Robert Wilonsky

Northfork may be doomed, but the Polish brothers and cinematographer M. David Mullen (who worked with the brothers on their previous features, "Twin Falls, Idaho" and "Jackpot") make the place feel like heaven on earth.

It has but one thing going for it: a cast filled with Oscar nominees.

Why would the writers bother with narrative when the story is just something that kills time, and brain cells, between feats and fists of fury?

In one of the year's most woefully manipulative and oppressively pandering offerings: I Am Sam, a dolled-up TV movie-of-the-week masquerading as profound cinema.

The star's the thing, the only thing, and he's brilliant at playing a thinly veiled version of himself.

If this it supposed to be comedy, why isn't it ever, for one second, funny?

Wacky chaos ensues, as the film veers toward a subplot about industrial espionage, but director Clare Kilner's debut is never as daft as it should have been.

The more technically proficient Anderson gets as a filmmaker, the more emotionally barren his movies become, till at last The Life Aquatic drowns in a sea of self-indulgent touches that delight the filmmaker but distance the filmgoer who wants to love the director and his characters but just can't, not anymore.

Buried somewhere in here, about 6 feet deep, is an intriguing premise.

Not only an exceptional thriller, but a transcendent summer movie: It assumes, for two hours, you've brain and heart enough to stick with a film that doesn't condescend, doesn't beat you up and doesn't dumb you to death.

My Kid Could Paint That's about art—and it IS art, among the best documentaries ever made about that elusive process of manufacturing something out of nothing. But it's also a must-see for every single parent who believes their children are special, when all they want to be is your children.

Cinematic flat-lining.

September Tapes, with its torturously high-minded narration and ludicrously low-road shenanigans, uses the terror attacks of 2001 as the setup for an infuriating gotcha finale.

A movie designed to wow winds up feeling cold, not, ya know, cool; the charm of the 2001 original has been decimated, its heart replaced with a microprocessor.

Co-directors and writers John Musker and Ron Clements doll it up so marvelously you're sucked into the screen and forced to confront the fact that at their best, these filmmakers can make the two-dimensional astonishingly warm and full-bodied.

One presumes the only thing worse than making this disaster is actually watching it; wouldn't wish either on anyone.

It's either the world's greatest infomercial for fame (and its omnipresent companion, notoriety) or the saddest eulogy of all.

It tries to be both camp and action film--send-up and kick-ass. But it delivers so little on both fronts.

Bernal can't decide if he's making a Tarantino homage or an Almodovar riff or an Albert Brooks tribute...and the wobbly sensibility finally knocks the movie's legs out from beneath it altogether.

The only thing The Missing isn't missing is a handful of climaxes, all of them of the anti- variety that leave you believing, then praying the movie's over a good 30 minutes before its actual and inevitable finale.

Freedomland manages a seemingly impossible feat: It's both turgid AND overwrought, eliciting the shriek that fades into a yawn without anyone ever noticing. It's a wholly dreary piece of work.

The Punisher would be almost offensive were it not so inconsequential. There's just something terribly off-putting about a movie in which every gruesome death is a punch line, where a villain's homosexuality is used to lure him to his death and dozens of innocents are gunned down just to launch a film franchise.

If only Condon kept up the Q&A format, because when he ditches it the movie turns flat and familiar.

It has just enough "comedy" to qualify as crowd-pleaser.

The X-Men franchise takes a giant leap backward and off a cliff with its fourth offering.

Renders it a cross between "Three Men and a Baby" and "Monsters, Inc." But it's bereft of the charisma of the former and the energy of the latter; stuck in a frozen wasteland, it possesses all the vigor of a Popsicle.

Plays like a greatest-hits remix; like "Die Another Day," it's bent on resurrecting a moribund franchise by recalling all the things you used to love about it till you grew into big-boy pants.

A spin-off of a sequel... It doesn't even try to be different, because it assumes the moviegoer wants only the same-ol' and then offers even less.