By the end, though, it's all too much what it seems, a literalist adventure with a socko "Twilight Zone" twist that's finally too little, too late.

Understandably, a filmmaker tackling the retelling of a national hero must do so with great delicacy, but The Sea Inside presents not so much a hero as a saint in Sampredo.

It's unclear what Brooks is trying to say about our melting-pot culture, if anything.

It’s bravura, classic Hollywood filmmaking, and you like to think that Hughes himself would have viewed it, if not appreciatively, then at least with a sense of kinship.

Carrey is a bit of a conundrum: He's the best and worst thing about Lemony Snicket.

Unlike other filmmakers in the autumn or winter of their careers, Eastwood doesn't seem content to rest on his laurels and give his audiences the tried and the true. For that reason, among many others, he and Million Dollar Baby are true champions.

Let’s be honest: With a cast like this, it doesn't matter too much what the characters are doing onscreen, or if it makes about as much sense as a monochrome rainbow.

An unexpected classic.

Funny, bewildering, giddy spectacle.

A devastating portrait of impoverished Calucutta children.

Of all the missteps made and absurdities offered, the most glaring is the casting of what appears to be a steroidal Eurotrash pimp as no less than Dracula.

I don't know if the many plot swerves withstand a second viewing, but I suspect the meat of the matter – the swooning visuals, the expert choreography, the teasing love story – does.

It's impossible to take in all the information in one sitting and at times threatens to spin off in too many directions, but I guarantee this movie will provide plenty to mull over and inspire consumers to demand greater accountability from their media purveyors.

Closer is an un-love story as honest and naked as Cupid in the devil's dock, the whole truth, and nothing but.

The elements are all here for something spectacular – and in brilliant bursts, Jeunet really gets it – but in the end, all that potential is sunk by a terminally confused tone and milquetoast pairing of lovers. Pity that.

The filmmakers wisely stay in the background and allow the people of Whitwell to tell their own story, although this simple, honest little film is occasionally marred by an emotionally manipulative music score straight out of Heartstring Tuggers 101.

Egregiously mediocre and flagrantly ill-conceived in every department, this is, truly, the cinematic equivalent of finding a single solitary Saltine in your stocking and a pair of old tube socks beneath the tree. Humbug!

It is, in a word, boring, and that's the most un-Oliver Stone adjective I can think of.

All those seriously interested in foreign cinema are encouraged to take a look at this atmospheric drama -- sure to be remembered as one of the key achievements of the Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s.

Absurdism taken to a new extreme.

With Bad Education, the great Almodóvar delivers the finest movie of his career.

Once again the title pretty much says it all.

You know you're watching some sort of bizarre classic when King of Trash John Waters gets half his face burned off by sulfuric acid in the first act.

The man behind the "Rush Hour" franchise proves that dropping sly nods in Alfred Hitchcock's direction does not necessarily a fine caper make.

Final verdict: Cast is excellent; movie is OK; men and women are soooo different.

Kinsey is too tasteful by half, and while it may have its gentle charms, it never thrills.

Takes you back to a time in which people – children, in particular – still created whole worlds in their heads, inventing characters and situations as far away as their flights of fancy would take them.

Reminiscent of HBO’s new hit "Entourage."