Marjorie Baumgarten

Pacing problems and shallow psychological inquiries plague this film almost as much as the overworked metaphor that supplies the film's title.

A pleasant frolic, but fairly inconsequential in terms of the overall Allen output.

Life Is Sweet observes this constellation of people without ever really commenting on their lots. Very little occurs and thus, if you don't find yourself drawn to these characters, you will find yourself wondering when it will all be over.

The movie is a strange amalgam of compelling visuals and fascinating vocational details forged with deep moral ambivalence and often hollow didacticism.

There's little drama or sense of progression in the movie until the bombshell hits, and then it just whimpers along for another half-hour until the end.

As kids' comedies go, this one's fairly topical and, better yet, amusing.

Even if this is a film that does not always make perfect sense, Infinity Pool is a film that does not shrink from its transgressions.

Emerges as an artful, courageous, experimental work that is as compelling as it is impaired.

Sumptuous to behold, although one will not leave the theatre with a much deeper knowledge and understanding of this great Spanish painter's career.

The film aims to be a cautionary tale, but it doesn’t seem that the filmmakers have absorbed the lesson.

This film is more a love story about the marriage between Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), rather than a historically accurate backstage look at the making of this important movie in the Hitchcock filmography and the American psyche.

Last Chance Harvey is so much an "actors' film" that the hand of the director seems hidden until it bursts into view with something clunky.

Once you've seen it all once I bet you'll wish you were watching "Groundhog Day" -- again.

Episodically eventful but utterly unsuspenseful, the film is a diversion that requires little attention and satisfies the film-going needs of a wide variety of viewers.

Hedges has demonstrated his sensitivity to internecine family conflicts and the tenor of small-time life. However, The Odd Life of Timothy Green seems always to be straining for whimsy and wonder.

Never finding its right tone, Admission uncomfortably founders between the story’s comic and dramatic aspects and leaves behind a lumpy residue that tars its likable leads.

Terribly slight but not unpleasant, 5 Flights Up is hardly worth the climb.

Though the soundtrack comes on kind of heavy, the cinematography (by Enrique Chediak) has a beautiful clarity. Yorick's skull or not, Charlie St. Cloud is no Shakespearean drama, but the film should prove to be another solid stepping stone for Efron on his way to a long adult career.

Good Time demonstrates an admirable daring in its technique and willingness to go against the grain, but its payoff isn’t equal to its challenges.

I have to report that I, personally, just don't get it. I intellectually understand what occurs in the movie; I just can't make the leap into calling it a humanistic treasure about life's big questions. Slow and monotonous, the film moves at a deliberate pace and culminates in a meta-fictional moment that is either infuriatingly trite or enigmatic.

There is plenty here to enjoy for beach bums and fans of bikinis and six-pack abs, but others are likely to find themselves hopeless wet blankets.

The film is sure to be of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about the beginnings of the California folk-rock scene. Crosby’s reflections are interesting, if not always illuminating. Crowe asks probing questions, yet the answers Crosby provides don’t dig very deep.

As long as underdog sports stories hold a place in the cinematic universe, Eddie the Eagle, despite its shortcomings, will soar into moviegoers’ hearts.

Maybe we won't fully understand Eastwood's film until we see the second part of this project, "Letters From Iwo Jima," his companion film seen from the Japanese viewpoint expected in 2007. On its own, however, Flags of Our Fathers merely flags.

If only the movie that encases this character were as sharp and distinctive as Harriet.

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that Bergman is finally getting around to asking himself questions he now realizes he should have asked long ago is not sufficient enough premise for a movie. The answers may be news to Bergman, but the rest of us might just want to opt for divorce.

That is really the reason to see this movie: the lovely performances of Macdonald and Khan.

It's all pretty involving and sweetly ingratiating in a Charlotte's Web-by kind of way.