Maitland McDonagh

Skrovan swears that during two years of filming, Nader's only demand was, "Make sure you talk to people who oppose me."

At a certain point, its sheer can you top this excess, and credibility files out the window three's no reason to continue paying attention.

Sentimental, manipulative, predictable and utterly charming.

Film is preposterous without being surreal; only at the Tailor's Ball -- which takes place shortly before the end -- does it strike that perfect balance between the bizarre and the curiously mundane.

Though O'Toole, whose ruined beauty Michell emphasizes in frequent and tight close-ups, and newcomer Whittaker have a striking rapport, the film's most haunting moments pair him with Vanessa Redgrave -- amazingly, this is their first movie together -- as his ex-wife. They evoke a lifetime of love, betrayal, regret and forgiveness in the space of a few lines, then move on without missing a beat.

The twists and turns continue until the very end of Choi's mesmerizing, high-energy romp, whose 139 minutes zip by like a round of speed poker.

Coarse, cliched and clunky.

Dillon makes an assured directing debut, neither indulging in unnecessary stylistic flourishes nor allowing scenes to run too long, a tendency in actors-turned-director.

Anime enthusiasts will want to take a look, but the film is too uneven to serve as a good introduction to the form.

The film's shortcomings notwithstanding, it's a must-see for Swinton fans, who can select a favorite among four different variations of their idol or simply adore them all.

Serviceable enough, if you come to it with sufficiently modest expectations.

So overwrought that it quickly crosses the line into unintentionally funny and never recovers.

Their dilemmas are the stuff of dozens of Masterpiece Theater productions, but they're brought to life with a vividness that defies changing mores and cuts to the heart of the ways people justify hurting each other in the name of love.

Director Uwe Boll sticks with what he knows -- how to turn video games into dull, cheap-looking movies.

It's genuinely funny, oddly romantic and surprisingly engaging for what could easily have been an obnoxious vanity project.

And if you never learn much about the man behind the mask, well, that's as Nomi would have wanted it.

Queen Latifah's warmly formidable presence drives this amiable but poky comedy.

Morrison brings an amazingly sure hand to MacLachlan's prickly screenplay.

Runs out of story a good half hour before it runs out of spooky images, but it comes to a quietly chilling conclusion far more haunting than any bloody mayhem.

Despite the edifying square-up -- moral lessons about family, the legacy of violence and the tenacious power of love -- the appeal is freak-show all the way.

A surprisingly charming fable.

It is message filmmaking so blunt you might be tempted to root for the parasitic reprobate over the saintly old man, and that's just not right.

It lacks the courage of its swinish convictions, and abruptly acquiesces to bland rom-com clichés three-quarters of the way to its appointed end.

Though occasionally repetitive, Gramaglia and Fields' admirably evenhanded documentary gives the Ramones the respect they deserve: Fans will be grateful and the uninitiated should listen and learn.

Arteta wrings some laughs from their bizarre (and more than a little frightening situation), but they're uncomfortable laughs, emotional protection from the freak show.

Fans won't want to miss this addition to the canon.

Jodie Foster's fiercely intelligent performance drives this disappointing thriller, whose taut, carefully constructed first half is sadly negated by its implausible and -- worst of all -- unengaging conclusion.

Gets off to a pretty intriguing start before degenerating into a series of routine action sequences.

Stanzler's ideas about the psychic legacy of 9/11 are so confused -- that by the time he unveils the final plot twist, his film has lost every shred of credibility.

Surprise! An intelligent, well-written high school story.

Though at heart a tightly-wound, bitterly bleak comedy of manners, Eyre's film is less funny than brilliantly squirm-inducing, a dissection of bad behavior via rapier-sharp dialogue.

As is always the case with compilation films, some segments are far better than others. But they're all so brief that the least of them passes quickly and the best are small miracles of economical storytelling.

Toothless satire punctuated by the occasional biting gag.

Though ultimately something less than the sum of its parts, the film's performances are reason enough to see it.

Based on a goofy '60s TV series and aimed squarely at vulgar 10-year-olds (and inner vulgar 10 year olds), this sappy comedy is relatively harmless and occasionally serves up a funny bit.

A laser-sharp evocation of the tortured ties that bind sisters, who can love and loathe each other simultaneously and inflict lifelong wounds with chilling expertise.

This convoluted, time and continent-tripping tale is heavy on the adolescent angst and swoony romanticism.

Team M-I knows its way around James and ignores the lazy stereotype of Americans as gauche rubes bumbling around Paris like barbarians at the ballet in favor of sly digs at French and American mores alike.

A crudely executed affair that doesn't play well to Western sensibilities.

In light of the aesthetic of ugliness that informs von Trier's Dogme films, it's easy to forget how subtly beautiful his work once was.

It's more silly than scary and relies excessively on surprisingly low-rent CGI effects and crude wirework to drum up interest in the slight story.

There's never a dull moment and seldom one that isn't sublimely ridiculous.

You may not care for the message, but there's nothing insidious about it.

Satanic silliness undermines this gloomy horror picture.

A loving, gently funny and slightly claustrophobic tribute to theatrical life.

Ti West's affectionate homage to no-frills fright flicks keeps it simple and succeeds on its own stripped-down terms.

Jones handles his fellow actors well, drawing a hard, anguished performance from Pepper and allowing January Jones (no relation) to bring a touching vulnerability to Mike's bored, vapid, baby-doll wife.

Clearly Phish's appeal is fundamentally experiential, and the experience doesn't lend itself to being captured on film.

Despite solid performances from the leads, it comes shrouded in a heavy cloud of ethics-class complications that makes it feel like a "dilemma of the week" TV movie.

The performance sequences are in color, while the recording sequences are in B&W. Jacquot's strategy allows his cast the benefit of being able to give full performances (Raimondi is a particularly good film actor) while demonstrating vividly that the beauty and power of the opera reside primarily in the music itself.

The filmmakers created an animated version of the writer to accompany audio clips of Dick speaking. It's a well-intentioned but unsatisfying invention, which pretty much sums up the whole enterprise.

Frankly, it's dumb, but no dumber than "Transformers."

Norman Jewison's honorable but stodgy exercise in ethical outrage, based on Brian Moore's acclaimed 1996 novel, fairly aches to be called a thinking man's thriller.

Cuaron lets his enthusiasms show.

Overall, though, the film drags at 91 minutes, filled with dead air that should be crackling with pulp energy.

The plot's contrivances are uncomfortably strained, and ultimately your reaction to its featherweight story of love and serendipity will be determined by how charming you find the dithering, slack-jawed Janice.

Lurches queasily between ghastly broad gags and oddly engaging, character-driven laughs born of clashing cultures and expectations.

Simultaneously sober and silly horror picture.

Briskly directed by "Sex and the City" veteran David Frankel, the movie is far better than the source.

Mirren, who's played her share of queens in the past, is hypnotic.

It's not that you can't go home again. It's that you SHOULDN'T, at least not in a lowbrow Hollywood comedy, because your family will inevitably be lewd, crude, loud and obnoxious.

It's wonderfully satisfying: Collette, MacLaine and Diaz are exceptional, and the mix of humor and heartbreak is perfectly calibrated.

Sweet-natured and as inconsequential as can be, shored up by smooth, low-key ensemble performances.

This psychological horror picture is harrowing and occasionally macabre -- you'll come away wondering what kind of father would cast his daughter in such a sexually brutal film.

While most anthology films have one standout and one weak link, all three tales are short, sharp shockers -- there should be at least one for every taste.

Though the film verges on hagiography, Angio unearthed a treasure trove of fascinating clips, from the bored-looking writer-director leafing through his program at the 1971 Tony Awards.

One of the most dismal excuses for family entertainment ever perpetrated by a major studio, this crude, lazy variation on Disney's "Sky High" (2005) revolves around the education of four "special" youngsters at the hands of a washed-up superhero.

There are fewer laughs and more lectures -- but there's plenty of sass and soul in between.

Most of the film's humor derives from smug anachronisms (the Brit-pop soundtrack, Wang and Roy's use of modern slang) and jokes about bad English food, teeth and weather that were old when Victoria was a girl.

No better than the first.

The film flawlessly captures the directionless alienation of youngsters whose families are in no shape to guide them through the turbulence of their teenage years.

There's not an original thought in sight — the story is Evil Dead in a movie theater — and it doesn't pay to give much thought to the self-referential implications of the story: The demons and their gross-out antics are the main event.

The film's dark heart is Valentinov's mephistophelean scheming: He sets about sabotaging his former protégé's game for no apparent reason except sheer malice.

Watching Sarandon and Hawn sashay through their paces is its own reward.

Grabsky's meticulous and frequently monotonous documentary about the life and music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart comes to vivid life whenever one of the many world-class musicians who sat for interviews simultaneously describes and demonstrates exactly what's so special about particular compositions.

Though overlong and repetitive, Hirsch's film is vitalized by the same music that helped keep the revolutionary spirit alive.

A quirky charmer.

The idea is more interesting than the screenplay, which lags badly in the middle and lurches between not-very-funny comedy, unconvincing dramatics and some last-minute action strongly reminiscent of "Run Lola Run." Great soundtrack, though.

The premise is pretty simple, and at two hours the murky sound, muddy low-light images and frequently dreadful acting are a little tough to take.

This flashy fright flick doesn't break any new ground, but puts an attractive gloss on genre conventions.

It's hard to say which sight is more depressing: That of Chinese girls mortgaging their futures in the hopes of helping their families, or drunken American girls, surrounded by privilege and opportunity most of the world can barely imagine, arguing that it's fun to degrade themselves for cheap baubles.

It's an entertaining diversion whose clever structure gives pulp-crime cliches a welcome twist.

The backgrounds are handsome and moody, and the character animation is less distractingly cartoonish than that of films like the otherwise breathtaking Metropolis (2001).

Imagine the John Waters remake of an Agatha Christie mystery directed by Douglas Sirk, and you'll get some idea of the tone of this retro musical melodrama, which features a cast whose combined wattage could eclipse a small solar system.

Light and sweet, comfort food dressed up with a dash of exotic spice.

Where "Pitch Black" relied on shadowy threats and sharply drawn relationships between a small group of stranded victims-to-be, Twohy's bloated space opera is an eye-popping three-ring circus of fabulously freaky costumes, over-ripe declaiming and computer-generated spectacle.

A bittersweet rite-of-passage story driven by the subtle performances of newcomers Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt.

Crowder and Dower's film is a refreshing reminder that without Ross and the Erteguns, pundits would have had to coin an entirely different term to describe "soccer moms," since without the Cosmos' brief and shining moment in the sun, suburban soccer leagues would be as rare as collegiate boccie tournaments.

This deliriously unsettling film evokes H.P. Lovecraft's exquisitely creepy stories of encroaching madness -- not so much in story terms but in its perversely spooky ambience -- with a subtle dose of David Lynch's dark sense of humor.

Foxx is a charmer, and he makes Alvin's unlikely evolution from relentless hustler to reasonably solid citizen believable, and even rather touching.

History gets short shrift from screenwriters William Nicholson and Michael Hirst -- starting with the not insignificant fact that in 1585, Elizabeth was 52 years old – but Kapur is clearly more interested in spectacle and soap opera than dusty old facts.

This oddly flat serial-killer picture shows none of the baroque flair that characterizes the best of Italian horror filmmaker Dario Argento's work.

Shot largely in Toronto and cast with the best of the B-list, this film has the low-rent gloss of a made-for-cable thriller.

The film's greatest incidental pleasures are images of a time when outlaw musicians wore suit jackets and the craggy Dylan was a delicate, unconventionally handsome young man.

It's actually sharper, less reverential and generally better than "Misson: Impossible."

Wrapped in a layer of psuedo-spookiness that leads viewers to think the story is going somewhere it isn't.

The massive sets and extensive special effects are certainly... massive and extensive. But watching them is like watching the wheels and gears inside a hugely complicated clock: It's interesting and even beautiful, but can hardly be called scary.

Though the film's downbeat ending was softened for U.S. release, it's still a long way from happy.

Despite some strong performances, never rises above the level of a telanovela.

It's way too violent and perversely excessive for many tastes, but there's more to its outrages than meets the eye, and that second look is well worth taking.

Errol Morris' characteristically distanced documentary is empathetic without being especially sympathetic.

Noisy, spectacular and disposable.

Henkel's directing debut isn't incompetent: It's just derivative, pointless and tediously repetitive.

"Double Indemnity's" darkly poetic carnality is timeless. Trashy, throwaway fluff like De Palma's film can only look bad by comparison.

The combination of Lee's discomforting subject matter and distancing style -- calculating artlessness punctuated by occasional flights of lyrical fantasy -- makes this slow-moving drama a challenge that doesn't seem entirely worth the effort.

Hopkins possesses a Candide-like equanimity in the face of bizarre happenstance that is thoroughly charming and keeps the story's excesses from becoming exasperating.

The effect is hypnotically disorienting, but the less familiar you are with this period in 20th-century Chinese history, the easier it is to get hopelessly lost in the tangle of personal and political loyalties and betrayals.

Naim's potential is evident, but his debut is a frustrating exercise in missed opportunities.

Has a sour undertone that strangles its cheap laughs.

The novelty value of seeing 17th-century French swordsmen fight like Chinese martial artists doesn't compensate for the film's generally wooden performances and clichéd dialogue.

Clever, fast-paced and surprisingly moving.

The high-profile cast -- play their roles with just the right mix of seriousness and tongue-in-cheek self-awareness.

Bana's performance is nothing short of electrifying.

A train wreck of a film whose chaotic, partly improvised story and too-tricky mix of film stocks, image sizes, split-screen effects and color/B&W footage overwhelm some phenomenally beautiful sequences and a memorable performance by Saffron Burroughs.

It's a light, silly instantly forgettable comedy peppered with action set-pieces and affectionate nods to its fondly remembered predecessor, including a gracious end-credits dedication to the late Don Adams and Edward Platt.

Has the distinctive Heavy Metal magazine meets "The Neverending Story" (1984) vibe of Euro-science-fiction comics, complete with ponderous philosophical noodling, weirdly whimsical aliens and seriously creepy creature sex.

The remake is infinitely more entertaining if you haven't seen "Nine Queens" -- the details are different, but the surprises are the same and something of the first film's underlying darkness has been lost in translation.

The last word on Haskell Wexler's career hasn't been spoken, but it's hard to imagine there's much more to say about him as a bad dad.

David Lynch lite.

While his film is less than satisfying, it's a refreshingly off-kilter experience.

The goofy use of animated, Flubber-like blobs aping Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video (by way of illustrating the irresistibility of desire itself) makes it hard to take the science seriously, which is the BLEEP problem in a nutshell.

Though beautifully photographed, acted and written (the three source stories are skillfully blended into a single narrative), this leisurely, bittersweet look at a child's loss of innocence ends rather abruptly and inconclusively.

The chaotic, brutal iconography of Italian Westerns is put to novel use in this time-traveling, self-referential, hugely ambitious story of American brothers.

The second attempt to bring a dark corner of the Marvel comic-book universe to the screen, this comic-book-based revenge story is undermined by its inconsistent tone.

Todd McFarlane's Spawn plays better on the page, but the adolescents of all ages who buy Spawn comics will probably enjoy the movie. Others should consider themselves forewarned.

The identity of the bad guy is ludicrously obvious; and his public unmasking relies on the dopiest contrivance in recent memory.

The result is a vivid record of live acts whose rough-edged immediacy is an integral part of their appeal.

A deliciously bitter tale of lust and betrayal.

Ambles to a surprisingly affecting conclusion, almost despite itself.

A slick, mannered and frequently clever comedy.

That it feels so predictable is, ironically, a tribute to the universality of the experience it explores.

An illuminating glimpse into what goes on in the dance studio.

The gross-out factor is surprisingly low, and the combination of Stiller and De Niro is inspired.

The film's greatest assets are leads Susie Porter and David Wenham, whose considerable personal appeal make its trite observations about the war of the sexes seem charming, at least for a while.

All too often, dramatic confrontations feel like barely dramatized debates.

This dumbed-down spin on Jules Verne's classic adventure tale was devised as a kid-friendly roller-coaster ride, and it delivers the goods. Whether anyone over the age of eight wants the goods is another matter altogether.

This neo-noir pastiche is so preposterously overwrought that you keep figuring it must be some kind of joke, except that it's not funny.

Its appeal lies in the powerhouse performances delivered by Dench and Smith.

The bad news is that Seitz's protagonists are almost all insufferable: Smug, self-important, opinionated and relentlessly convinced that they're far more sensitive, intelligent and interesting than they are.

Barbarously beautiful and gut-wrenchingly (literally) violent, it's a mesmerizing vision of the past refracted through the dark obsessions of the present.

When Cox is performing, the movie is firing on all cylinders.

The movie's "shock" payoff still feels like a cheap trick.

Character actress Lin Shaye, usually relegated to grotesque supporting roles in mainstream comedies, is a revelation as Buono's embittered, cancer-ridden mother.

The penguins' matter-of-fact victory over some of the Earth's most punishing conditions is astonishing enough without the epic airs.

It's a back-to-basics, gore-and-gristle look at the no-frills nastiness of 1970s films, in which monsters, mutants and ghosts can't hold a candle to the sheer, unadulterated evil that lurks in the hearts of men.

The movie's greatest liability is the familiarity of the material, much parodied since the glory days of John Ford. Unfortunately, Thornton's love for its iconography doesn't quite bring it to life.

Shunji Iwae's film began life as an interactive online "novel" and unfolds in a series of achronological vignettes whose cumulative effect is chilling.

The movie's captivating details are all in the performances, from Foreman's barking-mad Taylor to Thewlis's smoothly sinister Freddie and Bettany/McDowell's hard-eyed gangster, an amoral bottom-feeder with an expedient streak of sadism.

Rather than converting messy, real-life experience into slick, formulaic entertainment, Well's script transforms it into a shapeless, internally inconsistent mess of artificial contrivances.

This southern-fried mess of poetic crime-movie cliches is redeemed by standout performances.

Repetitive, predictable comedy.

If you're in a triumph of the human spirit frame of mind, this is your cup of dark, sweet tea.

Seriously undermined by its sour tone and an unusually charmless performance by star Chris O'Donnell.

Fun for the kids, but no Beauty and the Beast or Lion King. This child-friendly retelling of Hercules' story takes the predictable liberties with a story originally chockablock with sex, violence and generally sordid behavior. After several passes through the Disney wringer, a sanitized, blandly blond Hercules (voice of Tate Donovan) emerges, ready to enter no pantheon other than that of muscle-beach pinup boys.

Spare and coolly evocative, it's a chilling accomplishment.

MacDowell, Staunton and Chancellor are terrific, tearing into their juicy roles and reveling in first-time feature writer-director Jim McKay's sharp-tongued dialogue.

While Canadian writer-director Eric Nicholas has no fresh thoughts about the voyeuristic nature of movie going, he knows enough to make sure when high-tech peeper Doug (Colin Hanks, son of Tom) conceals his camera in a bag, its lens pokes out of the zipper like the big, fat metaphor it is.

A misfire of spectacular proportions.

It's hard to watch two fine actors working themselves into a lather for so little reward.

If Caspian has a fault, it's that viewers familiar with neither the books nor the first film may have trouble picking up the strands of the story in the early scenes… but in all honesty, how many Lewis neophytes will choose Caspian as their point of entry?

Deftly mixes rueful sentimentality and trenchant observations about the constantly shifting balance of power that drives relationships.

Given the dearth of outlets for short, noncommercial animation, fans of the form shouldn't miss this collection.

Bond spends an awful lot of time being rescued from peril by supporting characters.

The lighting and makeup are exceptionally harsh; all the women look shockingly rough beneath their garish makeup.

Hugely ambitious and driven by Julianne Moore, Samuel L. Jackson and Edie Falco's fine, intense performances, Richard Price's adaptation of his own sprawling novel about a racially charged kidnapping that turns a volatile New Jersey town into a powder keg tries to tell too many stories in too little time.

The result is a snazzy kick -- it's never less than hugely entertaining -- that should in no way be mistaken for an unbiased account. But then, Evans is the quintessential Hollywood character.

In all, it's a peculiar mishmash, simultaneously bland and suggestive.

Past and present, reality and fiction blend seamlessly into each other in Satoshi Kon's dream-like animated drama.

An intriguing mix of the familiar and the alien. DaFoe's distinctly American speech patterns are a little jarring amid a tangle of British inflections (French actor Cassel's accent is justified within the story), but it doesn't spoil the film's overall effect.

Poky, oddly uninvolving.

Bielinsky's "Nine Queens" was a complex romp through the machinations of high-stakes con artists, but this intricately plotted mystery ventures into darker psychological territory and never misses a step.

Fresh-faced leads Muniz and Bynes are charmers, Giamatti makes Wolf into a splendidly loathsome adversary, and the film is refreshingly free of bodily function jokes.

The flashback structure drains the story of momentum, but Mashkov and Uchaineshvili portray the reptilian glamour of cultured thugs with frightening intensity.

You don't have to be a Trek weenie to have a good time at this spoof cum homage to fandom and the enduring appeal of cheesy TV, but it helps.

Ritchie appears to have been paying attention to what made "Reservoir Dogs" (a huge hit in the UK) work, rather than coming away convinced that the formula for success begins and ends with pop-culture allusions and scarcely digested "homages" to classic crime films.

An amiable romantic comedy.

Maybe gross-out romantic comedy is a shallow well, and it was simply Rogers's misfortune to find himself with a bucket full of sludge.

The manipulative climax works, even as you feel like the jerk in tear-jerking.

Bright, bubbly and thoroughly inconsequential.

Like Doom itself, the movie is rich in backstory, but sparse in actual story.

The film's main attractions are the Charlottes, but the price of watching their eerie psychological pas de deux is to endure muddled metaphors and goofy gadgetry.

Sardonic and steeped in the tumultuous history of the former Yugoslavia, this absurdist comedy of contemporary mores can be appreciated even without intimate knowledge of its specific cultural context.

Writer/director Austin Chick falls into the timeworn trap of making an immature, irritating film about immature, irritating characters.

The movie has a monster problem -- the more you see of them, the less scary they are -- most of the characters are standard-issue types, and Harden seriously overdoes the pious psycho bit.

Yes, it's sappy. It's also silly, utterly unironic, a sketch stretched out to feature length, and, if you're in the right mood, pretty darned cute.

Adults also are more likely than kids to snicker at jokes.

Climaxes in an ending of such sleazy preposterousness that it's almost worth the price of admission alone.

Handsomely photographed and acted...defiantly old-fashioned testament to the power of love.

In different hands and different lands, the same story could easily have been a pretentious bit of "Red Shoe Diaries" piffle. But exceptional performances and the oh-so-Frenchness of the complications instead produce an erotic tale that plays like the best gossipy story you ever heard about people you thought you knew.

Slow, solemn going, despite its best efforts at thundering soldiers and comic-relief kings.

Its misogyny, homophobia and overall grossness undermine the tired gags, and its relentless portrayal of African-American women as money-grubbing hootchie mamas (the sole exception is, of course, Dre's mom) would be wholly unacceptable if a white filmmaker had been at the helm.

Boyle's movie jettisons much of the telling detail; it has the shambling rhythm of a shaggy dog story and so simplifies the characters' ethical dilemmas that it's hard to care what they do.

Classic Italian splatter directed by Lucio Fulci, reviled and adored in equal proportions by Euro-horror fans.

It's hard to know who bears the brunt of the blame for The Eye's stunning dullness.

This amateurish picture was built around surfing footage that Mikelson shot for a Compaq computer ad and developed with an eye for accommodating a series of lush tropical locations: It's no wonder the plot and characters feel like afterthoughts.

Bodrov's staging and cutting does a perfectly good job conveying their anthropomorphized feelings and motives; the spoken drivel is just a distraction. The film's human characters are largely inconsequential.

There's just no reason why it should take more than two hours for so little to happen.

Fart, feces and gonad gags notwithstanding, this knockabout comedy is no more vulgar than most contemporary children's films, and more good-natured than many.

Togman, an associate professor in political science at Seton Hall University, paints a clear-eyed and unsentimental picture of Sheree's efforts, and there are no happy endings for her or for Mary, who's quietly battling breast cancer as she helps Sheree line up paperwork and negotiate with creditors. The film leaves them both where they started: struggling.

Wahlberg acquits himself well, and the supporting cast -- which includes pioneering rocker Levon Helm in a scene-stealing cameo as an aging gun buff who knows a thing or two about cover-ups, Ned Beatty as a corrupt politician, and a Strangelovian Rade Serbedzija -- is so strong you almost wish the film were longer so they could have more screen time.

Donnie Yen is famous for combining martial arts traditions into his own unique fighting style and Collin Chou, who studied with Sammo Hung, is up to the task of holding his own.

This multiple-twist thriller gets off to a fine, creepy start but eventually becomes too preposterous for its own good.

The lives of three deeply unhappy New Yorkers crisscross in unexpected ways in writer-director Joe Maggio's uneven but strangely affecting film.

The film's mealy-mouthed messages about feminine empowerment will almost certainly fall on deaf ears, since even 11-year-olds know Spears's power resides largely in her taut torso.

The plot isn't what makes this movie worth watching anyway -- it's the performances and the ambiance.

That there's precious little chemistry between buffed-and-tanned stars Parker and McConaughey is only the first of this slight, overly busy film's problems.

Shopsin is a small piece of New York history, and Mahurin's film is the portrait he deserves: small, noisy and oddly engaging beneath the bluster.

First-time feature director Tucker displays an astonishingly assured touch, allowing his phenomenal cast to creep into their characters' skins and surrounding them with images of shimmering and slightly threatening beauty.

The crews are perfectly cast for maximum drama.

Roundly condemned (though not banned) by Church officials in Mexico, the film became a smash hit -- probably in part because the public wrangling gave it an enormous publicity boost.

Anyone who remembers Harrison fondly will enjoy this musical tribute, though it assumes a level of familiarity with Harrison's associates that not all viewers will have.

Unfortunately, this flawed but interesting film will be Wassel's only legacy; the director was murdered in 2001 by Nathan C. Powell, who helped finance this film.

This mean-spirited revenge story would once have starred Cole Hauser's father, veteran B-movie psycho Wings Hauser, and played grindhouses and drive-ins. And it would have been a far more entertaining picture.

The sweet nostalgia of Travolta and Thurman's reprise of their "Pulp FIiction" dance-floor flirtation cuts through a lot of rubbish, including the Black Eyed Peas' smutty "Sexy."

Its seductive stylishness is undermined by one narrative twist too many; by the time the last revelation has been unveiled with a "But wait!" flourish, the contrivances have entirely overwhelmed the characters.

How much you enjoy the film will depend entirely on how much you enjoy the spectacle of Williams spewing forth streams of nonsensical gibberish in an attempt to impersonate a German record producer, and Crystal pitching snit fits.

If not precisely poetic in its elaborate offensiveness, it's certainly imaginative. Unfortunately, that's not the same as interesting or engaging, unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool fan.

Sleek, stylish and ephemeral as a fireworks display, Ocean's Thirteen is the definition of light, but not totally brainless, entertainment.

The key to enjoying the fourth installment in this testosterone-fueled franchise is accepting that it's a live-action cartoon that makes no effort to conform to the laws of gravity, plausibility or common sense.

Brisk, engaging story.

It's larded with blinding glimpse-of-the-obvious homilies.

If this is your idea of fun, step right up.

In the end, you're left to pick your moral: Money changes everything or money isn't everything or both.

No doubt about it: Unlike David Lean's much-loved classic, Cuaron's film is loosely based on Dickens. And that's just fine.

Rob Zombie's pitch-perfect evocation of '70s horror films about monstrous families and the unfortunates who cross their path is one of a handful of sequels that both improve on their sources and play perfectly as stand-alones.

The product of this ingenuity is a slight spin on an obscure motion-picture artifact, but it's surprisingly artfully done.

Overall, McGrath's film has superior star power (including Gwyneth Paltrow in a one-scene role as a Peggy Lee-like chanteuse), is franker about the sexual nature of Capote's fascination with the murderous Smith and his sad, strangled dreams, and spends more time establishing Capote's glittering New York life before setting him adrift in the heartland.

Endearing without being especially engaging.

Baldwin dominates the screen with his slick, beefy swagger, and if Prinze is less than convincing as a kid from Brooklyn, Caan and Ferrara nail Carmine and Bobby with such assured economy that it hardly matters they're one-note roles.

Ellis' slight film has its charms, and the backstory he concocted to lead into the original 18-minute short is effective. But the film lags badly in the middle.

The sheer force of imagination that produced the film's unique mix of different styles, musical numbers and hipster doggerel is extraordinary.

The result is rather like eavesdropping on a bright but painfully self-absorbed adolescent's secret thoughts: sometimes fascinating, other times just infuriating.

We've come a long way from the filthiest people in the world: Who knew Waters could be so bland?

The first-rate cast is lost at sea.

This stunningly photographed documentary captures extraordinary images of ocean-based life.

The cast, including genre veteran Bruce Dern as a kindly lawyer, do their best with the material, but you can't make a crackling thriller out of soggy cliches.

There's way too much of the usual bonding, beatings, petty humiliation by guards, cat fights in the yard and trips to the hole.

The film's pared-down narrative is anything but aimless, and it pays off in a haunting final last scene scored with Gang of Four's "Damaged Goods."

Overall, how funny you find it will probably depend on whether or not the mere sight of Stiller sucking in his cheeks, widening his eyes and striking preposterous poses makes you laugh uproariously.

Jamal's comedy of family dysfunction is essentially a sitcom episode writ large; it's not subtle, but it's good-natured and hits its marks with ruthless efficiency.

Beautifully encapsulates the film's sensibility, a bizarre mix of reverse cool and childishness.

A brilliantly realized series of sucker punches, a philosophical howl disguised as a muscular guy movie.

The story eventually resolves itself a little too neatly, but it never devolves into a freak show or a fable, thanks in large part to Farmiga and Stahl's deft, quirky performances.

Tediously predictable thriller.

It neither works as a stand-alone film nor captures the thrilling sense of somber, pulpy mystery that made "The Matrix" so compelling. Nevertheless, It brings the saga to a satisfying close, and relies less on the clumps of pop-mystical cyber gobbledy-gook that gummed up the gears of "Reloaded" and more on the powerful emotional bonds that bind Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, Niobe, Link and Zee.

A giant leap forward in Stephen Chow's ongoing assault on Jackie Chan's status as reigning balletic clown-master of martial-arts mayhem, this extravagantly nutty crime comedy is a work of some kind of genius. Not everybody's kind of genius, to be sure.

Dash and screenwriter Adam "Blue" Moreno abandon the stone-faced seriousness of the first film for a more playful approach, goofing on gangsta' poses and colorful hood-speak.

Feels forced and awkward, as though it's trying too hard to be weird, culty and profound.

God moves in mysterious -- some might say positively spiteful -- ways in this trio of scabrous tales adapted from short stories by "Trainspotting's" Irvine Welsh.

Overall, this is the kind of thing that gives literary adaptations their bad name.

However fact-based the material may be, Jordan's salt-of-the-earth characters, with their bluster and pride and rough-edged loyalty, are all too familiar, and their travails feel formulaic, right down to the life-affirming climax.

Once you get past the lengthy, graphic geyser-of-liquid-excrement gag, it's not as irredeemably vulgar as it might have been.

What charm the movie has is almost entirely due to Grant and Barrymore -- the master of smarmily irresistible self-deprecation meets the sweetly vulnerable queen of awkward self-sabotage. While they have no romantic chemistry, they're certainly appealing.

Diablo and director Jason Reitman never undercut Juno, whom Page brings to a fully rounded life (no pun intended) that verges on the frightening: Her vulnerable center doesn't belie her formidable exterior -- it just makes her more than a sitcom-patter machine.

Sivan's film is well acted, beautifully photographed and oddly reassuring. It comes perilously close to suggesting that the injustices of colonial rule were the product of morally weak and misguided individuals rather than a system that empowered and enriched foreign interests at the expense of locals.

Contains several profanely amusing moments, but they don't add up to much.

Say what you will about (Smith's) sense of humor, genuine faith is rare enough in popular culture to make any sighting worthy of note.

This unnecessary and overlong sequel fails to recapture its predecessor's zing.

If you don't care about the characters, then everything's just a big, dumb joke.

Milos Forman's film is a series of incredible simulations that never quite cohere into a movie.

The roots of Steve James's disturbing documentary lie in youthful idealism.