Luke Y. Thompson

Director Brad Anderson (Session 9) is usually really good at humanizing ambiguous characters, and he ultimately succeeds, but he has to fight against Scott Kosar's script.

The film is a somewhat disjointed affair that, like the man himself (Green), is occasionally brilliant, frequently repetitive and sometimes merely annoying.

Feels like two films that aren't closely related enough, either tonally or narratively, to warrant their intertwining.

When the entire theme is about misdirection, then yes, assessing how enjoyable the swerves and bluffs are, both narratively and conceptually, feels entirely appropriate. And they all too often feel like letdowns.

Hundreds Of Beavers is one of the most distinctive movies you’ll see all year, and one made for midnight viewings if ever anything was.

Assisted Living's overall mix doesn't quite jell, though there are worthwhile moments.

The sappy trappings that director Raymond De Felitta piles onto the burgeoning romance story line kills any spark that remains, despite the best efforts of the cast to keep it real.

If you're one of those people who complained that "Memento" could just as well have been told in chronological order, The Memory of a Killer may be your cup of tea.

Spends most of its 114 minutes on the making of a demo tape. People in a studio, rapping and recording. If you're going to watch that, wouldn't you prefer it to be Dr. Dre, or Lil Jon, or whoever, rather than actors pretending to be their kind?

It’d be nice to think that the forgettable nature of Memory was a deliberate irony. Then we could grant it bonus points for cleverness, rather than an average grade for just being bland.

A top-notch cast compensates for dubious credibility.

A film worth your time, and if you know going into it that there's no closure, it'll give you all the more freedom to enjoy what IS there.

The Broken Lizard types bring the best out of Paxton, only to abandon him in the second half and focus on themselves. A bit more humility might have served them in better stead.

Where Bowling for Columbine is at its most valuable is in its examination of America's culture of fear as a root cause of gun violence.

Some won't appreciate the mix of tones, but none of the humor cheapens the film's final blow, nor is it designed to condone terrorism in any way.

If the Star Wars movies have taught us anything, it's that waiting 20 years for a new sequel by a guy named George can lead to disappointment.

It's moderately compelling drama, but also fairly static stuff, image-wise.

Fans of Arthur C. Clarke may be pleased, but fans of serious biology may bust out laughing at the goofily rendered aliens who show up.

If you're not in the mood for explicit discussions (and occasional depictions) of the sex life of French adolescents, close your eyes.

There could have been life in the material, but no one involved save Hurt and Collins seems to have taken the time to find it.

The setup's a bit reminiscent of "The English Patient" -- except that Beart's much easier on the eyes and ears than Ralph Fiennes is -- but Strayed is even slower moving, if you can believe it.

If your expectations aren't too high, there's lots of cool shit on-screen.

Give Care and McFarlane points for trying to do something innovative with the same old thing. But realize that, as spruced up as the facade may be, this movie is indeed still the same old thing.

To its credit, and this isn’t damning with faint praise, the new House Party is frequently very funny. (The R-rated language and creative insults are a great asset, even if they might restrict the potential teen audience.) What it has in humor, though, it lacks in pace.

If you can roll with these moments, the rest of the film pays off, but even with a relatively happy ending (one that, given the characters in question, may not last), it's a heck of a downer for date night.

Paradoxically, this technique both keeps you from getting to know the soldiers better and puts you completely in their boots, understanding directly that (as one character puts it) war is boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

Isn't a bad movie by conventional standards, just a boring one.

Simmons plays it understated, conveying a sad-sack quality that's more relatable than Charley's irrational catatonia. The movie should have been about him instead.