Lou Lumenick

Overall, it's a hand-tailored job in a marketplace filled with off-the-rack movies.

Might have been more successful if Darabont and his pal had attempted a Preston Sturges-like farce. Instead, it's played totally without any kind of edge - a fantasy that makes "The Lord of the Rings" look realistic by comparison.

A muscular, endlessly twisty homage to film noir capers like "The Asphalt Jungle."

The movie has two modes - very loud and extremely loud - and all of the actors are encouraged to mug their hearts out. That even includes Cusack's real-life sister Joan, normally one of the most reliable performers in the business.

The last half hour devoted to the Big Game, staged by a crew from NFL films, is genuinely rousing and inspiring. That's where Friday Night Lights finally shines.

A crass, shrill and laughless disaster of a holiday comedy with a desperately mugging Ben Affleck that should be banned under the Geneva Convention.

An expensive demonstration that all the spectacular effects in the world aren't enough to make a great film - but it's worth seeing for that stunning half-hour alone.

A too-cute-by-half Irish romantic comedy that's overloaded with movie references that begin with the title.

The rare sequel that is better than the original.

An OK kids movie passing through on the way to video.

Rambling, schmaltzy romantic comedy.

A must-see for Nicholson's mesmerizing performance, which would probably hold interest even if the sound were turned off.

Harrelson's charming flamboyance - seen to great effect in "No Country for Old Men" - is a great fit for Carter, who carries no small amount of self-loathing under his carefully coifed toupee.

For me, the movie's high point comes when Tony auditions for a role in a Martin Scorsese movie. Tony learns not to try so hard -- a lesson that Garcia also seems to have absorbed from City Island.

Offers a few laughs - and little sexual heat.

Looks great for a no-budget indie, but not a single moment rings true in this sluggish vanity project, which is sorely in need of Viagra.

A boring, wincingly cute and nauseatingly politically correct cartoon guaranteed to drive anyone much over age 4 screaming from the theater.

Steamy and solidly entertaining.

While sporadically funny, the sophomoric My Name Is Bruce is no "Bubba Ho-Tep," the movie where Campbell unforgettably played Elvis Presley as a nursing home patient battling a mummy with the help of John F. Kennedy. But Campbell's fans can feel free to add a star or two.

When New York, I Love You was previewed in Toronto a year ago, there were two additional segments that have since been cut. So you'll have to wait for the DVD to see just how bad Scarlett Johansson's directing debut is.

Entertaining and heartwarming -- especially when Mirren sweeps into scenes with acid observations that fail to disguise a heart of gold.

Kirschner's excruciatingly earnest coming-of-age comedy, is about as fresh as year-old matzoh and plays like the unholy spawn of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

Disappointingly routine kidnapping thriller with soap-opera trimmings.

Modestly entertaining.

There is plenty of blame to go around for this laughless mess.

An absorbing documentary.

Shepard, who directed "The Matador" and the pilot for "Ugly Betty," can't quite get the disparate elements of The Hunting Party to mesh into a satisfying whole.

A love letter to the technology and movies of the 1980s as well as celebrating the DIY ethos of the YouTube generation.

Significantly more gruesome and noisy than its predecessor, and boasting more nasty-looking fluids than all the works of David Fincher combined, this version leaves few corpses unturned in its unstinting campaign to please gorehounds.

This is a rare case of a movie that improves dramatically as it goes along.

May be the most fun you'll have at the movies this summer.

Overall, the film is not quite up to "Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid" from the same directing team of Ron Clements and John Musker, not to mention the recent string of masterpieces from Pixar.

The acting is serviceable at best, the direction unfocused - and the special effects and makeup cheesy-looking. This is surely the most dreary-looking film ever shot by the great Vittorio Storaro ("Apocalypse Now").

Should you get Carter? Sure - but make it the Michael Caine classic Warner Bros. is releasing on video next week.

Kane was nicknamed "Killer" because of his playing style -- and New York Doll has a killer surprise ending that may leave even hard-core punkers reaching for the Kleenex.

Thanks to a winning cast, all of this is funnier than you would expect considering the erratic script.

For all his skill with a cue, the charisma-challenged Callahan is no Nia Vardalos in the acting department -- let alone a Paul Newman or Tom Cruise.

A dumb, by-the-numbers children's movie.

Laugh-out-loud comedies are so rare that you shouldn't casually pass up Super Troopers, which is essentially a smarter and much funnier version of the old "Police Academy" flicks.

Crude and cheerfully sophomoric teen sex comedy.

In effect gives you two movies for the price of one. The better one doesn't star Sandra Bullock.

This movie fails so spectacularly - and on so many levels - that it's like watching a train plummet off a bridge.

Easily the worst movie I've seen so far this year.

Especially worthwhile for the chemistry between Bell and Myles.

Fanning gives a sensitive and fairly impressive performance. But like her over-the-top movie family, Hounddog is still trailer trash of the worst kind.

Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock achieves an amazing feat: It turns the fabled music festival, a key cultural moment of the late 20th century, into an exceedingly lame, heavily clichéd, thumb-sucking bore.

Head and shoulders above the sort of lightheaded epics Hollywood typically offers during the summer season.

None of this is remotely funny.

A campy, low-budget Romero homage that's badly in need of editing.

Break out the popcorn and prepare to be blown away. King Kong is the most pulse- pounding and heart-stirring romantic adventure since "Titanic."

Masterful, atypically political - and flawlessly acted.

It's bone tired.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible to make a prison picture as utterly boring as Jailbait.

An earnest, if dreary little Canadian domestic drama.

The year's best foreign-language movie an absolute must-see.

Essentially a weird series of nonsequiturs. I'd rather be watching a sequel to the much-maligned "Little Nicky" -- a Sandler film that was at least trying to do something interesting -- than this failed experiment in fusing high and low culture.

The film repeatedly disappoints because Sandler and his director...have so little faith in focusing on the two characters' plight that they interrupts the romance repeatedly for vulgar, Farrelly brothers-style sexual and ethnic jokes that are so relentlessly unfunny they may not even rouse Sandler's core constituency of 12-year-old males.

A campy, brightly colored musical comedy.

All movies require suspension of disbelief to a certain degree, but p.s. really pushes the envelope.

If animated dogs were eligible for acting awards, the Oscar would go to Gromit.

The sort of heart-tugger a small group of people will love passionately.

It isn't as ridiculous as this year's other version of a local best seller set during WWII ("Captain Corelli's Mandolin"), but it's arguably even less entertaining.

Under Mark Palansky's uninspired direction, magic eludes Penelope in scene after scene.

Aims straight for the tear ducts as well, but this weepie is a dry well.

So utterly devoid of suspense, energy or credibility it should have been shipped straight to the remainder bin at Blockbuster.

It's hard to imagine hardened New Yorkers actually paying to see this totally uncritical, gee-whiz celebration of stock car racing, its fans and its history, breathlessly narrated by Kiefer Sutherland and perfunctorily directed by Simon Wincer.

Rent "Enchanted" with Adams, and watch Goode as Colin Firth's boyfriend in his other current movie, "A Single Man."

One of those painfully earnest -- and pretentious -- little indies in which a pair of emotional cripples neatly resolve all of their problems within 48 hours of meeting each other.

A sometimes eye-opening, if overlong, German-Swiss documentary on a holistic health system that's been practiced, mostly in India, for more than 500 years.

Your heart will have you cheering Gordy on -- even as your brain complains that there are plot holes you could drive a truck bomb through.

This movie takes its sweet time wrapping together three related tales set in various regions of North Carolina -- to ultimately devastating effect.

The material has been dumbed down for contemporary tastes and Carrey's frantic comic style.

Has its moments, but overall it's depressing.

The unusually explicit dungeon scenes with Pablo, a leather daddy and a fellow slave may whip a rather specialized audience into a frenzy. But for others, A Year Without Love will be a less pleasurably painful experience.

Filmed largely in black and white, The Cool School includes interviews with one of the gallery's founders, Ed Kienholz, as well as with Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell and architect Frank Gehry.

A testosterone- and cliché-fueled epic that will have some hoping for sudden death as it stumbles toward the three-hour mark.

A real crock.

Sandler's latest ode to projectile vomiting, passing gas, gay jokes and physical insults to the groin is basically a feeble cross between "The Revenge of the Nerds" and "The Bad News Bears."

Screenwriter Steve Kloves still seems overly dedicated to cramming in every detail of J.K. Rowling's novel - while tacking on a schmaltzy Hollywood ending.

The way-too-neat ending of The Brave One especially strains credulity, but it's worth watching for Foster's fiercely arresting performance.

Slight but charming.

A female revenge movie. But you could just as easily characterize it as fairly well-executed exploitation.

A lame comic tribute to the dwindling band of "Star Wars" aficionados, is one of those be nighted projects whose back story turns out to be significantly more compelling than the movie itself.

In-depth performances by De Niro and Gooding Jr. provide the oxygen for this extremely shipshape biopic.

A worthy addition to the growing canon of Holocaust documentaries.

Basically "Jumanji" in outer space -- and even without Robin Williams, this is still a singularly loud, charmless and overbearing family movie that could use a hit or two of Ritalin.

Walk the Line superbly combines music and two of the year's most riveting performances to tell one of the screen's great love stories.

This intriguing film is the best variation on "Vertigo" since Brian DePalma's far more polished "Obsession" (1976), which ranks with the best Hitchcock knockoffs of all time.

There are a few interesting moments, but basically Up at the Villa is dangerously short of sympathetic characters.

Doesn't quite live up to the promise of its opening sequence, but it's still an audacious offering during a season of brain-dead blockbusters.

The eloquent narration forSaint of 9/11 is delivered by Ian McKellen.

Smart, funny and good-looking animation.

In the course of How About You, much champagne is consumed, pot is smoked, and a good time is had by all, the audience included. Redgrave even sings the title song.

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

Basically a Lifetime movie that somehow found its way into theaters.

It's not exactly going to be on PETA's 10-best list.

Not for all tastes, but it demonstrates Loach's skill as a poet of gritty semi-documentary filmmaking.

You know a movie's got problems when the most memo rable thing about it is Sienna Miller's mustache.

There is fun to be had at Van Helsing, but it requires considerable suspension of disbelief at the apparently deliberately ridiculous plot necessary to bring the three monsters together.

A raunchy, endearing and often hilarious cross between “Back to the Future” and Reagan-era cheese-fests such as “Hot Dog: The Movie.”

Despite risible dialogue, Mercy is watchable because of Caan's physical presence -- and a couple of scenes with his real-life father, James Caan, as his cynical dad who pronounces that "love -- it does not exist."

Relies far too much on an overdose of gore and a pack of hungry wolves to deliver its chills.

This new low-octane version is hardly going to make anyone forget Robert Aldrich's semi-classic, testosterone-laden original starring Jimmy Stewart.

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

Tepid tale of star-crossed lovers in 1910 Wales.

Very sentimental.

An offer you shouldn't refuse: It's laugh-out-loud, side-splitting funny.

In an era when documentaries are looking more and more glossy, it's almost refreshing to see the austere approach taken by veteran Frederick Wiseman.

A repugnant little indie black comedy, poorly acted in hideous-looking digital video, guaranteed to send audiences fleeing for the nearest shower.

A smart, funny, stylish and very violent British gangster movie.

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

While often diverting and physically impressive in an old-fashioned way, Hidalgo suffers from weird shifts in tone, offensively outdated stereotypes, a cumbersome subplot - and a supposedly fact-based story that bears only a nodding acquaintance with reality.

Thornton lends gravity, focus and humor that are otherwise in short supply in this serious-minded but meandering, talky and action-deficient epic.

Bad in ways that are almost endearing, St. Trinian's does offer the spectacle of Rupert Everett mincing around in drag as a headmistress bedeviled by Colin Firth, as an education minister and former lover who wants to shut down her out-of-control school.

An extremely well- acted thriller that simply fails to thrill.

It's highly entertaining, even if it's almost entirely one-sided.

Lame family filler.

Mildly interesting.

Hollywood's Thanksgiving turkey arrives today - 27 days early - in the gobbling guise of the heavily hyped, brain-dead comedy, I Spy.

Formulaic but entertaining, My Best Friend climaxes with a lengthy, surprisingly heartfelt sequence set on the French version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire."

A protracted piece of schmaltz, P.S. I Love You looks like a hand-me-down from Sandra Bullock and Drew Barrymore.

No worse and no better than the majority of chick flicks.

Perhaps the best compliment I can pay to his work in Edge of Darkness is that I wouldn't particularly want to see this movie with grumpy Harrison Ford starring instead. Welcome back, Mel.

Few of the increasingly far-fetched events that first-time writer-director Neil Burger follows up with are terribly convincing, which is a pity, considering Barry's terrific performance.

Osment, playing a fatherless 14-year-old, has entered the sort of awkward adolescence that afflicts so many male child stars - and seems utterly intimidated by his esteemed co-stars.

Fairly suspenseful.

De Niro gives a technically brilliant performance as Walt, struggling with a body that will no longer obey him.

Deafeningly loud and proudly silly epic.

Summer hasn't even started, but you won't likely find a better catch this season than Finding Nemo, a dazzling, computer-animated fish tale with a funny, touching script and wonderful voice performances that make it an unqualified treat for all ages.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia has it all - unfortunately. With four major story lines and more endings than "The Return of the King," this ambitious 165-minute epic is the movie equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Duplex, a shoddily constructed and alarmingly unfunny dark comedy that squanders the talents of Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore, is one real-estate deal you should walk away from.

Preposterous romantic melodrama, which uses a fractured narrative to cloud an absurd plot that would probably be laughed off the screen if it were presented in a straightforward manner.

Basically a watered-down collage of scenes from "Heathers," "Clueless," "Sixteen Candles" and numerous other teen flicks.

A hip eye-opener.

A challenging experimental film that will never play in a commercial movie theater and is settling in for a two-week run at the ever-venturesome Film Forum.

Ambitious, guilt-suffused melodrama crippled by poor casting.

A lavish biopic that gives Li one of his juiciest roles but is relatively light on the action his fans have come to expect.

Wildly uneven romantic drama.

Intelligent, well-acted movie.

Brad Anderson's Transsiberian is a genuine sleeper that jump-starts an almost extinct genre.

Stunningly photographed, largely with a hand-held camera, by Rodrigo Prieto (another member of the "Amores Perros" team) on gritty locations in Memphis and Albuquerque, 21 Grams is also a visual tour de force - and a rare Hollywood product depicting class differences with any kind of honesty.

That The Big Bounce works at all is a testament to Wilson, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter ("The Royal Tenenbaums") who probably could have come up with something better in his sleep.

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

The movie includes a recurring motif of immigrant taxi drivers - like them, the movie is constantly going around in circles.

Morgan never reaches the heights the film probably would have hit if had been directed by Tim Burton, whose style is frequently evoked -- especially Shirley Walker's playful score, which seems channeled directly from Burton's frequent collaborator Danny Elfman.

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

For anyone with an interest in racing, "First Saturday" is a sure bet.

The best end-of-August movie I've seen in years.

A glossy gay soap opera that graphically illustrates new meanings for the term "missionary position."

An ultra-predictable if essentially painless romantic comedy.

Certainly the most painfully unfunny of the countless bad movies that have licensed the name of the long-defunct humor magazine.

Beyond-lame satire.

A tediously self-absorbed variation on "The Big Chill" and "The Return of the Secaucus 7."

Cocchio's film isn't as poetic as Gus Van Sant's hauntingly beautiful (far more expensive) "Elephant," but it has a power and immediacy that makes it much more worthwhile than "Home Room."

The biblically themed Seraphim Falls moseys along very slowly, climaxing with a lengthy series of flashbacks and an appearance by Anjelica Huston as a medicine woman who may or not be the devil.

While Bell makes the point that pros account for about 85 percent of total usage, he is more interested in why others - including a guy with the world's biggest biceps, who admits they repulse women - are so driven to be Bigger, Stronger, Faster*.

A brave but ultimately futile attempt at adapting a piece that is so quintessentially theatrical that it defies translation to another medium.

Complaining about the gooey and generic The Holiday is as useless as railing against fruitcake - this is a slick, throwaway chick flick designed to provide nothing more than mindless diversion between bouts of shopping.

Ken Marino of "Dawson's Creek," who wrote the somewhat autobiographical script, plays one of Rudd's pals.

It's hard to say what's more offensive about the out-of- tune Radio - Cuba Gooding Jr. trying to ingratiate himself by mugging up a storm as a mentally challenged man, or the mawkish narrative surrounding him like so much syrup.

Confirms Leigh's reputation as one of the world's master filmmakers - and showcases Staunton as one of its great actresses.

Grows tiresome rather quickly.

an overlong and surprisingly dull documentary.

Though Binoche does very solid work, she can't sell the idea of her and Law as a couple; the chemistry isn't there. Not much else rings true in Minghella's screenplay, which is full of coincidences and speeches about race and class.

We began this dismal movie season with one lethally bad World War II romance -- "Pearl Harbor" -- and now we're wrapping up with another howling dog.

A heart-pounding experience that makes you think and contains a gallery of characters that will haunt your nightmares for years to come.

Everyone knows about the Holocaust, but few today have heard about what was infamous as the Rape of Nanking, when 200,000 residents of what was then China's capital were massacred by invading Japanese troops.

It's basically the longest (a butt-numbing 21/2 hours), the most expensive (a reportedly obscene $150 million), most vulgar and by far the stupidest episode of "Miami Vice" ever.

Superb as an auto salesman who sinks deeper and deeper into disgrace in Solitary Man, Douglas' juiciest vehicle since "Wonder Boys."

Too crude for serious audiences and too serious to be good exploitation, Coming Soon is a teen sex comedy that's predictably getting a token theatrical release prior to its imminent debut on home video.

A chilly, pretentious and talky drama.

Mark Becker's Romantico is beautifully realized on old-fashioned film. And that's only part of its charms.

Goes from being tediously terrible to downright gigglesome.

For all of Affleck's skill, he can't entirely put over a credulity-straining ending that probably worked better on the printed page. At the same time, the deeply disturbing windup of "Gone Baby Gone" is a real talker. And that's not something you can say about many movies these days.

Extremely unsettling and thought- provoking.

Bracing and stylish thriller.

Horror-movie vets Harrington ("Wrong Turn") and Sagemiller ("Soul Survivors") struggle unsuccessfully with characters who are frequently more plastic than Nikki.

Stengarde gives an arresting performance as a mentally unstable woman.

It's hard not to like a PG-rated 'toon that works in references to "Pulp Fiction" and "Fargo," even if Meet the Robinsons, a delightful, quirk-filled riff on "Back to the Future," proceeds in fits and starts.

Quirkily likable comedy-drama about a family trying to coping with loss, contains three of the best performances you're likely to see in an American movie this year.

Yet another teen comedy that tries to have it both ways -- basically, "Mean Girls" with crucifixes instead of designer jewelry.

Yet another screwed-up mess that will give audiences another excuse to shun the multiplexes this weekend.

Basically it's an acting exercise - a one-set rendition of that old stage and movie standby, the ex-convict struggling to go straight who's tempted to attempt one last score.

So s-l-o-w-l-y paced it seems twice as long as its two-hour running time.

A cartoonish, unfocused and mostly unfunny satire.

Despite pitch-perfect performances, the craft of Moretti's direction and his honorable intentions, The Son's Room was not especially moving.

Ends up a nightmare of a star vehicle.

The kind of small gem that's becoming increasingly rare in American films.

For Your Consideration isn't quite in a class with Guest's earlier films like "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind," which is not to say it isn't uproariously funny.

Altman and Rapp skirt the fine line between satire and caricature, stopping just short of ridiculing the women who pack Dr. T's office.

Does offer solid laughs, engaging performances and a captivating setting.

Arguably as effective as Ambien at inducing sleep, but possible side effects include uncontrollable laughter.

Thanks to (Douglas), Diamonds is quite affecting -- even if it's not a particularly good movie.

A determinedly raunchy holiday comedy about a libidinous, larcenous and perpetually soused St. Nick with a nonstop potty mouth.

Brutally funny documentary.

Sorry, the beloved Singin’ in the Rain isn’t the finest of the legendary MGM musicals. For my money, it’s a close second to The Band Wagon, which has better music, better dances, better direction, more lavish sets and costumes and a wittier script (by the same writers).

It remains for a tougher documentary to more forcefully trace exactly who benefits from this shameful practice -- multinational corporations and consumers who don't ask enough questions.

A major disappointment, The Cider House Rules pales by comparison with the gutsier, more full-bodied adaptation of Irving's "The World According to Garp."

The performances by the attractive ensemble cast are uniformly solid.

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.

Kline's divine -- alas, the film isn't.

This is a by-the-numbers rehash that will leave anyone much over 5 enormously grateful that, if you duck out before the lengthy end credits, it lasts just over an hour.

Big-Hearted and often quite funny if crudely made, Fat Girls cleverly subverts the clichés of high school comedies to serve an autobiographical story about an overweight gay teen in a small Texas town.

Sheen, who is also reprising his stage role and appeared as Tony Blair in the Morgan-written "The Queen," is highly effective as Frost - though the stakes for Frost are nowhere near as interesting as those for Nixon.

Adoration, which hinges on a number of coincidences, contains some really fine performances.

Stylish - if predictable - thriller.

Thanks to Jordan's bravura storytelling, Breakfast on Pluto is one of very few movies this year truly worth remembering.

Li is powerless when the film slows to a crawl to provide a little drama.

Mitchell's adventurous, big- hearted, pansexual mosaic of New Yorkers looking for love and orgasms (not necessarily in that order), is a rare example of a nonporn film that doesn't exploit graphic sex as a gimmick.

You won't have a more viscerally emotional experience at the movies this year.

Ultimately has a somewhat unfinished quality that complements the movie's themes -- and Hall's haunting performance.

Exceedingly lame.

Only mildly diverting and way too long for a movie aimed at kids.

The Road to Guantanamo is a missed opportunity. This is a subject that deserves a more thoughtful documentary or docudrama, not a hastily thrown together amalgam of the two.

An engaging documentary.

There's an air of extreme predictability and inevitability in the script - which takes liberties like moving the climactic debate from the University of Southern California to the grander precincts of Harvard.

Catnip for the art-house crowd.

More than lives up to its clever positioning as the first movie of the new millennium.

A summer delight that also provides a quick cultural education.

There are far, far worse ways to spend two hours than watching Jessica Alba in a skimpy bikini - as well as other natural wonders photographed in the Bahamas - in the airheaded underwater adventure Into the Blue.

Director Kevin Bray, whose clichéd style betrays his music-video roots, devotes far too much time to the mechanics of the illogical plot.

One bad movie -- in the original sense of the word.

Though Mantegna can't quite lick the essential staginess of Mamet's adaptation of his play, even with lots of scenic shots of Lake Ontario, the performances are what one would expect with such a consummate actor in charge.

Shallow and blatantly manipulative variation on "Awakenings" in which every plot development is telegraphed.

An entertaining piece of pulp fiction.

The best thing Baldwin has done in years, and a triumph of low-budget storytelling by a director to watch.

A shrill farce that strains credibility even by the standards of black comedy.

Overlong, overblown and utterly forgettable.

Despite reams of maudlin narration, McKidd's powerful performance as a conflicted man makes this beautifully shot low-budget feature worth checking out.

A cut-rate ripoff of "Aeon Flux" with Milla Jovovich as a butt-kicking futuristic heroine in a midriff-baring bodysuit, is ultrastupid, ultra-incoherent, ultrasilly - and way, way ultraboring.

The latest catastrophe from the Weinstein Co.

While there are some scattered laughs, the flimsy and nonsensical script - combined with the sledgehammer direction by Brian Robbins, make the similarly themed "Big Momma's House" look like Noel Coward.

It must have sounded great on paper.

Stinko movies often unwittingly critique themselves -- and the brain-dead romantic comedy Down to You (which Miramax understandably didn't screen in advance for critics) is no exception.

This So-Called Disaster was the father's sarcastic term for their relationship.

Rogers gives a brave performance, but there isn't much chemistry between Bridges and Basinger, who were teamed to better effect in 1987's "Nadine."

Overlong, blandly soporific.

The latest in a series of entertaining IMAX underwater documentaries.

An excellent case for euthanizing the entire talking-animals genre.

Panders to its audience by glorifying drug dealing and violence in all-too-depressingly familiar ways.

As much as we like Alec as an actor, it's hard to imagine that any amount of editing and reshooting under his supervision could salvage his complete ineptitude as a director.

The dreary, direct-to-video quality of the script, acting and cinematography in this latest entry seemed to inspire more yawns than screams, and not a few titters.

The first movie I've seen in a very long while that deserves to be called a masterpiece. It's such a stunning achievement in storytelling.

Acceptably diverting Saturday night at the movies, especially if you're willing to check your brains at the popcorn stand.

This bittersweet comedy is a fine showcase for a pair of distinctive and appealing talents.

It's Complicated is basically "Avatar" for women of a certain age, with blond highlights replacing blue skin.

As huge a travesty and a bore as 1956's "Alexander the Great," in which Richard Burton looked equally uncomfortable as a blond.

The willfully eccentric Beyond the Sea seems to be telling us a lot more about its star and director, Kevin Spacey, than its ostensible subject.

If I were a member of Generation X, I would be fed up with Hollywood's obsession with the idea that its men are genetically incapable of growing up.

Has its sluggish stretches, but the superb level of acting is more than ample compensation.

Boring and desperately unfunny.

As formulaic in its own way as anything mainstream Hollywood turns out, In Bruges is also a fish-out-of-water comedy.

Easier to sit through than the typical, earnest Christian movie.

There is nothing startlingly new in Resident Evil: Apocalpyse, but it is delivered with some panache and humor.

An above-average and sometimes surprising kid movie.

Isn't as relentlessly vulgar or cartoonish as "The Ladies Man" - nor is it a whole lot more realistic.

The acting is, at best, serviceable; the sound track is too often unintelligible; the direction is often over the top; and the script relies heavily on stereotypes.

Beowulf & Grendel has its moments, as well as its debits. Among the later is the grating Canadian accent of Sarah Polley, who plays a witch named Selma.

Isn't quite as accessible or as deeply moving as his masterpiece, "All About My Mother." It's a tad too self-consciously a work of art for that. But it's still a must-see for anyone who's halfway serious about film.

Denzel Washington dazzles in his best screen performance to date as Frank Lucas.

I laughed harder at Pumpkin than at any other film I've seen this year -- but be warned: This dark campus comedy is not for all tastes, or probably even most tastes.

A thrilling, beautifully crafted, fact-based horse story that's not merely the summer's finest movie, but may well be the one to catch come Academy Awards time.

Rarely have filmmakers had a more wildly improbable happy ending forced on them. Well, you need all the help you can get, divine or otherwise, when your two stars - Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon - have no chemistry whatsoever.

Tells its story so effectively through pictures it's barely necessary to read the subtitles.

Sony dumped this sleazy, inept and worthless piece of torture porn into theaters yesterday.

Engrossing and exhilarating documentary.

Lee's framing device - which ends with a head-scratching fantasy - doesn't work. At. All.