Scott Brown

For all I know, Ryan's performance could be a dead-on Kallen impression. But what she appears to be doing is an impression of Johnny Depp doing an impression of Keith Richards doing an impression of Liz Taylor.

So what disturbed me? It was the Shetland pony, which sports both Dustin Hoffman's pipes and his "I Heart Huckabees" toupee, and will haunt my nightmares forever.

East of Havana picks at these politico-philosophical threads rather than pulling them, and the sense of a larger movement is fleeting. There's a beat, but we never quite see who's dancing to it.

As an expat redneck, I recognize the deep, dumb need of every group for its own culturally customized minstrel show. Larry, a junker ''star'' vehicle run on arse wind and fan love, fills that niche.

Terrified of puppets? Enjoy being scared? Then you'll be half-satisfied with Dead Silence, a rote horror pantomime.

Ken Takakura, a great rain-creased oak of an actor, delivers a quietly massive performance.

Werewolves are tame with overuse, and movies like Blood and Chocolate -- where moments of inspiration vie in vain with Goth cliché -- play like underlit "Charmed" reruns.

Epps has a nicely beaten charm to him -- among the leads, he alone looks like he knows what a trip to the moon costs.

Teetering on an abyss of meta-wackiness, The Last Shot -- a movie about movie fakery, based on a true story about a fake movie -- succeeds modestly where, by all rights, it should fail miserably.

In the ranks of improbable gymnastics coaches, Nick Nolte falls just below the cartoon version of Mr. T.

A few gags are brilliantly staged, but most have a smug, collegiate take-it-or-leave-it quality that makes full-on belly laughter feel optional.

So perfect in its awfulness, it makes one seriously consider a theory of unintelligent design.

Accepted's winning dumbness and breezy bons mots save it from the pit.

The whole thing feels like a half-day of community service, which Lawrence walks through good-naturedly.

A deliriously, defiantly unfocused headrush, Stick It is primarily an exercise in exercise.

Here's a sobering thought: If every war gets the comedy it deserves, could Delta Farce, a strenuously unfunny "Three Amigos" knockoff, be our M*A*S*H?

So Much So Fast (spanning five years) elegantly presents both a critique and a celebration of American optimism.

The sheer, animal idiocy beaming from their faces in the opening credits of The Brothers Solomon creates the film's only moment of uncalculated comic joy.

Deeply odd films are often deeply personal ones, and Constellation, a dazed, inchoate drama about a mixed-race Alabama family, tells a story that's clearly close to the heart of writer-director Jordan Walker-Pearlman.

Pooh's Heffalump Movie is a harmless little ''ex-po-tition'' (to use a Pooh-ism). Still, making this your kids' first Pooh experience would be like weaning them on New Coke.

Danny Boyle's glittering, deadpan, nihilistic little thriller.

It's a canned clip reel of Heartwarming Sports Comedy, intermittently redeemed by its easygoing boomer vibe. And at its center is the redoubtable Bernie Mac, nicely aged, as he says, ''like USDA beef.''

Sci-fi horror aficionados, however, might want to look elsewhere for their scares, as they're unlikely to find any here. Fright-wise, The Cave is a dry hole.

The CG is on the rubbery side, and the backdrops are jarringly 2-D. But Valiant isn't so hard to look at -- it's hard to listen to.

There are some genuinely clever moments of physical comedy, and the inevitable crudeness is offset by winning whimsy. Without has all the freshness of moldering Playboys stashed under a mattress, but it evokes what few boys-will-be-boys larks can: chumminess.

Thing is Woody Allen on a third-grade reading level. Neurosis abounds, but awareness doesn't, and certain ''jokes'' demand additional therapy.

A mud-simple horror trudge set in a swamp colony of Abercrombie models.

Far be it from me to dismiss a man's effort (Uwe Boll) in a sentence, but the film on your teeth after a three-day drunk possesses more cinematic value.