Lou Lumenick

An insightful time capsule.

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.

Pleasant and has not a few laughs.

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.

Merely a passably amusing excuse to pass a couple of hours in an air-conditioned theater.

Another mean-spirited black comedy from Todd Solondz, tries even harder than the director's two earlier films to shock and outrage -- but the overall effect of his sophomoric excess is tiresome and dull, like watching someone else's 2-year-old act out for the 50th time.

A cheesily amusing prequel to the 1993 film which starred Al Pacino as a Puerto Rican drug kingpin in Spanish Harlem, in one of his most entertaining performances. This time around, Jay Hernandez delivers a serviceable impression of a much younger version of Pacino.

Antonio Banderas is unintentionally hilarious as Father Matt Gutierrez, a sort of Jesuit James Bond.

The first half of Scotland, PA is by far the funniest, with witty dialogue, hilariously ugly period fashions and hairstyles.

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

The only pro involved in this amateurish labor of love is veteran character actor Arthur Nascarella, cast as Jack's florist father.

The most delightful family movie since "Stuart Little."

A wonder to look at, even as its increasingly pretentious manga-inspired story line outstays its welcome.

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.

Dull and creaky soap opera.

Desperately unfunny.

Tom Arnold plays the fatherly head of a child-prostitution ring and John Malkovich a sympathetic social worker - two clever casting twists that constitute the main interest in the grueling Gardens of the Night.

Set in a bar that echoes the far superior "Big Night," this labored two-hander plays more like an acting exercise than an actual movie.

Pandaemonium plays like a bus-and-truck version of such Ken Russell's '60s classics as "The Music Lovers."

Might have made a tolerable five-minute "mockumentary," but it's apparently meant seriously.

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 sloppily shot, crudely edited Head of State fails as satire, for starters, because of its utter disconnect from any kind of reality.

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.

Caouette has used art, wit and a huge heart to forge his experiences into an unqualified masterpiece.

Contains impeccable performances, especially by the frightening Ifans.

It's as purely entertaining as it is thought-provoking and timely.

As Lydia Lunch of Teenage Jesus & the Jerks puts it, "They seem so desperate to be liked, desperate to have their music used in the next car commercial."

More watchable for secular audiences than the handful of earlier films released under the Fox Faith label, this one actually has a sense of humor, a politically progressive point of view and a solid cast including the ever-reliable James Garner.

So off-the-wall that it may well ultimately acquire the cult status of Resnick's earlier Chris Elliot vehicle, "Cabin Boy."

Proudly airheaded, incoherent, endlessly pandering - yet fitfully entertaining.

Seems to go on for several days and nights, though in fact it lasts just 105 minutes. I checked my watch. A lot.

Directed without wit or energy.

It's because of a superior cast that this version of "Death at a Funeral" is the rare comedy remake that's funnier than the original, however slightly. Personally, though, I'm not sure it was worth the effort.

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

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

With heavy emphasis on cliché and stereotype, has at least four false endings -- and drags on for nearly two hours -- before it finally contrives to reunite its sitcomish pals for a last drink together.

What starts as a fairly lighthearted satire ends in a tiresome, ultra-violent shootout -- and the film pretty much throws away the possibilities of Cruz's gender-bending role.

Featuring eyeball-rolling performances by Vivica A. Fox, Patti LaBelle, Clifton Davis and the singularly named Leon, Cover would be a candidate for the year's most unintentionally funny movie so far - if it weren't also the most homophobic.

A typically well-acted, if ultimately minor, effort by John Sayles, the socially conscious indie icon who's unafraid to take on unfashionable subjects.

Like the prototypical "Shine," this is a film that romanticizes mental illness.

Miller never really fleshes out all of these colorful characters in her emotionally facile script, leaving the heavy lifting to the actors. Fortunately for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Wright is more than up to the challenge.

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

Scary Movie 4 concludes by satirizing Cruise's couch-jumping orgy on "Oprah." Funny, but nowhere near as hilarious as the real thing.

A couple of years ago, a disaster like Shadow boxer - with the hapless Cuba Gooding Jr. scraping below the bottom of the barrel - would have gone straight to video or been buried on an obscure cable channel at 3 a.m.

The Astronaut Farmer stalls narratively in the third act, but rest assured it finally achieves liftoff. See it before it disappears into the ether.

A Japanese cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz" -- is such a landmark in animation that labeling it a masterpiece almost seems inadequate.

A crass, heavy- handed and -- most unforgivably -- largely laugh-free adaptation of The Master's infrequently revived 1924 comic melodrama.

A very rare contemporary romantic comedy that doesn't succumb to terminal stupidity.

It would also help if they were given some dialogue that was actually funny, or at least more clever than the lines provided to Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl in the distressingly similar "Killers" from earlier this month.

An interesting - but very slow paced - thriller.

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.

Arguably the year's most entertaining art-house film.

Strictly a love it-or-hate-it proposition, it requires viewers to work at a movie with a narrative that could support at least half a dozen interpretations.

An extremely awkward cross between "Ocean's Eleven" and "Rain Man."

Lopez, appearing in her first rom-com since “Monster-in-Law” five years ago, is still a likable screen presence who throws herself into the movie’s slapstick sequences with unwarranted enthusiasm.

A remarkable, eye-popping nature documentary.

Though the performances are uniformly good -- Adams is a standout -- the movie plays like one long, meandering sketch inspired by the works of John Waters and Todd Solondz, rather than a fully developed story.

A great-looking but stupefyingly incoherent supernatural thriller adapted from a popular video game that ransacks the entire catalog of horror film tropes for more than two mind-numbing hours.

All hail the great Helen Mirren, who after her triumph in HBO's "Elizabeth," delivers the performance of a lifetime as that monarch's frumpy, 20th century namesake in Stephen Frear's witty, touching and engrossing The Queen.

Frequently hilarious, if overlong.

The Caller qualifies as something of a Holocaust movie, with flashbacks to World War II France. Guess who the two boys we see grow up to be?

Little more than 91 minutes of cheesy special effects in search of a remotely coherent story.

The recent trend in political documentaries is for filmmakers to heap ridicule and sarcasm on people they don't agree with, a la Michael Moore. Waiting for Armageddon (which has nothing to do with the 1998 Michael Bay movie) demonstrates that sometimes it's far more devastating to simply point the camera at your subjects and let them talk.

A yawn-provoking little farm melodrama.

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.

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

Even by the extremely low standards of the genre, When in Rome gets failing marks for chemistry, credibility and even coherence.

Lumpy, preachy and soporific.

It's not a bad premise for a movie, but writer-director Omar Naim, a 26-year-old Lebanese native making his feature debut, proves equally inept at handling plotting, actors and pacing.

Excruciatingly bad.

Beautiful camerawork, some interesting scenes, but extraordinarily slow.

A substandard attempt to outfit a World War II submarine with every haunted-house cliché known to man and filmmakers.

Would be solid family entertainment if it weren't for the funereal pacing, which may kill its appeal among young audiences.

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

Michael Moore makes many of the same points, with far more impact, in "Bowling for Columbine."

This is the sort of comedy that requires you not only to suspend disbelief, but your sanity as well.

Forget those weepie liberal clichés. This starless and vividly authentic romantic thriller set in Central America really rocks, and is one of the most exciting directorial debuts in years.

Writer-director J.S. Cardone's low-budget mishmash offers precious little in the way of thrills and chills, much less coherent storytelling.

Goes down as smoothly as a pint of Irish ale.

The leaden pacing, somnambulant performances and incessant symbolism in nearly every shot will soon have you thinking that The Three Marias is three too many.

Shapeless, sloppy, badly paced mess.

Overly long and complicated, it's packed with crowd-pleasing moments and satisfactorily wraps up the trilogy - without quite capturing the magic of the first two installments.

Spectacularly awful.

Jacobs keeps the action moving rapidly and gets solid performances from an ensemble cast, especially the rumpled Reilly.

Genially preposterous, with stunt players outnumbering actors by something like a 3-to-1 ratio, the action thriller Crank is surprisingly watchable.

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

So eyeball-gougingly awful that you're tempted to give up movies for Lent.

To his credit, Blitz throws in an unexpected twist that delivers a more ambivalent ending than your typical sports movie.

I was kind of rough on "Apocalypto," which in retrospect seems like a minor classic compared to 10,000 BC.

Slowly builds power to devastating effect.

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.

This windy courtroom drama is punctuated by cheesy flashbacks.

Easily the summer's scariest movie.

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

Beyond the cliched diaper-changing scenes and the oh-so-predictable romantic complications, the film inadvertently insults its presumed target audience.

Little more than a supersized version of the popular PBS animated series that's stopping briefly in theaters en route to its natural habitat -- video.

Basically canned musical theater, but this is one Tony-winning Broadway show that's well worth preserving and seeing.

A superficial documentary based on a best-selling book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons -- which is being released just before the ex-president's memoir hits the bookstores.

OK premise quickly deteriorates into a silly, badly acted slasher movie -- minus the slasher.

English-language remakes of foreign films are usually suspect, but Tortilla Soup is the exception that proves the rule - a flavorful comedy about a food-centric Latino family in Los Angeles.

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.

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

Catwoman is pretty well summed up by Hedare: “This is a disaster. It’s a total bloody disaster.”

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.

Disappointing.

An appallingly unfunny and unromantic romantic comedy.

Directors Potelle and Rankin lack the skill to integrate the sometimes drastic shifts between comedy and drama - and the serious portions ultimately get short shrift, apparently at the behest of Miramax's marketing executives.

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.

That his dialogue is often deliberately anachronistic is part of the joke -- and Wilson's sly delivery is often funnier than the lines themselves.

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

Fitfully amusing.

Quite a slog, with most of the acting strictly amateurish save the veteran Ed Lauter as a fish and game inspector.

There's no shortage of "wow" moments, but the strong liberal political subtext of the trilogy has largely disappeared.

The cinematic equivalent of enduring a cross-country airplane flight trapped in a seat next to a manic depressive.

I haven't laughed harder at anything this year, but I would have a hard time recommending this gender-bending gut-buster to anyone who doesn't have a high threshold for crude sexual humor and stereotypes.

No, Bratz, an unwitting and witless critique of American consumerism run amok, does not star Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

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.

The Lady and the Duke, which drags on for over two hours, is an experiment in shooting a period film on a shoestring that turns out to be more interesting than actually entertaining.

Isn't great, but it's an enjoyable if overly discreet and romanticized look at a long-vanished show-business world.

A remarkably assured feature debut by Bennett Miller, a longtime director of commercials (and the documentary "The Cruise") whose no-frills style trusts that the powerful material and the uniformly excellent performances need little embellishment.

Rarely has a documentary been so pleased with itself - with so little justification.

Loud and unfunny, this cheesy-looking farce is mostly an excuse for a series of plugs.

It's truly inspiring to watch Fred Knittle, 81 and tethered to an oxygen tank, perform a riveting solo of Coldplay's "Fix You" after his singing partner dies shortly before the show.

The most entertaining 3-D movie I've ever seen.

Phoebe in Wonderland happens to be at least partly a Lifetime movie, but this special little film is no disease-of-the-week tear-jerker.

Thoroughly inept in just about every aspect.

A by-the-numbers follow-up to the highly successful 2005 feature that was no great shakes to begin with.

Stick a fork in Nia Vardalos. I've been to funerals that were a lot more fun than I Hate Valentine's Day, her second alleged romantic comedy in less than a month.

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

Lively, well-acted and directed with assurance.

A sloppy and only mildly engaging documentary.

An instant candidate for worst movie of the year.

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.

Not always totally credible and it cheats a bit on the fixed point of view. But a terrific and brave performance by Talancon makes this far superior to the generic thrillers churned out by the big studios.

Combines big laughs, a big heart and thoroughly winning characters to become the first big surprise of the fall season.

It's skillfully rendered fun, but don't expect to remember much the next day.

A technological landmark that couldn't look or sound better.

An extremely well-acted and well-directed remake of a 1957 oater.

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

An assembly-line high-school comedy that flunks miserably in all three subjects.

A mediocre music documentary about veteran country rocker and activist Steve Earle, who created a furor with a song sympathetic to American Taliban John Walker Lindh.

To enjoy this film, it helps to check your brain at the box office.

So slow the movie itself seems to be suffering from a hardening of the arteries.

Clooney, who gained 35 pounds for the role, gives a self-effacing but highly effective performance.

As someone who has never completed a crossword puzzle, I was surprised how engaged I was by Wordplay.

A deadly dull, by-the-numbers rendition of the Nativity story.

The emotional honesty of [Lane's] performance provides a foundation that supports this shaky and often unbelievable Italian-set hybrid of "Shirley Valentine" and "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House."

Smiling more than in all of his movies since "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" combined, Penn goes way deep and soulful in a highly ingratiating performance that's the one to beat for the Best Actor Oscar.

This movie belongs to its young stars, who have grown immensely as actors since they were first ideally cast by Chris Columbus, the hack who directed the first two movies.

A laugh-filled comedy that might be described as "The Full Monty" meets the Three Stooges.

Well-acted but a bit creaky.

Qualifies as perfect family entertainment.

A brightly colored but terminally dull cartoon.

Rip Torn's recent real-life misadven tures are slightly echoed in Happy Tears, a moderately diverting black comedy in which he plays (what else?) a crazy old coot, to perfection.

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.

As for Gooding, he's sadly gone to the dogs -- Snow Dogs has got to be his most humiliating role since "Lightning Jack."

Morris' most gripping film since "The Thin Blue Line," is the year's scariest movie.

A Southeast Asian thriller that positively reeks of atmosphere - but is woefully lacking in narrative credibility or character development.

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.

Whip-smart, sexy and delightfully twisty romantic thriller.

A witless and vulgar sequel.

Looks great, and the performances are solid, but the disparate elements in this oddity - which created a minor stir at the Sundance Film Festival last year - never entirely coalesce.

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

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.

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

Expect a fast-paced, beautifully mounted and well-acted soap opera with overripe dialogue that plays fast and loose with history - just like they did in the '30s, '40s and '50s - and you won't come away disappointed.

The two youngsters are not polished performers, but that's actually part of the subtle charm.

An uneven quasi-weepie.

In the clumsy hands of director Rob Marshall, this tacky, all-star botch more closely resembles a video catalog for Victoria’s Secret.

Earnest and predictable.

While Murphy never manages to make this crazy quilt dramatically credible, he does hit the mark for laughs and has written some juicy scenes for his excellent cast.

An ugly, unfunny, headache-inducing fairy-tale spoof.

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."

More amusing than laugh-out-loud hilarious, but is never boring.

A vulgar, grating alleged "family" comedy.

Suffers from terminal hoof-in-mouth disease.

So unremittingly vulgar and inept it makes "The Best Man" and "Runaway Bride" look like masterpieces by comparison.

Quirky and sometimes hilarious Canadian comedy.

May not set back Danish-American relations, but it's amusing to imagine how this schlock would have turned out under Denmark's most famous director, the American-hating Lars von Trier.

With Roth at the helm of a script attributed to Price, there is minimal suspense, audience involvement or coherent social commentary.

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

Do your kids a favor - and take them to see something more worthwhile than the relentlessly vulgar and stupid See Spot Run.

Hearing snoring from behind me at a screening the other day, I looked around and noticed four people had dozed off during the prettily photographed, boring vanity project that is Oh My God?

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

Basically a deadly dull rehash of "Resident Evil," which in turn was a third-generation clone of "Aliens."

These people are so selfish and self-absorbed you may not want to spent even 72 minutes with them.

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

Essentially a more awkward Afghan version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

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

Less funny or romantic than your average colonoscopy, this cringe-inducing bore provides dubious employment for four Oscar winners, two nominees and a raft of TV performers.

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.

A lively score by Danny Elfman and some of the most dramatic sound-effects work since the Three Stooges only add to the appeal of Deep Sea 3-D.

Needs less talk, more music.

An excellent way to teach children that movies don't begin and end with Hollywood blockbusters.

Remarkably dull thriller.

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.

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

The kind of movie that cries out for the fast-forward button.

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.

Just to give you a taste of the movie's sophisticated idea of wit, it also makes fun of gay men.

Beautifully shot and well-meant -- but fairly snoozy.

Smart, scary -- and at times very funny -- horror movie.

It's an odd, initially jarring mixture of style and subject matter that works better as the film goes along.

Some fine performances shine through in Joe Maggio's pretentious, credulity-straining dramedy.

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

An overwrought and patently offensive anti- abortion drama from the director of the accomplished "House of Sand and Fog."

This (hopefully) final chapter's interminable first hour...showcases some of the clunkiest dialogue and wooden acting since the most recent "Star Wars" movies.

Grows ever more manipulative and predictable.

Overall, The Last September is a real snooze.

Entertaining but terminally dopey.

Nostalgic for those bad old days, The Wackness was shot at a time when it actually looked like "America's Mayor" was going to be in a position to perform a similar cleanup on the entire country. That, of course, turned out to be a pipe dream.

Schrader's strongest movie since "Affliction," is another meditation on American masculinity powerfully told with great wit and style.

Even with his clothes on, this is Mortensen's best and richest performance, worthy of serious awards consideration. He lends a moral complexity to Eastern Promises that makes it much more than just a very accomplished action thriller.

Hollywood's Woman of the Year is a pregnant 16-year-old, the incredibly hip, smart-mouthed and totally endearing heroine of the wise and witty Juno.

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.

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

Reichardt doesn't so much tell a story as paint a finely detailed portrait of human suffering in this miniature marvel.

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

A leaden retelling of the legend of Australia's Jesse James that has understandably been sitting on the shelf for a couple of years.

A treat for aficionados of oddball movies.

A schmaltz-laden soap opera from Saskatchewan.

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.

Davis, a hugely underrated actress..., is deadpan perfection as Joyce, wearing oversized glasses and a wig that makes her look like an older version of Thora Birch's character in "Ghost World."

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.

A very shallow, very glossy 2½-hour travelogue starring a miscast Julia Roberts as a spoiled, self-centered divorcée who decides to get away from it all.

Gut-Bustingly funny moves are pretty rare, so hustle over to Kung Fu Hustle, actor-director Ste phen Chow's exhilaratingly hilarious and affectionate send-up of Hong Kong action flicks.

If you can check your brain at the popcorn stand and keep your expectations low, Dark Water is an OK genre exercise that maintains a consistently creepy tone.

Holds less water as a mystery because its plot holes - and choppy pacing - make it seem as disconnected from reality as its hero. But Jackson is so frighteningly effective, and affecting, as Romulus that you're sucked in anyway.

Fails to dig out the dramatic meat, despite a yeoman performance by Danny Aiello.

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.

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.

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

Even dumber than Perry's "Three to Tango," this latest sitcommy exercise is sporadically funny in spite of itself -- and not quite as dreadful as you would suspect.

Rarely less than compelling, must-see entertainment, thanks to Farrell, Schumacher and company.

This warped masochistic cousin to David Cronenberg's "Crash" - not to be confused with the Oscar winner of the same name - is well worth seeing for Farmiga's stunning performance.

Slight but utterly charming.

Probably more gut-bustingly funny than anything else out there right now.

A movie so pathetically lame that hopefully even Spears most ardent young fans will give this stinker a big thumbs down.

Never really gets out of the starting gate.

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.

Not many people are making silent horror serials these days, but Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin pushes his love of lurid melodrama to the limit in his latest demented treat, Brand Upon the Brain!

Incoherent, inept, testosterone-drenched mess, which is very much the brain-dead male equivalent of "Sex and the City 2."

Initially shows promise, but filmmaker Frank Cappello (the early Russell Crowe vehicle "No Way Back") gets bogged down when Slater becomes involved with Elisa Cuthbert, a paraplegic survivor of the shooting who wants him to kill her.

What is Dick's excuse for outing one cable news anchor but not a rival counterpart who is far better known? The anchor isn't antigay, but Dick likes the other network's politics better. Hypocrisy? Your call.

There's something seriously wrong when you assemble actors this good -- and can't believe a single stilted word coming out of their mouths.

A fairly painless, if not particularly stimulating, experience, Gray has no idea how to capitalize on the reunion of "Pulp Fiction" co-stars Travolta and Thurman.

Painfully stupid.

Walken gives a beautifully understated performance.

It's suprisingly flat.

The sort of movie that seems to exist for no good reason except to keep the studio's pipeline filled with filmed product.

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.

There'll likely be more Z's in the audience than on the screen.

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

Light summer fun with a Flemish accent.

Pretentious, stagy and over-the-top update of Chekov's "The Three Sisters."

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.

The opening montage raises expectations of a serious, politically incisive depiction of the region. What we actually get is an offensively pandering, Bruckheimer-esque riff on the real-life Khobar Towers bombing of 1996, a Saudi Hezbollah attack that killed 19 Americans.

Excruciatingly unfunny.

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

Heartlessly efficient kidnap thriller.

Sometimes gets repetitive and is slightly overlong. But it's got solid performances.

An alarmingly unfunny French comedy where the two main characters are constantly yakking on a cell phone at an airport.

The clichéd and predictable Suspect Zero is the latest evidence that Hollywood has run the serial-killer thriller into the ground through overuse - the same way it earlier exhausted, say, buddy action-comedies.

So over the top that it often plays like a parody.

Check your brains at the popcorn stand and hang on for a spectacular ride.

A pathetic stoner comedy.