Lou Lumenick

Timothy Spall, a character actor best known as Wormtail in the “Harry Potter’’ series, delivers an Oscar-caliber tour de force as eccentric British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner in the exquisite Mr. Turner.

A summery confection crammed with fresh young talented faces that's hard not to love.

Helen Mirren outdoes even her Oscar-winning performance in "The Queen" with her tour de force as Countess Sofya Tolstoy in Michael Hoffman's delightful The Last Station.

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is the first must-see film of Hollywood’s summer season, if for no other reason than its jaw-dropping evocation of Roaring ’20s New York — in 3-D, no less.

In his own twisted way, Lou is just as much a bloodsucker as Dracula, in a horror story that this tabloid veteran can attest is not as far removed from reality as you might assume.

It's a stirring reminder of a time when anything seemed possible - these American heroes boosted morale eroded by the Vietnam War, as well as bringing the whole world together to celebrate their success.

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.

Sequels don't get much better - or smarter - than the action-, drama-, romance- and comedy-packed Spider-Man 2, which miraculously improves on the webslinger's hugely popular first screen adventure in every imaginable department.

Jersey Boys tells a familiar story, yes — but rarely told this well and with this much heart and soul.

Lassie is a dog movie even non-dog lovers will lap up.

This is a beautifully acted chamber piece --especially by the magnificent Blake, who is married to Norris in real life.

Theron is very good as a woman struggling for respect in a sexist environment. There are also small but telling performances by Susan Sarandon as Hank's worried wife, and Frances Fisher as a topless bartender who aids in the investigation.

One of the 10 best American movies released so far this year, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is the surprisingly satisfying first theatrical film inspired by a long-running series of historically themed dolls.

A thoughtful, rousing and beautifully crafted epic.

2046 is a bit overlong and not for all tastes, but fans of "In the Mood for Love" will relish this second helping, which is more emotionally substantial than the first.

One of the summer’s most entertaining and provocative movies.

Hilarious French farce.

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.

Director Frears, in a radical shift from "High Fidelity," again (as in "Dangerous Liaisons") shows he's a master of period detail and subtle storytelling -- and the performances couldn't be more on the money.

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

Ride sounds a bit like a Lifetime movie, but in Hunt’s capable hands it’s a brisk, funny and touching comedy for boomers.

A more nuanced picture of the only president to resign from office emerges in Penny Lane’s clever documentary.

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

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

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

What elevates Men, Women & Children considerably above a dramatized (and occasionally over-dramatized) lecture on the dehumanizing aspects of the Internet is the consistently high caliber of acting (including, yes, Sandler) and spot-on narration by Emma Thompson.

It may not have songs by ABBA, but Bran Nue Dae is roughly Australia's far less elaborate answer to "Mamma Mia!" -- a cheerful and proudly corny musical that's pretty hard to resist if you're in the right frame of mind.

A blood- freezing German thriller, a very stylish variation on "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Seven."