Pete Vonder Haar

The "star-studded" cast seems to have been cast according to their Premiere power ranking and/or desperation for exposure.

Absent the actual music, Notorious would be a lot worse.

The direction is lackluster, the child actors – with the exception of Eisenberg – are pretty dismal, and the whole thing is about 15 minutes too long.

The results are by turns fascinating, horrifying, and maddening.

A curious little film. On the surface, it's a story about one man's mission to create an Orthodox monastery in Denmark, and along the way it manages to say something about everyone's desire to be remembered after they pass away.

A straight-ahead exercise in brutality.

The film is depressingly wholesome. In that respect, it accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is to distract the children of America from the horror of their eventual futures for a couple more hours.

Something of a letdown. Previous statements aside, I understand Warner Bros. has to set the table for "Half-Blood Prince" and "Deathly Hallows," but too much of Phoenix is filler. And with only two movies left, we better get to the main course in short order.

I can't deny it: I had a shit-eating grin on my face for most of the ensuing two hours. I also can't deny that many of the criticisms about to be leveled at Spielberg and Lucas over "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" are well-deserved, but it's still good to see Indiana Jones, and Marion, back in action one last time.

1. It has the potential to supplant "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" as the greatest audience participation movie of all time. 2. It is, simultaneously, one of the worst and best movies I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, Black Sheep takes so long to get going and misses so many easy opportunities for classic comedy it has to be regarded as a noble failure.

Noonan's life is one few of us can comprehend, and Mac Intyre's documentary, A Very British Gangster, is like a Guy Ritchie film come to life, only with a better dressed cast.

It's impressive enough to look at, and the voice talent – especially Black and Hoffman - doesn't disappoint, but all the CGI wankery and high-end talent only barely allows Kung Fu Panda to rise above cliché.

What ultimately keeps The Weather Man from being a better film than it is that it doesn't no when to quit.

While The Break-Up fancies itself the heir apparent to other vindictive failed relationship movies like "Modern Romance" and "War of the Roses," its lead actors lack the comparable appeal to hold our interest

Won't make anybody’s "best of" lists a year from now, but it's nowhere near as offensive as some other examples of this moldy genre.

Edward and Carter are like the original Odd Couple, except nobody’s laughing.

Monotonous. For while it offers a few precious laughs, Talladega Nights simply apes the look and feel of most recent Ferrell movies.

Comes up short in many ways, but none more so than its failure to fulfill Penn's and Zaillian's desire to provide the catalyst for political sea change.

Let's be honest; a great deal of the sh-- you find funny when you're high really isn't (as anyone who's smoked a few bowls and laughed like a hyena to "Assy McGee" can attest). So hopefully nobody will be too disappointed when I tell them that "Express" is largely hit and miss.

A handful of nifty battle scenes and some decent performances aren't quite enough to make Kingdom memorable.

How much you join in will depend on how big a fan you are of the collegiate comedy formula, how many times you've seen "Animal House" and "Caddyshack," and how much you hate Long in those smarmy Mac commercials.

It's worth a look, even taking into consideration the lack of zombies.

May not be much more than a story about girlfriends growing up, and it's not going to score any points for edginess, but it's entertaining in a low-key, non-threatening kind of way.

Intermittently amusing.

Craven eschews horror trappings and gore for a well-paced and engaging thriller that keeps the audience involved despite the fact that most of what takes place onscreen is a conversation between two people.

The rape scene is, admittedly, as brutal as any I've seen in recent memory, but much of what Iliadis shows us is a direct riff on the original.

Your enjoyment of Alpha Dog may very well depend on how put off you are by these facts, as well as how much you buy Timberlake in his role, and how in the mood you are to sit through "River’s Edge" set in the "Entourage" universe.

Thanks to a compact story and some economical direction, it actually ends up better than it has any right to be.

An above average film, and features fine performances (Theron and McDormand are probably stone locks for more Oscar nominations), but be wary of the advertising pointing out the film's similarities to movies like "Erin Brockovich."

Offers an unflinching look at the effects of a terminal diagnosis, not just on the victim, but on everyone around him.

Doesn't do much besides giving original "Ringu" and "Ringu 2" director Hideo Nakata the chance to strut his stuff in front of a wide-release audience.

It's the journey that offers the most enjoyment. Well, that and the beauty pageant climax, which I won't spoil here, but is one of the funniest scenes from film in recent memory.

This isn't to say The Departed is a bad movie, far from it, but knowing who's directing it and the amount of talent he had to work with, it's hard not to be disappointed that Scorsese didn't knock us on our asses. Is it his best movie since "Goodfellas?" Sure, but it falls shy of that film's excellence.

Reports of boos at the film's debut at Cannes are more understandable now, not because Marie Antoinette is an inaccurate or indifferent look at French history (it is), but because it's self-indulgent shit. Booing - and beheading - are too good for it.

It's funnier than "Wild Hogs," which is about as ringing an endorsement as I'm capable of these days.

As with "Napoleon Dynamite," Hess' sense of humor is an acquired taste, where all the characters speak in peculiar cadences and are afflicted with a terminal case of the "quirkies." What’s unfortunately missing from Nacho Libre is much in the way of humor.

It looks stylish, sure, but the script is laughable and the acting is ridiculous.

As it is, you'd get the same level of excitement watching "T.J. Hooker" reruns.

The film's quick pace and near-constant action carries you along quite nicely, and by the time Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) makes his climactic appearance, one can't help but look forward to the remaining films.

To top everything off, Tom Cruise may just have resurrected his career with the role of Les Grossman.

Land falls well short of the greatness of Romero’s previous zombie efforts.

Turistas fails in almost every way a movie like this can.

The same problems that plagued the original are on display here. Most notably, the lack of any coherent plot. Lots of creepy kids jump out at us, but these scenes are never satisfactorily meshed into the story itself.

You’re unlikely to come across a more powerful film this year.

The primary weakness is in the story itself, which at times seems like mere background for the snappy banter and knowing glances.

Exactly the kind of thing most of us have in mind when we think "popcorn movie." It's largely brainless, pretty to look at, and produced solely as a lead-in to another moneymaking sequel for Disney.

Younger children getting in on the ground floor of fantasy will enjoy the film.

If you didn't like "Charlie’s Angels," there’s a good chance you'll enjoy the smarter, sexier D.E.B.S.

Has some nice touches. Cheadle is capable as always, and Paula Newsome kills as his acerbic receptionist.

In truth, there's not much point to reviewing Adam Sandler comedies. They're almost always widely panned, and yet still manage to earn well over $100 million domestically. Don’' Mess with the Zohan looks to continue both trends, even if exaggerated Yiddish accents and sex with the elderly only take one so far.

Every so often you catch glimpses of a better movie behind the simplistic structure and formulaic plot.

The action IS pretty engaging, Sao Feng and his gang of South Asian cutthroats are a nice addition, and the constant plot explication does require you to pay attention.

To paraphrase the play's most famous song: how do you measure the lien against your soul when you're forced to sit through something as forcibly maudlin as Rent? I dunno, but 525,600 minutes is about how long this movie felt at times.

Comedy, like most everything else, is subjective, and this may be the greatest example out there of "getting it" or not. If you thought the first movie, the original TV show, the Three Stooges, or "Football in the Groin," was funny, chances are “ackass: Number Two is right up your alley.

It's a simple and sweet-natured movie, and one that seems appropriate even for the very young.

Almost unforgivably sentimental.

Decent vampire movies are few and far between, and I’m having a hard time remembering a recent one that impressed me like 30 Days of Night.

As comic book movies go, Iron Man is a solid entry. Downey and company help drag Favreau out of the genre holes he digs, making for a decent experience.

Fool's Gold could easily have been released in 1977, and there's a sort of laid-back, timeless, Gerald Ford feel to the movie: the resolution is never in doubt, the villains are comedic rather than menacing, and no one involved seems to care one way or the other that their names are attached to this indifferent mess.

If you're over the age of 11, there's obviously not much reason to see this.

Fracture may be smarter than the majority of movies out there, but it's not half as clever as it thinks it is.

For all of its shortcomings, Wanted is a strangely enjoyable flick.

The movie's front-loaded with puerile, junior high humor (and, admittedly, several laugh out loud moments), which is fine, but all this still followed by an increasingly awkward and clichéd third act.

There are a handful of intense sequences and a few scenes of squirm-inducing gore in The Ruins, but not much else.

Overall, New York Doll is an affectionate (occasionally too much so) look at Arthur Kane.

Fortunately for Redford, Lions for Lambs is a less ham-handed effort than Sayles’ “Silver City,” but it’s a near thing.

Spends too much time straddling the line between exuberant carnage and serious plotline when it should've gleefully backflipped into the former. Grudgingly recommended, but only if you've put your cerebral cortex in neutral for the evening.

One small step for bad filmmaking and one giant leap for the increasing insignificance of the former Michael Corleone.

There was a movie called “My Bodyguard” about the new kid in high school who hires the sullen loner to protect him from a bully. That was good. Drillbit Taylor is shit but, hey, I’m in Judd Apatow’s Hollywood.

It tries to toe the line between romantic comedy and vulgar pseudo-satire and fails at both.

I wanted to like Superman Returns, but Singer and company are so concerned about doing justice to Superman’s past, they fail to generate much interest in what, if any, future the franchise might have.

The film is technically superior, and its look and the strength of its performances (Blanchett, Barraza, and Kikuchi especially) carry it above similar fare.

Millions is that rarest of creatures: a family film - one of surprising warmth – that won't have adults reaching for an airsick bag.

What really grabs your attention about Undead, however, are the effects. For a movie budgeted under $1 million, the Spierigs have done an amazing job putting together believable visuals.

Baumbach crams an impressive amount of characterization and humor into 82 minutes.

It elicits so many laughs, in fact, that you have to wonder just what Judge did to piss off the suits at Fox so much that they would willingly torpedo one of the only genuinely hilarious movies to come out this year.

Eragon is laughably bad, mind-bogglingly derivative, and easily one of the worst movies of the year.

A low-key, warm-without-being-schmaltzy childhood adventure story that will engage younger viewers without driving their parents too crazy.

Diggers isn't a bad film, but the underlying premise - the longing one feels to escape from a dead-end, small town life - has been so beaten to death in the movies that no amount of accurate 70s design or subtlety in the performances can hide the fact.

Seriously, that kid is creepy as hell.

Had Lucky You played strictly as a father-son drama set against the background of competitive Texas Hold 'Em, it would've been a much better movie based on the strength of Hanson's direction and Duvall's performance alone. But no, somewhere along the line they had to make this a romance, and that's the movie's fatal flaw.

"The Beginning" is a better movie than the 2003 remake, even if the plot is understandably similar. There are only so many ways hapless teens can get brutally slaughtered, after all, but Liebesman and company keep things appropriately creepy, right down to aping the look of the 1974 original.

Is love a disease, as Marquez possibly wanted us to believe? Maybe, but in the case of this adaptation, it’s more of a laughing sickness.

It ain't art, and it's dumber than I'd like, but I don't imagine you were expecting Kieslowski.

The end result is stale, clumsy, and about as compelling as an average episode of "As the World Turns."

A typical end-of-the-year dump film, in that there's almost no reason to see it.

Formulaic and creaky as a Harrison Ford action sequence, but sufficiently gussied up with good actors and a decent director so that you don’t entirely mind.

The biggest problem with Elizabethtown isn't in its shopworn theme, but that it's perhaps the first of Crowe's movies (though "Jerry Maguire"comes very close) that really feels forced.

A wholly entertaining film, both as a musical experience and in seeing a fairly relaxed Dave Chappelle doing some of what he does best.

Davis and company need to be taken to task for giving us a movie that makes rescue divers, arguably among the most death-defying of professionals, boring.

An indolent, PG-13, Disney "biker" flick that does for comedies what Exxon did for Prince William Sound.

Just make sure you exit the theater before Simpson's god-awful version of "These Boots Are Made for Walking" starts playing during the end credits, or you may find yourself taking the straw from your drink and puncturing your own eardrums in self defense.

We Are Wizards is a nifty look at a few small but significant slices of Potter mania that evokes interest rather than provoking disdain, not always an easy feat.

Here is a movie that celebrates the heyday of adventure cinema even as it embraces technology's bleeding edge. And I'm willing to forgive a lot when giant gorillas and tyrannosaurs are involved. Must be the art snob in me.

Better than I expected, but since I expected it to be a horrific failure, that isn’t saying much.

There’s a lot of talent up there on the screen, and some authentic laughs, but too much of it is comedy territory that was claimed long ago.

Cash is a legend, and deserving of a more thoughtful portrayal than what we’re offered here.