Learn from the Evers family: The Haunted Mansion is not worth the detour.

The story is bizarre, unique, and thoroughly unpredictable, while its images resemble some kind of bastard offspring of the linear realism of George Grosz and the fantastic foreboding of Edward Gorey.

These people and the tale of their migration and reintegration into life’s ebb and flow will remain with the viewer long after Johnny's and Sarah’s green cards expire.

No doubt about it: Bad Santa is blasphemous. But, to borrow a phrase from another famous hedonist, Homer Simpson, it’s also sacrilicious.

A devastating and weighty picture.

A film that is long on atmosphere, but short on smarts: Plot points are easily unraveled 20 minutes in advance (no fun sleuthing for the audience here), the ending is an unsatisfying pastiche off too many horror tropes, and it would take a week to plug all of Gothika’s gaps in logic.

Sharp-witted delight.

They've taken a classic and they've battered it senseless and, boy, does it stink. It’s so bad it’s amazing it's being released, and box office-goers might soon end up fleeced. And annoyed and bewildered, perhaps even creeped-out by this cacophonous mess which is awful throughout.

Ron Howard has delivered a movie that’s a big departure from his previous film, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." We may not remember him for "The Alamo," but we're glad he kept the Stetson.

Detailed but, ultimately, one-sided.

Fraser, Martin, and the rest of the flesh-and-blood characters look like they’re having a ball, which translates instantly to the audience as well.

A humanistic adventure film that's both rich with characterization and concussive cannon bursts, Master and Commander is, surprisingly, some of the best work either Crowe or Weir have ever done.

Fathers and families and the impossibility of ever fully understanding either are at the heart of My Architect, and like Nathaniel Kahn, we come away from the film with a renewed appreciation of both.

An antidote to holiday cheer like no other, this French tale of psychological horror is as harsh as they come -– it’s like finding a severed finger in your stocking and then finding it’s even better with hollandaise.

Moments of black comedy break up the melodrama – a newsreel depicts the song's "victims" and a Nazi secretary rages against her Duden grammar manual – but the overall tone is still that of a four-alarm weeper.

A movie that’s so profoundly ridiculous that it has to be admired, if for no other reason other than its sheer willingness to run with its premise and take it to the end of the line.

It's not so much the individual storylines that grab you, but Curtis’ unrelenting optimism. In the end, it's nice to know that love, actually, does conquer all.

It’s an impressive closing to the cycle, and, frankly, one that arrives not a moment too soon.

As riveting as a documentary can possibly be, this slim (74-minute) film is also one of the most politically aware films of the year.

Seems more like an amateur revue, perfectly all right for what it is, but not meant to be seen beyond an audience of friends and family.

Uses a wraparound story to provide a hint of Glass’ deep-seated pathology, but allows no details about how it came into being.

The darker stuff begs to be handled less delicately than this dance, and in that respect the director stumbles.

There’s definitely a certain fascination hovering about The Singing Detective, but after seeing the movie, that fascination turns to perverse dread.

You don’t have to be a cynic to find Radio naive for suggesting that high school is a good place for emotionally fragile misfits, that racism is not a problem, that caring for someone is all it takes.

The characters are mechanisms who move along the plot arc from Point A to Point B. They’re not particularly memorable individuals.

Wisely, a lot like the real event. No answers are given, barely any questions are asked, and the film unfolds at a leisurely, inexorable pace that stymies the traditional filmmaking tropes of tension and release.

Enough already.

I came out of Beyond Borders with the gnawing feeling I'd just been subjected to some sort of ghastly prank, Punk’d by the director of "GoldenEye" with Lara Croft as his willing confederate.