Lou Lumenick

The Manzanar Fishing Club has enough interesting footage for perhaps a 15-minute segment of a TV news magazine. Beyond that, my eyes started to glaze over with endless talk about rods, reels and bait.

It's a sharply written, unforgettably directed character study with brilliant performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams - far more intimate but no less intense than director Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar-winning last film, "There Will Be Blood.''

A tough, well-acted little indie.

Good acting and some very good scenes don't quite add up to a good film.

The acting, script and direction - not to mention the syrupy score - conspire to make this a perfect storm of a hoot that will find its most appreciative audience among renters who have had a few glasses of wine beforehand.

Unremarkable and none-too-scary horror movie.

Side by Side is an eye-opening, comprehensive look at the biggest technological revolution in Hollywood history. One huge irony is that digital formats are evolving so rapidly that the only foolproof way to archive and preserve a movie shot on video for future generations is . . . to transfer it to film.

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.

Wavers between extreme silliness and unbearable earnestness.

Burt Reynolds and Sally Field they're not, but you could do worse for mindless late-summer entertainment than Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell in Hit & Run.

The feature directorial debut of Jake Schreier, has a smart script by C.D. Ford and an impressive supporting cast.

ParaNorman is probably the year's most visually dazzling movie so far, and the stunning climax centering on an 11-year-old witch (Jodelle Ferland) is too good to spoil.

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.

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

Hope Springs could have been unbearably schmaltzy or crude. Instead, in the hands of these expert actors and filmmakers, it's a warm and wryly affecting mid-summer treat.

I'd call Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days harmless if it weren't for some totally unnecessary gay-panic jokes that could actually encourage bullying.

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

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.

If Ruby were more of a person than a character, we might care more for her plight. But like Calvin, Kazan has written herself into a corner that can only lead to embracing the sappy romantic clichés that Ruby Sparks tries half-heartedly to mock.

The Siegels make the Kardashians and Donald Trump look like tasteful pikers when it comes to egregiously conspicuous consumption, sheer hubris and utter refusal to take responsibility for their actions.

Christopher Nolan's dramatically and emotionally satisfying wrap-up to the Dark Knight trilogy adroitly avoids clichés and gleefully subverts your expectations at every turn.

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.

The best evidence of this troubled man's genius is provided by ample samples of his music, much of which will be familiar to fans of Warner Bros. cartoons from the '30s and '40s.

Gets sillier and sillier as it goes along.

Even in an underwritten role, the delightful Madsen shines in her best performance since her comeback role in "Sideways."

Sometimes dull and mostly uninspired, it's much less a satisfying reboot like "Batman Begins'' than a pointless rehash in the mode of "Superman Returns.''

The best reason to wade into this (let's be honest) challenging but hugely rewarding film is Quvenzhané Wallis.

Provides a fascinating tour of the city's past.

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.

A sluggish and murky sub-Polanski-esque psychodrama.

This extremely well-acted dramatic farce of grief and betrayal actually has a resonance beyond its target demographic.

Shankman's staging of the numbers - especially the leaden choreography and hackneyed locations such as the Hollywood sign - was far sloppier and less creative than for his last musical, the vastly superior "Hairspray."

A crowd-pleasing comedy that isn't going to win any awards for originality.

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.

Williams, who was elected president of ASCAP in 2009, speaks frankly and eloquently about his problems dealing with fame, and his recovery. And more important, he earns our thanks by resolutely refusing to let Kessler turn this into a clichéd documentary.

The sometimes painfully sincere and slow-moving For Greater Glory clearly aspires to be inspirational, but history won't cooperate. The Cristeros triumphed not because of their faith, but because the United States exerted diplomatic pressure to protect its oil interests in Mexico.

Slight and unremarkable.

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.

Disarmingly sweet.

Through it all, Clayman struggles to keep himself, and OC87, on track - and it's easy to cheer his ultimate triumph.

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.

His late father directed "Rambo: First Blood,'' but Panos Cosmatos' debut feature couldn't be more different - this would-be cult classic is the movie equivalent of gazing at a lava lamp for nearly two hours.

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.

Alcoholics Anonymous founder William G. Wilson, known mostly as Bill W. before his death in 1971, was played by James Woods in a fine 1989 made-for-TV biopic. But the drama didn't have room for some of the darker corners of Wilson's life, fascinatingly explored in Kevin Hanlon and Dan Carracino's documentary.

Black loses control of Virginia as it lurches from political satire to unintended black comedy to mom-and-son melodrama. But the performances and the movie's sheer crazy audacity make it watchable.

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.

The two lead actresses rise to the occasion when they're finally forced to confront each other at the climax.

Rebecca Hall is wasted as Sandvig's sister and the film's voice of reason.

Even an appearance by Alec Baldwin as Moretz's eventual - if highly unlikely - savior isn't enough to keep Hick from leaving a bad taste.

Maybe it's because I share Burton"s twisted affection for the 1970s, but for all its shortcomings, I'd sooner watch a sequel to Dark Shadows than another installment of the bloated "Pirates of the Caribbean" saga any day.

With the abysmal A Little Bit of Heaven, Kate Hudson's possibly unprecedented losing streak remains unbroken: She hasn't made a good movie since Almost Famous, 12 long years ago. Even Nicolas Cage can't say that.

Make no mistake, though: The Perfect Family is Kathleen Turner's show. And when a series of crises forces Eileen to re-examine her values and beliefs, Turner rises magnificently to the occasion.

Even for a surreal black comedy, Jesus Henry Christ requires massive suspension of disbelief.

This remarkable new documentary from Raymond De Felitta ("City Island") fruitfully revisits the aftermath of a TV doc that his father, Frank, produced for NBC in 1965.

Holds your attention for a while, but fails to build much suspense as it races toward a predictable climax. It probably would have worked better as a series of Webisodes, which reportedly was the original plan.

Jack Black gives the performance of his career in the title role of Bernie, under the pitch-perfect direction of his "School of Rock'' director, Richard Linklater, who expertly crafts a black comedy with a deceptively sunny surface. It's the best movie I've seen all spring.

It might not have as many gut-busting laughs as "Bridesmaids,'' but there are still plenty - and for once in Apatow's phallocentric universe, most of them don't come at the expense of female characters.

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.

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.

Yes, there's some spectacular footage. But there's also an awful lot of filler for a 40-minute movie.

While it's not a disaster like Kasdan's last film, "Dreamcatcher'' (2003), Darling Companion doesn't amount to much more than a fairly painless way for the AARP set to spend an hour and a half watching a movie with stars their own age.

There isn't a surprising moment, and it's an affirmation for hard-core fans and pretty much everyone else of William Shatner's immortal exhortation to Trekkies: "Get a life!"

Moves at a poky pace even by American indie standards. But it's worth checking out for the fine cast, which also includes Joanna Lumley as Rossellini's earthy pal, and scene-stealing Doreen Mantle as her tart-tongued but wise mother.

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.

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

Harmless if not exactly inspired, and rarely hilarious.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders looks great and has a promising opening, but this atmospheric Spanish psychological thriller is otherwise pretty underwhelming.

It's powerful stuff, and probably a more effective approach than a series of talking heads decrying bullying, which is estimated to affect 18 million American children.

The image that sticks with you here is a smoky pub where the patrons are singing "You Belong to Me.''

The action is brutal, bloody and virtually nonstop in this adrenaline-packed riff on "Assault on Precinct 13.''

Completed four years ago, Seeking Justice is dutifully directed, with an absolute minimum of thrills, by Roger Donaldson, whose credits include the terrific "No Way Out" (1987)...That film's title is a pretty good description of where Cage's career seems to be headed.

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.

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

Interminably long, dull and incomprehensible, John Carter evokes pretty much every sci-fi classic from the past 50 years without having any real personality of its own.

Overlong and grim to the point where some scenes are virtually unwatchable.

The real coup de grace for this would-be serious-minded drama is the sledgehammer-subtle direction of Paul Weitz (who is also the screenwriter), who enabled his star's paycheck mugging in the execrable "Little Fockers."

A raunchy, often hilarious satire from the Judd Apatow stable that lacks any real bite.

A feast for the eyes that will engage the entire family.

Nearly totally laugh-, chemistry- and coherence-free, this fiasco from the director of "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'' has a script whose sensible parts would fit on a napkin with enough room left over for the Gettysburg Address.

Return comes briefly to life when John Slattery of "Mad Men'' turns up as an acerbic yet sympathetic reclusive drunk whom Kelli meets during court-mandated rehab. But it's not enough for a film that limps along to a pretty much preordained climax.

With cheesy-looking effects including a ride on the backs of giant bees and dubious literary references, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island comes dangerously close to giving books, never mind 3-D, a bad name.

Chico and Rita beguiles first and foremost as a bebop romance that evokes a bygone era as well as, or maybe even better than, "The Artist."

There's little sense of the Carol Channing beneath the overdone makeup - if there is one.

Would the Mayans have predicted the end of the world in 2012 if they'd known it would inspire not only "The Tree of Life'' and "Melancholia'' but an endless supply of more dreary depictions of end-times like this one?

It's an exciting, charming and often quite funny family film.

Erstwhile boy wizard Daniel Radcliffe works no magic as a grieving lawyer in The Woman in Black, a creaky haunted-house story that's strong on creepy atmosphere but woefully deficient in the scare department.

A well-acted, well-directed (by TV veteran Anthony Hemingway) popcorn movie with great aerial battles and solid dramatic scenes that hold your attention for two good hours.

Latifah, a formidable actress who's almost always better than her movies, easily dominates this hokey cross between "Glee'' and "Sister Act.''

The title It's About You is something Kurt Markus claims Mellencamp told him when he commissioned the film. With the elder Markus' self-important, egotistical narration rarely shutting up, it was a fairly prophetic remark.

It's sad to see Quaid in sloppily directed (by Martin Guigui) dreck like Beneath the Darkness less than a decade after the performance of his career as a closeted married man in "Far From Heaven.''

This is a look at the joy, confusion and heartbreak of adolescence that's both culture- and locale-specific and, at the same time, universal.

About as artistically profound as those framed 3-D photos of the Twin Towers emblazoned with "Never Forget'' that are still for sale in Times Square a decade after 9/11.

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.

Thankfully, Tintin is Spielberg at his most playful and unpretentious.

It really couldn't have been easy for Jason Lee ("Almost Famous") to keep a straight face while saying, "I'm not in this for the money.''

The film also wastes the coiled intensity of Jeremy Renner, as the newest member of the IMF team with a none-too-compelling past. Bird does keep audiences guessing whether Renner is the only leading actor in Hollywood who's even shorter than Cruise.

In this pretentious art-house downer version of "The Bad Seed," the only surprise is that the folks didn't ship the little monster off to the looney bin before he reached puberty.

It also boasts a killer breakout performance by comic Patton Oswalt as a former classmate who becomes Theron's unlikely co-dependent and sometimes co-conspirator.