Lou Lumenick

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

Italian director Luca Guadagnino draws terrific performances from his four stars.

Tim Burton's best film in years.

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

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.

A hilariously deadpan black-and-white slacker comedy, Duck Season is sort of like "Wayne's World" directed by a Mexican Jim Jarmusch.

Nolan blurs the distinction between dreams and reality so artfully that Inception may well be a masterpiece masquerading as a summer blockbuster.

A really classic adventure yarn with one of Hollywood's great actors hitting one out of the ballpark. If you're seeing only one movie this season, this is the obvious choice.

The acting is uniformly superb, the camera work and set design are haunting, and The Orphanage delivers well-earned tears at its beautiful conclusion. Go see it already.

Somewhat leisurely paced, by American standards, especially in the beginning, but it's well worth sticking around for the payoff.

Soderbergh -- helms a much tighter and arguably cooler film -- even if the only thing audiences are likely to remember about this Ocean's Eleven is that, while they were watching it, they enjoyed it tremendously

Raja, which is basically a dark comedy about how this odd couple manipulate each other, is extremely well acted, though the direction by Jacques Doillon is on the leisurely side.

Not for the squeamish, but it is a beautifully crafted and thoughtful film that genuinely provokes.

Many indie films about adolescents these days - like Gus Van Sant's "Elephants" - are willfully amoral. Mean Creek isn't - and it's the first indie since "Thirteen" that parents should make required viewing for teens.

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.

Masterful, atypically political - and flawlessly acted.

Chan at his high-kicking best. Some sequences are simply amazing.

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.

Bland and timid.

John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill give such wonderfully satisfying, full-blooded performances in Cyrus that it seems almost churlish to wish this creepy little Oedipal comedy were a little more well-thought-out, and handled its wilder shifts in tone with more finesse.

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.

At its heart, this is a thrilling tribute to a modest hero who rose to an extraordinary occasion.

Genius director Christopher Nolan reaches for the stars in Interstellar — and delivers a soulful, must-see masterpiece, one of the most exhilarating film experiences so far this century.

Cannily weaving cross-cultural comedy with we-can-do-it humor in the spirit of "The Full Monty," the film builds to a rousing climax.

Though the story may be cut from the same cloth as the female-empowering "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," it's never as cute, cloying or overbearing as that movie eventually became.

The story, which also involves an asthmatic dog and a scarecrow, is more accessible than "Spirited Away" but less transporting than that Oscar-winning masterpiece.

The film plays out pretty much exactly as you would expect - which won't bother some people one iota.

A witless homage to "Shampoo" and "American Gigolo" that's brain-dead on arrival.