Nathan Lee

A loving if routine primer on this bright young man.

Like most flower-power nostalgia trips, Eight Miles High has the irksome effect of reminding the audience -- whether too young or too square -- that it missed out on the grooviest moment in history, man. But as these things go, this one goes with flair.

The First Basket, a functional (if narrowly interesting) history lesson by the filmmaker David Vyorst, recollects the rich history of Jewish participation in basketball.

Starts promisingly, with a sharp comedic bite and genuine compassion for this fraught family dynamic, but soon gives way to the kind of compressed, schematic psychodrama endemic to (if no more welcome on) the stage.

Directed by Erik Nelson, Dreams recalls the career of a runty young geek who evolved into a world-famous artist -- and ladies' man.

Mr. Pettyfer is no Sean Connery, no Roger Moore, no Pierce Brosnan, no Timothy Dalton and no George Lazenby even, but the director, Geoffrey Sax, compensates for his zero of a hero by indulging the exceedingly amused and amusing supporting cast.

Cheap shots and mean spirits abound, as do celebrity cameos (James Woods, Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer). But it's the laziness of the writing that most offends.

A genuine labor of love -- and a real bore.

A tossed-off comedy from Adam Sandler's production company that makes one long for the comparative genius of "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry."

Though Mr. Rose can't be blamed for waxing nostalgic, he can't much expect us to care about so fawning and self-serving a document.

The problem with the movie is that James and Mattie exhibit little but shallow, infantile neurosis, with next to no hint of a complex -- or even legible -- inner life.

Easily summarized, the plot is entirely secondhand.

Inoffensive if uninspired.

Despite its empty head and arduous length, Flyboys is ever so nice, in the manner of a Norman Rockwell illustration. The director, Tony Bill, may not be a philosopher but he is a gentleman, moving things along with a tidy, well-mannered hand. In another context, such politesse might feel tonic. Given the state of things, it’s nearly toxic.

For all its rhetorical whimsy and hipster dressings, (500) Days of Summer is a thoroughly conservative affair, as culturally and romantically status quo as any Jennifer Aniston vehicle.

The Doorman, is simply too distracted to hit the comedic bull's-eye. Whatever the case, his movie gets a chuckle or two but mostly will tickle insiders.

What makes this one different? Absolutely nothing. (Sure, it's based on a true story, but I mean come on, whatever.)

As multimillion-dollar frivolities about the pets of the ruling class go, Chihuahua is reasonably diverting. As one that happens to be opening in the middle of an economic meltdown, its mere existence feels utterly insane.

The darker side of the story -- how the advent of pro surfing was taken as an act of cultural colonialism by some of the locals -- adds gravity to this otherwise lightweight, if amiable summer diversion.

The film dithers along with Leonardo, whose self-involved tedium -- and the movie's -- is occasionally interrupted by fantasy sequences.

Mindlessly repeats the archetypal "Chainsaw" scenario.

Isn't a movie so much as a devotional object, a kind of secular fetish designed to induce rapture.

Never quite shakes off its aura of second-rate made-for-TV movie, Save Me has a lot of heart but little nerve and no surprise.

Co-starring as Rome, the ringleader with "intimacy issues," Robert Patrick appears to be enjoying himself. That makes one of us.

Either way, it doesn’t quite go far enough as psychological study or cultural commentary.

The movie is, as these things go, enjoyably trashy.

The fixation of independent movies on the arrested development of bourgeois dullards may have less to do with the relevance of the topic than the class of people who get to make movies. Whatever the case, James Burke directs from a screenplay by Brent Boyd.

An overall sense that the movie was infinitely more fun to make than it is to watch.