Ronnie Scheib

Offering a smorgasbord of violence with liberal sprinklings of sex, Russian import Alien Girl delivers wearisome brutality but little finesse.

Competent but unimaginative horror entry.

This messy amalgam of mysticism, romance, satire, social criticism and cartoonish f/x seems destined for discount DVD bins.

The jazz-scored picture relies heavily on quirkiness to round out shaky characterizations and inject interest into otherwise forgettable pairings.

For every engrossing rank-and-file story, there are endless self-congratulatory explanations and podium highlights.

Uncomfortably confessional or wildly melodramatic plot twists work interestingly in the moment, but wobble in retrospect. Pic's overarching structure is further weakened by Schaeffer's half-hearted attempt to tie together loose ends.

Lacks the delicate tonal control and subtle smarts required for such an intended half-surreal exercise.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, big studio Hollywood hitmakers should consider themselves lauded to the max in Jason Friedberg and Aaron Selzer's Epic Movie, the latest (and epically unfunny) entry in the movie parody franchise.

Kalmbach’s laid-back approach proves more likable than revelatory.

Pappas' scattershot musings on the social, political and metaphysical implications of extended healthy seniority come off as positively crystalline compared with the random natterings of the director's friends and neighbors, who are invited to chime in.

In this shoestring outing, Susan Streitfeld ("Female Perversions") opts for an unsettling mix of low-tech cinematic tricks and temporal reshufflings to simulate the process of enlightenment to sometimes laudable, usually ludicrous effect.

The characters are wearisomely one-dimensional and their situations and motives almost indecipherable due to poor exposition, weirdly pretentious dialogue and amateurish thesping.

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

A terminally lame puberty comedy.

Woefully amateurish psychological thriller.

Incompetent on every level, from its haphazard staging to its amateurish sound mix.

Shady mood-piece profits greatly from enigmatic performance by Emmanuel Xeureb.

Boasts dazzling hockey action, but its off-ice piousness makes for tough sledding for non-Canucks.

Picture offers unique glimpses into the hearts and minds of those who have turned reasons for hatred into a crusade for tolerance, braving the scorn of enemies and compatriots alike.

Shiota piles tons of symbolic baggage on his pint-size protagonists, who luckily rise to the challenge.

The women's personalities and strengths command attention, their stories neatly dovetailing with the study's hypotheses. But when the film suddenly, almost subversively, shifts gears, and the questioner becomes the questioned, the pic's dynamic changes radically.

At a leisurely 172 minutes, the pic takes on the desultory rhythms of rural stagnation, its rigorous compositions imparting aesthetic weight and meditative scope to everything in its purview.

Endearing documentary, winner of Tribeca's audience award, should delight devotees and intrigue nonbelievers.

A delightful, well-crafted documentary.

This cinematic anomaly falls flat as a stand-alone.

Directed by the pseudonymous Deagol Brothers, the film invests in spacey horror tropes one moment, plunges into absurdist adolescent angst the next and begs questions every step of the way, but just about holds together with its strong compositional sense, killer atmospheric lighting and wall-to-wall music track.

David H. Hickey's Lone Star comedy never really develops, stalling this culture-clash clambake at the merely likable stage.