Ronnie Scheib

Pitch-perfect dialogue, quietly dynamic helming and small-scale action on a widescreen canvas make for a very appealing film.

In scope, depth, rhythm and gags, "Pizzas" seems best suited to the small screen.

A rousing, hilarious Bacchanal of family togetherness, Roger Paradiso's brilliantly cinematic adaptation of the second-longest running play in Off-Broadway history might be the best of the recent rash of wedding pics.

Colorless exposition and a lack of imagination or wit stall Father of Invention at the starting gate.

Strictly for fans of free-form, DIY hit-or-miss humor (and those who prefer a miss to a hit), pic complacently parades its alienated amateurism in the mistaken belief that half a gag is better than none.

Timothy Hutton's fine, loose-limbed perf as a man adrift lifts Multiple Sarcasms, frosh scribe-helmer Brooks Branch's male menopause apologia, out of cliche-ridden territory -- at least temporarily.

Winters deserves better.

Watching TV feels fundamentally old-fashioned in its storytelling. Thesping is solid, particularly by O'Nan, Nam and Jacobs. But the conversations feel artificial, overly concerned with re-creating period detail or interjecting relevant philosophical life concepts.

Simultaneously insightful and idiotic.

Some six or seven men (women conspicuously absent), including a mayor, an immigration lawyer, a congressman and a "coyote," offer views on immigration. Unfortunately, they all say the same thing -- and it's nothing new, affecting or articulate.

Colburn's focus is so single-mindedly laudatory that the whole collaborative process is reduced to people either helping or hindering the visiting genius.

The tale of a pickpocket's redemption through love, plus a vengeance-seeking cop and assorted betrayals, Loosies weakly channels Sam Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" but without the explosive action, iconic thesping and stylistic punch.

More polished and better acted than many "inspirational" biopics.

Despite the presence of Glen Matlock, Steve Dior and a handful of other punk rockers, plus a slew of oblique eyewitness who lurked around before and after the fact, the documentary soon bogs down in tiresome minutiae.

Though the Pangs prove culturally adaptive on a visual level, they seem completely clueless as to the tonal modalities of Mark Wheaton's admittedly undercooked, all-American script.

Complex story twists unfold to confusing effect, while characters angrily toss cliches at one another and revelations multiply rather than resolve murky plot developments.

Amiable but uneven.

Lacks seismic guffaws but elicits many mild smiles.

Though the low-budget picture is not without interest, its uneven thesping, sound quality and special effects might prove more welcome on the fest fringe.

A muddled script, spatially confounding direction and four thesps seemingly acting in four different movies are only a few of the problems with the misbegotten political thriller As Good as Dead.

This simplistic story of bucolic redemption has few pretensions to depth, ambiguity or realism, relying on its name cast, sprightly lead and a helluva horse to attract family audiences.

Nothing here -- technologically, linguistically or visually -- would not be more at home decades ago, when director Stephen Herek helmed "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "The Mighty Ducks."

Even Sandler diehards may pass on this mostly derivative paean to compulsive computer geekdom and male sexual dysfunction.

Slicker, funnier and more professional than its predecessor, State Property 2, with Damon Dash at its helm tones down the original.

The film replaces choreography with metronomic editing, while one-note overstatement drowns out character development.

Frank Langella's note-perfect, tour-de-force turn as a man elegantly shaping his own demise is nicely counterpointed by a shambling Elliott Gould as a bird-watching private eye.

Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel's New World Order is less about an international cabal seeking world enslavement than about those who fervently believe such conspiracies exist and who crusade to defeat them.

Reveling in its provocative absurdity, Impolex is a madly uncommercial head-scratcher that will strike a dream-logic chord in some viewers and leave others in a "My kid could do better than that" mood.