Marrit Ingman

Even at its most contrived, the filmmakers believe in this project so passionately that its atmosphere seems absolutely real.

It feels mechanical, more conceptual than realized, like a senior project by a particularly ambitious student who's recently read "West of Everything" – and who's lucked into working with a world-class actor.

In casting an all-American Jersey girl and surrounding her with Manolo Blahniks and the Strokes, Coppola draws a connection between her audience (domestically, at least) and the doomed dauphine, who is likewise insulated and distracted from her country's pointless involvement in a disastrous foreign war that is bankrupting its government and starving its people – and all the while she spends, spends, spends.

For older and more reflective viewers, it’s a quirky, fresh slice-of-life more inviting than a tater-tot pyramid.

Problems arise in the film’s third act, however, with a profoundly implausible plot turn that sends the movie skidding into bogeyman horror. It cheapens the sentiment, and the film doesn’t recover.

It’s too didactic to be a spaghetti Western but lacks the moral compass required of a more evolved philosophical statement.

A perfectly marvelous matinee option for young children.

Will likely test the patience of all but the most devoted fans.

Cuddlier and more charming, this alcoholic-hitman comedy isn’t your typical Dahl noir (The Last Seduction, Red Rock West), but it is offbeat, lovably deadpan, and just tart enough.

There's nothing terribly wrong with Surf's Up, except maybe the part where one character calls another a "dirty trash can full of poop." But the movie isn't terribly robust, either.

The movie itself offers few real answers to the problems teachers face.

The quest for sexual happiness is a radical notion in these repressive times, as well as a legitimate basis for storytelling, but Shortbus doesn't quite delve as deeply as it ought into its characters' emotions.

Plenty thought-provoking, but it's not much of a movie and ultimately inspires curiosity rather than passion.

This is a film strictly for hardcore sentimentalists, despite its straight-ahead depiction of the harsh urban landscape in contemporary China.

The film has no script; it goes from moment to moment unhurriedly.

It's a call to arms, a call to pick sides in the deepening cultural, political, and spiritual schism between the two Americas of the 21st century.

It is a sweet, simple movie with a sweet, simple message: that children see the world differently and have much to teach the people who love them.

If it's not perfect, it still gives pleasure to the eye.

The best surprise is Yuan, the daughter of Hong Kong actress Cheng Pei-Pei. She has great screen presence and invests Lichi with a mix of kitty-cat cuteness and hellcat ferocity.

The film is often quietly humorous.

Though it’s as estrogenic as dong quai, this amiable adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler’s eponymous bestseller about six friends and their book club is thoughtfully rendered with a certain universality of spirit – in that sense not unlike the books of Jane Austen herself.

The kind of winking, disingenuous youth comedy that tries to play it both ways, dangling the twins as fetish objects and then yanking them back on the leash because, you know, this is a family film.

Moments of black comedy break up the melodrama – a newsreel depicts the song's "victims" and a Nazi secretary rages against her Duden grammar manual – but the overall tone is still that of a four-alarm weeper.

It's not quite masterful enough to achieve all its goals, but Zucker is undeniably ambitious despite its relatively lowbrow and farcical approach.

Yet as wonderful as it is to see a breezy, earnest romantic comedy that is so matter-of-factly gay-themed, Big Eden suffers somewhat, unsurprisingly, from some of the usual perils of a breezy, earnest romantic comedy.

Before the cocaine economy, Miami was a sleepy seaside hamlet, a "virgin city" with a permeable border and largely unprotected coastline.

It manages to be a watchable, even enjoyable movie about and for girls, and in our world of candy-coated sparkly pink c---, that's a rare and commendable thing.

Parents might appreciate a lighter hand with the barnyard whimsy and food fights, but overall the movie doesn't condescend about heavy matters (grief, healing, and blended families) and is pleasantly diverting.