Robert Koehler

While lacking originality, pic is a case of cogent moviemaking that really knows its business. Traces of early Steven Soderbergh and recent Larry David enhance one of the most satisfying comedies in a fallow season.

Besides proving to be a faithful mimic of Craven's filmmaking, Aja pours on the gore. But where Aja's version really leaps beyond Craven's both atmospherically and on the violence scale is in the second hour.

First-time feature director's disciplined objectivity is coupled with humanism in this collaboration with a gifted cast and cinematographer. The artistic success, though, may be a bit too cool.

It will serve as a fine entry point for younger auds interested in learning about the price paid by moviemakers and their families swept up in the 1950s anti-Communist net.

The moments of inspired originality are all too infrequent. There's enough eye candy and marvels on screen, however.

Sensitively and methodically tells the story of the first U.S. soldier killed in the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Bruce's efforts to retrace and recover his life after his memory loss contain all the drama and uncertainty of a fine psychological drama.

A refreshingly honest film about the life and times of Hollywood uber-power player Lew Wasserman.

The film observes a guy verging on poverty or riches with a bounty of beautiful imagery and fresh angles on skateboarding culture.

A sensitive if literal-minded tale that demonstrates how Tibet's national identity is of a piece with its spiritual heart.

Wine lovers won't just sip but guzzle a lot of this down, and the same effect that sun-dappled days and sex in California had on "Sideways" operates here.

Never rising above routine episodic storytelling, White Oleander nonetheless retains something of its source novel's ravaged emotional surface and cool, observant manner.

An unembarrassed, high-octane demonstration of the virtues of a U.S. military with a mission, the latest war pic from 20th Century Fox -- a studio with a proud tradition in this field -- couldn't be better timed to fit the popular mood.

The temptations of allowing a promotional video to seep inside a genuine non-fiction study nearly overtake East of Havana and its look at a bubbling hip-hop culture in Cuba.

Before the music takes over, the film inserts a few bits of charm, such as Emmylou Harris excitedly following the latest Major League Baseball scores.

Falco, light years from "The Sopranos," is exquisitely vulnerable and her scenes play well with Hutton, in his finest role in years as a good man who knows he's sold out.

The unlikely success story of superstar Brazilian country music duo Zeze di Camargo and Luciano receives a polished if highly manipulative treatment in Two Sons of Francisco.

Fascinating if overly self-involved Slamdance entry is among the few U.S. pics that deliberately smudges the line between non-fiction and invention as it tells how Crumley and Buice meet online and develop a relationship.

The time away from the ring has done Rocky and the franchise some good, although it takes pic a good long while to gather momentum and clout before a surprisingly satisfying third-act heavyweight bout.

A brawny commercial attraction strategically tapping into the auds for extreme sports, spy pix, thrill rides, popcorn actioners and anyone looking to see Diesel kick butt, blow stuff up and/or take his shirt off.

This rambling and episodic autobiographical saga of three friends coming of age in Inglewood, Calif. (aka The Wood) in the '80s is so determined to be likable that it forgets to be interesting.

Zhang Yimou's strangest and most troubled film, abounds in hysterical, mannered Tang Dynasty-era palace intrigue and dehumanized CGI battle sequences.

As a showcase for rising young star Michael Angarano and Christopher Plummer, pic offers the pleasures of connecting Hollywood traditions and generations in the spirit of Peter Bogdanovich's films about and inspired by the movies.

As beautiful as it is unrevealing, James Longley's Iraq in Fragments rests on a debatable but firm premise -- that the embattled country is irrevocably separated by its three dominant groups, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- but brings back nothing journalistically substantial from the war front .

Takes a notorious true story about a loyal soldier-turned-bank robber, and pumps it up into charged if uneven entertainment.

Unusually slick, mini-budgeted and broad piece of slapstick that liberally borrows from Neil Simon and "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight'' with the twist that gay hit men are the romantic heroes.

Unlike the disturbingly mysterious original, Saw III is a neatly wrapped-up package that explains everything -- including Jigsaw's evil contraptions and the background of his crazed female assistant.

Exceptionally strong cast is pictures beating heart.