Neil Genzlinger

Everyone spouts nicely turned baloney elevating golf to the level of a religious experience, which grows tedious fairly quickly. The film almost works, though, if you view the whole thing as a very, very dry comedy.

Sure, Smurfs are blue, but who knew that they actually work blue?

Christoph Baaden, the director, loses sight of the fact that, for people who don't run, the cult of running is kind of boring.

Yet the urban images he presents are missing the thing that makes any city come alive: human beings. You begin to suspect that Mr. Persons hates humanity. This makes General Orders No. 9, for all its sheen of sophistication, rather simplistic: people bad, nature good.

The real problem here, though, is that noting the it's-all-about-me nature of modern life already feels like a point that no longer needs making. Yeah, we're self-absorbed and shallow; so what else is new?

Despite these flaws, it's refreshing to see a documentary about a normal grown-up who is struggling with problems of life and love, just as so many invisible others do.

A documentary about the unending mess that is the Atlantic Yards project, is unabashedly slanted and as a result will probably be dismissed by those it portrays unflatteringly. That's unfortunate, because this film should be discouraging and dismaying for people on all sides of the project, for what it says about oversize expectations and missed opportunities.

The film does a pretty good job of conveying the bleakness and pointlessness Eva and her fellow mutants feel, but it's as if Ms. Trachinger were reluctant to take the premise any deeper for fear of being accused of imitating "Memento" or "Groundhog Day" or any number of other trapped-in-time films.

A quirky offering by Kyle Smith that does nothing more or less than show a touch-football game among friends. "It's sort of interesting," you might find yourself saying, "but is it a film?"

The efforts to document the teams' creative processes aren't particularly successful - no camera can capture something that elusive - but the filmmakers do a fine job with the back stories of the featured poets.

Eventually, though, Hey, Boo settles into a pleasant rhythm. It gives the fascinating history of how the book came to be.

The buildup to the actual competition is perfectly paced, with the film never tipping its hand as to the winner. And the championship has all the drama of a high-stakes sporting event: failure under pressure, unexpected triumph, gracious losers and winners both.

The film bounces around enjoyably, giving a history of the game, talking to people who love it and chronicling the 2009 Monopoly World Championships in Las Vegas.

There are new tweeners every year. To them, the characters and plot devices in this perfectly competent film might well seem fresh.

Comedy and poignancy weave together in Mr. Virzì's hands, but the maudlin meter only occasionally goes into the red zone. And Ms. Pandolfi gives such an exquisitely understated performance that you don't realize until the very end that the film was as much about her character as it was about Bruno and Anna.

Isn't quite savvy enough to compete with the slyest entries in that genre or madcap enough to run with the zaniest.

The women's efforts have already had a fair amount of publicity, so the attraction here is the cinematography, and it makes good use of Imax and 3-D technology, with lovely aerial views and startling close-ups.

The intent is perhaps some kind of dark tone poem, and the cinematography (by Jody Lee Lipes) is lovely. But oh, the tedium.

The film is maddeningly vague about how the two men made their initial breakthroughs, but it certainly is proof that even those who are written off as children can find a voice.

Captivating documentary about the creation of, and reaction to, the breakthrough play "The Boys in the Band."

The excitement factor only intermittently carries from the arena to the screen.

The filmmakers found an appealing collection of relatives and others who knew these artists and Savitsky to tell the story, but they also let the art do the talking, with loving, lingering shots of the brightly colored works.

The script, by Mr. Canon and Doug Simon, eventually strains credulity - even frat boys aren't this dumb - but Mr. Canon, in his first feature, shows a great knack for keeping things moving. The gathering implausibility is dispelled by a nice ending twist.

An aimless film about an aimless fellow, but it's not without its charms. It may be without a point, but hey, you can't have everything in a no-budget film like this.

A lightweight comedy aimed, presumably, at tweeners and fans of World Wrestling Entertainment.

It's not outlandish enough to work as slapstick, not intelligent enough to make a comment on the fickleness of immigration policy.

This film seems blissfully unaware that political obstructionists are paralyzing the legislative process; that deep-pocketed influence peddlers have a vested interest in maintaining the fossil fuel culture; that, in general, people resist change.

The film, though, might have been more powerful with a little less grit. A few minutes of dispassionate discussion by experts about ibogaine and the obstacles to its legalization in the United States would have enhanced the film without damaging its street cred.