The animation itself is superb, and the filmmakers long ago mastered the dreamy, stream-of-consciousness narrative tropes that work so well with stop-motion, but even with all that going for it, A Town Called Panic feels more like some exotic animated curiosity than a film to return to again and again.

Narratively, we all know where the trajectory of the story is headed, thus the culminating match (nearly 20 minutes) takes up too much screen time without adding anything new to the drama.

How the devastating story of the senseless murder of a 14-year-old could be stripped of emotion is a feat in itself, though one of dubious achievement.

Everything fits perfectly, from titles to fin, but most of all Firth, who dons the role of George like a fine bespoke suit.

By the end of this film/experiment/prank – which, to be blunt, is pretty unsatisfying – the viewer is left to ponder what it's all about, and what its purpose may have been, which, knowing Lynch and Herzog, might well be what it was about, and what its purpose was.

The middle is terrific, especially in a lengthy, unassuming scene in which the three leads sit, sip drinks, and have a good chat: It marks one of the great celluloid pleasures of the year, so virtuosically written, performed, and filmed is it.

The Last Station would have satisfied alone as a witty, manic lark, but as it moves toward the titular railway station, the film unfurls into so much more – a work of compassion, modulated mournfulness, and unchecked joy.

Brothers is too depthless to dredge up any tears.

It's hardly a classic of the genre, but then again, like Armour hot dogs: it's Comfort Food for Men.

Everybody’s Fine – a movie about the lies grown children tell their parents – is, ironically, one of the most disingenuous movies to come out of Hollywood in a while.

The bulk of the documentary observes Pipkin as he traverses the world showing us a score of examples of solutions that are presently working.

If you want to see a good comedy about a couple’s marital problems getting worked out through the course of a home invasion, check out "The Ref."

The Road deviates from McCarthy's original text via a series of flashbacks to the man's pre-apocalyptic life with the woman (Theron) who both leaves her family behind and is in turn left behind by them.

It's Disney's best traditionally animated outing in ages.

Not so much bad as it is witless and predictable.

It's so unreal it hurts.

Linklater has crafted an always genial and at times even joyful period charmer about that moment on the cusp: before a boy becomes a man and another man becomes a mythological figure.

It’s not an altogether convincing portrait, but it is an entertaining, even moving one, and the forcefulness of Bullock's presence goes a long way in pulling the film back from the brink of cuddliness.

This is the best performance Cage has delivered in ages, and Herzog demonstrates, once again, that he is capable of virtually anything.

At times, it looks as though Broken Embraces might be the love child of Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock, with its dramatic broad strokes, iconic reds, and teasing narrative clues.

I’m told Bella’s helplessness is true to the spirit of the novels, but so what? It’s almost 2010 – let’s get hip, people.

While expertly executed animation-wise and passably entertaining for very young kids (less so, their parents), is still as dull as the hull on Rocketship X-M.

You may have the biggest flat-screen DLP monitor in the city, but Red Cliff will never look half as spectacular as it will on the big – and I mean really big – screen.

This is an animated film that happily has room for both an existentialist dread of death and a grinning joie de vivre.

Where else are you going to get a chance to see the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy drift down the side of a mile-high tsunami and take out the White House? Big. Dumb. Fun.

One of the rare movies that communicates honestly and artfully about the real casualties of war: the surviving combatants.

Despite a title change from "The Boat That Rocked" to Pirate Radio, this British import exudes about as much outlaw swagger as Tom DeLay in a dance competition.

It is certainly the best button-pushing movie of the year.