Lou Lumenick

One of the year's best.

A little humor would have helped leaven a movie that is frankly often very difficult to watch.

It's Gordon-Levitt's pitch-perfect work that makes Brick a hardboiled treat.

Hilarious French farce.

Walk the Line superbly combines music and two of the year's most riveting performances to tell one of the screen's great love stories.

You won’t see a better performance by an actress on film this year than Julianne Moore as a linguistics professor struggling to hold onto her personality after a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s in the unforgettable drama Still Alice.

Limps to a fairly lame conclusion, but until then its remarkable candor is like spending a memorably hilarious, harrowing and unforgettable weekend with your wacky in-laws.

In his later years, Smith, who was also a gifted photographer, largely abandoned films in favor of performance art - and his art apparently included deliberately contracting the AIDS that ended his life.

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.

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

Doesn't always deliver on its twists. But it works well enough that an American remake is in the works.

The time passes quickly. This is the rare remake that does honor to the spirit of the original.

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

This is a rare case of a movie that improves dramatically as it goes along.

An earnest, if dreary little Canadian domestic drama.

Wal-Mart's home office in Bentonville, Ark., can rest easy: Greenwald, as usual, is hysterically preaching to the choir.

Drawing inspiration from anime and vintage Looney Toons, this beautifully drafted, offbeat charmer is hip, funny - and a bona fide heart tugger for the whole family.

Pepe Danquart's To the Limit from Germany looks great, but it's an altogether different animal.

A fascinating, sad, sometimes quite poetic window into a grueling way of life most of us know little about.

Short and sweet, small and smart, Tadpole is the oasis in the desert of dopey summer blockbusters - an uproarious, sophisticated coming-of-age comedy so flawlessly written, acted and directed it seems practically miraculous.

The most delightful family movie since "Stuart Little."

“Short Circuit” meets “RoboCop” — with asides to “WALL-E,” “E.T.,” “The Road Warrior” and many other better movies — in Chappie, an interminable, violent, incoherent and wearying R-rated sci-fi action comedy.

Those with a high tolerance for violence and gore — at one point, Rama battles assassins labeled “Baseball Bat Man’’ and “Hammer Girl’’ simultaneously — will eat up The Raid 2.

Legendary is an overworked adjective, but surely it applies to Jack Cardiff, the British cinematographer whose awe-inspiring resume includes some of the most beautiful Technicolor films ever shot, among them "The Red Shoes," "Black Narcissus" and "Stairway to Heaven."

Suffers even more than the Harry Potter films from a compulsion to be faithful to the source material, including cramming in a head-spinning assortment of characters and subplots.

This movie depicts an unlikely intersection of sports and leadership in ways that manage to be inspiring and insightful without ever becoming schmaltzy or preachy.

No "Girl on the Bridge," but this comic thriller does generate a fair amount of erotic tension and sly commentary on psychoanalysis.

Basically a mega-budget war movie that makes fun of mega-budget war movies.

Koch ends with the former mayor showing off a typically flamboyant gesture that embodies his contradictions - choosing to be buried in a Christian cemetery in his beloved Manhattan, complete with an already erected tombstone proclaiming his Jewish identity.

Unfortunately for the film, it's clear from the outset this is a totally one-sided battle that well-connected developer Bruce Ratner is fated to win.

In short, Red Eye hits the bull's-eye.

Intelligent, well-acted movie.

Visually, this toon is all over the place. Rapunzel's glowing hair can look alarmingly like fiber-optic cable, but some backgrounds are the computer-generated equivalents of Disney's golden-age work.

A Tom Cruise action flick with a strong female heroine and a sense of humor? Edge of Tomorrow has both of those, plus a “Groundhog Day’’-style gimmick that pays big dividends. Over and over.

Walken gives a beautifully understated performance.

Rather morbid.

Like with any great singer, it's often the telling pauses of the man born Anthony Benedetto that say the most in The Zen of Bennett.

Though deadly serious, Christopher Smith's European-made bubonic- plague melodrama provides good value with lots of blood and guts, as well as a solid cast.

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.

A highly entertaining first-person documentary .

To describe Love, Honor and Obey as a cross between "Duets" and "Snatch" doesn't begin to suggest how desperately unfunny this musical gangster comedy is.

Not a film for all tastes, but it's a considerable artistic achievement.

While the performances are often engaging, this loose collection of largely improvised numbers would probably have worked better as a one-hour TV documentary.

Except when Norton is playing retarded, he and De Niro basically compete to see who can under-act the other. It's positively mesmerizing.

The lyrical The Road Home is less political and less flashy than some previous films by Zhang Yimou.

As hip, funny and truthful a sleeper as has ever flown under Tinseltown's radar.

A crowd-pleaser of the first order.

Frequently charming, beautifully drawn and far more faithful in spirit to the source material than those dreadful Ron Howard-Brian Grazer productions.

You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Divan, an absolutely charming first-person documentary about a young ex-Hasidic woman determined to re-connect with her roots on her own terms.

A soufflé that begins promisingly but never quite rises.

In their overly earnest attempt to flesh Sendak’s story out to 100 minutes, Jonze and his co-screenwriter, novelist Dave Eggers, have laboriously spelled out motivations (divorce is bad!), elaborated back stories -- and added reams of less-than-inspired dialogue.

A verité collage of indelible images Sauret collected in and around Ground Zero, beginning moments after the planes hit the World Trade Center.

Carandiru, which ends with actual footage of the prison being demolished in 2002, marks a terrific comeback for Babenco - it's the roughest picture of life behind bars since "Midnight Express."

Stylish - if predictable - thriller.

A grim, challenging movie that will amply reward audiences willing to go along with its ride into the dark depths of its characters' souls.

Fanning gives a sensitive and fairly impressive performance. But like her over-the-top movie family, Hounddog is still trailer trash of the worst kind.

Laughs are few and far between in the innuendo-laden script attributed to Dana Fox, who's also responsible for the reprehensible "The Wedding Date."

You’re a Big Boy Now is no “The Graduate” but it holds up far better than most comedies from this era I’ve revisited.

Be warned: Though it's entirely justified by the story, there's a level of violence and brutality in Training Day -- that some terror-weary audience members may not care to cope with these days.

The latest in a series of entertaining IMAX underwater documentaries.

Documents the life of Rodney Bingenheimer, a teenage outcast who parlayed a youthful stint as double for Davy Jones of the Monkees into a 40-year run as a real-life Forrest Gump.

The Sketches of Frank Gehry will appear this fall on PBS' "American Masters," which seems a more appropriate venue than theaters.

For all of Linklater's acrobatic camera moves, you never quite escape the feeling you're watching a barely adapted TV version of a somewhat gimmicky stage play.

Hugh Grant is no less great (and has terrific chemistry with Streep) in his juiciest role in years as St. Clair.

This bomb, which premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival, belongs in the same remainder bin as Spacey's "Pay It Forward," "K-Pax" and "The Life of David Gale."

Visually imaginative, The Theory of Everything is an unusually compelling true-life story about an extraordinary couple triumphing over adversity. It’s my favorite movie so far this year.

Easily the summer's scariest movie.

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

One funk-tastic musical biopic.

Using a hand-held microphone, Mahurin captures the burly, middle-age, salty-tongued cook philosophizing nonstop as he individually prepares mouth-watering high-cholesterol meals from a 900-item menu over a stove he has put together himself.

Most experienced filmmakers wouldn't even attempt a film that's so blackly funny, that so rapidly shifts genres and tone, and that layers late '80s cultural references so thickly, from "E.T." to Smurfs.

Constantly battling, Hoskins and Dench have terrific chemistry together.

Is torture ever justifiable? A twisty, compelling, brilliantly acted (if sometimes difficult to watch) thriller, Prisoners, asks this question not in the usual contemporary context — anti-terrorism — but instead as a gruesome option deployed as a response to every parent’s worst nightmare.

Shannon is wonderful as a woman pushed over the edge by the death of her pet in Year of the Dog, a very low-key, well-acted dramedy.

A joyful celebration of Louisiana music in all its permutations.

It isn't as ridiculous as this year's other version of a local best seller set during WWII ("Captain Corelli's Mandolin"), but it's arguably even less entertaining.

A slick, sweet, fast-paced, feel-good romantic fantasy that's fairly irresistible if you can keep your cynicism in check for a couple of hours.

What Amenabar offers here is an unconvincing, pretentiously artsy pastiche of just about every hoary old gothic thriller you can think of.

In the end, The Walk finds a graceful way to pay tribute not only to Petit’s bravery and determination — but to the thousands lost on 9/11 in the buildings this daredevil loved so much.

The last half hour devoted to the Big Game, staged by a crew from NFL films, is genuinely rousing and inspiring. That's where Friday Night Lights finally shines.

Makes "Training Day" -- which was admittedly pretty tough -- seem like a Disney cartoon by comparison.

After years of diminishing returns, Woody Allen spectacularly returns to form with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, his funniest movie in years and arguably his sexiest.

Disappointing, curiously uninvolving.

Some editing would have made The Nice Guys easier to love — at times it feels as bloated as Crowe’s gut. It’s neither as fast, fresh or as funny as Black’s “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’’ (2005).

Sort of a Bollywood "Citizen Kane," a decades-spanning drama with a compelling Abhishek Bachchan as a ruthless Indian business tycoon who refuses to take no for an answer.

It takes a world-class storyteller and a great yarn to rivet your attention for nearly three hours. This very classy, old-school movie - employing cutting-edge technology that will make your eyes pop - did it for me.

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

Duvall and Spacek are so in tune with each other's rhythms -- despite their 20-year age difference -- that it's hard to believe they've never acted together before.

Deeply mediocre and ultra-predictable.

Refreshingly flirts with a very un-Disney political incorrectness.

Disney's best comedy in years.

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.

Spanish master filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar offers up a grisly Halloween trick-and-treat in his first full-out horror movie, an eye-popping and genuinely shocking gender-bending twist on Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo.''

Van Sant's audacious, poetic and emotionally distanced film doesn't even have a plot. It's just a random series of incidents one day at a suburban high school.

Puts a face on the clerical sex scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church.

A feast of great acting, although in the final analysis it's a filmed stage play rather than a brilliant movie.

Hugely entertaining because director Lasse Hallstrom and screenwriter William Wheeler have greatly embellished the "truth" in Irving's book about the hoax.

Butler's film still manages to accomplish what the candidate's foundering campaign has utterly failed to do.

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.

Jeffrey Schwarz’s documentary is a fine, touching tribute to John Waters’ larger-than-life drag diva, Divine.

Stunningly photographed, largely with a hand-held camera, by Rodrigo Prieto (another member of the "Amores Perros" team) on gritty locations in Memphis and Albuquerque, 21 Grams is also a visual tour de force - and a rare Hollywood product depicting class differences with any kind of honesty.

Queen To Play is ultimately about people's capacity for emotional and intellectual growth at any age.

At times, writer-director Cedric Klapsich seems to be trying to copy the frestyle of "Amelie," but L'Auberge achieves only a fraction of its charm.

Arriving two days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Steven Soderbergh's Contagion is a serious all-star thriller about the rapid worldwide spread of a killer virus that's easily the scariest of the disaster films that have followed the attack.

Amusing without being particularly biting.

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.

German director Werner Herzog's fascinating, fond and often bitchy documentary recalling the late star of his most celebrated movies.

Ron Howard's bio-pic is an Oscar-baiting fairy tale that manipulates the audience at every turn of the clich.

A determinedly raunchy holiday comedy about a libidinous, larcenous and perpetually soused St. Nick with a nonstop potty mouth.

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 first movie I've seen in a very long while that deserves to be called a masterpiece. It's such a stunning achievement in storytelling.

It's a tribute to the filmmakers and cast that by the end of Lars and the Real Girl, you can almost accept that Bianca is, well, a real girl.

May be the most fun you'll have at the movies this summer.

Science fiction movies don't come much more ponderous than the beautifully filmed Never Let Me Go, which reduces the debate over genetic engineering to a mild, moist romantic soap opera.

This is a serious movie overflowing with memorable acting, unforgettable images, searing tragedy, unexpected humor and an eloquent plea for international understanding. And while it's by no stretch of imagination light entertainment, it's fundamentally a more optimistic work than either "Amores Perros" or "21 Grams."

Winslet (Mendes' wife) once again demonstrates why she's one of the best actresses working today.

Willis, who at 52 looks great in an intensely physical role and can still spit out wisecracks and insults with the best of them.

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

A wry, "Rashomon"-like tale.

The best thing Baldwin has done in years, and a triumph of low-budget storytelling by a director to watch.

Nearly two hours of New Age hooey.

Whip-smart, sexy and delightfully twisty romantic thriller.

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.

Strands several generations of performers in a highly derivative script and hackneyed direction.

Giamatti tries very hard to put over Cold Souls -- some of his reaction shots are priceless -- but it's going to leave some people, well, cold.

Butterfly doesn't require much knowledge of history to appreciate, but it really isn't suitable for very young audiences either.

While it obviously isn't for all tastes, this is a big, thematically rich step forward -- mostly it's about tolerance and forgiveness -- from the empty provocation of Solondz's "Storytelling" and "Palindromes." About time.

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

Packs a dramatic wallop that makes it one of the year's best movies.

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.

Its portrait of adolescence seems so authentic that it puts most Hollywood products to shame.

A first-rate documentary on this subgenre of punk rock, which flourished roughly between 1982 and 1986 as an anarchistic response to Ronald Reagan and the disco era.

The posthumous campaign to polish Michael Jackson's tarnished reputation continues apace with this Spike Lee infomercial, commissioned by Sony and the money-grubbing Jackson estate to promote the 25th anniversary of his 1987 album "Bad.''

Joshua falls a bit flat at the end, but overall it delivers some genuine old-school chills - something that was missing when Macaulay Culkin played a similar role in "The Good Son."

Pierre is at best competent as the star, director and writer of this good-natured compendium of ghetto movie clichés, which doesn't have an awful lot to offer in the way of laughs, pacing or originality.

Overall, The Last September is a real snooze.

Alternately fascinating and frustrating.

Moves in a predictable path that includes some remarkable coincidences.

James Rasin's documentary is surprisingly the first to focus on one of Warhol's biggest attractions, the attractive male-to-female transsexual Candy Darling, best known for inspiring Lou Reed's song "A Walk on the Wild Side."

Stephen Sondheim’s stage classic Into the Woods, a dark and subversive musical take on fairy tales, not only survives but triumphs in the composer’s most unlikely collaboration with Disney.

Aimed squarely at the under-6 crowd, is basically the pilot for a Nickelodeon series with an already heavily merchandised character.

It's highly entertaining, even if it's almost entirely one-sided.

A nifty piece of entertainment that says a lot about American society.

Superb as an auto salesman who sinks deeper and deeper into disgrace in Solitary Man, Douglas' juiciest vehicle since "Wonder Boys."

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

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.

Cocchio's film isn't as poetic as Gus Van Sant's hauntingly beautiful (far more expensive) "Elephant," but it has a power and immediacy that makes it much more worthwhile than "Home Room."

These candidly shaken macho guys recall scenes still haunting their nightmares two years after 9/11.

Truth is, this story of the out-of-control director and his inexperienced, enabling studio heads -- who allowed Cimino to lock them out of the editing room, hoping he would deliver another Oscar winner like "The Deer Hunter" -- is more compelling than Cimino's long-winded epic.

Norton, returning to cracking form, doesn't try to make the selfish and smug Monty sympathetic -- but he lights up the screen, especially in two fantasy sequences.

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

The extremely well-acted The Company Men ends on a hopeful note, but Wells examines the repercussions of a layoff-based economy with devastating precision.

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

Smart, funny and good-looking animation.

Hrebejik directs with a sure hand, deftly balancing comedy and drama in a most involving and satisfying manner.

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

Well-acted and acutely observed.

The enchanting voice on the phone, who delightfully shows up in person halfway through, belongs to Zooey Deschanel. In real life, she hooked up with the composer of the lively score, M. Ward, to create the pop duo She & Him.

Operation Filmmaker is eventually about Muthana blackmailing Davenport by withholding access to him as she fruitlessly seeks a happy ending for her film. "Now, I'm just looking for an exit strategy," she finally concludes.

The story is still so compelling - and the principals still so eager for attention - that the filmmaker's pedestrian treatment can't take away from the impact.

Those who can hang on through the mumblecore-ish narrative languor of the nicely photographed The Exploding Girl will savor a very talented actress' sensitive portrait of youthful awkwardness.

Wants to be a "Last Tango in Paris" for the new millennium, but its flaccid dramatization and hollow moralizing doesn't rise even to the level of last year's "An Affair of Love," let alone Bertolucci's masterpiece.

The two male actors are very good, but Juuso is particularly amusing and touching as the earthy heroine.

Glossy, big-budget thriller that qualifies as the season's biggest and most rewarding surprise.

It's not exactly a surprise the makers of Reign Over Me feel compelled to manufacture a happy ending for a story that really has none. Pity.

A classic social drama in the proud tradition of "Norma Rae," "Silkwood" and "Erin Brockovich."

The film is extremely well-acted, and Berri is very good at demonstrating why the relationship is doomed.

A fascinating snapshot of contemporary teenagers.

Danny Huston looks and sounds like his celebrated father, John, more and more each year, so I enjoyed watching him play a flamboyant and womanizing legendary director not unlike his old man in Bernard Rose’s modest little comedy.

What we’ve got is a highly entertaining nautical version of “The Towering Inferno’’ (still my favorite guilty pleasure of all time).

America Ferrara ("Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'') turns in an image-changing role as a tough lesbian officer who develops a grudging admiration for our heroes.

Gibson sure knows how to shoot a sequence, but he also doesn't know when to stop with the blood, gore and maiming.

Sputnik Mania has a happy ending, thanks to German scientist Werner von Braun, who had been recruited for America after designing Nazi rockets that rained terror on England during World War II.

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

Pulls no punches - blood flows very freely (including the ear-cutting scene) and black humor abounds.

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

Classy old-school horror, James Wan’s The Conjuring depends more on its excellent cast and atmospheric direction than cheap gimmicks to raise hairs on the back of your neck. Which it does, quite frequently.

Sarandon gets great support from a cast that includes J.K. Simmons as a laid-back retired cop who pursues Minnie, and Jason Ritter as the ex-boyfriend whom Minnie desperately plots to reunite with her daughter.

Hopkins' larger-than-life performance as the crusty and crafty Burt rivets your attention for two solid hours in this most entertaining labor of love.

Some advice: Don't even bother trying to figure out what's going on in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence -- just sit back and enjoy the lush, trippy visuals.

Very much a feminist Western — one painting a vivid picture of how difficult it was for even a strong and determined woman to survive in frontier days.

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.

The house itself - which walks down the street in one impressive scene - is memorably voiced by Kathleen Turner.

While highly entertaining and sometimes inspired, Black Mass is more like Scorsese lite. In perhaps the most memorable sequence, Bulger sardonically tests a childhood friend (Joel Edgerton) for loyalty by teasing out a “secret” steak sauce in what’s basically a reworking/homage of Joe Pesci’s famous “I’m funny, how?” scene in “GoodFellas.”

An intermittently interesting drama.

One of our best actors, Turturro surpasses his past fine work as Alexander Luzhin.

It's bone tired.

Only sporadically entertaining.

A depressingly predictable journey of self-discovery.

The Hateful Eight is basically an expensive vanity project allowing Tarantino to expound on his bizarre theories about race relations.

Deserved an end-of-the-year prestige release, is a true work of art in a marketplace filled with velvet paintings. It's positively magical, the reason we loved movies in the first place.

Mostly, the gorgeously shot Queen and Country depicts Bill and his more rebellious mate Percy pursuing beautiful women with varying degrees of success — and pulling pranks on their exasperated superiors, hilariously portrayed by David Thewlis and Richard E. Grant.

For Your Consideration isn't quite in a class with Guest's earlier films like "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind," which is not to say it isn't uproariously funny.

An utterly beguiling tale.

A beautifully acted if fairly poky coming-of-age story.

Quirky and sometimes hilarious Canadian comedy.

Mark Becker's Romantico is beautifully realized on old-fashioned film. And that's only part of its charms.

Highly entertaining.

Hard-core Hollywood haters will best appreciate Maps to the Stars, a campy poison-pen letter to Tinseltown that makes “Sunset Boulevard’’ look like a tourism infomercial by comparison.

Aside from the very occasional stab with a dagger, John prefers to shoot people at point-blank range. It gets old fast.

He’s great as a celebrity chef who’s forced to re-examine his priorities in this extremely funny and big-hearted comedy that Favreau also wrote.

It's full of funny stuff, from a hitman forced to drag along his 3-year-old when he can't get a sitter, to one of the goons being asked, "Do you have a Web presence?"

A huge hit in China — where it was released in 3-D IMAX — the handsomely filmed Journey To the West deserves better than the token 2-D theatrical release it’s getting in the United States to support its simultaneous arrival on video-on-demand.

Even if it weren't three years too late to parody Moore (ineptly played by Kevin Farley), Moore's ridiculous tribute to Cuban health care in "Sicko" is far funnier than anything in this desperately laughless farce from David Zucker ("Scary Movie 3").

Stands in stark contrast to the quickie political documentaries that have flooded into specialty venues since last year.

Doesn't sugarcoat the difficulties faced by this family, but this small gem has a very satisfying ending.

Aniston's best on-screen performance since "The Good Girl."

As irresistible as movie-theater popcorn - a lavish, reasonably intelligent, well-acted sequel with kick-butt effects that outdoes its predecessor, 2000's "X-Men," in almost every department.

Despite some plot holes, Delirious, hits the bull's-eye with razor-sharp performances and dialogue.

Like legendary producer Val Lewton in the '40s, director Oren Peli, who shot "Paranormal" in seven days in his own home, understands that what's most frightening is what you don't see but merely suggested.

Basically a carefully airbrushed and authorized portrait of the Gray Lady during 14 months when there was serious speculation about the paper's impending demise.

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.

Arguably the darkest episode in the entire series (and the first to carry a PG-13 rating) the visually stunning "Sith" is also the fastest-paced and most accessible.

A gorgeous snooze, somewhere between imitation Terrence Malick and a feature version of star Brad Pitt's notorious Vanity Fair layout with Angelina Jolie and their faux kids.

This is a slickly entertaining package, beautifully photographed on well-chosen locations with an unerring sense of pace by Gregory Hoblit.

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

Accurately described as an Icelandic version of Pedro Almodovar's gender-bending black comedies -- but it's also reminiscent of early Woody Allen movies.

A gripping reminder of a brutal chapter of 20th-century history.

Watching The Italian Job in a theater makes you long for a fast-forward button - to skip past 90 eyeball-glazing minutes of generic caper plotting and cut to the chase, as it were.

Even in support of the noblest of causes, manipulation is manipulation.

Holy ship! Crowe’s grumpy Noah and his dysfunctional clan help God reboot the too-wicked world in this imaginative (but hardly sacrilegious) and visually spectacular elaboration on Genesis.

Sweet without being sticky and funny without getting silly, Whip It introduces Barrymore as a director with a keen eye, a good ear for tone and an inspired touch with actors.

Even an engaging performance by Margot Robbie as the proverbial last woman on Earth isn’t enough to save Z for Zachariah from becoming yet another ploddingly pretentious Sundance dud.

A real head-scratcher that somehow won the grand jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

So smooth and satisfying it makes the similar "Ocean's Eleven" look like a game of three-card monte.

Scorsese has great fun with a story that in the final analysis does not really demand to be taken any more seriously as history than "Inglourious Basterds."

This film is so funny it may be beside the point to complain that, as in many Apatow productions, the writing and direction are still in something of a state of arrested development.

Patrick Stewart knocks it out of the park as a Juilliard School dance teacher forced to spill his biggest secrets in Match, which playwright Stephen Belber effectively directed and adapted from his own Broadway play.

Plays like a very good TV movie. Short on visual flair and starpower, Thirteen Days is not the definitive story of the Cuban missile crisis, but it's an engrossing historical lesson nonetheless.

An enthralling 3-D IMAX documentary.

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

As formulaic in its own way as anything mainstream Hollywood turns out, In Bruges is also a fish-out-of-water comedy.

Sporadically entertaining, occasionally quite funny.

Rogers gives a brave performance, but there isn't much chemistry between Bridges and Basinger, who were teamed to better effect in 1987's "Nadine."

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.

Excellent performances by a good cast and a fairly authentic look at working-class struggles go only so far.

An intoxicating attack on the homogenization of wines around the world - a "Fahrenheit 9/11" for the oneophile set.

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

It's got more imagination than half a dozen movies combined; there's nothing else out there like this, and to me that's a very good thing.

This is first and foremost a farce, not unlike Nichols' "The Birdcage."

Harden and Pantoliano (especially) can be two of the most over-the-top performers in the business, but they don't strike a false note in Canvas - and neither does this heartbreaking movie.

Leguizamo knocks it out of the park as an armored car driver in The Take.

The bottom line of Last Days seems to be, fame's a bitch. Yes, Gus - now start making movies again that tell stories, please.

Bracing and stylish thriller.

I'm not generally a huge fan of movies with two-or three-person casts -- they tend to resemble filmed plays -- but The Business of Strangers is a knockout.

Besides terrific performances, it boasts terrific cinematography by Giles Nuttgens that contrasts stunningly beautiful and grimly ugly Scottish landscapes - complementing the hunky Joe's ugly soul, which manifests itself in a truly nasty sex scene involving pudding, catsup and Cathie.

Pure magic.

Walken was largely typecast in quirky roles as a result of playing the title character's brother in "Annie Hall," so it's something of a delightful irony that 35 years later, Walken finds his most rewarding role leading a terrific ensemble in what amounts to one of the best Woody Allen movies that Allen wasn't involved in making.

Newcomer Friend, a Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike who can also be seen in small roles in "The Libertine" and "Pride & Prejudice," has a winning manner, but Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a terrific, long-overdue vehicle for Lady Olivier.

Full of action and silliness that will delight rug rats, but it's still hip and absurd enough to entertain grown-ups, too.

Sophisticated entertainment of the less-is-more school.

It's a drawn-out look at politics that's largely devoid of the trademark humor that long ago got New Wave veteran Chabrol labeled the Gallic Hitchcock.

Open Range could easily have lost 20 minutes in the editing room, but its very casual pacing and beautiful vistas - gorgeously photographed in British Columbia by James Munro - are a soothing alternative in a season of movies seemingly aimed at sufferers of attention deficit disorder.

Provides a fascinating tour of the city's past.

A credulity-straining thriller featuring a few good paranoid moments — and, perhaps most important, Rebecca Hall running in high heels.

It's not up to the high standard of the Clooney-Heslov script for "Good Night, and Good Luck,'' or what you'd imagine that, say, Aaron Sorkin could have done with this premise (for starters, sharper dialogue). Or what Elaine May did with the similarly themed "Primary Colors" 13 years ago.

Should make Polley, memorable in "The Sweet Hereafter" and "Go," into a bona-fide star.

This is a gifted director who actually has something to say and knows how to say it. We'll be hearing from him again.

The acting is first-rate, and remarkably there's no sense that the sometimes tough material (which barely skirts an R rating) has been watered down to make it more palatable for a wider audience. I just wish Chbosky had changed that terrible title for the movie.

The eloquent narration forSaint of 9/11 is delivered by Ian McKellen.

It's an engaging piece of filmmaking on its own, beautifully shot and acted.

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.

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

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.

It's the well-wrought details that explain, perhaps better than any earlier film, how an entire country bought into Hitler's genocidal madness.

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

Basically "Jumanji" in outer space -- and even without Robin Williams, this is still a singularly loud, charmless and overbearing family movie that could use a hit or two of Ritalin.

Good grief! This painfully sincere animated feature seems aimed less at contemporary kids than nostalgic adults who might buy toys marketed for what is being billed as the 50th anniversary of the Peanuts gang for their children and grandchildren.

Though it boasts excellent performances by Anna Friel and Michelle Williams as bosom buddies whose lives meander over three decades, it plods on with a wearying predictability and some truly terrible dialogue.

Much more rewarding than its earnest title or its very modest production values -- it's basically an ambitious home video -- would suggest.

A head-clearing, mind-blowing blast from the past - one of the year's best.

Fight Club badly wants to be "A Clockwork Orange" for the millennium - and succeeds to a surprising extent until director David Fincher ends up sucker-punching the audience.

Neither a concert film nor a documentary but a ghoulish “event” offered just in time for Halloween, This is It is sadly -- and reprehensively, if you ask me -- the movie equivalent to the National Enquirer’s infamous post-mortem shot of Elvis Presley.

Had me watching through misty eyes, at least for the first half.

A cut above the season’s other belated sequels like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2’’ and “Zoolander 2.’’

The documentary was filmed in the 1990s by Denny Tedesco, whose father Tommy is credited as the most recorded guitarist in history, including the instantly identifiable themes to “Bonanza” and “Mission: Impossible.”

Once in a Lifetime, which is being released at the peak of World Cup fever, is the sort of sports documentary that will appeal even to nonfans. It's a quintessential only-in-New York story.

Mr. Holmes, derived from a novel by Mitch Cullin, isn’t quite as deep or as poignant, but amply rewards McKellen and Holmes fans willing to go with its leisurely pace.

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

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.

A rousing, garage-band-style documentary.

Well worth seeing for its acting and its tempting cinematography. Don't be surprised if you find yourself wanting to book a vacation in Cobh.

The stunning visuals in DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 3 surpass the high standards set by its predecessors, but storywise, the latest adventures of goofy Po the panda break no new ground.

A physically impressive, well-acted, sometimes emotionally powerful - and mostly apolitical - re-creation of that awful day that has some conservative pundits praising Stone as some sort of born-again patriot.

A star is born in In Good Company, which showcases Topher Grace.

While sporadically funny, the sophomoric My Name Is Bruce is no "Bubba Ho-Tep," the movie where Campbell unforgettably played Elvis Presley as a nursing home patient battling a mummy with the help of John F. Kennedy. But Campbell's fans can feel free to add a star or two.

Fairly suspenseful.

A gritty, well-acted, documentary-style drama.

An entertaining documentary.

Pointless and mind-numbing.

There's very little doubt in my mind that somewhere, culinary legend Julia Child is fuming about being consigned to a double bio-pic with a whiny, self-centered cooking blogger.

For maximum enjoyment, see this on the enormous classic IMAX screen.

For me, the movie's high point comes when Tony auditions for a role in a Martin Scorsese movie. Tony learns not to try so hard -- a lesson that Garcia also seems to have absorbed from City Island.

Strikingly photographed, Maelstrom, which explores its nautical themes in non-linear fashion, is not for all tastes. But I, for one, was hooked by this fish's tale.

Basically a watered-down collage of scenes from "Heathers," "Clueless," "Sixteen Candles" and numerous other teen flicks.