Lou Lumenick

Utterly delightful.

A raunchy, sporadically funny comedy.

A blue-chip Oscar contender that's also a rousing popcorn movie, Ben Affleck's Argo offers plenty of nail-biting thrills as well as funnier scenes than you'd ever imagine possible in the grim context of the Iran hostage crisis.

While there are laughs, the farcical elements of The Oranges are not presented with sufficient discipline to live up to the full potential of its cast. But as a seven-year veteran of the New Jersey suburban experience, I can testify that it nails the milieu's specifics.

When Neeson engages in bare-knuckle fisticuffs at the climax of the cartoonish Taken 2, I honestly couldn't figure out if the 60-year-old actor was actually present at all except for the close-ups.

Tim Burton's best film in years.

Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane is been there, done that.

An indie-inflected popcorn movie with major brains, brilliant acting and a highly satisfying payoff, Looper is the first must-see movie of the season.

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.

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.

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.