V.A. Musetto

If you go to the movies to ogle topless young women, Simon is definitely for you. If, on the other hand, you want something more cerebral with your $10 ticket and overpriced snacks, stay clear of this Dutch melodrama.

Has little to offer beyond titillation and pretty landscapes.

Adams and the school's students and teachers deserve an A-plus, although the film rates a much lower grade. It unfolds lifelessly, as Binzer parades a contingent of talking heads before the camera in what could pass for an infomercial.

A movie more interested in shocking than in entertaining.

Schmaltzy and contrived.

The film is light on those kitschy musical numbers that make Bollywood movies fun to watch.

It's a worthy idea, but the uninspired scripts, acting and direction never rise above the level of an after-school TV special.

Deadly dull.

Why make a documentary about these marginal historical figures? Wouldn't one about their famous dad, author of "Death in Venice," etc., be more valuable?

There are a few scares, but not enough to make up for the murky script.

Provides a few minor thrills, but overall is talky and implausible.

A bland look at professional surfing.

Director Ferzan Ozpetek's film doesn't break any new ground; rather, it recycles every cliché about gays in what is essentially an extended soap opera.

The story is superficial at best. And the movie is too long.

The landscape cinematography is often eye-pleasing, but the script is labored, filled with clichés and never allows for character development.

Beautiful but boring.

Lackluster anime.

Fails to elicit any substantive information from his (Tommy Davis) subjects. And he fails to put their plight into perspective.

Allah made me funny - not.

A lightweight French comedy worth watching only for Cecile de France. The gamine actress - decked out in short reddish hair, black tights and a thigh-high mini - is charming as Jessica.

The comedy is without distinction and the conclusion is melodramatic. I must note that ads for the film are misleading because they give no hint of the dark side of The Bubble.

Your baby is near death. Instead of dropping everything to save his life, you make sure the video camera keeps rolling.

Fails to grab the imagination as it unfolds in familiar TV-movie fashion.

A documentary hardly anybody has been waiting for.

Katie Aselton has achieved the seemingly impossible. She's turned a movie about sex into a boring, talky snooze.

Harper and the film's director, Jeremy Kagan, try valiantly, but they are unable to bring Meir to life or hold viewers' attentions.

It is a boring parade of talking heads and technical gibberish that will do little to advance the Linux cause. Try again, guys.

While the original was an art-house success, this English-language redo, now getting a one-week run after sitting on the shelf for a year and a half, doesn't measure up.

It's an interesting story, but the presentation is more like a home movie than something you'd pay to see in a theater.

Will go down in history as the movie that showed a turtle getting an enema. It also features a hot performance by Marguerite Moreau.

Sillen drags out generic talking heads who say generic things about Bernstein, a generic boho. The film might suffice if you're looking for something to watch on cable TV some early morning. But it isn't worth the hassle and expense of going to a theater.

Colpaert makes nice use of blue and green hues, and he makes some valid points about the Iraqi war. But the script lacks coherence and ends with a 180-degree flip that lessens the impact of what has gone before.

So beautifully filmed (as if through a gauze curtain), it is especially sad that the script doesn't measure up.

The NYU film grad steals liberally from Woody (especially "Annie Hall") - from camera placement to body language to plot twists to the whole Ingmar Bergman thing. That's not necessarily bad, if the project works. This one doesn't - it just annoys.

Is nothing sacred? In the schizophrenic war epic The War lords, Jet Li, the hunky action hero, cries -- no, make that sobs -- several times. What will his legion of young male fans think?

Wavers uncomfortably between satire and dime-store existentialism on the big screen. It's sort of as if Charlie Kaufman rewrote "The Fountain."

The result is a hodgepodge of plots and styles, a fault compounded by stiff acting and, except for a few scenes, wooden direction.

A self-indulgent work.

Here the characters aren't compelling enough to ask viewers to give their brains a workout to determine exactly what's going on.

Director Jacob Rosenberg makes heavy use of family photos and talking heads, but the person we want most to hear from, Way himself, is largely missing. Go figure.

After Fall, Winter would play better minus at least half an hour of flab.

A plot? Tony Jaa don't need no stinking plot.

The movie's only redeeming qualities are its stars.

But by the time events unfold, viewers will most likely have given up on this melodramatic.

Gil Kofman has an interesting and funny story to tell in his documentary Unmade in China. Too bad he spends more time talking about himself than detailing his misadventures in Xiamen, China, population 3.67 million.

The preachy movie is hardly worth the hassle and money required to see it in a theater. Better to download it or wait for it to pop up on TV.

Lilien is an amateur filmmaker, and his movie -- which at times is more about Lilien than Pale Male -- shows it.

Might have worked as a travelogue, minus the story. In its present form, it is hardly worth the $10 you will be asked to fork over at the box office.

Something high schoolers might yawn through in history class, but they have no choice. You do.

Clichéd stories, clichéd characters. All that's missing is Ed Burns.

Viewers are left wondering just why they should care about them and the rest of the film's one-dimensional characters.

Love in Space is just what movie fans have been waiting for: a romantic comedy from Communist China.

There are a few sweet moments as the story reaches its unsurprising conclusion. But, all in all, Flakes isn't going to bowl you over.

There are some funny moments, plus occasional nudity and sex, but the joke quickly wears off. What might have worked as a half-hour TV show doesn't suit itself to a feature-length film.

Arlyck spends more time following himself and his own lefty family than checking up on Sean.

Skip it, and rent "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" instead.

Brainless and pointless.

An amateurish, pointless exercise in filmmaking.

There's plenty of material here for a dark comedy, but director Martin Curland isn't up to the job. His film - like Luke - plods along, unsure of exactly what it's supposed to be.

Politics aside, Trudell plays like an infomercial for its subject rather than a serious examination of the man and his beliefs.

There's certainly a good movie to be made about Muslim punk musicians in the US, but this isn't it.

What's Vincent to do? Will he come out of the closet? Will he lead the swim team to victory at the big match? Will he find happiness with Noemie? Does anybody care?

One big cliche.

Would that somebody had fired Gurwitch before she could have finished Fired!

The script is obvious and cliched and the action is more disgusting than frightening.

Marlene Rhein has directed 40 music videos, including ones for Tupac Shakur and Amy Winehouse. Judging by this, her feature debut, she should stick with the music.

Utterly predictable and full of trite dialogue.

Dom DeLuise, as a fruitcake director, and John Waters fave Mink Stole, as Robin's Jewish mother, spice things up, but not enough to make Girl Play worthwhile.

The autobiographical script meanders and the acting never solidifies. Besides, the leads look too old to be in high school - maybe even college.

The story is so contrived and the dialogue so stilted that no amount of talent could save Exist.

Tucker's message is sometimes on target, even if his film isn't.

The dialogue is banal and the acting, especially Wortham's, is unconvincing. Even the sex and nudity, of which there is a lot, grows tiresome after a while.

Little more than a rehash of old news.

Has a split personality. It starts as a comedy but morphs into an icky family melodrama. It should have stuck with the yuks.

Nothing would help make this dud understandable.

The movie, directed by Mick Jackson, leaves no cliché unturned, from the predictable plot to the characters straight out of central casting.

The film's violent finale comes out of nowhere and will leave bewildered viewers wondering if they might have dozed off for a reel or two.

Mostly The Matador romanticizes a brutal tradition that has no place in the 21st century.

The writing, acting and direction are so amateurish that the only thing you'll care about is escaping the theater.

There are many new Japanese movies that deserve a stateside release. Why this hapless mess beat them out is a question that deserves an answer.

Now that even Woody Allen has stopped making "Woody Allen movies," you would think that wannabes would move on, too.

Ohayon doesn't judge Thompson or his customers, but you don't need to be a Harvard-educated psychiatrist to realize that the bunch of them are dirty old men who treat women as commodities.

There are a few exciting battle sequences and the sets are lavish, but mostly the film meanders aimlessly for more than two hours. No wonder new sword-and-sandal movies are in short supply.

With so many worthy movies being made in Europe, it's a crime that something as mediocre as Erotic Tales gets a release here.

Makes little attempt to be credible or original. And the acting is poor.

The overall result is superficial and deadly boring.

Silly and pointless film.

Will there be a “Hatchet IV’’? I shudder to think about it.

Proves, if anything, that sappy feel-good movies aren't restricted to Hollywood.

Promoted as "the year's scariest movie," it's anything but.

Sexist, racist humor abounds, with Jews and gays especially taking a beating. I don't always object to non-PC humor -- but I like it to be funny, and here it isn't.

Schwartz throws in so many characters and implausible subplots - none worth mentioning - that Perception sinks under its own weight.

Let the French stick to love stories and leave stupid comedies to Tinseltown.

The documentary tells us little we don't already know and is overwhelmingly one-sided. It would make a nice TV infomercial, but certainly doesn't deserve a big-screen release.

If the sight of naked, sweaty French hunks gets you going, well, then, Three Dancing Slaves is a must-see.

Zhang Yimou, one of China's best-known filmmakers, deserves a great big lump of coal in his holiday stocking thanks to his ludicrous soap opera The Flowers of War.

There is, of course, a maximum of blood and gore. Sometimes the director's ideas work; often they don't.

Isn't very good. Not only has Ritter made his documentary a one-sided one, but he commits the journalistic sin of using himself as the film's main talking head. In other words, he's interviewing himself.