Walter Addiego

By the end you can't help but wonder whether it was a good idea to keep the youngsters under camera scrutiny for more than 12 years.

The film is merciless in showing the obstacles faced by a down-and-out couple in strip-mall Florida, but there's a modicum of hope in the genuine love the characters share.

The tales are worthwhile, but it's challenging to find a common thread among them that goes beyond vague generalities.

A modestly entertaining martial arts melodrama with impressively staged fight sequences that help compensate for a stale plot and some less-than-stellar acting.

Well-intentioned but heavy-handed.

The hits just keep on coming in Muscle Shoals, a hugely entertaining, perhaps overlong, documentary about the renowned recording studios in the small Alabama town of the film's title. It's mandatory viewing for fans of the classic rock, soul and rhythm and blues of the 1960s and '70s.

As a grab bag of reminiscences by veteran funny people, bolstered with richly entertaining performance footage, it's boffo.

The movie saves most of its modest number of jolts for its last quarter or so, which makes them all the more intense. They stick in your craw - and be warned, they're not for the squeamish.

A bonbon, not of a full-course meal. Foodies will smack their lips over many delectable shots of victuals prepared by the film's engaging protagonist, a provincial woman chosen to cook for the president of France. As a story, though, it's insubstantial - there's conflict here, but it feels perfunctory.

The characters are mostly likable, and despite some comic sallies the film takes a compassionate stance toward them. But it feels like a glossy, overly neat take on what should be an explosive topic.

A simple story told with economy, Wadjda is a notable example of old-school, humanistic filmmaking. It's also genuinely groundbreaking: the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and the first film directed by a Saudi woman.

The joy is in the details - from the animated credits to the perky pop score to the pre-"Mad Man" hair, clothes and general sensibility.

Trying to be provocative with a capital "P," Anne Fontaine's Adore undermines itself by provoking unintended laughs.

While there's a certain staid feeling to the production, it does deliver a solid working-over to the era's gentry.

The film is beautiful but troubled, achieving in stretches the director's signature dreamy mood but dragged down by narrative confusions.

This elegant movie never reduces or diminishes its subjects, and leaves us to ponder a remarkable truth - that Ushio and Noriko have an abiding love that four decades of frustration, resentment and rivalry have battered but not extinguished.

Director Cordero manages the not-bad trick of generating suspense while keeping the overall tone cool and collected.

Although this leisurely tale of an aged French sculptor offers a few other small pleasures, in the end it lacks heft.

The direction, by Ben Nott and Morgan O'Neill, is average, except for the surfing sequences, which are easily as striking as what we see in documentaries about the sport. Another positive is the soundtrack, with amusing high-energy rock tunes of the era.

It's a life worth remembering.

There's some amusement in watching Michael Cera play an unalloyed jerk, but in the main this trifling film shuffles by with a few low-key jokes and observations, building to an abrupt moment of seriousness.

Because he made "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004), there will always be high expectations for a new film by Michel Gondry. But while his new movie The We and the I, is intriguing in fits and starts, it isn't in the same league.

The movie deals with themes of secular and religious love, of how they may intersect and diverge, that are suggestive of Bergman or Carl Theodor Dreyer.

The best of the longer segments is "Steve," a piece of Pinter light starring Firth as a passive-aggressive neighbor from hell who repeatedly turns up at the door of a bickering couple (Knightley and Tom Mison) to register a series of baseless complaints.

The movie examines the possibility of maintaining one's humanity in a truly oppressive society.

Like Someone in Love is best suited to viewers already familiar with this extraordinary filmmaker's better work.

The film bolsters its case with plenty of facts, charts and expert testimony - evidence typical of this sort of advocacy documentary. But what makes the movie compelling is its focus on a handful of victims, who make the statistics painfully real.

Heavy-handed dialogue, flurries of melodrama and a silly ending make the whole enterprise sink like a stone.