Ray Bennett

Surveillance will please the B-movie crowd in theaters and on into the ancillaries

Shot on beautifully utilized film but employing images vividly from the Internet and mobile phones, it's an examination of the power that false ideas may have on people's imagination and beliefs when they are repeated over and over.

Bright Star may not be a joy forever but it will do until the next joy comes along.

The film may attract older moviegoers curious to see their generation represented onscreen doing what comes naturally for once. It's doubtful that the general audience will be so inclined.

Owen carries the film more in the tradition of a Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda than a Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford. He has to wear flip-flops for part of the time without losing his dignity, and he never reaches for a weapon or guns anyone down. Cuaron and Owen may have created the first believable 21st-century movie hero.

A full-flavored, absorbing tragedy.

Director Julian Schnabel and screenwriter Ronald Harwood have performed a small miracle in adapting for the screen Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Paced at warp speed with spectacular action sequences rendered brilliantly and with a cast so expert that all the familiar characters are instantly identifiable.

The film's economical style, vivid cinematography and tremendous acting should attract audiences far and wide.

It's worth sticking around for the coda too as it contains some hilarious and very politically incorrect suggestions as to how zombies might be put to work once they've been tamed.

Atom Egoyan has delivered a big, slick and sexy mystery in Where the Truth Lies, turning the Rupert Holmes novel into a sumptuous tale of show business hype and duplicity.

Most of all, Earhart wanted to be able to fly free as a bird above the clouds, and director Nair and star Swank make her quest not only understandable but truly impressive.

The film is about vanity and pride, and the caging of beauty. Its elaborate fabrication has an intoxicating quality that captures the imagination like all good horror stories.

Poorly structured and at times incoherent.

A polished, fast-moving, entertaining picture whose mainstream success will depend on audiences' tolerance of its tendency to become an abattoir of extreme carnage.

Boyne's tale is starkly cautionary, and writer-director Herman handles a difficult topic with great sensitivity, drawing splendid performances from his young actors with David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga and the other grown-ups reliably efficient.

Cruz's performance deserves to be seen widely, and it should place her again in line for prizes, but the story's pretensions and downbeat mood will not endear the film to audiences.

The brutality of the fights and Schizo's growing ability to outfox his enemies make for a taut and exciting little picture.

Cantet keeps a lid on a story that he could have easily exploited, but he makes his points about beauty, fulfillment, self-indulgence and delusion with a measured hand.

There is little suspense, however, and while all the attention on the small details of their lives is laudable, it isn't very interesting.

The star of the show is undoubtedly Blanchett, who has great fun playing Dylan as a showboat who quite knowingly goes about creating his reputation for rebellious independence.

Turns Jane Austen's nimble satire into a lumbering gothic romance.

A penchant for suffocating close-ups and an overabundance of scenes that go on far too long mar Abdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain, an otherwise engaging drama about an immigrant Arab family in France.

Atkinson remains an expert clown, and there are sufficient numbers of gags to ensure that Bean fans worldwide will be kept fairly happy.

Whether or not Bobby Kennedy was the man his supporters believed him to be, the film makes a persuasive case that something important in America was silenced when he was gunned down.

Earnest and slow, the film takes time to reveal its intentions and the result is worthy but not engaging.

Good-humored, illuminating and without cant, Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's documentary South of the Border is a rebuttal of what he views as the fulminations and lies of right-wing media at home and abroad regarding the socialist democracies of South America.

The track records of the performers are impeccable, but Issit has obviously never watched an awards show or similar event where comedy actors appear unscripted. Placing the weight of such a preposterous storyline on their improvisational shoulders was a disaster waiting to happen. And it happened.