Marc Savlov

If you were one of the many who thought the original film was brilliant, you'll undoubtedly laugh yourself stupid over this one, too. Me, I think I'll go turn on the VCR and watch the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera. Again.

It's less cheesecake than angel-food: frothy, light, and delicious, sure, but two hours later you're ready for something slightly more substantive.

What makes The Innkeepers such an unnerving experience isn't the outright horror but rather the lack of it. West mines every single floorboard creek and shadowy corridor for maximum frisson; this film ventures far beyond creepy and into the rarely explored land of genuine, incremental fear.

A wellspring of lowbrow comedy that leaves you giggling in spite of yourself. Truly, it does not suck.

It's a promising epic that ends with what feels like a lie. In short, it's a glorious mess well worth seeing, but light-years away from what fans were expecting.

The filmmakers wisely stay in the background and allow the people of Whitwell to tell their own story, although this simple, honest little film is occasionally marred by an emotionally manipulative music score straight out of Heartstring Tuggers 101.

Put on your best Southie accent and say it with me: This film is wicked fahwkin' retahded and I loved it.

Slash is an endearing, sweet, and altogether badass ode to being young, weird, and subversively creative.

In all honesty I'd advise you to go rent the stunning (and brand-new) DVD of the director's great "Le Mépris (Contempt)," which seems to me to be much more Godardian and much less hopeless.

It's done with such a wonderfully dry style and wit that you don't mind having to stop to catch up now and again.

Works best when it works its mournful magic alone, without fanfare, using only the flickering fear in Cole's gaze as it meets the compassion in Crowe's.

Fans of the irritatingly limp and relatively toothless Twilight series may actually find their tormented inner selves fondled to exquisite, precoital perfection with this slick and gleeful adaptation of the classic Eighties vampire-next-door flick.

Sorrentino’s film tackles the most important of all life’s questions with wit, wisdom, and no small amount of often-surreal humor.

Allen’s film is as much a self-reckoning as it is a cautionary tale for other spiritual seekers, and as such it offers invaluable insights into how cults – and especially cults of personality – function and grow. “Namaste,” for the record, is also an anagram for “Me Satan.”

Neither bloodthirsty enough to trigger the gag reflex of anyone but the most anemic viewer nor clever enough to yield much in the way of particularly engrossing insights.

Far and away the most original thriller to come out of a major studio (in this case Columbia Pictures) in a long while.

Juvenile yet compellingly smart humor.

Cloverfield is the most intense and original creature feature I've seen in my adult moviegoing life, and that's coming from a guy who knows his Gojira from his Gamera and his Harryhausen from his Honda. Cloverfield isn't a horror film – it's a pure-blood, grade A, exultantly exhilarating monster movie.

Fuller’s film is inarguably a stone-cold classic of the genre, but Fury, for all its cacophonous chaos and half-crazed characters, never quite reaches the shellshocked heights required to make it a bona fide pillar of cinematic combat.

Infinitely subdued, sexy, and melancholy, Nadja is one of the most stylish and quietly exhilarating genre movies to arrive in a long time. Recommended, and not just if you wear black all the time.

The Road deviates from McCarthy's original text via a series of flashbacks to the man's pre-apocalyptic life with the woman (Theron) who both leaves her family behind and is in turn left behind by them.

Tykwer ends the film on a bizarre note that caught me off guard, a too-literal bit of salvation that is more bothersome than revelatory.

Falters in small but important ways -– the suspense, carefully ratcheted up throughout, just plain goes busto in the film’s final moments -– while Malkovich stays resolutely behind the camera, a consummate professional who, this time, misses his mark by the merest of degrees.

Given the minimal – albeit excellent – cast and the film’s maximal rollercoaster of shifty mood swings and its increasingly paranoiac atmosphere of disorienting dread, it’s no wonder Come to Daddy lingers in the mind long after the final, emotionally revelatory denouement.

All I can seem to muster, post-screening, is a modicum of fondness and a probably impermanent relief that the film isn't anywhere near as awful as it might have been in less capable hands.

Where to Invade Next is a return to form, albeit a humorously kinder, gentler, and frankly more inquisitive outing than anything Moore has done since his Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or-winning "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Ultimately, Lemmy is a lesson in artistic stoicism and the possibility of growing old gracefully within the confines of an art form that almost always rewards youth and punishes (or, worse, forgets) anyone over 30.

A light but emotionally heady confection from France.

The Fall lives and dies on the strength of Pace and Untaru's remarkable performances. It's there that the pulsing heart of this magical-real film beats most true.

Hell of a nice try, but I've seen it all before.

We've heard tell about the rebirth of the Western at least since Clint Eastwood's vicious, "Unforgiven" 16 years ago, but since the genre never truly died in the first place there's no need to flog that horse here.

Sometimes a little too pat, a little too cute.

While the film never quite reaches the emotional peaks it so obviously seeks to scale, Zwick's film is still potent enough to save you three months salary.

The film's greatest strength lies in its ability to view itself as a modern moral fable of sorts.

Both interesting and insufferable.

I've had mosquito bites that were more passionate than this undead, unrequited, and altogether unfun pseudo-romantic riff on Romeo and Juliet.

A muddled, gimpy mess, filled with the worst sort of Trek clichés and ill-timed humorous outbursts.

Ultimately, though, Jack Goes Boating is too much of a banal thing. Jack's a good guy, and you root for him all the way to the end, but, wistfully, that doesn't make him an any more interesting everyday Joe than he is.

Suffice to say, this departure from West’s usual run of seriously freaky spook shows is a brilliant piece of work, cordite-scented sorrow, and last-laugh gags stabbed through with a discernible lust for life.

I was unfamiliar with X Japan (as they’re known outside of their home country) but after watching this thrilling documentary I’m a rock solid fan, scouring eBay for old concert T-shirts. As Gene Simmons notes, “If X had been born in America, they might have been the biggest band in the world.”

Viewers unfamiliar with Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary output over the years may find Never-Ending Man an exercise in tedium – the creation of an animated film, even a short one, is a famously slow and exceedingly precise process – but for those who, like me, adore his life’s work, it’s a precious and fascinating glimpse into the inner life of the world’s greatest living animator.

If you can get past the ick factor inherent in these suddenly adulterized relationships –- and there’s really no way this film should have received a kid-friendly PG rating –- and latch on to the film’s wealth of metaphor, you’ll surely have something to discuss over coffee post-screening.

The filmmaker brings neither condescension nor moral outrage here. A father confessor to his benighted characters, von Trier may revel in the muck, but Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 is anything but a dirty movie.

Niccol's futuristic fable is a gorgeous construct, from its cast on down to the brilliant, clinical nature of the set design that reflects a future in which even a particle of saliva can be one's undoing.

Trekkies is a hilarious work, mining the psychology of the average and not-so-average Trek fan, and coming up with the answers to all your burning questions about the show and its devoted following.

Fraser, Martin, and the rest of the flesh-and-blood characters look like they’re having a ball, which translates instantly to the audience as well.

There's a deep, bone-weary melancholy to the proceedings, offset by the mad parties and vicious displays of machismo.

Arguably better than the last five Eddie Murphy films taken together, The Nutty Professor still seems to be playing down to its audience much of the time, though you'd never know it to hear the gales of laughter erupting at the screening I attended.

Besson's visuals are, as always, vibrant and decidedly European. He fills the frames with odd-angled shots and alarming riots of color that catch you off-balance.

As a character-driven narrative, it's a hollow beast, too often pedantic, that smacks of good-guy agitprop, shrill when it should be subtle and shrieking when a whisper would be far more unnerving.

Due in large part to its cultural relevance, this is also one of the few sequels that nearly succeeds in topping the original.

The gags are quick and barbed, but the wire seems blunted by the essentially one-note gag storyline.

Falling somewhere between the horrors of Three … Extremes and the beauties of Eros, this triptych of short films set in and underscored by the titular megalopolis is a gorgeous, sprawling mess.

Let's just say if you liked the last one, you'll like this one, too. Otherwise, you'll discover that it's time for Drebin, Nordberg, Capt. Hocken, and the rest to finally retire their badges.

Two-and-a-half hour slice of unmitigated depression.

It's still just cops and robbers, but with Donner at the helm, it feels like so much more.

Disturbing, harrowing, visceral, and even sporadically humorous, Kids is one of those rare films that begs the description “a must-see.” For once, it's the truth.

To be fair, this isn't The Killer. Woo's unique penchant for over-the-top male bonding is basically nowhere to be seen, but then this is, after all, a very American story, despite Woo's name at the top.

Does little to dispel the creeping feeling that Washington’s getting himself in something of a rut.

Poses a problem for reviewers. The entire story hinges on a plot device that occurs roughly midway through the film and alters everything that has come before. To give away this massive, unavoidable spoiler would be disastrous and unforgivable.

A Perfect Getaway is, in its own delightfully silly and manipulative way, one of the most effective paranoid thrillers of the new millennium. That doesn't make it a great movie by a long shot.

It turns out globalization has its good points after all, and they're sporting Chucks, Kangols, and post-Gomi DIY gear. Spin again.

Like its protagonist, Cordero's film is a nimble thing, darting from hot-button topic to prison-cell metaphysics in the blink of a blind eye, but it never quite achieves the level of journalistic condemnation it so clearly seeks.

It's nonstop chaos, and the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink style of comedy is taxing despite the frequent moments of pure comic genius.

Home Alone is the apex, the pinnacle, the culmination of every bad bit Hughes has ever written or directed. It overflows with primitive, disastrously unfunny sight gags and neo-hateful familial humor.

Courtroom dramas can be tricky, tetchy things, but director Jackson, working from a script by David Hare (The Hours) keeps the suspense and moral indignation peaking high throughout Denial’s slightly overlong running time.

The whole of it plays like a dark and dreary tone poem, only marginally interested in explaining the ticking, bloody clockwork of the inner beast and only occasionally touching on his fractured humanity.

Erich von Stroheim might have made the definitive film about human swinishness way back in 1924 – sorry, Gordon Gekko – but Cheap Thrills cuts deeper, darker, and straight to the bone.

It also has wild plot holes and requires an almost inhuman suspension of disbelief, but it's still a fun ride up to a point.

As an updated version of the old western TV show, it does a pleasant enough job.

The shock ending isn't all that shocking if you're a fan of genre films, but it's nonetheless effective despite the fact that it sidesteps several key questions. Never mind: It's hellishly fun.

True, the melodrama on display here can't compare to the likes of Larry, Moe, Curly, and the cannibals, but then this goofily charming quartet of Western outsiders is far more real than reel.

Apparently fit and reasonably trim, Deal's honesty touches a nerve that the band's music only gnawed on back in the day.

Summer Wars is a magnificently manufactured piece of film entertainment that goes beyond the obvious and manages to comment, often obliquely, on everything from Facebook to virtual war and/or terrorism without ever seeming heavy-handed or strident.

Dafoe, as expected, is magnificent in the taciturn role, but the film tends to falter when he's not out stalking, combining as it does elements of family drama, environmental outrage, and outright suspense.

Consider this yet another nail in the Eighties coffin.

A dead-chamber misfire, a hollowpoint dud.

Eastwood's grim handling of even grimmer subject matter could have used some paring down toward its histrionic ending, but Changeling is still one of the director's most assured and engaging historical horror shows.

It’s still a hellish glimpse into one of climbing’s worst days ever, and there’s no way to resolve the unresolvable, but as it is The Summit, like K2 itself, remains an icily beautiful and altogether deadly mystery.

Like the character of Rocky, it's got heart to spare, and is by turns one of the sweetest of the sweet-science pictures as well as one of the most doleful. Fighters fight, it's what they do. And Balboa, god bless him, fights on.

Its view of mankind is unkind, to say the least, but any race that can produce such remarkably garish gore as this is perhaps salvageable somehow, someday.

By turns wry, quirky, joyful, and above all human, this easygoing but never less than fascinating documentary focuses on the surprisingly tolerant township of Eureka, Ark.

No matter where your political gullibilities lie, Green Zone is a riveting piece of actioneering.

Great fun to watch, thoughtful and timely, Thomas in Love is likely to generate some decidedly interesting post-film conversations as well.

While it's a well-constructed doc, full of relevant information and geared toward those people who still might be fence-sitters on the subject, there's something missing from The 11th Hour's lengthy procession of talking heads: a sense of maddened outrage.

The comedic success of this pair of dramatic archetypes, the radiant flibbertigibbet and the gray, lumpen elder spinster, in a lightweight bit of piffle such as this is a testament to both Adams' and McDormand's smarts. It's tough to play dumb when you're not and even more difficult to dial down your own innate brilliance.

As a period mystery, however, it's as muddy and swirling as the actual record of that fateful, deadly weekend cruise.

Ultimately, it's 79 minutes of footage of a pair of petty, pretty people freaking out over having to go to the bathroom in their wetsuits, and in the end you find yourself rooting for the sharks.

So does Rio measure up to the insanely great standard set by Pixar? Visually, yes.

By the time Foot Fist limps to its ultimate fighting climax, you'll likely wish you had double-teamed "Game of Death" and "Waiting for Guffman" instead.

Through it all Philps keeps her camera low the better to represent the children’s as-yet-unformed POV, both literally and emotionally

The catch is, once you get past the stunning special effects and the mind-numbing stuntwork, there's not all that much there.

Armie Hammer slyly steals the show as Ord, a very chill American arms dealer.

Both apocalyptic and suitably vague, The Signal's only serious weakness comes from some borderline histrionic performances; then again, it's tough to call hysteria anything other than a sane response to a world gone mad. Crazy, man.

Invincible is like a thick, sweaty slab of NFL comfort food.

It's pure Bedlam, but for genre fans, Scorsese makes it feel like coming home.

Remarkable debut feature by New Yorker Ben Younger.

Jim Jarmusch's elegiac, hilarious performance as a man about to smoke his final cigarette is brilliant.

Neither as good as its direct ancestor (Michael Schultz's great 1976 hood masterpiece Car Wash) nor as clever as the original Friday, this is, to put it bluntly, all seeds and stems.

Simultaneously creepy and hilarious, this is the perfect slice of Grand Guignol for a humid summer's night.

Despite a third-act tendency to gather a few spare genre clichés as it rolls along (Guns! Drugs! Angry siblings!), Robinson's film is a cut above the rest.

Severance is a British horror-comedy that, from the get-go, has two distracting strikes against it.

One of the most eloquent tales in ages of dysfunctional love – between a man and his ideals, between a country and its government, and, in the end, between Evey and V.

Adamson's pulled a more morally nuanced rabbit (or badger, actually) out of his directorial hat this time out, and the result is a far more engrossing film than its predecessor.

A pleasantly vicarious slice of summertime falderol, innocuous in its presentation and often genuinely fun.

Weaver essays the new hotmama Ripley with wry, good humor -- you can tell she's having a ball playing this unstoppable die-cast she-wolf.

It's a straight-ahead caper flick, very cool, and very, very Seventies (although it takes place in 1995), from production and costume design on down to the soundtrack.

Piglet, your time has arrived. Sooth us.

A bizarre mélange of earnest and romantic road movie, high-octane chase picture reminiscent of everything the mustachioed version of Burt Reynolds ever did, and a slapsticky comedy that gives Tom Arnold considerably more screen time than actually necessary.

It's ostensibly a Southern-fried comedy of terrors, but what little humor the film evinces almost immediately lodges in your windpipe like an errant bit of K-Fried-C gristle.

It's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, just one that grabs your attention and then lets it go, time and time again.

A disturbing, spare story and a return to Polanski's earlier thematic grounds; it's not Knife in the Water, but it does feature fragmenting marriages and a big boat.

It's smart; it's silly; it's – kill me now – shear terror.

It's always odd to see Robbins, a political activist in his own right, playing at villainy, but here he descends into the role so thoroughly that the lopsided smile becomes less a notation of cockeyed boyishness than a treacherous Cheshire smirk.

File this one under What Were They Thinking?

All this and not a glimmer of General Franco makes for a surreal – and sporadically inspired – comedy of Spanish mores back when naughty was nice.

This is Burton’s most mainstream film to date, which isn’t to say it’s not an eccentrically entertaining ride. It is, but minus the kooky occult élan you expect from the man who made "Edward Scissorhands." It’s a Lifetime movie, as directed by, well, you know who.

Peterson's film is a huge, loud beast of a film, filled with gunfire, explosions, and not a few tears. It's all grounded, however, in Ford's gritted-teeth performance as President Marshall.

A consistently entertaining parody that never once makes you feel like an idiot for laughing out loud at its idiocy.

Black Sea is cluttered and claustrophobic in all the right ways, and it doubles as a watery jeremiad against global corporate malfeasance. Still, you walk away from the film with the niggling sense that the story never quite holds your attention the way it should.

Too strange for its own good, Careful is less interesting as a film than it is as a Canadian cinematic anomaly.

On the whole, though, Kong: Skull Island is great big dumb fun. It’s also shockingly beautiful to look at when you aren’t having creature guts flung into the camera.

Becker's tight, streamlined direction, along with Nicholas Pileggi's (GoodFellas) excellent script and Cusack's wonderful turn as Calhoun take City Hall far above the standard genre fare. Like real mayoral politics, it's a descent into a snakepit, with no easy answers in sight.

If you're a parent, you could do a heck of a lot worse than taking the spawn off to catch Rugrats in Paris and if you're a kid, well, you probably already knew that anyway.

A violent, sober cautionary tale, strictly middle-of-the-road when it comes to its much-ballyhooed politics and grimly obvious in its telling.

Second-guessing the audience in the third act takes some of the wind out of his sails (the film wraps up the loose ends so tightly you can practically see the bow), but Hackford does his best with a King tale that many thought would be unfilmable.

You can barely tell what's going on half the time, but what you do see is effective.

As usual with anime features, just because it's animated doesn't mean it's for kids; heads roll and blood spurts, so know that going in, mom and dad. For the older crowd, though, it's gory and gorgeous bliss.

There are droll comic flourishes in this very brave film, to be sure, but all you really want to do after watching CSA is hang down your head and cry.

Meghie’s film is a paean to the push and pull between enchanting possibilities and chimerical probabilities. You don’t need to bring a handkerchief into the theater for fear of ocular leakage, but The Photograph’s modestly hopeful denouement is, truly, picture perfect.

As a vehicle for Moore's acting abilities (and Mortensen's, for that matter), G.I. Jane is terrific. But as the end-of-summer blockbuster it's doubtless intended to be, it's pretty much a washout.

Suffers mightily from sequelitis. Forced to explain what’s going on and what’s going to be going on in the next and final installment (due out in November), the Wachowskis have laced the film with a series of crushingly dull and often incomprehensible scenes of exposition and yakky gabfests.

So what's not to love? For starters, there's the inescapable fact that Ted is, no matter how you stuff it, yet another man-child buddy movie – and all that that implies.

What Reggio’s ultimate point or conclusion might be is, as ever, left up to the viewer for interpretation. And while this is patently not a film that big-box cineplexers are going to rush to in droves, Visitors remains a wondrous work of artistic achievement.

Collins, who also wrote this woeful, dolefully humorous take on mankind’s endless struggle to overcome the banal but no-less soul-sucking minor mishaps of modern life, ends things on a surprisingly encouraging, optimistic note.

U-571's plot moves like a rocket, never pausing for breath, and this works to a point, but certain events ... are glossed over in favor of more (exceptionally well-done) shots of exploding depth charges and topside battles.

Theroux (who co-wrote with director Dower) manages to dredge up some new, albeit not particularly revelatory, intel on the litigation-happy group, and the tack they take to get there is interesting in and of itself.

It's inoffensive and sports a positive "be yourself" message that’s obvious enough to be seen from space without benefit of hero-vision, but really, there's very little that's super about it.

Yakuza Apocalypse is Miike at the top of his game, breaking cinematic rules at every chance while crafting seriously subversive cinema that defangs both the real-world Yakuza, the Japanese government, and, heaven help us, Sanrio, too. Knitting, I tell you! Knitting!

Ozon's take on this marriage in particular is notable – apart from Freiss and Bruni-Tedeschi's bracing performances – for his unwillingness to let things spiral out of complete control.

If Red Hill isn't quite a classic, it surely is a work of genuine passion for a genre that's unmistakable, and unkillable.

This is the hot-button topic of the moment and audiences will be divided, but there can be no denying the gut-punch power of Andrews’ directorial debut.

Damon, particularly, stands revealed as a comic ace.

Strives to be an inspirational depth charge, but its power is consistently waylaid by some genuinely hokey dialogue and situations.

Take this one for what it is, an entertaining Disney comedy of really large proportions, and you'll have a ball.

Inspired lunacy.

Not only the best date movie of the year, it's also a -- dare I say it twice -- delightfully charming -- and totally American, I might add -- slice of comedic bliss.

Seems as though its reach is always exceeding its grasp...partly because Kasdan spreads himself a bit thin amongst the nine major characters he's working with.

Much of the film is frankly ludicrous, but that does little to dispel its overall power and passion.

Shyamalan's premise is a lulu, to be sure, but if you can manage that precious, tentative suspension of disbelief, you'll find Unbreakable a rewarding meditation on the nature of heroes, both comic book and otherwise.

Like its protagonist, Sleight is a scrappy, semi-super origin story that lacks the existential heft of, say, M. Night Shyamalan’s "Unbreakable," or the grim comic nihilism of James Gunn’s "Super."

It's one of the better sequels to come out in years, and although it doesn't pack the emotional wallop of the first film, it's still head and shoulders (and punctured eyeballs) above most of what's out there.

What Warriors of the Rainbow may have going for it most of all is Chin Ting-Chang's dreamy cinematography, which presents the native Seediq amid the sultry jungle greenery that brings to mind the absurdly lovely flora of James Cameron's Pandora.

Call it odious, call it repugnant, call it downright nasty – just don't call it dumb.

It is, however, a very satisfying film, and surely the first in a long franchise (it does, after all, bear the subtitle The Vampire Chronicles).

The Negotiator falls short of greatness by a country mile; it's too chatty for its own good sometimes. But it's still a solid shoot-'em-up.

Zoolander's consistent, blissful stupidity is a comic, mental Xanax, soothing in its gormless sense of inspired wack.

Phillippe does a dark, searing turn with a character that could have easily been little more than Taps-era hubris, and Gordon-Levitt, as one of King's more fragmented former charges, is riveting and convincingly small-town Texas.

Plays like the Brothers Grimm meets "Cloverfield" with a hint of Monty Python-esque ridiculousness. For a small indie film from Norway, Trollhunter rocks it gargantuan style and then some.

In all fairness, the sheer, overwhelming mediocrity of everything about Pandorum – Travis Milloy's hackneyed, ultra-derivative script, Alvart's plodding pacing and dull direction, even the eventual crimson tide of gore that duly arrives just in time to keep audience members over the age of 13 from dozing off – may well constitute a new breed of horror: In space, no one can hear you snore.

Pixar this isn't, but neither is it "Mary Shelley's Veggie Tales." If only.

That it all ends on a somewhat flat, false note is less a failure of the filmmakers than it is a testament to a certain amount of overzealousness in the screenplay – which, of course, echoes the nail-gnawing tension unfolding onscreen. Bravo!

The Boxtrolls feels rough-and-tumble and not as much fun by half.

Laugh? Cry? I thought I'd die, but then that's the genius of Gordon.

In a word, it’s soulless.

It's a knowing, dare I say sweet, little film that takes pains to let the characters speak for themselves, never rallying behind an implicit religious message, which may be the best message of all.

As a narrative film, it's confounding and oblique – but still gorgeous to behold.

Cooly feral in dark suit and tie, Glover’s the man in the gray flannel suit gone way, way over the edge, and it’s one of the most fully realized screen performances in ages, rats and all.

A slam-bang, sci-fi actioner, relentlessly paced and edited, with a pounding soundtrack and some ingenious aliens courtesy of Berni Wrightson and KNB Effects.

More fun than Peter Hyams' "The Musketeer," and somewhat less so than "The Man in the Iron Mask," this is middling Dumas all the way.

As with the original Anchorman, the gags fly fast and free; not all of them work, but a romantic subplot between linguistically challenged Brick and GNN secretary Chani (Wiig) is an inspired comedic dorkgasm.

Fans of the considerably more pedestrian "Julie & Julia" will likely have to attach drool buckets to their chins in order to avoid hours of tedious mopping up, so lusciously bizarre are the comestibles on display here.

And while the blond, youthful, and entirely sane-seeming Lomborg was initially pilloried for his calm, rational views by the global environmental movement, his ideas and solutions arrive as a refreshing tonic in the face of global warming's more vocal fearmongers.

There may be nothing new under the sun, but you can bet your life there's absolutely nothing new about Rush Hour at all.

Oculus never quite resolves into the image of horror it clearly wishes to be. Kudos, though, to cinematographer Michael Fimognari and score composers, the Newton Brothers – all of whom provide a fertile audiovisual background for Flanagan’s film.

It is violent, certainly, but it's also a genuinely excellent film, horrifying and touching and beautiful in a bloody sort of way. A bit like real life, really.

Director Rose seems not to know what to show next, and whether this is in an effort to keep his audience guessing or not, it only ends up making what could have been an exceptionally disturbing film exceptionally annoying.

Hero dips into the world of Capra's Meet John Doe, and comes up with an even more repellant visage of the Media/Citizenry connection than that film.

While expertly executed animation-wise and passably entertaining for very young kids (less so, their parents), is still as dull as the hull on Rocketship X-M.

It's a love story, though, and all the more poignant for being one that actually survived under such tempestuous circumstances.

Retelling of White's classic children's book is a spun-sugar treacle-bomb, though a darn good-looking one.

As directed by Taymor, it's a competent and nicely designed biopic that for all of the director's attempts to link surrealist film imagery with Hayek's depiction of Kahlo somehow manages to be generally lackluster.

The film has a Leone eye (courtesy of cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchía) coupled with a drowsy, doomy pace which, emboldened by the salt-licked Bolivian settings and the finely calibrated acting from all, makes for a phantasmagoric trip down a strangely different memory lane.

Julia, Huston, Ricci, and Workman are all excellent in their roles (Carol Kane as Granny Addams seems little more than an afterthought), but they're unfortunately not enough to save this elongated mess. If you haven't yet seen the first film, rent that instead, or, better yet, go pick up a volume of the original Addams cartoons.

Not an easy film to love and politically incorrect to the hilt, it nevertheless leaves its mark on you – and it’s rarely, if ever, dull.

Transporter 3 is so far over the top that it more than once spills into outright cartoonishness.

Never less than good but it's also never quite great.

Onward is neither terrible nor great; it simply is.

Gets its teeth in you and shakes. Once it’s over, you find yourself replaying it on an endless loop in your head.

A touching (and at times horrific) -- albeit overlong -- Christ allegory, that scores not so much on the strength of its convictions as it does on the truly remarkable performances it elicits from the cast.

Five years after Ang Lee attempted a stylistically and narratively daring reimagining of what a comic-book movie could be (an example that tanked disastrously at the box office), the big green gamma-guy returns to the screen in a purer, more unadulterated, vastly more entertaining form.

As an ensemble comedy that at best is only firing on four cylinders at any given moment, Mr. Jealousy is a slight contrivance, one that dawdles around in your head for a brief while before vacating the area to make room for more pressing issues.

Howard's snappy-smooth performance, unsurprisingly, is what elevates Fighting from its hoary genre predecessors.

It’s one of the most cautious readings of lust ever put to film.

Transformers is about as clever as an unplugged blender.

Alice Braga owns this film.

It's a mess, but it's Wenders' mess, and that means that there are any number of salvageable parts to the whole.

Deeply moral, thoughtful, and amiably humorous.

It's thanks to Akhtar's standout performance that The War Within is as electrifying as it is.

Ultimately, Elysium ends up with explosions, running gun battles, and summer non-blockbuster tedium. The outcome is never in question, and while Blomkamp has proven himself to be a master of sci-fi social commentary in the past, this dull wheel in the sky just lands with a resounding thud.

Ultimately undone by some less than remarkable character development and an unnecessary, if currently contemporaneous, pseudo-political undertones. Which isn’t to say it’s not a blast to see Gammell’s eerie, Francis Bacon-esque illustrations come to herky-jerky and horrifying life, because it is, absolutely.

A winning update of a classic piece of Eighties' filmmaking, and that in itself is something of a coup.

It's an existential, Kafka-esque nightmare with no real resolution, although if you've been biding your time waiting to see some high-strung, ham-handed bickering on-screen, this is your A-ticket.

The hippies, the ravers, the bumbling bobbies and nonplussed locals, the mud, the rush of being in the crush, up against the barricades, torn between the need for a restroom and the need for more room, to dance, to sing, to carry on like a stark loony regardless of your faraway day job – all of this is captured by Temple's unblinking, seemingly everywhere-at-once eye.

All's fair in love and war, I know, but really now.

Solid, workmanlike stuff, and enough to keep the legions of X-philes sated until next September. And since I realize some of you are dying to know, no, Mulder's butt remains, as always, fully clothed.

Unnerving and occasionally witty, were it not for its weak third act, Nolan's film might fall just short of genius. As it is, though, it's unique nonetheless.

Devil's Advocate is such a bloated, gargantuan, and ultimately tasteless juggernaut of a film that it manages to achieve a righteously cheesy splendor.

The Coen brothers’ newest is an odd amalgam of tics and stutters that plays like something of a greatest-hits reel but never seems to jell into a real comedy.

This expanded version only suffers, albeit in grim visual splendor, from the extrapolation.

It’s a worthy effort, and Webb’s story is important. Nevertheless, Kill the Messenger feels extremely dated: In these cynical times, it’s too little, too late, which is too bad.

I'm certainly not asking for car chases and explosions here, but this is a suspense film that's too "adult" for its own good, despite the fact that Redford, Dafoe, and Mirren (in particular) have rarely been more mature in their performances.

Bertolucci returns to his native Italian soil for the first time in 15 years, and the result is a gorgeous albeit fairly insubstantial homecoming.

Absolutely, 100% kickass. Now would someone please get busy on the "Tank Girl" do-over, please?

The Adjustment Bureau is, above all, a romance of chance and chaos theory of the heart. (In this respect, some viewers will recognize it as kin to the early Gwyneth Paltrow fantasy "Sliding Doors.")

Moves with the stately speed of most Merchant/Ivory productions, which is to say too damn slow, but the film is snatched from the jaws of tedium by Doyle's resplendently lush camerawork and Fiennes and Richardson's spot-on performances.

Family succeeds, for the most part, because of and not despite the sheer familiarity of its hoary storyline.

The script, written by the three brothers, is ludicrous and incomprehensible, and plays cat-and-mouse games with what could have been some deeply funny comments on race, wealth, and, in one inspired changing-room scene, eating disorders.

A disarmingly enjoyable film.

Set in 1987, this inspirational Disney sports film (that’s a niche, but a growing one) hits all the schmaltzy, sappy notes you’d expect, but never falls to its knees under the burden.

It is a harmless and occasionally hilarious pop comedy good for a few bargain yuks.

One of the most affecting and certainly the most intimate of the cinematic arguments against the war in Iraq yet made.

There's no denying the kick you get from seeing Borgnine (forever lovelorn Marty to me, when he's not tooling around my head as Cabbie, from John Carpenter's Escape From New York) and company kick ass, take names, and go batshit crazy one last time.

Apart from the fang-restraint of the nosferatu, however, there's precious little that's altogether new or for that matter shocking about this by-the-numbers thriller.

Palmetto follows the rules of film noir so slavishly that it's tough not to like it just on its own dopey, headstrong merit.

Gleefully silly fun, with a few core concepts on the nature of time, space, and la-la-la-love thrown in for good measure. And who can resist a puffin, anyway?

It's mad, bad nonsense of the summer, popcorn variety, disposable but oh-so-much fun to endure, a roller coaster on a wobbly cinematic track.

Manages to get by on wry smarts, barbed asides, and plenty of Barrymore's comic grace.

It's chilling what Fiennes can do with so very little; he looks like a wounded puppy half the time and sounds like one to boot.

This single film beats every other Hollywood action film of the past five years, hands down. It's not even close. Welcome back, Mr. Tsui.

Not only is it interesting to follow the course of Gray's storyline, the movie is also equally interesting to view, even if the storyteller is just sitting in front of a desk most of the time.

Surjik's skewed Canadian vision keeps WW2 from descending to the level of Thanksgiving leftovers, with frequent touches of out-and-out weirdness and the sure-footed knowledge that this is a comedy, period. It doesn't have to try to be anything more, and that, I think, is why it works so very well.

Comes across as a particularly unspecial "Very Special Episode" of a television series that never made it past the pilot stage.

Gifted may rely on the extremely old-school lovable-orphan-and-adopted-parent template, but there’s a certain emotionally complex realism to both the performances and the storyline that lifts the film beyond the obvious and the cliched.

The overall tone of this rocket-paced updating is exhilaratingly giddy, making it by far Disney’s best animated film since "Mulan."

Zealously nasty fun which, surprisingly, ends on something of a note of upbeat grace and familial redemption, Middle Men is more entertaining than 99% of 37% of the Internet.

Consistently entertaining.

It is, in essence, the video game transferred part and parcel to the screen, and very well at that.

Like rocky road ice cream, The Rundown is chunky stuff, full of calories and easy to take in small doses. Also like rocky road, it’s bound to attract flies if you leave it lying around, and, more to the point, too much of it is likely to make you gag.

Nearly a perfect film, from its bold and epic man-vs.-nature conflict to the breathless scripting, editing, acting, and direction.

Although this version of Beowulf (the script, ricocheting between thrilling, heroic, and hilarious, is by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary) does take some liberties with certain heretofore undreamed of aspects of parentage, it's as faithful to the extant version as it needs to be.

A charming, winsome slice of Seventies pop kitsch reconceived as a kind of Knight-errant quest for that holiest of all grails, dear old mom.

As pure a summer popcorn overdose as you're likely to find, M:i-2 is breezy, breathless, brainless fun, falling just short of Woo's own "Face/Off" but head and shoulders above anything else out there just now.

The film's very title is a tease, however: It never gets all that loud, and you might doze off after 30 minutes of watching this unwieldy power trio recount their formative years and visit old haunts before heading on to a soundstage for their minimum rock & roll "summit."

Taylor’s film works best as both a commentary on the viral limits of parental affection, and the terror of bringing up said juvies.

Doesn't tell you anything about human nature you probably haven't already suspected, but then again it's good to be reminded of these dark things from time to time. Especially these days.

It's a gorgeous albeit depressing mess, as distancing and despairing as a realpolitik wipeout.

The film is one of the more adult offerings out there in a spring movie season peppered with martial arts and superheroes. It may be just what you're looking for.

Although guaranteed to split critics and viewers alike, nobody can argue that Bravo and Gelman haven’t put their all into this absurdist, existential farce. The question remains: Will Lemon make or break that all-important first date comedy connection? (Personally, I’m sticking with Ruggero Deodato.)

The performances have remained continuously excellent throughout The Hobbit trilogy, and they remain so here; likewise Howard Shore’s score, which is particularly righteous – bloodthirsty when it needs to be, keening when a particularly major character is cut down.

Cloyingly melodramatic film.

A poor man's "Excalibur," but the fact of the matter is that the film displays far too little of the incisor-sharp wit and out-of-control mayhem readily available in the other two films. It just doesn't work.

The Princess Blade opens with one of the most note-perfect action sequences ever committed to film.

Dull and meandering documentary.

The Lost World (unlike Spielberg's original film) leaps head first into the action, rushing, it seems, to get the film's real stars -- the dinosaurs -- to the screen as quickly as possible, and it does so with considerable verve.

Fincher's camerawork gives the movie a jittery feel, and his video-trained eye lends the prison sets the look of a dilapidated cathedral, but again, there's really nothing here that we haven't seen before, and better, at that. Nice title, though.

Carrey has yet to find the perfect vehicle for himself, but The Mask, while hardly as fantastic as it should have been, is a step in the right direction.

Intriguing and stylish.

It's all fab, baby, a kicky, wiggy sequel that scores on all levels, from the sexy to the sublime.

A meticulously-researched chunk of underground Americana that traces the poet's full life from his rather dysfunctional childhood (beneath the hoary shadow of his mentally ill mother) to his meetings and eventual friendships with Kerouac, Burroughs, Neal Cassady and other Beat luminaries. (Review of Original Release)

Parcels out information like a triage medic doling out morphine; every tiny bit is carefully considered and then rationed out as though he were terrified he might exhaust his supply before the closing credits.

Riot Girls doesn’t disappoint in the mayhem department, and as a meta-story about female empowerment in an increasingly threatening “men's world,” this wild and woolly take on teen-angsters past would make Furiosa herself cheer.

Don’t leave until the final credits finish rolling or you’ll miss what many are considering Kill Bill: Vol. 1’s best bit. Trust us on this one.

This is an interesting/odd take on the Cars universe, seeing as how this is a movie squarely aimed at pre-teens who likely have no concept of aging, let alone four-wheeled mortality, or for that matter Joseph Campbell’s monomythic “Hero’s Journey.”

Despite a marketing campaign that appears bound and determined to make its subject look as grindingly dull as possible, Roll Bounce triumphs on almost all counts.

The whole film rests on the increasingly prison-ink tatted shoulders of Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones’ Jaime Lannister, who brings his A – as in ass-kicking – game to Waugh’s film.

Once you get past the admittedly breathtaking shots of our national landmarks being turned into kindling, the rest of the film is a tired and empty two hours of feel-good patriotism and oddly cast characters.

Snyder’s film isn't likely to be considered a classic 20 years down the road like Romero's film is, but it's a winningly extreme episode in the ongoing adventures of Zombie and Harriet. (And stick around while the end credits roll: The film isn't over 'til it's over.)

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance's byzantine plot appears fairly straightforward at first, but slowly, deliberately moves into uncharted waters with the fluid grace of a tiger shark bumping up against a potential meal.

Limitless is a writer's movie by a writer, and it explores the dark side of the muse.

It’s all in good fun, and critic-proof to boot, but Jurassic World doesn’t even come close to that most intimate and dearly coveted “Gosh, wow” sense-of-wonder that the original film mustered so easily. Roar more, bite less.

It is, in effect, a movie-house meta mirror, warped and weird, strange but true (except when it isn't). It's whatever you want it to be, which doesn't necessarily make it a great movie (although it contains moments of greatness), but it IS – by virtue of its premise alone – boldly unique.

The film provides a whole new way of looking at the same old dead things. Eat up.

Bad Boys for Life – while not as combustibly fun as the second installment – is fine, cheesy, Saturday afternoon mayhem, smoothly served with a heaping helping of “We’re all getting older.”

More funhouse spook show than actual horror movie but, like the black magic roller coaster ride it's predicated on, it has a startling amount of jolts, frissons, and downright freak-outs to qualify as the best teen date movie of the month if not the year. Boo. Scary.

By the end of this film/experiment/prank – which, to be blunt, is pretty unsatisfying – the viewer is left to ponder what it's all about, and what its purpose may have been, which, knowing Lynch and Herzog, might well be what it was about, and what its purpose was.

A top-notch example of uninsulting kid humor at its goofiest.

Crammed to bursting with the director’s trademark magical realism. Occasionally marred by budgetary constraints, this is nevertheless a welcome return for an artist who truly deserves the sobriquet: El Maestro.

Magic Trip comes off nearly as scattershot as the events it depicts, which is a major stumbling block.

Leary rehashes his Bill Hicks persona for the umpteenth time, but if you can get past the blatant rip-off of his shtick, you'll find an inspired, virulent, often hilarious film that apparently was just too much for old Saint Nick.

Unfriended provides a modicum of chills and more gore than you’d expect.

Truth is, once again, stranger and far more interesting than fiction, but Stewart, whose youthful idealism makes for passionate but uneven filmmaking, should scuttle further oceanic pedantry and focus his lens on Watson's "good pirate" efforts to sabotage the "bad pirates" and save the sea.

It all adds up to a peculiar whole; fun I suppose, but not what you'd call a picnic.

It's a Herculean task to steal the thunder from a Johnny Depp performance, but Richard Griffiths (best known these days as Harry Potter's tubby Muggle uncle, Vernon Dursley) does exactly that.

Pure, unadulterated teen exploitation filmmaking at its best -- a heady, rocketing blast of fast cars, loud hip-hop, and a script so cheesy it might as well have “Made in Wisconsin” stamped on it.

It may not be spring yet, but this sweet little gem of a movie is the perfect antidote to that lengthy stretch of grimy gray weather Austin endured a while back.

Do yourself a favor: Go rent Hardy's original film, watch it, and then try and get it out of your head. You never, ever will.

Obenhaus' documentary on extreme, "big mountain" skiing feels, despite its jaw-dropping camerawork and patently fearless subjects, like a relic from 1998.

If you’re looking for "Inglourious Basterds" redux, then this bloodless historical drama isn’t for you. Despite a pair of steely performances from Kingsley (as Eichmann) and Isaac (playing a roguish Shin Bet agent who eventually turns out to be the key to unlocking Eichmann’s stubborn ego), Operation Finale has the too-slow-burn of "Argo"-lite.

You’ve got to hand it to director Andy Muschietti. Adapting any Stephen King novel – or, for that matter, shorter material – is always a hit-or-miss gig, but It Chapter Two manages to pull out all the stops and in several areas actually tops the first film.

It's overstuffed with all the actors wasting both the viewers’ and the movie’s running time by actually speaking dialogue when we all know that what audiences really want to see is outrageous vehicular slamslaughter.

There's much to enjoy here – Ratner's pacing is fluid and fast and the film rushes along its busy, cluttered way with something approaching melodramatic snarkiness – but it's also terribly busy and cluttered.

This is a war film with precious little war, which was also the crux of Swofford's book.

As a portrait of both man and society in exquisitely poised decline, it's harrowing, hilarious, and horrific in equal measure.

Director Apted has somehow managed to take one of the most contrived plots I've ever seen and make it seem, if not original, then at least way above average.

Fans of Neil Young and Crazy Horse will doubtless revel in these lengthy concert scenes, and although occasionally the band's songs wander off into what appear to be impromptu jam sessions, Year of the Horse is never boring.