Peter Hartlaub

The result is an excellent film - entertaining and informative and sometimes stunning in its display of the personal demons shared by these two geniuses.

The second half of the film is much funnier and warmer than the first, but the movie is still difficult to recommend.

Retro escapist fun.

A workmanlike effort -- a precision piece of filmmaking that provides education for children and a refresher course that adults can benefit from as well.

A funny comedy, and sometimes an even better drama.

The reboot of the "Friday the 13th" series is a pretty big mess - not particularly scary or interesting or even gory by 21st century movie standards.

If you see only one bad movie this year, definitely make it Knowing. The first major disappointment from director Alex Proyas is a disaster movie, a horror picture, a "Da Vinci Code"-style thriller and an end-of-days religious film all at once.

Better than a lot of teen comedies.

Doesn't accomplish its objective.

It's all very foul, and completely entertaining.

Twilight has a few gory plot turns - mostly offscreen - and one near-sex scene that may offend a few Amish people, but the rest is maybe 33 percent less wholesome than "High School Musical." It's almost certainly less risque than what you were watching when you were 14. (Cue the soundtrack to "Risky Business.")

Silent Hill has plenty of bad acting, bad dialogue and a confusing plot -- all of which become exponentially more painful when the movie goes on forever.

That Vampires Suck is a step above god-awful is something of a miracle.

With apologies to George A. Romero and the impending zombie apocalypse, The Eclipse may be the most realistic film where something dead comes to life and tries to feast on human flesh. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/15/MVST1CTGJ4.DTL#ixzz0lDuetYGS

Hackl weaves scenes from the previous films into this one in clever ways, without adding to the confusion. The director also does a good job of maintaining the dark tone, which includes FBI offices that look as if they're being illuminated by night-lights, and dungeons that look as if you'd catch a venereal disease or two just by touching the door handles.

About five times as funny as "Scary Movie 3."

Has a few charming moments and a scene or two with legitimate hilarity, but mostly it's just mediocre.

Any good will built up during the decent first half hour is quickly vaporized.

This movie could really use an Avon Barksdale, but even actor Wood Harris, who played drug kingpin Barksdale in "The Wire," seems a bit lost.

It's a well-meaning but ultimately feeble and misguided attempt to say something profound about the aftereffects of the 2001 attacks on New York.

There's nothing too small about Nolte's performance. He's the perfect companion for a rookie feature film director looking to make a good first impression.

Rocket Science has the makings of either a tragedy or a crowd-pleasing underdog story, but writer-director Jeffrey Blitz instead takes the movie on a different, and ultimately more rewarding, direction.

Zoom is a C-list production in every possible way, from the actors and the special effects to the music and the script. Even the product placement is completely third rate.

Very entertaining.

A nice surprise, surpassing the quality of the first film.

Delivers all the pain, melodrama and redemption that fans of the genre demand.

Marshall takes a modest budget and a concept that isn't all that original and produces a frightening, intelligent and sexy thriller.

Although the movie doesn't turn the Zodiac saga into a slasher film, it has the look of a straight-to-video movie, or at best a Project Greenlight production.

To enjoy it you almost have to be stoned on marijuana.

Completely ridiculous, but fun to look at.

More action directors should include scenes such as the Mercers' extended Thanksgiving dinner, which fleshes out the bond between the brothers without using too many words.

That closing-credits sequence is by far the funniest thing in the disappointing movie,

The end result is an interesting documentary that is as unpolished and gutsy as the championship-caliber high school hoop stars at the other end of his camera.

The humor is lowbrow, but the screenwriters and performers have a sense of pride that makes them strive for stupid jokes that haven't been done before.

While it's riveting throughout, The Mist is a bit bloated.

Like most movies based on games, this film appears to have been quite literally doomed from the start.

Starts out OK, but then almost seems to be intentionally going for humor.

Has a solid story, which keeps things interesting during the quiet moments when nobody is getting kicked in the head.

Anyone can make a bad movie. But it takes a unique set of circumstances to make a movie so horrible that people are celebrating its badness two decades later.

Disappointingly mediocre.

Dawson turns out to be a necessary ingredient, propelling the emotional core of the film forward, while somehow convincing the audience that a smart, attractive woman could find a schlub like Dante desirable.

Despite some solid acting, the film is lacking in surprises. For all the suffering that these characters endure, there's very little payoff.

While Kal Penn manages a decent lead performance as Taj, the writing is terrible.

Zellweger takes an otherwise passable mainstream comedy and all but ruins it with her lack of effort.

The similarity between the children is the most striking part of the movie.

The documentary isn't particularly thrilling, or even very informative, but it's almost certain to lower your blood pressure for 83 minutes.

Crossover has one redeeming quality: a heart that's in the right place. It's a bad movie with a good message -- but does anyone really want to pay $10 for an ABC After School Special version of "He Got Game"?

Instructive as a portrait of activism.

A decent-looking and harmless computer animated film that is notable mostly because it doesn't appear to contain a single original idea.

Even the element of surprise isn't enough to save this film, which has too many slow parts and features an ending that's extremely tepid by 21st century horror movie standards.

A tough internal struggle must take place before one can come forward and admit enjoying The Devil's Rejects, a movie so fundamentally horrible that even its creator has to admit he's basically made a 101-minute snuff film.

A ridiculous teen horror movie that piles on more than enough dry humor and freshly moistened gore to satisfy its lowbrow audience.

It stands out as one of the best films of the genre, on the strength of the storytelling and wonderful performances.

The film is so harmless, and the young actors try so hard, that it's difficult not to have some fun.

It's one of the least scary films that he's made - but still entertaining, and very, very gory.

Blake Edwards' moody suspense thriller captures San Francisco from unexpected perspectives, starting with a dark drive with a perfect noirish Henry Mancini score across the Bay Bridge, and ending with then-new Candlestick Park. [08 Feb 2015, p.D6]

The makers of Man Push Cart seem so dedicated to making a film that defies Hollywood conventions that the finished product lacks enough entertainment value to justify price of admission.

A bunch of gags, most of which you've seen in the trailer, strung together by any means necessary.

It's difficult to ignore the fact that they've created a romantic comedy that has almost no romance and even less comedy.

One more small thing: Every other scene in Saw IV starts and ends with a potential victim pressing "play" on a tape recorder, to the point where it's almost funny.

Obvious, but at least it's clean.

There are a few laughs and some touching moments, but nothing you couldn't get by watching episodes of "Good Times" and "Little House on the Prairie" back to back.

The fight scenes are lackluster and the plot is needlessly complicated. If you're making an action film that centers on fast cars and fast women, it's usually best to keep the rest of the story simple.

The Invisible is, at its core, a character study, albeit one with a Patrick Swayze-in-"Ghost" paranormal edge. But it's definitely not mindless trash. If anything, the movie is too introspective, to the point that it doesn't build enough conflict or tension.

Difficult to watch, and the film is sabotaged by an impossibly naive lead character and the repetitive auditions that become gratuitously depressing.

Funny, very clever and still packs some cover-your-face bloody thrills that top any "Saw" or "Hostel" movie.

Satan is optional in The Last Exorcism. This is the rare horror film that would have been entertaining even if nothing scary happened.

Extremely boring.

A clever, heart-pounding thriller, and a welcome return to form for the director.

Has a made-for-television style.

It's an entertaining, depressing and ultimately hopeful movie about the times we live in.

If studios insist on remaking classic horror films, this is definitely the way to do it.

If you can get past the impossibilities it is a fun time at the movies.

The movie's shockingly tasteless setup is also its secret weapon. Despite many scenes in The Ringer that could individually be viewed as politically incorrect, audiences will be laughing with the athletes most of the time.

Lots of people will leave screenings of this movie in disgust -- and laughter is the last thing they will hear on the way out.

The movie turns from good to great as the layers are peeled away and director Hahn provides an insider's look at the creative epicenter of the studio.