Nathan Lee

Well-researched and generally evenhanded in its delivery of information (Ted Danson provides the narration), the movie more than makes its points without needing to resort to a montage of adorable fish being bashed on the head.

This powerful, conceptually sure film is relevant beyond the concerns of the moment as both a model of documentary method and compassionate social filmmaking.

A loving if routine primer on this bright young man.

The most impressive special effect here is Mr. Matsumoto's hilariously restrained performance, a tour de force of comedic concision in a movie bloated by increasingly surreal developments.

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.

Of all the shoddy, insipid qualities of Bangkok Dangerous, the most egregious is the most fundamental: The film is simply dreadful to look at.

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.

The movie is legitimately greasy, authentically nasty, with a good old-fashioned sense of laying waste to everything in sight -- including the shallow philosophizing and computer-generated fakery that have overrun the summer blockbuster.

Harold is the type of one-note dead zone ideally suited for a bathroom break while sitting home on a Saturday night, alone and semidrunk, in front of the television. At feature length it's enough to make you tear your hair out.

At once a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse, bittersweet autobiography and witty trip down art-world memory lane, Guest of Cindy Sherman isn't out to settle scores or exploit access, public or otherwise.

Take Out is the season’s freshest, most sympathetic movie about making your way in modern-day Manhattan with a little help from your friends.

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.

Directed by Auraeus Solito from a screenplay by Michiko Yamamoto, Maximo has charmed film festival audiences from Sundance to Jerusalem with its refreshingly blasé handling of homosexuality, its amiable actors and its delicacy of milieu. Credit, above all, the talented Mr. Lopez, whose effortless charisma buoys the movie even when it goes heavy with contrivance.

Does little more than congratulate its audience on recognizing the source of its riffs. "High School Musical" -- ha ha ha!

This particular wheel hasn't been reinvented, but at least it gets a nice fresh coat of bubblegum-pink paint and a star to pilot it with aplomb.

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."

Where "Pusher" worked fresh texture and authenticity into a classic noir template, Pusher II reaches toward the mode of hyperrealist allegory perfected by the Dardenne brothers.

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.

May or may not appeal to fans of the Japanese fantasy franchise it is based on, but aficionados of apocalyptic teenybopper kung fu extravaganzas are in for a real treat.

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.)

Infantile, irreverent and boorish to the max, Postal explodes with bad attitude and lousy filmmaking.

The Mother of Tears is silly, awkward, vulgar, outlandish, hysterical, inventive, revolting, flamboyant, titillating, ridiculous, mischievous, uproarious, cheap, priceless, tasteless and sublime.

Skips back and forth in time, trying to piece together who did what, when and why. The only question really worth asking here: Who cares?

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.

Debased, infantile and reckless in the extreme, this compendium of body bravado and malfunction makes for some of the most fearless, liberated and cathartic comedy in modern movies.

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.

Subjective or not, the movie is a bore and an eyesore.

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.

Fearless sustains the tradition of ethically inflected Chinese action movies.

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

A bright, nimble diversion, a quick-witted picture that's fast on its feet.

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.

An itsy-bitsy, ultra-indie, super-silly comedy packing huge laughs and unexpected heart.

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

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

One of the most undermotivated plots in many a moon, the zero-wit, zero-gravity misadventures of Nat, I.Q. and Scooter are embarked on merely because they're bored on their garbage dump.

Looks like a comedy, acts like a comedy and sounds like a comedy, but it isn't funny. This is a problem in a movie that aims for laughs.

The American version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Pulse" mimics the plot fundamentals, but lacks any traces of Mr. Kurosawa’s creepy minimalism and conceptual rigor.

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.

Smart, resourceful indie.

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

This sort of thing was indulgent enough the first time around; transplanted to the mumblecore milieu, it's intolerable.

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

There's an itch for this kind of material, and here it is scratched -- to the bone.

As a mechanical thrill ride, The Clone Wars has an uncluttered look and furious pace that make it more or less as satisfying as its wildly overdesigned predecessors.

As much a work of sculpture as of cinema, this 71-minute movie, 13 years in the making, is the handmade brainchild of Christiane Cegavske, an artist who dabbles in film but whose talents and sensibility align more naturally with those of the contemporary-art world.

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.

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.

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.

With a script that snaps, characters that pop, a blaze of streetwise attitude and enough firepower to pulverize a significant chunk of South Philadelphia, Next Day Air nears neo-blaxploitation perfection. Good things come in strange packages.

An unrelentingly tedious documentary.

One of the more disciplined entries in the LaBruce oeuvre, Otto is sexy and silly in just the right proportions, a cult item with a real heart.

The third installment lacks the novelty of the first, the panache of the second and the twisted sense of humor that gives the series its participatory sense of fun.

From a producer of "Crash" comes Haven, an even phonier exercise in manufactured conflict, facile irony and preposterous contrivance.

The atmosphere is so thick, the talk so assured, the performances so disciplined and the fear so fearsome, that Mr. Refn’s final iteration of his pattern achieves the hard, bright light of an archetype from hell.

It's all good clean fun; the movie is well intentioned to a blandly feminist fault. Just as burlesque loses most of its oomph when put on video -- no art is more dependent on the intimacy of live performance -- self-esteem trips are less compelling to hear about than to experience firsthand.

Feels destined to please a campy coterie of fans and no one else.

Reunion overflows with catharsis -- at least for those on screen. This may not be quite the moment to solicit our sympathy for self-absorbed beneficiaries of Ivy League privilege.

Moves from clever mock documentary to groan-inducing conceptualism. Mr. Fox may well have put his finger on certain shared impulses between these repellent bacchanalia, but his manner of drawing them out is heavy-handed.

Mr. Hernández doesn't always grab what he's reaching for -- his talent soars untethered by discipline -- but the thrust of his effort lights up the sky.

There are, as you may have guessed, 12 rounds of this arbitrary nonsense. Annoying as the conceit may be, it neatly functions as a means to gauge how much is left to endure.

Diverting enough as a series of music videos, Dark Streets strikes postures in place of drama.

A gentle, pleasantly unrushed piece of moviemaking. There’s a tonic simplicity to how it gets the job done, and if the film comes off as fairly conventional stuff, it nevertheless succeeds on its own modest, middlebrow terms.

Premised entirely on nonsense.