Ronnie Scheib

Swell never really gathers momentum, remaining a collection of moments, some more privileged than others.

Documaker Daniel Peddle also works as a casting director, and so it is small wonder his crisp, concise, intimate portrait of six very different, self-styled "aggressives" -- women who stress their masculine sides -- should reveal in each a curious integrity and beauty.

Hungarian schoolteacher Gyongi Mago's campaign to raise awareness of her hometown's once-vibrant, now conspicuously absent Jewish population is captured in the superior docu There Was Once ...

This must-see expose entertains as it horrifies.

Effortlessly interlinking the stories through the jaunty perambulations of a fresh-faced waitress from a local cafe, Thomson's crowd-pleaser makes up in refined schmaltz what it lacks in innovation or profundity.

When a baby orca strayed from its family pod near Puget Sound and showed up 200 miles away in Canada in 2001, it became the center of a long-running human drama by turns cute, inspirational, ludicrous and tragic, as documented in The Whale.

A model of cohesion and clarity as long as it's dealing with Brown's exemplary public achievements. However, pic quickly becomes mired in tedium and confusion when it turns to Brown's scandal-ridden private life.

With an eclectic mix of strong-minded thesps all pulling in slightly different directions, this shape-shifting genre hybrid successfully commingles 12-step therapy, romantic comedy and hit-man thriller.

Superb emotional thesping complements script's measured restraint.

As fascinating as it is frustrating.

Momentarily abandoning the strain of imagining liberation within a realistically perceived Israel, Fox here settles for the ephemeral glow of an exuberant block party.

It is the presence of Duncan as a Mike Tyson-esque, malaprop-spouting ex-champion that, at least momentarily, lifts the pic out of its mediocrity.

Zombie Honeymoon scores simultaneously as romantic, tragic, grotesque and screamingly funny

Clearer, more thoughtful editing would have greatly enhanced the effectiveness of this sometimes-revelatory documentary.

Koons Garcia has obviously opted for an upbeat approach: Choruses of scientists and farmers sing the praises of organic farming while John Chater’s camera visually devours the fruits, vegetables and livestock produced by healthy dirt.

Celebratory, family-friendly fable.

Bear Cub casually pulls off an amazing feat--combining innocent childhood nostalgia and graphic sexuality.

Cindy Kleine pays tribute to her famed theater-director hubby in Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner, with thoroughly delightful results.

Teper buries his material in gimcrack mod trappings that trivialize rather than celebrate Sassoon's accomplishments.

The indomitable siblings' unusual background, huge size and highly developed intellects, as well as the dramatic ups, downs and rebounds of their interwoven sagas, should result in a fascinating dual biodoc. But the two-hour pic's lack of economy makes for heavy slogging, with no boxing minutiae too small for exhaustive exposition.

Racks up damning anecdotal evidence without substantially altering the discussion.

Picture loses its delicate edge when it builds to a prescribed dramatic flashpoint within an overly compressed timeframe

The connective tissue between its separate segments is so tenuous and unconvincing that "Cries" almost suggests a failed anthology.

Though it retains the narrative complexity of the Swedish bestseller on which it's based, WWII saga Simon and the Oaks never creates an emotional or intellectual throughline of its own.

May shock many viewers, especially political liberals.

Schwarz lacks the writing chops to adequately embed the character’s predictable learning curve into a richer narrative fabric, but Dunne’s perf is pitch-perfect.

Moving, engagingly low-key curio.

In his intriguing take on the Frankenstein myth, first-time scripter/helmer James Bai establishes an entire alternate universe with consummate mastery only to fail to coax a convincing performance out of his lead actor.

Kagan's green-screen filmization, in its over-busy editing, ever-changing angles and constantly shifting backdrops, strips the play of its starkness, leaving disproportionate schmaltz and propaganda.

The idea of framing Holocaust atrocities in contemporary genre terms, although intriguing, is not without its perils, and the secret, when revealed, looms too large to fit within the plot’s parameters, creating strange disconnects between form and content.

As a character study and revelation of a possible answer to addiction, the docu rocks. But Negroponte's low-res video camera, trivializes the film's already crude approximations of psychedelic experiences and its recordings of shamanistic rituals.

In its reliance on emotionally loaded voiceover and its disconcertingly direct appeals for support, Len Morris' old-fashioned docu seems more designed for fund-raising pitches than theatrical release.

Aggressively upbeat docu, helmed by two males ill-equipped to bring any distance to the camp's pervasive feel-good feminism, tends to relentlessly reiterate points better served by example.

Documentary's insistent inflation of buried gold jewelry and watches into symbols of heroic defiance and transcendental tragedy rings hollow in the wake of weightier Holocaust testimonials.

The constant, genial comic undercurrent of teenspeak exchanges, penned by the writing team of helmer Meyer and Luke Matheny, contrasts satisfyingly with Kingsley’s wry musings and the more serious treatment given to David’s evolving maturity.

Winner of the Golden Starfish fiction competition at the Hamptons fest, pic's gutsy, madly ambiguous unleashing of a mixed bag of religious reactions attests to a genuine sense of regionalism.

This black comedy on the making of a documentary about mail-order wives finally breaks down under the weight of its twists and turns, but mostly maintains a creepy fascination with its scuzzy characters.

A venerable cast of Broadway vets interminably wanders through the clan's Connecticut mansion with no apparent goal, carrying the remains of never fully explained resentments.

Shepard delivers in spades, his character weary but just crackpot enough to survive.

Incandescent performances by Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon and an unerring grasp of strip-mall-dominated Florida distinguish Sunlight Jr.

Pitch-perfect central perf (by scribe and co-producer Damian Lahey), total lack of dramatic artifice and surreally situational humor make for a minor-key vignette of unmistakable, if unstable, authenticity.

The improvisational zeal with which Cusack approaches his role (absent from his miscast villainous turn in “The Paperboy”) is particularly fun to watch.

Piles the pathos high as if to see how many hard-luck cliches its pugilist hero can fend off without succumbing to schmaltz. Given John Leguizamo's knockout perf, sentimentality never dares raise its head, and the improbably stacked deck from which his character is dealt gives the pic's would-be "neo-realist" premise a peculiar edge.

Briskly paced humor and/or pathos flow organically from situation and characters.

Of particular interest to gay-rights activists and their adversaries, this "War Room"-like but extremely civil documentary seems best suited to community venues and the smallscreen.

Never completely takes off, yet somewhat overestimates the surrounding zaniness. Still, any opportunity to witness the improvisatory skills of Sarah Silverman, Bonnie Hunt and Amy Sedaris should not be missed.

A vibrant, unpretentious small-town tale.

In striving simultaneously to cover the transplanted rap scene, sample a wide range of groups, and give an unbiased picture of Cuban society, helmers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who have hitherto worked in short-form, blur the overall shape of their picture.

Richly layered picture dramatizes a landmark doctor/patient showdown, chronicles a classic case of transgenderism and reveals how aspects of Schreber's story prefigured Nazism.

The filmmakers' metaphor of the housing market as a casino, with hard-working people's homes used as chips, although apt, may lack the visual and visceral excitement.

Entertaining, painlessly educational documentary.

A lightly feminist, good-naturedly comic sketch of a Chinese-American family in crisis. But despite pic's earnestness and obvious good intentions, narrative elements, carefully set forth though they may be, fall back on overfamiliar, underdeveloped tropes.

A highly engaging picture with a post-apartheid edge (certain scenes play like a farcical "Invictus").

The women's outspoken commentaries prove consistently colorful and their long-ago stripteases -- feathers flying, tassels spinning -- still pack a sensual, sassy, what-the-hell punch.

Todd Robinson constructs a riveting thriller.

An edgier Richard Linklater for a less privileged generation, mumblecore helmer Frank V. Ross captures his characters' dead-end disaffection not through stasis, but through nervous activity.

Marquardt never buries her symbolic subtext very deep, what with a woman who freezes her eggs and a man who ensures that his patients feel nothing.

Beastie Boy Adam Yauch proves he can make a comprehensive, state-of-the-art docu of interest to basketball aficionados.

Although by now routine, the intertwining of separate story strands is solidly structured, and the different mini-narratives resolved in unsurprising yet satisfying ways.

A rogues gallery of flamboyant gangsters paint an anecdote-rich portrait of the drug trade, while a steady stream of cops, coroners and crime reporters furnish social commentary.

Although Dyer's sophomore feature clearly intends to capture the magical otherness of a child's p.o.v., nothing in her strangely aloof mise-en-scene or her late sister Gretchen's script yields anything more than a group of well-thesped, believable suburban kids upset by their parents' behavior.

The film, produced by Cherney, makes a clear and cogent case (later upheld by a court verdict) that police and FBI falsified evidence in order to discredit Bari's cause.

Laurien van den Broeck's masterful unblinking performance transcends the uneasy all-English dialogue.

Meandering mindlessly, Wizards comes off as yet another humdrum Pottery artifact.

Beginning promisingly enough, "Handsome" soon turns monotonously angst-ridden, with all humor and personality falling by the wayside.

Thanked and vilified from coast to coast, Carter remains steadfast in his belief that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories are unjust and counterproductive.

Despite lively commentaries by a pantheon of master musicians and magnificently performed classical pieces, "Exiles" only distantly echoes Huberman's visionary adventure.

In its avoidance of all ambiguity, this giant-screen opus ultimately boils down to a rhapsodic endorsement of the tourism and shopping industries.

Winning, consistently funny comedy, with lively script by veteran Colombian producer/scribe Dago Garcia ("Maximum Penalty"), The Car is driven by unusually sharp helming from newcomer Luis Orjuela, and a dynamite ensemble cast.