Sean Axmaker

Faced with an artist defined more by his lyrics than his life story, Haynes delivers a song-cycle of a movie: vivid, exaggerated, contradictory impressions of a man who confounds a culture still looking to define him.

It may not be art, but A Dirty Shame is shameless fun.

Not that there are any actual jokes to be had. The film simply jumps to the punch lines, a non-stop barrage of crude dialogue and vulgar sight gags that passes as humor among adolescent boys. Who exactly is the audience for this R-rated film? The terminally immature?

Devastating, uncompromising and riveting.

Bland and boring.

The minor pleasures of P2 lie in the simple effectiveness of the sleekly unshowy direction and the clean, unadorned script, which pares away extraneous distractions like motivation and complicated back stories to get on with the mechanics of tension and the obligatory jumps and startles (which stand in for genuine scares).

It might be impressive as a made-for-DVD production, but coming from producer George Lucas, it makes for a cheap excuse for a big-screen spectacle.

Too bad Igor didn't jolt the film to life with his Frankenstein shenanigans.

Kahn manages to turn his feast of flesh, navel-gazing talk and self-destructive jealousy into a thoughtful reflection on the subject.

Looks simultaneously ahead of its time and delightfully quaint, a simple romantic comedy that revels in the dreamy artifice of a meticulously re-created fantasy Las Vegas.

Andrew Bujalski's refreshingly modest look at life in the directionless netherworld between college and career is the rare film that finds its story in the minor contradictions and simple conflicts of ordinary people doing, well, not exactly nothing, but nothing important.

Desplechin fearlessly dives into raw, bitter revelations and surfaces with hope as our heroes try again to get it right.

A reminder of the offbeat comic sensibility and visceral charge that marked him (Sabu) as a director to watch.

The concept is clever and Johnson's brisk editing, dynamic camerawork and snazzy transitions has fun with it all. It makes for an inspired time-warped teenage film noir.

The film half-heartedly paints their actions as rebel-chic heroism even when it has all the integrity of tomcats spraying outside their yards, and it ends up just as confused as the characters.

Pleasantly modest, endearingly etched and briskly set to a pounding beat.

For all the grace of the animation and visual splendor, the stilted script and emotionless "performances" give this digital artifact a distinctly stiff, wooden flavor.

It's pure romantic fantasy, almost too cute and naively innocent for its own good. Jeff Balsmeyer, a former storyboard artist making his directorial debut, stumbles through the clumsy establishing scenes, but his playful direction smoothes out as the characters settle in.

A playfully offbeat, willfully wide-eyed tale of lonely, inarticulate people looking for connection in a disconnected world.

An alternately angry and sad portrait, passionate in its presentation and moving in its portrayal of individuals who sacrifice their love for the tenets of their religion.

What it lacks in melodramatic punch it makes up for in unexpected shadings in the characters, predator and victim alike.

It's too insubstantial to support its two-hour-plus running time, and too arbitrary to work as a story, so you walk out wondering not happened, but whether anything actually did.

It's as much conceptual art as dispassionate survey of the bloodless assembly line nature of the modern food industry, all process and work, automation and repetition.

That may be enough to keep the kids bobbing along -- and there are worse heroes for a kid to have than Arnold -- but apart from the shenanigans of civil-disobedient senior citizens, this movie offers little to keep accompanying parents interested.

Cranks up the hysteria to screechy sitcom levels.

Finn Taylor's lark of a movie feels like two unfinished films awkwardly fused together and ever threatening to snap apart.

The roll call of perversions and adolescent sex gags are more creepy than kooky and the sudden shift to triumphant romantic sincerity at the climax rings as false as this film's sappy (sorry, happy) ending.

Shyamalan has learned the lessons that so many horror directors ignore: Suggestion is scarier than revelation.

Ararat is less about history than the necessity of dialogue and debate, and the devastating effects of stifling dialogue.

Beautiful, elevating and achingly sad.

Barely substantial enough for a feature but just light and tasty enough to satisfy.

While not a grand-slam comedy, the offbeat humor and easy byplay gives The Grand a winning hand.

Diverting, at times even visually impressive, but has neither the spirit or style of "Spider-Man" nor the ambition of "X-Men."

Mamet is more respectful than exciting as an action director, but his fascination with how things work, be it the mechanics of designing and promoting a big pay-per-view event or battling a world-class Jiu-jitsu master, makes it all quite mesmerizing.

The result is a film with an identity crisis, a fluffy romantic farce that gets progressively darker, more destructive and finally so downright demented that the featherweight story line is crushed under the weight of brutal, unpleasant truth.

A film of minor pleasures.

It's just the kind of film that you'd expect a jury led by Quentin Tarantino to choose, a bloody and brutal revenge film immersed in madness and directed with operatic intensity.

It has a tendency to overextend its outrageous arias, but this pop-art confection both spoofs and celebrates the crazy conventions of movie melodramas and genre cinema with pure affection.

Jia's compassion for the drifting souls struggling to create a life for themselves in such a transitory existence makes the metaphor resonant.

Oddly fresh and naively chipper.

The faces of its inarticulate characters tell the story, and Majidi has put some amazing faces on the screen.

It's a dissection of how the media found and fed and nurtured the story in their insatiable need for content to fill their news hours and talk shows, how it just as quickly turned on them and transformed the story from celebration to vilification, and how the public turned right along with them.

The special effects display is so lacking in imagination it turns into so much noise, just a flashy distraction from the stiff, stock cliches of the by-the-numbers script.

Giordana's redemptive vision provides a sense of discovery and a well of hope in the most devastating of troubles, and beautiful surprises in love, friendship and family.

The funniest film you'll see this year about a political assassination.

If there is a delicate story of forgiveness, friendship and family buried somewhere in Erica Beeney's script, Potelle and Rankin haven't managed to find it under the throes of empty rebellion and painless triumph.

Taking on the sneeringly blase Alig may be a cagey career move for Culkin, but it's a disappointingly thin performance.

At its best, it is self-effacing fun.But the cartoonish approach takes its toll: The random twists and contrived showdowns devolve into just so much abstract business, too silly to take seriously and too unmotivated to make sense.

Call this one "Die Hard" on Alcatraz, and this time the "cuckoo crazy" maverick has got the homeboys on his side.

It comes out less like a spoof than a smart-aleck remake of "Meatballs," minus the energy of Bill Murray.

You can't help but root for Akeelah as she reclaims the pride in her talents and her achievements. That's an idea worth spelling out to a young audience.

Woven from such promising threads that you wish it was better.

A lively and lightweight comedy, the film finally connects with the real-life rush of playing music for a live audience.

Fat Albert's originality is lost on the big screen.

Highly entertaining.

It's hard to call it thrilling -- these aren't characters you actually care about and De Palma isn't as concerned with building tension as playing visual games -- but it sure sparkles.

A vivid, thoughtful, unapologetically raw coming-of-age tale full of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

With less lampooning and satirical asides, Sicko may be less "entertaining" than Moore's previous films, but it's also more affecting and effective.

Fascinating memoir of coming of age in Iran.

The film walks a fine line between contempt for Polanski's crimes and sympathy for his trials and his screwed-up psyche, and it manages both while showing us why he fled the U.S. rather than face the corrupted judicial circus.

Has all the telltale signs of desperate re-editing: mismatched shots, clumsy transitions and a devastating car wreck that occurred either on a dry sunlit day or in the midst of a nighttime downpour, depending on the flashback.

The nuttiest big-screen video game you'll ever have the pleasure of seeing somebody else play.

Its one saving grace is Godzilla himself, the James Bond of giant monsters.

This a rapid-fire romp through "War of the Worlds," "Saw," "The Grudge" and "The Village," cut up into skits and pieced back together in some mutant jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing, delivers a barrage of low-minded gags with high-spirited energy.

The script is full of brassy lines.

Don't expect a meaningful resolution, just a bouncy comedy with some hilarious moments in the stray ricochets.

It's part Jules Verne arms-race nightmare, part James Bond gadget war and part boy's own adventure.

It doesn't leave you much to hold on to in a comedy about apathy that can't even muster the energy to care.

Murders aside, Mac and Pat are the most fun-loving Shakespearean couple to hit the screen, and Morrissette's answer to Lady Macbeth's damned spot is brilliant.

This well-meaning mistake gets lost in the metaphors.

It's a pretense of even-handedness. The true story has been reduced to a case for faith. It merely sacrifices all reason to get there.

Don't expect scary from this trilogy of short horror films from a trio of Asia's most interesting directors, which are not so much extreme as twisted.

So grim and humorless that the first half almost sinks into silliness.

A pointed satire of the dumbing down of network TV with a sour tone and a broad execution.

It's an appealing mix of an old Hollywood movie world of Upper East Side sophisticates with the character-driven spontaneity of a modern American indie, all very slight and light but deftly done.

It's the most intense, unpredictable and thrilling cinematic experience I've had the pleasure to squirm through in ages.

True to the characters and their conflicts, the resolution is neither neat nor expected. True to Demme, it's honest and generous and very human.

Be warned that what looks to be a family comedy pushes its PG-13 rating to the edge with blatant sexual references and creatively crude sexual metaphors.

Director Cherie Nowlan creates vivid personalities for the entire family and exposes the raw nerves of the biting humor.

There's an unconvincing warm, fuzzy happy ending, in which recognition is treated as cure and understanding heals all. But, until then, Phoebe in Wonderland is an involving and empathetic drama of mothers and daughters.

Movie magic is only as powerful as the imagination that casts it. Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki's imagination is the most creative in animated filmmaking.

A hauntingly poetic triumph.

Too hip to play it straight and too cool to resort to an actual story, Hartley turns the whole rambling spy game into a puzzle box where every certainty is thrown into doubt, every character has a hidden motive, and every clue is contradicted.

A perfectly competent, if undistinguished, action film that smoothes over all the most interesting bumps in the drama.

Favors pageantry over substance.

A date film with a hook for men.

The triumphs still are affecting, the setting is compelling and some of the human moments amid the political circus and culture wars are downright moving.

While the characters lack the quirks and affectations that have enlivened the impulsive figures from past Dogme films, the passion of the players and Bier's sensitive direction give these utterly normal figures a vivid aliveness, along with dignity and everyday beauty.

It's flashy, it's often funny ...,and it resembles a movie so much that soon it demands something resembling motivation, character, a plot, anything to explain the seemingly arbitrary connections between the stunts and the skits.

Favors giggly juvenile humor over inspired satire and ends up not with a moral, but a moral vacuum.

I'd be tempted to call the whole thing cartoonish, but that would be insulting to the real thing.

Aviva emerges undamaged for all of her trauma. That may be the most compassionate, human act Solondz has offered in his career up to now.

The film lacks the nerve for any genuinely nasty fun or comic bite.

A mix of H.P. Lovecraft madness, David Cronenberg biological mutation and David Lynch small-town weirdness, it teasingly dangles explanations never delivered and escapes never sought, while diving into one of the most gonzo horrors to twist onto celluloid in years.

After all of these years playing smug street thugs, cocky idiots and patsies, can you blame Dillon for giving himself an elegant girl (Natascha McElhone), a devoted guardian angel, and a little redemption?

Scratch could use some of the wit and jagged energy that defined "Hype!"

Confronts the line between the celebration and the exploitation of innocence with an uneasy tension that is discomforting at best.

Kassovitz keeps the film zipping along with solid pacing and just enough action to clear the credibility gaps as long as the film is rolling.

The film shoehorns in every memorable character from the original film.

A sly, smart and very funny caricature of corporate politics and image culture.

A quietly, somberly effective American indie drama.

Doesn't necessarily offer anything new to the male/female dynamic, but it refuses to let Coles off the hook with an easy epiphany and a painless happily ever after.

For all the tough-minded talk and frank portraits of inner-city life, however, the film is not altogether convincing.

Behind the sad and vulnerable eyes of Bernal's damaged Elvis is both a fierce rage and a desperate need for his father's recognition, but he's more enigma than person. Hurt is more nuanced as the sincerely spiritual man faced with a past that threatens his family and his future.

A few scenes are a bit coy and the "big secrets" threaten to pitch into melodrama, but Birmingham keeps bringing the film back to the delicate dynamics of the relationships at its heart.

Fails to generate the elementary visceral thrills we've come to expect from science-fiction thrillers, let alone a compelling human drama.

Rich with emotional turmoil and searing beauty, but it could have used a little more time in the editing room to make sense of it all.

A harried, screechy film that goes nowhere at a breakneck pace, full of sound and furious slapstick overkill but devoid of wit.

An airless, mannered mess.

The guys of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe (of "Super Troopers" fame) are neither subtle nor especially ingenious. But in the age of gross-out gags and high-concept gimmicks, they throw themselves into the raucous, rude style of '70s film comedy with shameless glee.

Venus is the second film from director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi to explore the sexual lives of folk that the movies treat as sexless -- the elderly. But where "The Mother" was a cold film of sexual greed and emotional pettiness, this robust yet delicate comic drama finds a kind of dignity in the old lothario whose vital life force struggles against a failing body.

As stiff and slogging as animated films come.

It probably cost less than the catering budget of average Adam Sandler comedy and, in its own hit-and-miss scattershot fashion, it's about as funny. At least when it hits.

Makhmalbaf's astounding and haunting imagery tells a story of devastation, desperation and poverty.

Olivier Dahan's sprawling portrait of the life of Edith Piaf is the kind of grand, passionate historical drama that no one seems to be able to pull off any more.

When Rock hits he's dangerously funny. If he didn't try so hard to be liked, he'd be even more dangerous.

Cute and often clever, there's nothing particularly memorable in this computer enhanced rerun, but this harmless little comedy has an unexpected warmth that melts the frozen plot.

The resulting political thriller is more intriguing than riveting, flattened by Jewison's plodding direction and distracting use of British actors to play French characters.

Sour slapstick assault with a tin heart and counterfeit sentimentality.

Tommy Lee Jones steps behind the camera to direct himself in the most impressive directorial debut the American cinema has seen in some time, a contemporary western both rough and poetic, laconic and passionate.

It's the chemistry between the women and the droll scene-stealing wit and wolfish pessimism of Anna Chancellor that makes this "Two Weddings and a Funeral" fun.

Anyone who claims to support the troops owes it to them to see the film and hear their stories.

The gags hit more than they miss, and Stiller has moments of inspired absurdity, but he's capable of something more cutting and clever. It's junk food moviemaking: fun to snack on, but hardly a substantial meal.

Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo creates the same world of devils and innocents that grounds so much of Spain's modern, seeped-in-Satanic-evil horror, recast in a secular cinematic vocabulary.

It's a twisted but beautiful love letter to a city, not factually correct but emotionally true.

For all its impressive set pieces and breathless momentum, it's neither passionate nor urgent.

Played by Lucy Russell with a defiant, unapologetic embrace of aristocratic privilege, Grace is a maddening yet fascinating character.

Doom may be by the numbers, with a roll call of colorful types systematically exterminated while The Rock entertains with cartoonish expressions and reactions (the closest the film comes to personality).

Carrera's direct, unadorned style has none of the searing imagery or cinematic imagination of "Y Tu Mama," but it bristles with passion, anger and a palpable sense of betrayal.

Makes no effort to learn about the culture. It idolizes the idea of spiritual purity without offering any insight into what it really means.

This collision of skate punk and pop-culture archaeology is the most entertaining slice of cultural history I've seen in years.

Even if you don't like the stories, the filmmakers seem incapable of finding a corner of Paris that is not photogenic.

The anger and betrayal hanging in the wake of shattered relationships and conflicted identities leave an admirable untidiness where most films would force resolution. There are no easy answers here, and it's not for lack of questions.

Perhaps the most ingeniously imaginative element in Son of Rambow, a film exploding with imagination (some of it scrawled directly over the film in animated expressions of Will's private world), is its very conceit.

Winterbottom carves his own intimate tale out of the sprawling material, a modest miniature with witty flair and moments of humility.

The attitude is older, maybe a tad sentimental, and as adolescent and reckless as ever. Whether that's a good thing depends on your appreciation for dead-end conversations, geek debates and the Smithspeak sandbox of creative vulgarity.

There's a real gee-whiz kick to the fantasy of being the brainiest kid on the planet, and a down-to-earth quality to Jimmy and his not-so-bright, but ever-so-stalwart best buddies.

Director Len Wiseman, confidently stepping up from the smallish budget "Underworld" films to mega-budget Hollywood mainstream.

As much a call to action as a documentary, it's a compelling and sobering lesson in the devastating effect of human industry on the planet. But a lesson nonetheless.

A strangely warm, affectionate look at bad behavior amid emotional damage and a stranglehold of identity issues.

Like a boulder bouncing down a long hill, the momentum keeps the film barreling along to the tragic inevitability promised in the opening titles.

Explores cloudy, discomforting realities of the Holocaust not usually addressed in such films.

Captures the pain and desperation of adolescent powerlessness and humiliation with powerful intimacy, strung out to almost 2 1/2 lazy hours of stories that wander through an ever-widening group of characters.

The restraint of both director and actor makes this steely gangster drama reverberate long after it ends. This kind of mystery is rare in a film culture that demands answers before the credits roll.

He's (Carrey) a marvelous Grinch in this spirited, bustling and mostly faithful spin on Seuss.

Outside national borders, this naive vantage point is an entry into a country's history and culture, explaining without seeming patronizing.

It's all so visceral that it overwhelms the near-abstract story and smothers what passes for characters.

It plays like a big-budget, after-school special with a generous cast, who at times lift the material from its well-meaning clunkiness.

Deftly weaves history, film and memory into an imaginative meditation on why the movies become a part of our lives.

Salles tends to explain rather than suggest, but he connects with the anguish and abandonment to give this ghost story an emotionally haunting core.

A canny but hollow pastiche.

A tired tale that never comes to life.

It's a bright, swiftly paced story with some spirited humor.

Ghost Town reworks "Ghost" as a romantic comedy with a miserable hero who sees dead people and is really annoyed by them.

Time travelers, hobbits, ghosts? Those I can buy. The impossibly quaint world of small-town innocence and Hollywood harmlessness in Win a Date With Tad Hamilton? Now that demands a serious suspension of disbelief.

It's so beautiful and moving and simple that I'm willing to forgive Majidi his contrivances.

Upbeat but generic songs (one performed by Little Richard) and jazz lines add a little energy but the film feels less like a feature than an expensive ad for the upcoming video.

It's more than simply a well-crafted piece of fake history.

Like shave ice without the topping, this cinematic snow cone is as innocuous as it is flavorless.

It's hard to believe that five different writers took credit for this feeble story and script. Who says failure is an orphan?

Many will find Griffin profane, sexist and decidedly offensive. Many more will find his raunchy insights inspired, his body language hilarious and his gift for mimicry and caricature worth the entire show.

An uninvolving film.

It's less a deconstruction of the heist film than an ambitious contemplation of our fascination with the genre, directed with a dispassionate eye at a ruminative pace and centered by a queasily emotionless figure wading through a swamp of moral ambiguity.

While it displays precious little originality or ingenuity, A Guy Thing is less graceless than most of its ilk and benefits from a likable cast.

Isn't exactly adult animation but it's more complex and ambiguous than the usual Hollywood live-action blockbuster, and just as splashy.

It's all about waste and destruction, and not just the toxic waste -- illegally dumped in landfills -- that is poisoning the farmland and the aquifers in the region.

John Travolta is nothing if not cool as Chili Palmer.

Abigail Breslin, the preteen Oscar nominee for "Little Miss Sunshine" and the most effortless actress of her generation, plays the precocious little girl part without overdoing the precociousness.

A dumb film with a great conceptual hook from a director who visualizes better than he dramatizes.

It's a little long and dissipates some of its power in an unfocused subplot, but the skewed sensibility of the film is both innocent and feral and offers a smart and satisfying reworking to the familiar genre. An American remake is already in the works.

Sivan makes it all quite beautiful with verdant imagery and tastefully melodramatic direction, but at the cost of emotional and social ambiguities, not to mention living, breathing characters.

More silly than funny.

There's every reason to believe the creators stopped taking it seriously a long time ago. What's bothersome is that they don't take the audience seriously enough to deliver an actual movie.

In the world of comic-book movies, American Splendor is the real deal, the warts-and-all adventures of the most unlikely hero on the comic stands.

So Close is the film "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" dreams of being: sleek, silly, completely ridiculous and irresistible.

Less cartoonish and more generous than the original.

There is a heart-warming familiarity to much of its 2 1/2-hour tale, but the surprises around its edges gives Zelary a refreshing perspective.

Weaver was half-heartedly pushed as an underdog Oscar choice. If the film was worthy of her performance, Weaver may have had a shot.

It makes for a sweet and heartwarming story even as it celebrates and justifies the entire ridiculous phenomenon that Deruddere has been spoofing all along.

What it lacks is an intensity, a passion at the center...It is, nonetheless, a lovely and often powerful film.

Hardly sophisticated, but it's as inspired as teen sex comedies get.

Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) is real, and for all the dramatic license that writer/director Richard LaGravenese takes in his film, her story -- and the stories of her students -- are moving.

A one-joke, one-note turkey.

So familiar you may have moments of deja vu.

The psychobabble silliness passed off as investigative insight here is laughable at best.

From Harry's perspective, it's a grotesque life, a dead end for his new protege Michel, but Moll also shows the sensitivity beneath the sniping and that's where With a Friend Like Harry ... really scores

It's a rich work, lush and lovely and bustling with activity but paced at a contemplative stroll, like a time lapse recording in first gear.

It may be too intense at times for wee ones, but kids of 5 and up testing the limits of their independence in the big world should relate to Lucas, dig the crazy insect world and embrace the imagination behind the colorful adventure.

Like too many films of faith, it mixes its message, proclaiming that a life given over to God is a reward unto itself, and then handing over victories to its faithful like some overtime bonus.

It's an interesting experiment that doesn't quite work.

The earthy imagery is delicate while the drama is oddly elliptical, creating a lovely film of storybook images and parables. It's both obvious and elusive and, historical specifics aside, almost timeless.

There are too many unearned runs to fully embrace this underdog triumph.

The film's take on media and personal responsibility recalls Brian De Palma's faux Iraq documentary, "Redacted," here dropped into a homefront turned guerrilla war zone.

Based more on rumor and supposition than fact. It's a highly entertaining set of hypotheses.

Director Troy Beyer, who adapted the original screenplay, can't seem to decide if this is a morality play or a music-video fantasy.

Like the schoolkids in this adventure, from the opening images to the closing credits, I do, I do, I do believe in fairy tales.

A loving tribute to Hong Kong stuntmen by one of their own, the directorial debut of stuntman-turned-actor Robin Shou ("Mortal Kombat") is a wince-inducing behind-the-scenes look at the way contemporary Hong Kong action cinema is created.

In a farce like this, where the story is merely a string of martial-arts movie cliches lined up to be parodied, that has its own rewards.

Welcome to the tawdry end of paradise, where no melodrama is too obvious and no conflict too contrived.

A B-movie goof on an A-minus budget, Returner is a mini-epic tweaked with computer effects and one blazing gun battle after another and set to an anonymous techno-beat.

Autobiographical or not, the frankness and family hysteria of this rolling therapy session gets awkwardly intimate and at times tough to endure, as much for its raw candor as for its confessional contrivance. Too bad the revelations of past mistakes are more interesting than the story played out screen.

A beautiful and compassionate work, at once stark, sensory and spiritually grasping, that challenges us to forgive even the most monstrous sins.

Afraid to pitch into farce, yet only half-hearted in its spy mechanics, All the Queen's Men is finally just one long drag.

For all the hot air expended, this film ends up all smoke and no heat.

A witty little comic gem with a heart and a soul.

Ball's snide humor and cynical arrogance undercut his message at every turn.

A convincing and compelling community of characters with a sure comic sense and an at times screwball sensibility.

A satisfyingly nasty piece of work so black and cruel it's often more sick than funny.

Winterbottom's compassion transforms In This World from a political statement into an eloquent and involving human drama.

As action movies seem to get more complicated and convoluted with international conspiracies and technological concepts, the "Transporter" franchise is refreshingly simple.

It's a little visually precious and obscure but still a marvelously wistful film of regret and retreat, in which even the magic wine of forgetfulness erases only the memories, not the pain.

It's a tender, tough, uncompromising film, photographed with a disarming directness and seeming simplicity that looks almost naked next to the dramatic constructions of most films. It just makes her precariousness all the more real.

It's a pleasure to see mature portraits of adult characters who put their vulnerabilities on the line. I enjoyed my time in the company of these strangers.

Surprisingly sweet and infectious.

There's simply nobody beneath the derisive attitude worth caring about.

Chabrol's deliberate and drawn-out observations often work against the dramatic tension, but his gift is making the audience believe that emotion and obsession trump logic for these deluded characters.

It's more ambitious and passionate than thoughtful. Singleton is better at criticizing than understanding, and he leaves too many characters lacking a legitimate voice.

The Pangs are at their best playing in the style sandbox, creating shivery imagery and eerie moods while exploring nothing deeper than irony and unease, as their climax so effectively demonstrates.

The charisma of L'il Bow Wow's spirited screen presence turn a contemporary Cinderella gimmick and a by-the-numbers script into a better film than anyone would have expected.

For all the ephemeral pleasure of the company of old friends, there is a chasm between them and the dynamics shift from moment to moment. The beauty of the film is how director Kelly Reichardt brilliantly captures those moments with lucid simplicity.

Never quite shakes itself free of the tired cliche that street people are quirky, sometimes cute, and somehow privy to a spiritual purity lost to us social folk.

Confidently directed and elegantly designed, this smart drama is sensitive, sympathetic and refreshingly free of glib moralizing.

A masterpiece.

It's Kang's first feature and it suffers from rocky moments and an unsure eye, but his sense of detail is rich with prickly contradictions and he resists tidying up the story.

The ploddingly literal screenplay by John Logan doesn't help matters.

The best scenes belong to Tucker and director Brett Ratner keys in to his timing, whether it's a Chinese twist on "Who's on First" or a seduction scene in which Tucker blurts out every impulse.

Hou's first film made outside of Asia is his most emotionally turbulent, yet he remains, like the balloon, outside looking in, a compassionate but distant observer capturing it all with a graceful restraint and floating beauty that ultimately carried me away with it.

First-time director Billie Woodruff, a music video veteran, busts his moves in the dance scenes while the movie throbs to the beat of the wall-to-wall soundtrack.

This is a film about anger, shame and helplessness, and it offers no answers, merely hard questions and angry challenges.

It's an old-fashioned Soviet road movie, filled with kind souls of the otherwise desperate (and at times predatory) world.

The unchecked enthusiasm of McGinley as the touchy-feely renovation guru gives slow-burn Cube the perfect foil and mellows the malicious comic tone. The rest is pure slapstick.

This bracing portrait of a woman who painfully accepts her responsibility as a citizen is a revelation.

It's so sloppy that the flashback montage includes clips from scenes that were cut from the film!

Park is neither glib nor pedantic as he charts the vicious circle that leaves victims in its wake, unintentional and premeditated, and takes its dehumanizing toll on his increasingly brutal heroes.

What gives the story resonance is the tenderness and sacrifice and even innocence del Toro reveals amid the savagery.

At least Lin's local color make the idiocy fun to watch.

Gozu is prime evidence in the argument that gonzo gangster movie maverick Takashi Miike is a major director goofing on minor works.

A good-faith effort, if not completely successful.

Writer/director Jordan Roberts aims for heartwarming drama and settles for tepid entertainment.

In a summer of cardboard figures in splashy spectacles, that makes for a refreshing change, an intriguing, entertaining and altogether sweetly mystifying misfire. In other words, another quintessentially Alan Rudolph picture.

Isn't merely bad, it's utterly flavorless and the filmmakers are either too lazy or too cynical to even pretend there's a story behind Lawrence's 21st century homeboy shtick in 14th-century garb.

It's remarkably bright, funny and sweet for a film that wades through so much sleaze, though it can't escape all of the weirdness it worms through.

Not extreme enough to skate the edge of tasteless farce and not straight enough to play the material for edgy satire, The Ringer is a cheat right down to the final stretch. Breaking the rules should be more fun than this.

It's a passionate film powered by the righteous anger of injustice.

It all feels false and calculated, an overearnest attempt to find old-fashioned romantic innocence in the modern world by someone too jaded to believe.

A summer movie that knows it's a summer movie. You don't go to this film for the story, but for the scenery: Bikini-clad girls riding waves, surf photography as beautiful as it is breathtaking, sun, surf, sand, even a little PG-13 romance.

At best, it's an inspired piece of free-association pop art held together by sheer momentum, at worst a noisy mess of juvenile nonsense passing itself off as a movie.

When the spectacle turns ridiculous, the movie just becomes another big-screen video game.

Where you might expect either overheated teen melodrama or cartoonish farce, Nobuhiro creates a lively, engaging, character-driven piece with flourishes of offbeat humor dancing around the dynamics of the foursome as they pull together in rehearsals.

Morris challenges us to understand what the pictures show and what they don't show, and to see them in context. And he confronts us with the most important question surrounding them: Do they reveal a crime, an aberration in the system or standard operating procedure?

For all the bludgeoning insistence of Kramer's contrived plots and blunt direction, there's not much conviction to the outrage.

A smart, savvy and satisfying Hollywood comedy.

Uncompromising, unpleasant and emotionally brutal, this twisted love story of emotional bondage is oddly compelling.

Empowers its 14-year-olds and comes through with a Cinderella story sure to charm every girl who isn't part of the cool clique.

This coming-of-age tale is ultimately about self, not sex.

There's just no juice to this thing, merely a bunch of fitfully funny gags and a climactic football match that, under Skolnick's direction, fails to show us why the Europeans find this so exciting.