Maitland McDonagh

A hokey, more-than-a-little-annoying mystical journey of self-discovery.

The material is familiar, and doesn't have anything new to say about the ways men and women wound each other.

Though the raw material is juicy stuff, the details and the larger picture never come together and the cast is uneven.

The execution is masterful and even as you see the building blocks of the climax being put into place, it's a delight to watch them fit JUST SO.

While sometimes evocative, they don't add up to a satisfying movie any more than, as several characters are cautioned, coffee and cigarettes constitute a healthy lunch.

It never actually coalesces into a movie.

Goofy and inconsequential, but pretty damned cute.

Shot in neorealist black-and-white, it opens like a gritty slice of social drama, then takes a sharp turn into bleak, existential horror.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Ethan Hawke's second feature, an adaptation of his own novel about youthful heartbreak, is hobbled by its singularly unappealing lead characters.

Hailed as a clever exercise in neo-Hitchcockianism, this clever and very satisfying picture is more accurately Chabrolian.

Fans of Lehane's Kenzie-Gennaro books will lament the fact that starting with the fourth book means losing the couple's extensive backstory, but the essence of their fragile, damaged bond comes through even if you don't know what shaped it.

Doesn’t break any new documentary ground, but it does exactly what it sets out to do: Preserve a live event and make it available to a broader audience.

Has a certain silly, kid-friendly charm.

Terrio keeps the multiple stories flowing smoothly, and the setting goes a long way to justify the web of fortuitous interconnections -- New York is the ultimate two-degrees-of-separation town.

An amazing artifact; the decor and lighting mix '70s tackiness with odd '50s touches, the sound design is elaborate.

Overall, it's like watching a home movie of a charming relative.

Toback quickly reveals himself as an insufferable, opinionated blowhard who pontificates shamelessly about the art of the cinema while indulging his own obsessions on film.

Television director David Von Ancken's metaphorical revenge Western wears its influences on its sleeve, but adds nothing to the genre that hasn't already been explored in the quietly demythologizing films of Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher, the baroque, operatic Italian Westerns of Sergio Leone and his less-familiar peers, and even in Sam Fuller's deranged, post-Civil War psychodrama "Run of the Arrow"(1956).

Two idiots embark on a life of crime to help a deserving teenager attend Harvard in this lowbrow but generally sweet-natured comedy.

The rhythms of Charlotte's mannered, artificial dialogue are better suited to stage than screen -- each segment started life as a one-act play and overall the film works better as a conversation starter than drama.

In a world filled with crude movie sitcoms, Berg's bitter, worst-possible-case scenario really does stand alone.

You can see the outline of an interesting movie beneath the cutesy-pie characterizations and heavy-handed mockery of small-town small-mindedness, but any chance it might have had is short-circuited by director Griffin Dunne's overwhelming inability to establish a consistent tone for the admittedly off-kilter material.

So outrageously, unregenerately stupid that you might be tempted to think it's smart. But it's not: It's as dumb as Georgia dirt.

McTiernan's extensive action background is nowhere evident in the murky, all-but-impossible to follow battle sequences.

If the characters were more interesting, the long, long buildup to their night of ghostly reckoning might be suspenseful rather than tedious.

But overall, Jackson goes for the magic by sidestepping every error of judgment and failure of imagination that brought the ponderous 1976 remake thudding to Earth before Kong ever did. He delivers three solid hours of breathless, enchanting entertainment.

Overall, it's a curiously lifeless affair.

Should please undiscriminating fans. But it in no way improves on the clichéd formula.

Even Spade's most dedicated fans would probably be better off staying home and watching a "Just Shoot Me" rerun.

Rios is the glue that holds Johannesson's neither-fish-nor-fowl film together.

Davidson's young cast is remarkable, engaging and guilelessly funny without being so cute that their calculated actions ring false.

The production design is phenomenal, reproducing the series' swinging '60s decor and techno-geek flourishes, from the launch pad under the swimming pool to Lady Penelope's pink roadster, which turns into a mini-plane.

This is sorry stuff.

The film's secret weapon is its kicky soundtrack.

For all its tongue-in-cheek toying with images, it doesn't reward attempts at serious intellectual analysis. It has the air of a surprisingly juvenile lark, a pop-influenced prank whose charms are immediately apparent and wear thin with repetition.

Despite its admirable sobriety for most of its running time, the film's climax is a parade of ludicrous clichés.

Even Mo'Nique's outsize presence isn't enough to make ancient gags about stuck-up popular girls or about voluptuous vultures clearing a whole buffet table in one fell swoop funny.

Ryan Schifrin's first film is a pleasant surprise, an old-fashioned monster movie that relies more on genuine suspense than bare breasts and blood.

Cronenberg's brand of body horror isn't to everyone's taste, but to call him a reactionary anti-sensualist who metes out grotesque punishment for sins of the flesh -- as detractors have -- is to miss the point.

It's little more than a disjointed succession of kick-ass action scenes.

The story is complex enough to be absorbing, but its pedantic quality makes it -- and its lessons -- all too easy to forget.

Though clearly well-intentioned, this cross-cultural soap opera is painfully formulaic and stilted.

There's at least one ending too many, Union regularly vanishes for long stretches of the movie, and director Michael Bay's unmitigated pandering to viewers who whoop with glee whenever someone gets it between the eyes is genuinely distasteful.

The movie's secret weapons are its stellar cast, whose performances go a long way to ameliorating Ross's ham-fisted use of foreshadowing and symbols, and its brilliantly shot racing sequences -- they're heart-stoppingly suspenseful even when the outcome is a matter of record.

A dry, thoroughly modern reminder that while mores change, human nature doesn't.

The supporting cast is a riot of stock exotic characters, verging on the offensively stereotypical.

Director/co-writer/co-producer Jon Gunn's Christian agenda is evident without being intolerably sanctimonious, and he's a competent filmmaker who shows sign of having a little style.

A goofball gore picture with aspirations to cult status.

A successful thriller makes you forget such impossibilities, but here they poison every scene.

A funny, perceptive and seductively engaging movie.

For all the tear-jerking plot twists, it's a glumly dry-eyed affair.

The effectiveness of this kind of issue-driven give and take relies heavily on casting, and Ritchie puts himself at a disadvantage: Madonna looks terrific in a bikini but she can't act, and the younger Giannini is stunt casting.

It's tough going relieved only by some lovely Irish scenery. -

A scary, intelligent thriller that remains haunting long after it's over...features what has to be one of the creepiest first half-hours in recent film history.

The cast is little more than the sum total of golden skin, firm flesh and blindingly white teeth, but in a film that demands them to be half-naked and soaking wet most of the time, looks trump technical acting skill every time.

This is a shameless, straightforward soap opera (no Almodovarian excess here!), but it's pretty entertaining on its own sudsy terms.

Despite earnest performances by Mueller-Stahl, Bierko, Mol and Vincent d'Onofrio (in the duel role of a programmer and a VR bartender), the movie feels like a bit of a rehash.

An unvarnished look at the emotional havoc that ensues when middle-class housewife Kira (Stine Stengade) returns home after a lengthy stay in a mental hospital, anchored by devastating performances.

It's hard to imagine who would find this funny.

Soulless, sleekly executed product.

The film's greatest asset is its performances.

Features phenomenally beautiful background animation and complex characterizations, and offers glimpses of a poverty-stricken Tokyo underclass that's rarely featured -- let alone portrayed sympathetically -- in mainstream Japanese films.

It's as hard not to ask what former New York Doll David Johansen is doing in their company, prancing his way through an irrelevant version of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," as it is not to wonder why the audience is so overwhelmingly white.

A romantic comedy that's trying its damnedest to be cute and endearing and might be more successful if it weren't built on a foundation of barely-concealed misogyny.

It's all cutely derivative, occasionally charming and very occasionally clever...but the movie's vague aspirations to being something more than disposable fluff never amount to anything.

The thorny heart of Steven Spielberg's sober, fact-based political thriller about Israeli retaliation for the murder of 11 Olympic athletes by Palestinian terrorists is the knowledge that vengeance is a self-perpetuating murder machine that drags successive generations into a mire of tit-for-tat bloodshed.

It's a deftly executed crowd-pleaser, but it's dishonest to the core.

Witty and beautifully textured.

A darkly comic trifle that follows in the footsteps of such films as Catherine Breillat's "Romance" (2000), "The Brown Bunny" (2003) and Michael Winterbottom's "9 Songs" (2004) by incorporating hard-core sex into a nonpornographic narrative.

Nelson's film eschews sensationalism, and knowing how the story ends in no way diminishes its visceral impact.

To call Christian's film unpolished is an understatement.

Weighty and downbeat though that sounds, Delpy's film is delightfully light, especially when it's parsing the infinite variety of horrible French cabbies.

The thin line between self-esteem and hubris is explored in this cautionary tale.

The animation is truly breathtaking, the action sequences are spectacular (and sometimes very violent) and everything floats along on the strains of Il Won's spare, hypnotic score.

Given his way with witty banter, Stoppard's obvious, even leaden, dialogue is especially disappointing; director Michael Apted's handling of the story's frequent flashbacks is equally infelicitous.

Film feels like a parody of Mamet mannerisms, and the trouble lies with the play, which Mamet first penned some 25 years for an Actors Equity showcase.

So adorable you don't ever mind that the story's so slight it's in danger of shriveling up and blowing away, or that it drags a little in the middle.

Juvenile and pointless.

Nothing much happens on the surface, but worlds of hope, hurt and determination lie right behind the characters' eyes, waiting to be discovered.

A sweet-natured coming-of-age/raising-of-consciousness drama.

Imagine "Hansel and Gretel" by way of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

The talented Bettis works her heart out, but McKee apparently directed her to play May as a quivering crazy from the start.

Scorsese's canny use of archival footage makes it more than a mere concert film.

There's no faulting this movie's Capra-esque concept, equal parts optimism and sad recognition of the world's intrinsic harshness, but its manipulative execution may rub you the wrong way.

A collaboration between the notoriously offbeat Coen brothers and thoroughly mainstream screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone, this piquant romantic comedy is both resolutely generic and bristling with barbs that go down with a delicious fizz and leave behind a refreshing blast of tartness.

As to the dream sequence featuring Lonnie's and Brandy's trash-talking babies, it's just creepy.

Despite the low budget, the film is handsomely designed and well acted.

A window into bygone morals and mores.

Campbell Scott's fiendishly mercurial performance as razor-tongued womanizer Roger is a revelation but it's only one of this nimble film's pleasures.

It's a kiddie movie rejiggered for childish grown-ups, of whom there are enough to make it a hit. How such childishness has become a virtual secular religion is hard to imagine.

Ricci's less flashy characterization of the immature Selby is equally skilled and meshes seamlessly with Theron's uncompromising performance.

Deville gently reveals that they're all simultaneously hauntingly fragile and amazingly resilient, their smiles as piercing as any resigned gaze.

Offbeat and ravishingly beautiful.

His (Crowe) emotionally charged performance stands in contrast to Ryan's annoying, movie-star turn.

If your idea of fun involves zombies, monstrous physical transformations and alien slugs bent on world domination, look no further than James Gunn's gleeful homage to all things gross and horrible actually makes good on the "horror comedy" label by being both flat-out creepy and darkly funny.

Levy and Guest train a glaring spotlight on the self-absorption, vanity, delusions and histrionics of the movie community, but clearly love them even at their silliest.

Modest, on-the-money performances, which look effortless because they're so meticulously thought out, make the hours fly by.

Shrewder than you'd think and not half as dumb as it looks.

Deraspe's film begins as a mystery and becomes a razor-sharp dissection of the self-promotion, pretension and deeply cynical inner workings of the art world. But her greatest achievement is painting the business of art as venal, corrupt, mendacious and built on false surfaces without suggesting that art itself is a form of glorious deception.

The film is juvenile when it should be adult, coarse when it ought to be bubbly, and upfront when witty circumspection is indicated. The result feels a bit like a drag show, a camp blend of pitch-perfect mimicry and anachronistic raunch.

Smith's beautifully observed story of two young women learning how cruel and calculating the world -- and they -- can be is beautifully realized, and Garai stands out among a fine ensemble cast.

An excruciatingly unfunny comedy.

Arguing that you shouldn't expect rich characterization from a comic-book movie misses the point: Vivid relationships separate the graphic novels from the funnies and, in the end, spectacular set design is just window dressing.

If you're rooting for Barrymore and Fallon, then why not their team? In the movies, there are enough happy endings for everyone.

The story's self-conscious seaminess cries out for the ministrations of a filmmaker like direct-to-video auteur Gregory Hippolyte.

Eerie, surreal and a welcome respite from Disney-style animation, this French sci-fi allegory may not offer any mind-blowing insights (genocide is bad isn't exactly a new thought), but it's a trip.

It's clever, in a "dare you to name this hommage" kind of way, but it's fundamentally heartless and coldly hollow.

It's impossible to overstate how deeply dumb all of this is, but it skims along at a brisk clip and manages not to overdo the nudge-nudge, wink-wink humor.

Rough around the edges but rock-solid in its sense of place and its depiction of real people overreaching their apparent limitations.

An equally discomfiting mix of popular science and ballyhoo, serves up amazing images of the bizarre life that flourishes in the deepest ocean depths.

There's about half an hour's worth of sickly amusing material here...Unfortunately, that leaves a solid hour's worth of witless screaming, running around and expiring in a welter of icky special effects.

If it weren't for the running flatulence gag, the whole silly business might be mistaken for slight, clean, fast-moving fun.

Alex Shuper's solid, if hyperactive, documentary uses every trick in the film editor's book to celebrate this too-often underappreciated aspect of moviemaking.

Diop Gaï's performance is equally beguiling: She's both bold and mysterious, a femme fatale bursting with life.

Director/cowriter Adrian Garcia Bogliano's self-conscious throwback to the kind of gritty black-and-white gore films that used to play drive-in theaters and urban grind houses is a short, sharp shocker that gets surprising mileage out of the oldest formula in the book of the dead.

An all-but-incoherent mess whose main components are palpably fake-looking CGI effects, video-game-style action sequences and Milla Jovovich's admirably taut abdomen, Kurt Wimmer's film epitomizes just about everything wrong with post-MATRIX, comic book-/video-game-inspired, Hong Kong-action-style sci-fi thrillers.

The story wears thin long before it's over, but Machado draws strong performances from his leads and makes excellent use of its rundown locations.

Though occasional flashes of the radiantly bi-cultural romp that might have been peek through, writer-director Deepa Mehta's hybrid is strangely clumsy, given that she's an experienced filmmaker familiar with both Hollywood and Bollywood conventions.

An impressive parade of scientists, meteorologists and grassroots activists assert that humanity is capable of adapting to a changing climate, building sustainable communities without sacrificing modern-day comforts and even reversing some of the damage already done.

Director Jamie Blanks "Urban Legend" appears to be carving himself a career making slasher movies for a new generation; unfortunately, he's in no way improving on the originals.

It's a hugely entertaining slice of sunbaked Gothic.

Mamet's jabs at Tinseltown's silken ruthlessness are quietly pointed, and the ensemble cast -- even the brittle and sometimes annoying Pidgeon (Mamet's wife) -- is brilliant.

This taut crime thriller is a welcome antidote to brainless action extravaganzas in which the mayhem is the message, and rests on two shrewd, perfectly modulated performances.

But the soundtrack will delight anyone whose blood stirs at the strains of "I'm Coming Out," "Le Freak" or "Doctor's Orders."

Beautifully acted and emotionally devastating.

Maybe such cloddish sight gags as dipsomaniac priest chug-a-lugging from the communion chalice or an apparently straight-laced yuppie in full S&M drag just aren't very funny.

The most shocking thing about this ludicrous serial-killer shocker, released the week troubled 21-year-old former child star Lindsay Lohan was arrested on DUI and cocaine-possession charges, is that it's the kind of film actresses generally make when their careers are well and truly on the skids.

It's essentially an urban variation on "The Hitcher" (1986) with nothing much going on underneath.

The result isn't exactly funny, just profoundly peculiar and even occasionally, unexpectedly poignant.

For a slick pop entertainment, more than the usual quotient of timely ideas rattle around between the relentless product placements and futuristic geegaws.

Though conceptually clever, the results look stagy and schematic and recall nothing more than a pale imitation of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" (1985).

Brutally gorgeous and seething with incendiary images.

Beatty's contribution to the ranks of recent political satire is bold, merciless and frequently very funny, and his performance is just plain fearless.

A combination of muddy sound mix and players with heavy accents (particularly Chinese superstar Gong, who seems to have learned her lines phonetically) renders large swaths of dialogue incomprehensible, but the details of what's being said and done don't really matter.

For all its classy cast and glum polish, this metaphysical horror picture with big things on its mind lacks the malevolent buzz that vitalized SEVEN and THE HIDDEN, two of the more obvious sources from which it draws considerable inspiration.

Lyne's direction is sometimes overblown -- debauched playwright Clare Quilty's (Frank Langella) appearance amid the pale fire of exploding bug-zappers really is a bit much -- and the unfortunate fact is that the novel is one long tease, an intricate, seductive game in which words are as important as deeds.

Julie Christie is glorious, and that's most of what you need to know about this slight, loosely structured and self-consciously ironic soap opera in which two couples -- one young and troubled, the other older but hardly wiser -- get themselves into a series of fine messes.

For all its contrivances, the film is cheerfully rude and surprisingly generous to the mothers, most of whom find sizzling new romances at an age when their American counterparts are reduced to sexless dithering or played as humiliating punch lines to jokes about horny old hags.

Oddly, the most appealing thing about the movie is that in an age of ever-escalating special effects, it's refreshingly low-tech, more like a '70s action movie than a modern-day one.

Veterans Danner and Wilkinson effortlessly make Anna and Stephen more interesting than all the youngsters combined.

This is not a film for neophytes: It proceeds from the assumption that the viewer is familiar with the events and people of Jesus' life, and is probably right in doing so: Its intended audience is seriously Christian.

This otherwise sober film's high ick factor is clearly designed to convince restless students that entomology is extremely cool.

Without the gloss of novelty, the film's underdeveloped characters and thin -- though busy -- story are forced into the foreground, and its 88-minute running time feels far longer.

Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman imbue screenwriter Angela Pell's characters with a quiet authenticity that's surprisingly moving.

8-year-olds of all ages, prepare to storm the multiplex!

This violent action is stylish but painfully formulaic, even by the undemanding standards of video-game narratives.

Never boring, often excruciating and occasionally transcendent.

It's probably not the last word in WASP angst, but it's eloquent, witty, graceful and as sharp as can be.

The film's tone is a matter of taste -- the more you enjoy the melancholy silent comedies of Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, the more likely you are to embrace its sensibility -- but it's undeniably the product of a singular and beautifully realized vision.

Pseudo sci-fi gobbledygook aside, X-Files alumni James Wong and Glen Morgan's script is little more than an excuse for Jet Li to kick his own ass, which he does energetically and often.

The story is formulaic, but this brutal, fast-paced thriller makes excellent use of Li's martial arts prowess.

Parker's adaptation is meticulous, unsentimental, beautifully acted-- but nearly two and a half hours worth of dying babies, rain-spattered streets, ragged children and filthy, bug-infested rooms is a bit oppressive.

The tiny, impassive-faced Liu is a disaster. She looks cute in her custom commando gear, but she's not actress enough to make Sever's ridiculous, faux hard-boiled dialogue sound like anything but the formulaic nonsense it is.

Ironically, it's most engaging when the focus shifts to Hurt's matter-of-factly amoral enabler, whose glistening suits and jewel-colored shirt-and-tie combinations suggest a particularly poisonous tropical reptile.

Its vivid sense of place and time make it compulsively watchable, even at a running time of two and a half hours.

The film's much-vaunted stunts are deliberately unrealistic, from over-the-top wire-work to CGI-soccer balls that streak through the air like flaming cannon balls.

It's dramatically unsatisfying.

It's repetitive and obvious but somehow endearing, like a truly ugly dog with sweet eyes.

Gets the details right while missing the big picture.

Efficient if uninspired documentary.

Overall it's slick, brainless entertainment.

The story's broad strokes are painfully clichéd and its details make no sense at all.

The real trouble is that the filmmakers consistently choose gags over character.

Overall, it's an interesting experiment, but the idea is stronger than the end result.

This good-natured genre piece gets the job done while sneaking in a couple of pointed observations about contemporary Latino immigrant life.

Jackman and McGregor are a delight to watch.

Cynical and contemptuous of its audience, this lazy sequel oozes an insufferable air of self-satisfaction.

There's nothing beneath the flashy editing and self-consciously cool production design but a soulless adrenaline machine that's never scary and rarely engrossing.

Kassell's visual influences are evident -- she's clearly a fan of the down-and-dirty films of the '70s -- but the consistently fine performances smooth over the rough patches.

Only Sol and Sara even approach being real characters; the supporting players, Black and Jewish alike, are shrill stereotypes.

Like the original "Fantasia's" eight segments, the results are a mixed bag.

No matter how you parse it, the film is a bizarre muddle.

Hardman is a grating, mannered onscreen presence, which is especially unfortunate in light of the fine work done by most of the rest of her cast.

The story is shallow stuff, but pretty entertaining until it becomes utterly preposterous.

Director John Dahl keeps a firm hand on Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely's razor-sharp hit-man-in-rehab comedy, which mines the same dark vein as "Gross Pointe Blank"(1997) and "Matador"(2005), and the payoff is both slily funny and startlingly fresh.

The whole thing has the air of a parlor trick, but it's a good trick, beautifully acted.

Proof that the US has no monopoly on white-trash humor.

In search of inspiration and the human spirit triumphant, they managed to cook up a pot of sanctimonious, reductive claptrap (which the credits confess was only "inspired" by Quinn's book) that's not in the least instructive or entertaining.

The quintessential cotton candy movie: It's pleasant, brightly colored and the minute it's done it's as though it were never there.

Nat comes off as flat-out crazy and more sad than amusing or heroic.

Courtroom dramas that favor the courtroom over the drama are always in danger of eye-glazing dullness.

Spare and quietly heartbreaking, this French-Canadian feature uses a fine brush to depict a teenage girl in the midst of a quiet crisis.

Contains some nicely observed moments, but they're buried in an unrepentantly sitcomy script.

Delivers some powerful emotional wallops alongside the chopsticks-up-the-nose violence, and manages the remarkable feat of making venerable American genre conventions seem eerily alien.

The screenplay, which differs significantly from the novel, is uneven, but the distorted mirror it holds up to the present is disturbingly clear.

The script, based on a Dark Horse comic-book series, is hugely predictable, but the robot effects by veteran Phil Tippett are nastily entertaining.

Very entertaining, if thoroughly silly.

If you ever wondered why they call it "the curse," this movie will enlighten as it entertains.

To see the two of them on screen together, even past their primes, is a delight.

But fabulous though the allusions, sets and costumes are, Busch's performance is the movie's heart, and like the screen idols whose every gesture he's lovingly absorbed, Busch can pack a world of meaning into an arched eyebrow and a slight crack of the voice.

Though it ultimately devolves into megabudget Hollywood action-movie cliches by way of John Woo, Lee's handsome blockbuster is an entertaining variation on the American formulas that have colonized world cinema.

Frothy, sentimental and thoroughly good-natured, Malcolm D. Lee's tale of coming-of-age at the roller disco doesn't have an original bone in its body, but it's as energetic, eager to please and endearing as a sloppy, wriggling puppy.

The results isn't especially engaging, despite a quietly charismatic performance by Weiss, a relative newcomer who holds his own against far more experienced actors.

Director Carl Franklin, who also adapted the screenplay from Walter Mosley's prize-winning novel, isn't particularly concerned with the machinations of mystery plots. Nor is he seduced by the temptations of noir visual style (although Tak Fujimoto's camera work is plenty stylish).

Linear storytelling was never Herzog's strong suit even under the best of conditions. His strength lies in capturing lucid lunacy on film, and Manoel da Silva's descent into the jaws of madness is a straight shot into the heart of darkness, a place familiar to both Herzog and Kinski.

The film's climax, which cuts back and forth between the 16-year-old Dongo (Silas Radies, whose younger brother plays Dongo as a ten year old) making his dangerous debut with the fly-by-night Aurora Circus and the 2002 competition that takes him back to Hungary for the first time in years is nothing short of riveting.

And yes, that is Salma Hayek in the chorus line of sexily sinister nurses, perhaps repaying Taymor for lending her dramatic credibility with "Frida."

Little more than a shaggy-dog tale about two hit men killing time in the picturesque, medieval Belgian city of the title, goosed with crackling dialogue and generous dollops of gore.

This scrappy, ultra-low budget comedy, made in 19 days for $70,000 by North Carolina School of the Arts graduates Jody Hill, Danny McBride and Ben Best, comes with its own Cinderella tale: It debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival but failed to find distribution until comedian Will Ferrell and his business partner, Adam McKay, championed it.

Films like this are the definition of "critic proof"; if the casting, synopsis and very concept don't deter you, you'll probably find it very funny.

It's hard to imagine anyone who isn't familiar with Graham and her place in 20th-century dance history getting drawn into Move and Herrmann's hall of Martha mirrors, but for the right viewer it's a fascinating exercise in self-reflexive mythmaking.

Essentially a supersize episode that ignores a slew of fifth-season developments and adds yet another monster to the mix, one that owes a striking debt to "Alien."

A refreshing alternative to the hypertrophied spy thrillers in which exaggerated action sequences, over-the-top super-villainy and high-tech gadgetry trump character and plot.

The result, a dissection of the complicated dynamics of sexual and economic exploitation, is pitiless and occasionally inspired.

The appealing Knightley goes in a promising young actress and comes out a star, but the faultless cast of veterans and fresh-faced newcomers imbues every character with flawed and immensely appealing humanity.

A throwback to the slickly entertaining melodramas of Hollywood's golden age.

The only serendipitous touch is the casting of New York's "quality of life" watchdog, Rudolph Giuliani, as himself.

Philippe Diaz's controversial documentary about the legacy of the brutal 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone -- widely considered the poorest country in the world, despite its rich mineral resources -- suggests that the rebel faction RUF (Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone) was not alone in terrorizing civilians and committing atrocities, most famously the amputation of limbs with machetes.

Screenwriter Chris ver Weil's directing debut is good-natured and never dull, but its virtues are small and easily overshadowed by its predictability. It's the kind of film that plays better on video than in theaters.

No one expects a light teen romance to be "Madame Bovary," but this is Colorforms filmmaking.

Its minutely detailed revelations work their way under the skin like slivers of glass.

It's not a cheap rip-off -- it's a credible sequel to a horror classic, and a sad reminder that some things never change.

First-time feature director Andrew Douglas, whose advertising background is evident in every frame, brings lashings of style but no sense of real horror to the recycled script.

Inspired mockumentary-a-clef so clotted with in-jokes that it should come with a crib sheet.

Stylish but shallow story.

By trying to be both a portrait of Rijker and an introduction to women's boxing, it shortchanges both subjects.

Hogan returns with what feels like a feature-length vanity project.

John Gulager's directing debut is horror at its most reductive and least resonant.

The puzzle pieces are all there. But when you put them all together, the result is a bit of a gyp — neat but utterly forgettable.

This tale of crime and punishment is wrapped in a veneer of flashy attitude but founders on mundane details.

The wonder of it all is how bitterly funny the complications are, especially as filtered through Dedee's monstrously self-centered voice-over.

Rescued from its inclination to smug, celebrity-testimonial-driven hagiography by Gehry's own considerable charm and infectious enthusiasm.

Clearly, neither screenwriter Randall Wallace nor director Michael Bay ever met a cliche he didn't embrace.

Seriously flawed and not for every taste, the film was shot quickly and on the cheap, and is driven by Argento's slurred, scratchy voice and Bette Davis eyes.

B-movie stalwart Michael Madsen turns in a no-holds-barred, road-wreck performance in this nihilistic crime thriller, which plays out a variation on the old maxim that there's no honor among thieves -- even if they're cops.

There's something disheartening about seeing real-life stories and their inevitable complexities put through the Hollywood sausage machine and transformed into bland parables about a privileged, wayward young bucks redeemed by wise, infinitely patient mentors and the self-abnegating spirit of team sports.

Although the performances by the star-studded cast are generally excellent, only Billy Crystal really manages to transcend the dour misery of Allen's script: His witty turn as a dapper Satan is a blessed relief from the neurotic gloom.

The film's woozy, digital-video gorgeousness is undeniable, and the glittering shots from atop the Brooklyn Bridge could make a tough guy weep.

(Fugate's) portrait of Valentine/Baker is rich and compelling.

An arty fright flick that's neither artistic nor the least bit scary.

There are people who eat this kind of thing right up -- if you're one of them, dig in.

One youngster -- even a youngster as talented as Rossum -- can't transform a mess of clichés into a little gem.

This big budget mish-mash is almost unbelievably derivative and shockingly cheap looking.

Strident and bombastic.

A subtle, unsparing portrait of families whose fragile dynamics fray under pressure. Its strength lies in the complexity with which the characters are written.

Queen Latifah is a natural-born charmer, but there's only so much she can do when paired with a costar so irritating it's hard not to squirm when he's on the screen, which is most of the time.

Gives off an air of clammy desperation that feels all too authentic without being especially funny and bogs down early in repetitive shtick. (review of re-release)

Her heavy-handed montage of war, civil rights demonstrations, revolutions and KKK gatherings, intercut with Shicoff's delivery of the opera's devastating fourth-act aria, is so amateurish it very nearly succeeds in trivializing the power of his performance.

Lepage maintains a leisurely pace and lets the narrative wander, but ultimately lands on the right side of the line between contemplative noodling and aimless navel-gazing, ending with an image that's simultaneously melancholy and playful.

It concludes Park's trilogy on a dual note of circular tragedy and fragile hope, while working equally well as an introduction to his universe of retribution and repentance or as a stand-alone thriller with a darkly feminist twist.

Gore looks as energized and purposeful as Mother Earth looks sickly and mad as hell, which is no doubt why many commentators suggested it was less an environmental action statement than a test balloon for future political ambitions.

Little Acuna -- who looks even younger than 11 -- gives a sweetly unaffected performance as the beleaguered child.

The film's extra-special trick, the one that kicks in under your radar because it's so busy with all the flash, is that it makes you care deeply for Lola and Manni.

While Gilroy deploys the occasional exploding car, the film's climax is all words -- angry, carefully sharpened words -- with the stopping power of large-caliber bullets.

A well-crafted exercise in urban paranoia that's so controlled it never achieves the reckless, visceral immediacy its subject matter demands.

Allowing for the fact that any Pokemon movie is essentially a feature-length commercial designed to make little kids want Pokémon stuff, this one has its moments.

The film's bleakly inevitable ending packs a wallop and its hauntingly desolate images linger long after the story is told.

Under the veneer of hip lies a bland romantic comedy wrapped in a layer of less-than-biting lifestyle satire, whose single most authentic moment involves an old woman and her scruffy mutt Buddy. Not cool.

The less said about the story's twists and turns the better, except to warn that they become increasing preposterous with each passing minute.

The fun is in the mayhem, and there's plenty of it.

All but the most easily pleased kids will be bored as can be, and anyone who has fond memories of TV's Leave It to Beaver would probably rather not besmirch them.

Wang's film doesn't really have anything more to say about power, manipulation and the wild unpredictability of sexual energy than "Last Tango" did 30 years ago.

Seething with suggestions of perverse pleasures and inchoate horror, this dark fairy tale won't win the Pennsylvania-born, London-based Quay brothers any new fans -- it plays to the converted, and the converted know who they are.

The pacing is slack, the comedy has an oddly sour tone and frankly, no matter how hard the script tries to paint Sean as a petty martinet with a stick up his butt, it's hard not to sympathize with him.

There's a surprising sweetness under its crude exterior.

Much of the film's appeal rests with Thai soap-opera actress Panyopas, whose bittersweet charm smoothes over the uglier aspects of Tum's spiral into crime.

Egoyan drains the life right out of the material, and the result is a chilly, complicated thriller that's neither thrilling nor a "Through the Looking Glass" head spinner.

A cut above the noisy, pop-culture joke-larded norm, and it's much more than a "Happy Feet" knockoff.

Cheadle and Ejiofor are riveting together; they have the kind of apparently effortless chemistry that makes every scene they share a delight. With a dynamite soundtrack under their feet, the two of them rock the house.

Broomfield's film is typically self-aggrandizing but filled with unsettling moments.

An extraordinary technical achievement.

The result is discomfiting, funny and oddly touching.

Dawson actually delivers the film's most persuasive performance.

But clichéd rapid-fire editing and cheap-looking digital-image manipulation drain away every ounce of atmosphere, and overexplanation blows what could have been a darkly ambiguous ending.

Though unpolished and formulaic, this tribute to the power of faith and music benefits from the contributions of musicians Tamyra Gray, a first-generation American Idol contestant who plays D.T.'s wholesome love interest; Grammy winner Kirk Franklin, who contributed six songs — three original — to the rousing soundtrack; and faith-based singers Yolanda Adams, Martha Munizzi, Fred Hammond (who also executive produced) and Delores Winans.

The gags are familiar collegiate stuff, involving horny young men, horny old whores -- horny young tramps -- silly foreigners, uptight authority figures, homosexuals and sassy fat women.

It's tremendously clever, but ultimately pointless.