If you take this stuff seriously, one way or another, you're sure to be duped. You've got to hand it to Mr. Brown: So dark the con of man, indeed.

Like a lot of animated fare, it's overly busy, lacking the comic's gentle, contemplative air.

Unlike former porn auteur Gregory Dark's semenal 1985 cumshot opus "New Wave Hookers", this rote exercise in slasher-film tedium holds zero surprises and is about as arousing as Tracy Lords' singing career.

The most frustrating films are the ones that reach desperately for something great, but fall just short of capturing it. In his dark and twisted narrative debut, The King, British director James Marsh's reach extends so far we can hear his muscles strain, yet what he's reaching for is never quite clear.

This is one of those rare movies about children but not necessarily for them, and it treats its adolescent subjects with bravery and compassion.

It's all so much blood and brine signifying nothing, not even a good time. Now somebody do us all a favor and cut that albatross from around Petersen's neck already.

No doubt this film will please the pre-teen set, but they'd be so much better off staying home and renting "Mean Girls."

Despite employing every cliché in the sports-movie handbook, Goal! The Dream Begins tells a reasonably engaging story.

It just devolves into the limp sort of schmaltzy conclusion you keep hoping it will avoid.

Never less than good but it's also never quite great.

The film has lovely moments – Gehry buildings can be extremely photogenic, after all – but it doesn't sink its teeth in the way it probably should.

It's all poppycock, of course, but it's done with such vim and vigor and both narrative and visual flair that you care not a jot. Summer has arrived.

When it's on, it's really, really on. But when it's not, it feels like it's struggling to find its style, just as Jerome is.

It really IS fun to watch yet another oddball turn by Sutherland, and a marginally restrained one from Spacek. It's just not THAT fun.

Earnest, playful and eco-friendly, Hoot is a worthwhile visit for the tween set, but parents may role their eyes more than once at this flightless film.

It feels mechanical, more conceptual than realized, like a senior project by a particularly ambitious student who's recently read "West of Everything" – and who's lucked into working with a world-class actor.

Despite perpetual rumors of its demise as a genre, the Western is alive and well in the Australian outback.

Two Eighties genre staples – Disease-of-the-Week and Poppin' the Cherry – meet, shake hands, and mostly play nice in this sweet, if overly earnest feature.

Instead of using actors, Greengrass employed many of the actual air traffic controllers and military commanders who were on the ground that day. Also aiding his film's universality is Greengrass' use of little known actors in the central roles, preventing stardom from affecting our ideas about heroism and patriotism.

Like "Bring It On," Stick It is so much better than most of its insipid teen-movie peers yet like her earlier movie, Bendinger's new one is also not all it might be.

It is a rewarding tale for public educators, parents, and kids with big dreams.

Isn't it time to put Robin Williams out to pasture? There's precious little mirth to be had via RV after the comically nasty opening set-up.

Even though the movie is made with an abundance of heart, it's sad to report that the final result has only a weak pulse.

Mehta and her cameraman Giles Nuttgens capture the area's rich interplay of light and color, land and water, and riches and poverty.

Park is one sick puppy, and I mean that in the very best sense of the phrase.

Although made in 1969, this French masterpiece is receiving its first stateside release with a new print struck for the occasion.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is hopelessly depressing. Yet as a story of the callous impersonalization we inflict upon one another, the film is timeless.

Maybe America will prove me wrong by voting, but I felt like you were holding back until the end.