Nigel Slater, a British celebrity chef who makes a cameo appearance, Toast also charts the budding chef's growing interest in hunky, scantily clad guys. Be warned: Some of the regional British accents would benefit from subtitles.

A summer delight that also provides a quick cultural education.

The nearly two preceding hours often feel like three, as the patchwork script keeps introducing characters and subplots and dropping them, all while rushing characters through eye-popping environments.

A strained, ultra-predictable and headache-inducing mockumentary.

It includes more than a few clever lines, and boasts a stellar cast, including the underutilized Diane Keaton.

If I were a member of Generation X, I would be fed up with Hollywood's obsession with the idea that its men are genetically incapable of growing up.

A worthwhile choice in a crowded marketplace.

There are a few interesting moments, but basically Up at the Villa is dangerously short of sympathetic characters.

Charming and mouthwatering.

Slight but utterly charming.

The disappointing The Company You Keep consistently stretches credulity way past the breaking point in its depiction of journalism, police procedure and political activism.

Ron Shelton effectively ratchets up the tension without resorting to the stylistic flourishes of a more recent flick about dirty cops, "Narc."

A clever and stylish Dutch twist on the old good-twin/bad-twin plot.

Solidly old-fashioned entertainment.

The flaws of Flash of Genius are worth putting up with for Kinnear's committed performance.

It's Complicated is basically "Avatar" for women of a certain age, with blond highlights replacing blue skin.

A highly personal, provocative and in some ways riveting vision with an inspired performance by Jim Caviezel as Jesus.

It’s not exactly giving away anything to reveal that Stamp also sings three numbers in Unfinished Song — the last one so stirring that you should bring at least one box of Kleenex.

There’s nothing hugely original about the script by Richard Wenk (who cowrote “Expendables 2” with Sylvester Stallone), but Washington is a master at putting his own inimitable and stylish spin on even the most familiar situations.

May be the most purely entertaining foreign-language crossover since "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

The opening montage raises expectations of a serious, politically incisive depiction of the region. What we actually get is an offensively pandering, Bruckheimer-esque riff on the real-life Khobar Towers bombing of 1996, a Saudi Hezbollah attack that killed 19 Americans.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, crosses over from thriller into magic realism for a lavishly staged climax that's a bit much.

Fresh, fast and funny movie.

Has some terrific aerial sequences and exciting dogfights. But the clichés in the script by Zdenek Sverak (the director's father) keep the film firmly grounded when the action's not aloft.

A laugh-filled comedy that might be described as "The Full Monty" meets the Three Stooges.

It's the chemistry between the Arquettes (they met on the first film and married after the second) and their rapport with Campbell that sustains Scream 3 through its overly convoluted plot.

The movie includes a recurring motif of immigrant taxi drivers - like them, the movie is constantly going around in circles.

Rarely have filmmakers had a more wildly improbable happy ending forced on them. Well, you need all the help you can get, divine or otherwise, when your two stars - Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon - have no chemistry whatsoever.

Deschanel manages to make Winter Passing almost matter. That's real talent.

I'd guess Turtle: The Incredible Journey will appeal most to kids, though they will have to wrestle with 3-D glasses.

A treat for aficionados of oddball movies.

Tends to run low on steam well before the end, though Waters gamely tries to pump things up with filthy novelty tunes and clips from old stag films.

A satisfying, big-hearted celebration of diversity that will brighten holiday moviegoing.

There have been many untraditional film adaptations of Shakespeare's, but few have been as unorthodox as this one.

Jude Law gives arguably the worst performance of his career as Wolfe in Genius, the ham-fisted directing debut of noted British theater figure Michael Grandage, bombastically adapted by John Logan (“Gladiator’’) from a biography by A. Scott Berg.

The beautifully crafted Adam offers no pat or easy answers.

Though this is the rare documentary that admirably admits recording "reality" on film actually shapes how people behave under the camera's gaze, I think Eleven Minutes is going to appeal mostly to hard-core fashionistas.

Very sentimental.

An atmospheric but sluggish and needlessly confusing British contemporary film noir that may indeed leave some audience members struggling to stay awake.

A shameless heart-tugger from France, The Chorus leaves no cliché unturned.

An above-average and sometimes surprising kid movie.

The star is Luke Benward, a dead ringer for the young Kurt Russell.

Far from a touchdown, but you gotta give points to any movie where a character describes its climactic game as a "muddy snoozefest."

“Risky Business” it’s not, and Delevingne is no Rebecca De Mornay.

A flawed labor of love that's definitely worth a look.

All the tedium of an endless trans-Atlantic flight gets packed into the 105 minutes of Non-Stop.

Basically a PG-13 version of “After Hours,” with more than a bit of “The Out-of-Towners” thrown in.

The kind of unsophisticated family entertainment they supposedly don't make anymore.

The way-too-neat ending of The Brave One especially strains credulity, but it's worth watching for Foster's fiercely arresting performance.

Director McLean doesn't let up on the suspense, which builds to an electrifying climax that is greatly abetted by Will Gibson's gritty cinematography and Francois Tetaz' nerves-inducing score.

Unknown actually has enough of a sense of humor to admit what it is: hybrid corn. But it's been crossbred from Hitchcockian stock.

Newcomer Joey King is funny and adorable as daydreaming 9-year-old Ramona Quimby.

Though Binoche does very solid work, she can't sell the idea of her and Law as a couple; the chemistry isn't there. Not much else rings true in Minghella's screenplay, which is full of coincidences and speeches about race and class.

Lee's incendiary and brilliant new film.

In-depth performances by De Niro and Gooding Jr. provide the oxygen for this extremely shipshape biopic.

A tabloidy, nail-biting thriller.

An Italian romantic comedy that's irresistibly set in Mole Antonelliana, the cavernous Museum of Cinema in Turin.

Phoebe in Wonderland happens to be at least partly a Lifetime movie, but this special little film is no disease-of-the-week tear-jerker.

Beautifully shot by Michael J. Ozier, the dominating taste in Bottle Shock is Rickman's beautiful performance as a snob - a snob who is secretly open to being delightfully surprised.

Tasteful and gorgeously photographed coming-of-age story.

While there are plenty of laughs, Hunt doesn't play this for farce. Even Midler gives perhaps the most restrained, and arguably the most winning, performance of her screen career.

Patel has his most rewarding role since “Slumdog.’’

It's suprisingly flat.

May have a storyline as generic as its title, but in the explosive Pacino and the smoldering Farrell (who nearly stole "Minority Report" from Tom Cruise), it has a pair of stars who are not as easily dismissed.

An expensive demonstration that all the spectacular effects in the world aren't enough to make a great film - but it's worth seeing for that stunning half-hour alone.

A leaden retelling of the legend of Australia's Jesse James that has understandably been sitting on the shelf for a couple of years.

Mostly it’s up to Lawrence to wring all the drama and pathos she can out of a battle over patent rights that pushes Joy to the brink of bankruptcy. No surprise that her mettle cleans up all the messiness in Joy.

For starters, it wasn't a great idea to basically borrow the premise of "The Blues Brothers'' and turn these quintessential Jewish characters (something that's not even hinted at) into the bumbling would-be saviors of the Catholic orphanage where they were raised.

Dreamworks Animation's clunky and wildly unimaginative Monsters vs. Aliens really doesn't have a clue what to do with the [3-D] technique.

Picks up steam when it finally arrives in Cannes just in time to wreak yet more havoc at the big film festival, but getting there is pretty tedious. A little of the wildly mugging Atkinson goes a long way.

An often compelling, tragicomic psychological analysis of Dubya, viewed through the prism of his relationship with an allegedly disapproving father.