Lou Lumenick

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.

Seven Days in Utopia obviously isn't targeted at us cynical New Yorkers. But it goes down more smoothly than you'd imagine thanks to Duvall and an excellent supporting cast.

Markopolos repeatedly tells us he was scared for his life -- accompanied by hokey archival clips and music -- though nothing actually happened to him.

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.

Should appeal more to those who like to watch stuff blow up than understand exactly why the carnage is transpiring.

The overlong Amigo has its heart in the right place, but its approach to complex issues is too simplistic to win over unconverted minds.

I might be able to get past that if Hathaway and Sturgess had any chemistry. There are no sparks whatsoever, and that's always a deal-breaker for me in romantic films.

Rambling, mildly engaging micro-budgeted indie.

Gut-bustingly funny -- perhaps this waning summer season's ultimate guilty pleasure.

It's basically left to the viewer to figure out the historical significance of this drug-fueled odyssey.

You'd be better off renting "Eddie and the Cruisers" (1983) than slogging through this latest, far more dire recycling of the same rock clichés.

Sporadically hilarious but more often just plain crass and contrived.

What follows is a hilarious, slam-bang series of chases and battles that cross "Gremlins" with "Assault on Precinct 13," the two most prominent of many genre films quoted by Attack the Block.

Ineptly directed by Raja Gosnell -- the genius behind the "Scooby-Doo" features, "Big Momma's House," and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" -- this cheesy-looking flick has lousy animation, worse special effects and the most headache-inducing, blurry 3-D since "Clash of the Titans."

This midsummer crowd-pleaser from the ateliers of Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard is still a great deal more rip-roaring fun than, say, the campy movie version of "The Wild Wild West."

Even with a clever final twist straight out of "The Twilight Zone," this crummy-looking two-hander is a tough sit.

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

Chemistry is the usually misfiring engine that drives romantic comedies, so it's a pleasure to report that Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are practically combustible together in Friends With Benefits.

Alas, the complications don't arrive nearly quickly enough for the overlong and slow-paced Lucky to really cook.

By far the best scenes are shared by Sneider and his struggling but devoted mother, played by the seldom-seen Amanda Plummer.

It's a reasonably funny religious satire that takes potshots at easy targets but is quite watchable due to the participation of two Oscar winners and two Oscar nominees.

Everything a summer blockbuster should be but rarely is - a whip-smart, slam-bang piece of entertainment where we deeply care about the fate of the central characters.

There have been many untraditional film adaptations of Shakespeare's, but few have been as unorthodox as this one.

Offers well-chosen selections from Aleichem's darkly humorous work.

A long way from his TV portrayal of John Adams, Giamatti seems to be having an especially good time as a splenetic King John, who would not be out of place in a Monty Python movie.

A dull, by-the-numbers psych-ward horror thriller that's sadly a lot closer in quality to "Sucker Punch" than "Shutter Island."