Steve Davis

An example of how good intentions don’t necessarily make for a good movie.

A welcome antidote to most of the crap that for passes today for horror and other supernaturally themed movies.

The metaphoric title about the danger in beautiful things sounds like something from Byron or Keats, but this compressed film adaptation of an Oprah-endorsed bestseller plays like the Dickens.

Any adult attending this film with a pre-K offspring may need to reassure the child afterward that little Tigger back home won’t devour him in his sleep. No kidding. They’re that scary. The Wild Life is an ailurophobe’s nightmare.

Some kids may find the whole affair traumatic, particularly when the poor pooch finds herself dehydrated and chained to a corpse in the wilderness. Then again, that’s nothing compared to those same kids’ parents’ recollection of a Disney flick in which a tearful boy must shoot his rabies-inflicted yeller dog in the end. Bless the beasts and the children.

Given his lackluster performance, even Martin, who is no stranger to sardonic humor, seems unsure about the film's tone.

It’s the subtext of 19th century gender politics that keeps this footnote in Dickens’ life mildly interesting, but it’s a not much upon which to rest an entire movie.

The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.

By the end, however, the movie’s predictable wind-down and ho-hum twist at the end make this Life hardly worth living. In space, no one can hear you yawn.

One can't help but wonder how much better this film would have played straight, without its characters in seemingly constant song. God help us if there's a film version of "Cats" in the works.

Honestly, both Sex and the City and Seinfeld tackled the romantic pitfalls of youngish single life in NYC more adeptly in their relatively truncated formats than this 91-minute movie, and with a helluva lot more verve and wit.

Though the movie’s raison d’être is unmistakable from the outset, the most compelling moments come not when God’s name is being invoked out loud and with great frequency, but rather when the loving symbiosis between two young people facing adversity and caring for each other is tenderly communicated without uttering any words, conveyed in something as simple as the direct gaze between two pairs of locked eyes. Now that’s the notion of a higher power in which we can all believe.

The premise is ripe for potent melodrama, but director Jacquot (who gets co-screenwriting credit) ultimately doesn’t finesse the situation.

It’s a frustrating thing to unsnarl. Straddling the thorny fence of dramedy, Love the Coopers is a sometimes too serious, often not funny entry in this year’s tra-la-la movie sweepstakes.

There’s an intriguing story to be told here, but there’s a better way to tell it. To borrow from the Bard, the spots in Lady Macbeth simply won’t wash away.

This empty-headed comedy about a Playmate who finds herself a house mother to a group of misfit sorority sisters is little more than a recycled version of "Legally Blonde" with bunny ears.

As the whimsical setup in Yesterday deteriorates until its unimaginative conclusion, the familiar Lennon/McCartney collaborations (along with a couple written by Harrison) provide the only solace, timeless songs that make it better. Viva Los Beatles!

It's bigger, but it ain't necessarily better.

No matter whether the cast is male, female, or somewhere in between, the absence of a well-constructed story, particularly when the humor goes south (literally), will doom any movie to quick obscurity, no matter how many d**k or p***y jokes get told.

Mighty Aphrodite may take its thematic and structural cues from Greek tragedy, but it's second-rate Borscht Belt all the way.

The next time he (Baumbach) attempts something similar, he might take care to lessen the bile and amplify the heart.

Unlike "Manhattan," this perfunctorily conceived film about an unhappy woman starved for romantic and personal fulfillment never lives up to its brilliant production values.

The characterizations are sincere, but overly familiar.

Director Miner (Friday the 13th, House) executes some of the scary scenes competently (one in which Sands gives his male host the ultimate French kiss is grossly memorable), but he never takes the material beyond its rather limited parameters.

This oddly dispassionate film about a young man dying of cancer is the French antidote to those Hollywood weepies in which the heroine courageously faces her own mortality with every hair in place.

Ladybugs is a clapboard of a movie, but it's a genial, harmless one. The misfit antics of the soccer games are good for a few laughs, although Michael Ritchie's 1976 film The Bad News Bears is far superior in that area of comedy. Regardless, when you find yourself ashamedly laughing at Ladybugs, remember that comedy was never meant to be politically correct.

With the exception of the handful of scenes in which the Flubber does its stuff, however, the youngsters will no doubt be bored by it all.

Admittedly, the original had its unruly moments, but there’s little to no discipline here. The storyline goes in six different directions, and the actors are unleashed in an apparent free-for-all as they vie for center stage at the Parthenon.