If sex, gangsters, and killing Nazis are three of the most enlivening topics in the movies, then let us count friendship as one of the most tiresome, right up there with grooming horses and sharing for sheer thrills.

From James Brown to Sam Cooke, the songs set a mood that lingers for some time after.

Timely metaphors abound in The Order of the Phoenix, but the story (of which there is much) stands on its own magical merits, dark and darker still though they may be.

It should be mandatory viewing for right-to-lifers and prospective parents as well as fans of creepy, crawly filmmaking.

As Tim – a character rich in contradictions and psychological possibilities – Chittenden may as well be a cardboard cutout for all the emotional complexity he’s able to muster.

Herzog outdoes himself with Rescue Dawn, making his most popularly accessible film yet and proving at the same time that he is among the most daring of all filmmakers and capable -- like his characters -- of almost anything.

Transformers is about as clever as an unplugged blender.

It goes without saying that this will be no everyday marriage class, not with a hyperactive Williams setting the curriculum.

Though we will differ on the methods of improving the American health care system, Sicko's enduring contribution is the undeniable evidence that the system is broken. If the film brings the debate out into the open of our movie lobbies and living rooms, it can’t be long before the conversation trickles into the corridors of Congress.

Pixar's animation is simply flawless; colorful, deeply realized, and ably conveying both the chaos of the kitchen, and the sensual allure of food well prepared.

Redgrave still manages to inspire awe, yet a poetically prosaic moment like the one in which she goes chasing after a butterfly is enough to throw a net over the whole thing.

Superior in every way to 1995's "Die Hard With a Vengeance," Live Free or Die Hard's goofy generation-gap gambit pays off decently and proves, again, that nattily dressed terrorists are no match for Willis, the once and future Patron Saint of Bang.

The movie appeals to an old-fashioned sense of horror.

Bland jokes and lazy contrivances.

The elliptical narrative also recalls Fernando Meirelles' somewhat similarly themed "The Constant Gardener," a film ultimately more heartfelt and accessible to mainstream audiences because its maker is unafraid of grief and explores it more deeply.

It's smart; it's silly; it's – kill me now – shear terror.

This movie belongs to Posey, and her nuanced performance makes Broken English a worthy adventure.

Lady Chatterley is the recipient of six César Awards, France's equivalent of the Oscar. Although the film is capable of sustaining our interest throughout, the viewer may find it lacking in some of the transcendence Lady Chatterley's lust is supposed to inspire.

Cuddlier and more charming, this alcoholic-hitman comedy isn’t your typical Dahl noir (The Last Seduction, Red Rock West), but it is offbeat, lovably deadpan, and just tart enough.

Baichwal is comfortable with those moral and aesthetic ambiguities as well, and, as a result, she’s created a visual poem of devastation that makes one question one’s entire relationship to the world.

A piece of garbage and the best argument for reading books since the first pop-up appeared.

Relentlessly dull and curiously bombastic.

It's not really a matter of Nancy's retro look and grounding in the fundamentals of sleuthing that separates the women from the girls but, rather, this film's lack of gaiety and surprise that makes it dud for old and new generations of the books' fans.

The film’s resolution is more implied than complete.

Best just to say Macbeth is coming down hard and leave it at that.

Kaurismäki’s spare style and economical storytelling are well-suited to this particular story about loneliness, as the director never muddies the frame with sentimental dross or lugubrious inclinations.

Three films in, and Soderbergh's Ocean's franchise has settled into a kind of hipster equanimity – happy to live in that loosely defined territory where art meets commerce and story blends seamlessly with cool.

Director Roth has accomplished the near impossible with Hostel: Part II: He's crafted a vastly superior sequel to a film already considered something of a classic by genre aficionados, one that supersedes its predecessor's sadistic entertainment quotient by orders of magnitude while also upstaging its own outrageous gore effects with a script that's smart, vicious, and occasionally, gleefully subversive.