Lou Lumenick

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.

In effect gives you two movies for the price of one. The better one doesn't star Sandra Bullock.

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.

A campy, brightly colored musical comedy.

Your heart will have you cheering Gordy on -- even as your brain complains that there are plot holes you could drive a truck bomb through.

Filmed largely in black and white, The Cool School includes interviews with one of the gallery's founders, Ed Kienholz, as well as with Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell and architect Frank Gehry.

A testosterone- and cliché-fueled epic that will have some hoping for sudden death as it stumbles toward the three-hour mark.

Screenwriter Steve Kloves still seems overly dedicated to cramming in every detail of J.K. Rowling's novel - while tacking on a schmaltzy Hollywood ending.

Slight but charming.

In the course of How About You, much champagne is consumed, pot is smoked, and a good time is had by all, the audience included. Redgrave even sings the title song.

It's not exactly going to be on PETA's 10-best list.

There is fun to be had at Van Helsing, but it requires considerable suspension of disbelief at the apparently deliberately ridiculous plot necessary to bring the three monsters together.

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

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.

Formulaic but entertaining, My Best Friend climaxes with a lengthy, surprisingly heartfelt sequence set on the French version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire."

Where Anonymous has it all over "Shakespeare in Love'' is its detailed evocation of London from four centuries ago. The rowdy audience for Shakespeare's first works at the Globe Theatre is especially colorful.

This romantic dramedy tries to cram enough plot twists for a season’s worth of TV episodes into an hour and a half, but is still worthwhile for its fine performances, including the best work that Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Connelly have done in quite a while.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia has it all - unfortunately. With four major story lines and more endings than "The Return of the King," this ambitious 165-minute epic is the movie equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

A lavish biopic that gives Li one of his juiciest roles but is relatively light on the action his fans have come to expect.

The Good Dinosaur is no instant classic like its sublime predecessor “Inside Out,” but is modestly pleasing in its own way.

Has a certain dark charm if you can put up with very jittery camera work and editing.

Ken Marino of "Dawson's Creek," who wrote the somewhat autobiographical script, plays one of Rudd's pals.

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?

Big Game is goofy fun, whether Jackson is rolling down a hill in a freezer, the kid is trying to stop a bazooka with an arrow, or we’re witnessing other stunts that are just too preposterous to describe.

Stengarde gives an arresting performance as a mentally unstable woman.

Although director Lee Daniels dials things down a bit here, subtlety is not what he does. That strategy worked for “Precious’’ but turned his more recent “The Paperboy’’ into a feature-length howler.

Basically it's an acting exercise - a one-set rendition of that old stage and movie standby, the ex-convict struggling to go straight who's tempted to attempt one last score.

Cam (based on the director’s real-life father) is so charming and gifted in various ways that it’s easy to enjoy this fanciful look at a bohemian mixed-race family.

Despite pitch-perfect performances, the craft of Moretti's direction and his honorable intentions, The Son's Room was not especially moving.

Roughly a more broadly comic French version of John Favreau’s “Chef,’’ this film stars veteran Jean Reno as a longtime celebrity chef who may lose control of his Paris restaurant because the young new CEO thinks he’s old toque.

It remains for a tougher documentary to more forcefully trace exactly who benefits from this shameful practice -- multinational corporations and consumers who don't ask enough questions.

A major disappointment, The Cider House Rules pales by comparison with the gutsier, more full-bodied adaptation of Irving's "The World According to Garp."

Seems afraid to cut loose in the manner of Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson, so this labor of love suffers from an overly earnest and morose tone. Which, given the cast in Thirteen Conversations, is a real shame.

Kline's divine -- alas, the film isn't.

Adoration, which hinges on a number of coincidences, contains some really fine performances.

Ultimately has a somewhat unfinished quality that complements the movie's themes -- and Hall's haunting performance.

The Road to Guantanamo is a missed opportunity. This is a subject that deserves a more thoughtful documentary or docudrama, not a hastily thrown together amalgam of the two.

Truth also ignores Rather’s famous showboating, pettiness and hubris. He’s worked in lower-profile gigs since, but trust me, there’s a good reason why no news organization will touch Mapes with a 10-foot pole.

There's an air of extreme predictability and inevitability in the script - which takes liberties like moving the climactic debate from the University of Southern California to the grander precincts of Harvard.

More funny than scary.

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.

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

An above-average and sometimes surprising kid movie.

A bizarre and campily amusing "tribute" to the late dance legend starring drag queen Richard Move.

The Sons of Tennessee Williams, which offers touching interviews with many older gay men, somewhat awkwardly connects this history with the efforts of a gay Mardi Gras crew to keep going in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

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

Given the rarity of such movies, and such opportunities for an actress like Clarkson, Cairo Time earns some indulgence for a pace that Westerners may find languid.

While Fienberg's direction is no great shakes, the film showcases its veteran cast.

A satisfying Irish stew made from very familiar ingredients.

Generally rises above the easy clichés you find in most such movies.

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.

A ragged piece of filmmaking, but the odds are you'll have as good a time watching it as Nicholson and Sandler seemed to have making it.

Anyone expecting a hard-hitting biography will be disappointed by Julian Schnabel's soft-edged, dreamy and relatively nonpolitical film.

Disney's disappointing Atlantis, sadly, is a lot like much of the studio's recent animated output: eye-popping visuals and great vocal characterizations sunk by a dead-in-the-water script.

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

The Nut Job has an interesting anti-socialist subtext, with the seemingly benevolent raccoon revealing himself as a power-mad dictator. It’s the most political non-Pixar cartoon feature since the very left-leaning “The Ant Bully’’ eight years ago.

If you go with the flow, there's seductive imagery and a terrific performance by John Malkovich as a decadent baron.

Writer-director Keith Bearden was also smart enough to round up a couple of other old pros: Brian Dennehy, as the hero's eccentric grandfather, and Keith David, as a wise collector of pop-culture artifacts.

Chop Suey is, in the end, as much a tease as Weber's photographs -- not much substance, but rather sweet and with style to burn.

Spanning two decades in a little under two hours, Higher Ground is a well-acted if slow-moving drama that will reward adventurous audiences with fine performances and a thoughtful approach.

A better than adequate date movie.

Hurt, who starred in Kwietniowski's earlier study in compulsion, "Life and Death on Long Island," is oily perfection as the devious Victor.

Lawrence’s script for The Rewrite could have used one, and his direction is uneven, but it’s still rewarding watching Grant dispensing his dithery charm surrounded by old pros.

Basically a two-hour argument for regime change that isn't half as incendiary or persuasive as its maker would have you believe.

Mock didn't find room for any of the many critics who accuse Kushner of being an anti-Zionist - and the film unfortunately ends in 2004, just before its subject began working on his controversial script for Steven Spielberg's "Munich."

Somewhat refreshingly aspiring to be nothing more than a disposable summer popcorn movie, this is a flick that delivers more smiles than laughs and has some wonderful special effects.

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.’’

More fun and somewhat more coherent than its Sylvester Stallone-directed predecessor, The Expendables 2 serves up a planeload of thickly sliced, well-aged beef and ham amid lots of stuff getting blown up.

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.

Though Water Lilies endlessly teases the audience with its sapphic subtext and young female flesh, Sciamma seems most interested in showing how extremely cruel adolescent girls can be to each other.

Grows on you like kudzu.

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

This absorbing documentary, which has already been shown on cable, is getting a theatrical run to capitalize on the Broadway musical "Taboo."

I have to confess that this surreal departure by the iconoclastic filmmaker tried my patience more than a bit.

Uncommonly well-acted and beautifully shot on location in southern India, but it's not exactly riveting.

Well-acted and nicely photographed, and has good action sequences, even if the screenplay (by M'Bala, Jean-Marie Adiaffi and Bertin Akaffou) is simplistic and there are slow stretches.

Much of Finding Amanda doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, but at its best the still-boyish Broderick suggests his most famous character, Ferris Bueller, going through a midlife crisis.

The film’s cool-looking desaturated look (not unlike “The Road”), plentiful action and Washington’s charismatic gravitas as the taciturn hero make it relatively easy to overlook the pretensions and implausibilities in the script.

It’s the wonderful performances by Bening and Harris that make this flawed, somewhat maudlin film worth seeing.

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

Not an easy movie to watch, and it's far from perfect - but it does have an artsy integrity and a fascinatingly intense performance by Paul Giamatti.

The Other Woman isn't a perfect film, but it makes better use of her (Portman) talents than her other current movie, "No Strings Attached."

There is much more suspense in this sequence than a similar scene in last week's "The Sum of All Fears" -- which wasn't intended to be funny.

Heck, it's great to have the big guy back.

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.

No one's going to confuse The Core with art -- or even a good film -- but it's 25 minutes longer than "The Hours" and I had at least 25 times as much fun.

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

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

But at the risk of sounding ungrateful, Sydney Pollack's latest film should have been a lot better.

Frequently hilarious, if overlong.

I loved both "Walk the Line" and "Ray," but it will be hard to watch either one with a straight face again after the skewering they get in this Judd Apatow production, which quotes scene after scene to hilarious effect.

Imagine the French lesbian romance “Blue Is the Warmest Color’’ as a raunchy American exploitation flick with loads of fake gore. That’s a rough idea of the latest from Lloyd Kaufman, the exuberant shockmeister whose Troma Team is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

A cut above what you'd expect from the spinoff of a sequel.

This movie is never more than a one-liner away from sitcom, yet it goes down like ice cream.

Often less really is more, and that’s why I can recommend Planes, a charmingly modest low-budget spin-off from Pixar’s “Cars’’ that provides more thrills and laughs for young children and their parents than many of its more elaborate brethren.

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

Less Spartan than some films shot under the Dogma "vow of chastity" (there's actually a little music), but it's raw enough to complement the very real emotions on display.

Perhaps the most sobering statistic in The 11th Hour: Some 50,000 species a year are disappearing. Someday, it might be humans.

Max's even more fabled shoe phone also makes an appearance - and, fortunately for Get Smart, the self-deprecating Carell isn't shoe-phoning in his inspired performance.

Weitz keeps the schmaltz in check, but it's clear pretty much from the outset that this immigrant family is fated never to find A Better Life north of the border.

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.

As an actress, Lopez is a bit stiff, as she has been in all of her movies save "Out of Sight." It really doesn't matter much here, given the sparks between her and Fiennes and the fact that the role is pretty much form-fitted to her public persona.

Mirren maintains her class throughout Love Ranch. She may deserve another Oscar just for keeping a straight face while reciting a ridiculous speech about the Donner Pass tragedy on her way to a tryst with her character's lover.

An uneven quasi-weepie.

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."

A tad too long, and takes its sweet time to get to the point. But its twisted heart is in the right place.

While there are laughs, the farcical elements of The Oranges are not presented with sufficient discipline to live up to the full potential of its cast. But as a seven-year veteran of the New Jersey suburban experience, I can testify that it nails the milieu's specifics.

Entertaining but terminally dopey.

Alternately fascinating and frustrating.

Eschews the heavy sexual content (and most of the clichés) of so many gay films -- it also has a lot of heart.

Overall, though, this new Peter Pan does really soar.

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.

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

A micro-budget black-and-white musical set in outer space, The American Astronaut is obviously not for all tastes -- but it's quite unlike anything else out there at the moment.

Zippily written and directed by the team of Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech, Hoodwinked just wants the audience to have fun - something that's been in sparse supply in theaters of late.

One of the more interesting low-budget experiments Steven Soderbergh has indulged in between flashy Hollywood entertainments.

A well-written and in many ways pleasing update of a character who has endured in print for 78 years. Too bad it's sadly slow-paced.

Starts to get a bit preachy as it works its way toward a climax heavily influenced by "Rushmore," but it's still well above average for this type of film.

Klown turns out to be one long, brutal life lesson for Hvam's hapless character until it finally crosses the line into just plain creepy at the end.

Seems more like a merchandising ploy than a successful attempt to entertain kids and their parents.

Fairly entertaining, if hardly surprising, results.

Aaliyah rules as the undead Queen of the Damned, even if she has scarcely half an hour of screen time in this campy Anne Rice vampire tale.

Shamelessly derivative, contrived and predictable, The Proposal is nonetheless a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy.

Thanks to Hudson and the other women, it's a moderately beguiling date movie.

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

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

At heart a rather chilly and clinical portrait of four very selfish people.

CSA would have benefited from a bigger budget and better actors and it gets weaker as it goes along, but it's still thought-provoking stuff.

Fun but somewhat exhausting.

So full of solid performances and appealing characters that I wished writer/director/producer Preston Whitmore (“The Walking Dead") had considered the dictum “less is more."

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

Never-quite-believable crime drama.

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.

It would be possible to appreciate Shannon's fabulous work in Take Shelter far better if the filmmaker lost a quarter of the two-hour running time -- there are many overlong scenes that make this a needlessly tough sit.

May not be vintage stuff, but it goes down fairly smoothly.

The heavily symbolic The Dying Gaul doubtless worked better as a play, but the film is worth seeing for its peerless cast.

Though there are moderately interesting interviews interspersed throughout, Deadheads will want to see the numbers, in which Grisman's more formal style complements Garcia's looser approach to his music.

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

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

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

A lavishly mounted blockbuster that has little personality of its own except on a purely visual level.

In the skilled hands of Cusack - who recites quite a bit of Poe's poetry - and director John McTeigue ("V for Vendetta''), it's good pulpy fun.

Documents the Nixon administration's failed, almost comically inept attempt to deport the most political of The Beatles and his wife, Yoko Ono. Given the latter's cooperation with the filmmakers, it comes as no surprise the Lennons come off as saints.

Though it preserves the terrific lead performance of Richard Griffiths - best known to film audiences as Harry Potter's evil stepfather - The History Boys is essentially filmed theater, with minimal, and usually clumsy, attempts to take the action out of the classroom.

Director Roland Suso Richter maintains tension for 2 1/2 hours, even though the resolution is almost surreal.

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.

Though dated and unsophisticated compared to the much cooler Bourne spy thrillers, M:i:III will probably hit the sweet spot at the box-office - and give Cruise a whole new reason to start jumping on couches.

Petty larceny - but Allen's fans won't want to miss this lowbrow caper.

A rare film that depicts a skinny male in a relationship with a plus-size woman. And, small wonder, Brittain's sweet charisma makes her the most lovable big woman on screen since Lynn Redgrave in "Georgy Girl."

Often charming and funny, though sometimes quite gross.

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.

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

Twohy serves up a hard-to-swallow second-act twist and an unconvincing back story, but the slightly overlong A Perfect Getaway recovers with a pulse-pounding climax.

Far from perfect, but it holds your interest as a character study because of strong performances by Daniels and Stone.

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.

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

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

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.

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

A refreshingly unpretentious little thriller.

A reasonably entertaining cartoon feature.

It goes down as smoothly as a milkshake thanks to an impressive cast.

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.

Slight but consistently entertaining.

The best scene centers on neither Latifah nor Martin. Rather, it's the venerable Plowright delivering an a capella rendition of the slave spiritual "Is Massa Gonna Sell Me Tomorrow?"

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.

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.

While the Kassen brothers do an impressive job for newcomers -- the film looks great and performances are uniformly solid -- there's some overly blunt dialogue and dead-end subplots that would have been pruned by more experienced filmmakers.

A slickly entertaining war movie that's sometimes striking, sometimes silly -- but never, ever boring.

Strange and quirky.

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

Actually more entertaining than its 1994 predecessor.

The “Transformers” hottie undergoes her very own transformation here, thanks to satanic possession.

A family-friendly, Hallmark Channel-ready musical dramatic fable whose plot more closely resembles Spike Lee’s “Red Hook Summer.’’

Frey's harrowing depiction of this milieu transcends the indifferent acting and contrived plot.

Atmospheric and moves briskly, but it's basically TV writ large.

You know a low-budget indie has problems when it's less emotionally honest than a studio-backed project like "(500) Days."

I don't think we're expected to take After.Life any more seriously than Ricci's last extended (near) nude role in the immortal "Black Snake Moan." That one was more fun.

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

The film at least achieves the level of mediocrity thanks to the professionalism of two slightly younger participants — Kline and Mary Steenburgen, who also have Oscars on their mantels but go well beyond phoning it in here.

A fussy piece of schmaltz that makes you long for "Stand By Me," a vastly superior coming-of-age tale from King's pen.

There are a few decent jolts in Disturbia, but overall this ultra-predictable thriller doesn't live up to the hype.

Out of the Furnace is much longer on style and belligerence than actual substance.

Seriously lost in the woods. This aimless epic about a pair of charlatan brothers sinks under the weight of a problematic script, questionable star casting, hamfisted editing -- and penny-pinching by Gilliam’s latest patrons, the Brothers Weinstein.

A glacially paced, emotionally frosty epic (with a top-drawer cast).

Becomes almost laughably melodramatic and wields just about every rock-movie cliché in the book.

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.

Infuriating grab-bag of a movie.

It isn't the laugh riot of the year.

Slight and unremarkable.

A glossy, empty and ultimately unsatisfying — if undeniably entertaining — movie.

The once-funny Robin Williams is still stuck in his excruciating touchy-feely mode.

Disappointingly skin-deep and almost shockingly wholesome, Mary Harron's The Notorious Bettie Page lives up to neither its title nor its advertising slogan, "the pin-up sensation that shocked the nation."

McKellen, Csokas, Bonneville and particularly Richardson are so good and convincing in their characterizations that you can almost overlook the increasingly unbelievable twists that Asylum takes. Almost.

It's a reasonably funny religious satire that takes potshots at easy targets but is quite watchable due to the participation of two Oscar winners and two Oscar nominees.

District B13 looks great, but don't let those subtitles fool you. At heart, it's every bit as proudly dumb as its American counterparts.

Was Alma a masochist? Repressed? Neurotic? A pre-feminist? Don't look for insight here.

Amusing without being particularly biting.

To put it as positively as possible, there's never a dull moment in this flick - and that's not something you can take for granted at this time of the year. At the same time, though, there's rarely a believable moment in the script.

Sometimes painfully sincere male weepie.

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

Sporadically entertaining, occasionally quite funny.

James Van Der Beek plays the same suspect over a 50-year period, sporting some of the worst old-age makeup in memory in the present-day sequences.

Writer-director Patrick Hasson whips up a surprising amount of fun.

You can't get much more perverse than asking Julia Roberts to wear fright wigs, do her own frumpy makeup and costumes -- and then shoot her scenes in eyeball-gougingly ugly digital video.

Johansson never looked more beautiful, nor gave a lamer performance, than in A Good Woman.

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

At 52, Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) still looks a treat and, more important, effortlessly wields her double entendres like a Romanian Mae West.

Shot on ugly digital video with Troma-grade special effects, campy humor and frighteningly bad acting, Zombie Strippers should provide many laughs for stoners watching it on video.

By far the best scenes are shared by Sneider and his struggling but devoted mother, played by the seldom-seen Amanda Plummer.

Overall it's got two left feet - and charm is in dangerously short supply.

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

Has its moments, but overall the effect is uneven.

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

Pretty dry stuff that verges on an infomercial, despite cameo appearances by Sarah Jessica Parker and Mizrahi himself.

Filmmakers Sam Green and Bill Siegel tend to shy from tough questions, allowing their subjects to wax nostalgic about bomb-throwing as yet another youthful folly of the '70s. That's tougher to swallow than some boomers' claims they didn't inhale.

A cheerfully dopey snobs vs. slobs teen comedy.

Roth goes to town with this juicy part, and seems to enjoy herself immensely in this merry farce, which runs out of gas toward the end due to an over-complicated plot.

Dangerously low on laughs and sex, not to mention believability.

No surprises here, though the stars make it surprisingly watchable.

Starts promisingly, but Jonas Pate directs his fine cast straight into a swamp of schmaltz as every loose thread of plot gets patly resolved.

Deserves high marks for political courage but barely gets by on its artistic merits.

Anyone who regularly watches caper flicks will likely quickly figure out what's wrong with this picture, though the twist ending is likely to be a surprise for the less jaded.

A calculating crowd-pleaser aimed squarely at the under-25 crowd, who can feel free to add a star or two to my rating.

I found this more elaborate, play-it-safe sequel far less fresh or funny.

Interestingly for an Israeli movie, the bombers are not Palestinians -- they're young, ultra-Orthodox fanatics.

Overlong and heavy-handed.

A glitzy and shallow satire about shallow people.

Ranks somewhere between the barely watchable "The Back-Up Plan" and the good but wildly overrated "The Kids Are All Right."

A disappointingly superficial treatment of a fascinating historical incident.

I might be able to get past that if Hathaway and Sturgess had any chemistry. There are no sparks whatsoever, and that's always a deal-breaker for me in romantic films.

Pigs fly and perform a Busby Berkeley-style water ballet. Maggie Gyllenhaal sports a posh British accent. Everybody steps in dung repeatedly. These are the high points of Nanny McPhee Returns.

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.

A disappointing erotic thriller from director Jane Campion that amounts to an implausible update on "Looking for Mr. Goodbar."

The erstwhile crack dealer born Curtis Jackson may be a prot‚g‚ of Eminem, but this shapeless and derivative gangsta saga is no "8 Mile."

Entertaining, if maddeningly superficial.

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.

Those looking for another "Showgirls" will be disappointed - writer-director Steve Antin avoids the seamy side of the business, and the same-sex flirtation is mostly between guys.

A lighter hand would have enhanced some very good performances.

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

There are lots of special effects, but sadly, no real magic.

Not even a compelling performance by Al Pacino as Shylock can make The Merchant of Venice work in its first major big-screen adaptation.

Unfortunately, this ultra-glossy romantic drama derived from a best seller twists into very dark territory — a drastic tonal shift that neither its stars nor debuting director, Thea Sharrock, a respected stage veteran, manage with dramatic credibility.

There are nice cameos by Joan Chen and Kyle MacLachlan as Li's mother and lawyer, respectively.

Like the recent "Sex and the City" movie, this spinoff not so subtly tries to have its cake and eat it by ALSO suggesting that a woman is nothing without a man.

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

Surprisingly watchable because of its cast - especially Jack Klugman, who steals every scene he's in as Dad's paranoid survivor father. All he has to do to stand out is underact.

A ho-hum male weepie/road comedy that's worth watching mostly because of a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of England's greatest working-class actors.

About as edgy as a cup of Ovaltine, A Walk to Remember is an old-fashioned teen romance so sweet and free of irony that criticizing it feels like taking a baseball bat to a sack full of newborn kittens.

Despite excellent performances by Kevin Costner, Octavia Spencer and other cast members, Mike Binder’s racially tinged custody battle drama Black or White never achieves much in the way of dramatic credibility.

Rambling, mildly engaging micro-budgeted indie.

Seven Days in Utopia obviously isn't targeted at us cynical New Yorkers. But it goes down more smoothly than you'd imagine thanks to Duvall and an excellent supporting cast.

Suddenly topical because of parallels to the kidnapping and death of Daniel Pearl.

A mildly raunchy comedy that might be more accurately titled "Love: Canadian Style."

The fresh-faced Noonan tries very hard to rise above the material, but it defeats her and her fellow cast members.

Despite some remarkable unembedded footage, Andrew Berends' is yet another disappointingly superficial, unfocused and one-sided documentary on the conflict in Iraq.

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

A shallow, stilted romantic thriller.

It's basically a Middle Eastern version of "The Princess Bride" with an assisted-suicide subplot.

Beautifully shot but a soulless cash machine, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 delivers no dramatic payoff, no resolution and not much fun. Hopefully we'll get that in the final installment next summer.

Rather morbid.

A thoroughly mediocre dramedy.

Chicago 10 has interesting moments, but basically it's a teaser for Steven Spielberg's upcoming feature on the trial.

Its message is sugarcoated in a schmaltzy, clichéd story line about Smith's conflicts with streetwise black minister (Jeff Obafemi Carr) - and sabotaged by hackneyed dialogue, sluggish pacing and a listless performance by Smith, who only springs to life when he's singing.

Works its way to an improbably cheerful ending, but getting there is a slow trip.

Don't you hate movies where one character is so much smarter than everyone else? That's only one problem with Spy Game, a glossy, suffocatingly predictable star vehicle for Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

Ultra-glossy weepie turns out to be something of a guilty pleasure.

Hot Summer Days makes a lukewarm case for global warming. It's a better argument that the production of mindless fluff is not just limited to Hollywood.

Has its moments of interest, including two excruciating vocals by Arquette and Caan -- and a George Clinton score that contains a theme eerily similar to that of "American Beauty."