Maitland McDonagh

The result is slick, mainstream entertainment with just enough surprises that you don't have to feel like a fool for enjoying it.

Anyone looking for the comfort in a tense thriller ending in a satisfying restoration of order and psychological security will be bitterly disappointed, but Haneke isn't in the business of encouraging comforting illusions.

Though screenwriter Dianne Houston spent time observing the real-life Dulaine, her screenplay is a showcase for triumph-of-the-underdog sports-movie cliches and coming-of-age-through-adversity moral lessons.

Filmmaker Barry Hershey's impressionistic documentary about the casting process is the antidote to years of comic "audition montages," those guaranteed laugh-getting freak-show parades of no-talents mangling monologues and pulling nutty stunts in hopes of standing out from the crowd.

Delivers plenty of sharply funny moments.

It features truly monstrous bogeymen in the Reavers, cannibalistic renegades who, legend has it, went to the edge of the universe and were driven mad by the abyss.

Indie director Bezucha has held on to just enough individuality to breathe a little life into the cliches.

They're frank, funny, resilient and altogether captivating.

It's a great place to visit, even if you wouldn't want to live there.

The same super-heated visual imagination that made Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" such a darkly thrilling delight is very much in evidence in his sequel to "Hellboy." It's a shame that it's at the service of such a blandly conventional story.

Engrossing documentary about the life and times of publisher Barney Rosset, who spent much of his career advancing the cause of free expression, is a flawless match of style and subject.

Luis Orjuela's sweet, slight comedy is about a middle-class Colombian family and the huge, cherry-red Chevrolet Bel-Air convertible that conveys them through several years worth of life's little dramas.

This being a Michael Moore film, the filmmaker is as enraging as the subject: His belligerent court-jester shtick wears thin fast and undermines the segments on universal health-care systems in Canada, the U.K., France and Cuba.

A delirious fever dream of pulp-western conventions by way of 1950s Hollywood melodrama, Thai filmmaker Wisit Sasanatieng surreal oddity unfolds in heavily manipulated colors so rich they seem ready to leap off the screen, punctuated by spasms of over-ripe dialogue, floridly dramatic songs and maniacal villainous laughter.

There's nothing subtle about Pelegri and Harari's culture-clash romp, but it's sometimes frantically funny; that it's thoroughly forgettable is an issue only if you expect it to do more than poke easy fun at the thorny issues it raises.

The person who can resist a formerly homeless senior citizen gradually restored to sufficient stability to the degree that he can take in his own "castaway cat" is hard-hearted indeed.

It aspires to greater moral ambiguity than the average crime thriller, and if it doesn't entirely succeed it nevertheless avoids the lazy moral bankruptcy of movies like "Lethal Weapon 4."

And if the film's 11th-hour CGI effects aren't entirely convincing, the notion that oil itself is haunted by the restless spirit of every once-living thing that time reduced and mingled into the earth's black blood throws off a primordial chill.

The story is compelling enough that even glib phrases like "healing through hip-hop" can't drag it down.

Though the material is familiar, Sciamma has a light touch and avoids many teen-movie cliches.

Portabella has no interest in conventional biography -- it's hard not to suspect that he included the tale of Felix Mendelsson (Daniel Ligorio) discovering the score for the "St. Matthew Passion" wrapping a meat delivery precisely BECAUSE it's probably apocryphal.

Funny, eye-opening and ultimately very moving portrait by director Kirby Dick.

Eckhart is dazzling as a born phony.

It's ripe for an American remake, given the popularity of reality TV shows like "My Super Sweet 16" and "Bridezillas," but it's hard to imagine a better cast than this ensemble.

Though Estevez's achievement doesn't quite live up to his ambitions -- the climax of Altman's "Nashville" (1975) evokes the same brutal loss of innocence to more shattering effect -- it still contains enough powerful moments to balance the weaker sections.

But it's also old-fashioned family drama that invites audience participation ("Don't you go making eyes at your cousin's husband, you little slut!"), and is surprisingly satisfying, in a gooey kind of way -- like macaroni and cheese or peach cobbler, perhaps.

The only famous person in the film, actor Peter Coyote, is an eloquent spokesman, but he was only a visitor to Black Bear; the stars are the full-timers, and their willingness to share their rich and sometimes painful memories is captivating.

This dark comedy of addiction, delusion and humor as a weapon marks the feature directing debut of veteran writer Peter Tolan.