Nathan Lee

Mr. Sharma's film emphasizes testimony over context to such a degree that it feels at first of little use to anyone except gay Muslims who might take comfort in knowing they're not alone. But the documentary gains depth of feeling as it goes and even develops something of a nail-biting narrative.

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

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.

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.

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.

Easily summarized, the plot is entirely secondhand.

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.

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

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

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.

Limited almost exclusively to tourist attractions, this documentary glimpse at the sights and sounds of occupied Tibet amounts to a rhetorically inflated vacation video.

A loving if routine primer on this bright young man.

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.

Perhaps because the music is so good, with its purity of tone and dazzling rhythmic precision, the flaws of the surrounding movie become all the more obvious.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

It is perverse that a movie concerned with objectification would reduce its hero to an object.

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.

Inoffensive if uninspired.

Tells a colorful if conventional tale of dysfunctional Americans abroad. The misadventures of Jake and Oliver play off against the conflicted sympathies of the locals, who simultaneously resent, enjoy, prosper from and exploit the tourist scene.

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

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