A couple of the cinemaniacs are less defined than others, but the portrait that emerges is a detailed composite of life on the fringe.

A dodgy, hit-or-miss affair that never quiet seems to gel: too many lumpy bits, and not enough crème.

Kids will revolt, parents will snooze, and I will be downright giddy if I never encounter another Pokémon movie as long as I live. Ack!

Suffers mightily from sequelitis. Forced to explain what’s going on and what’s going to be going on in the next and final installment (due out in November), the Wachowskis have laced the film with a series of crushingly dull and often incomprehensible scenes of exposition and yakky gabfests.

It’s far and away the most original symphony of terror since F.W. Murnau raised hackles and Schrecks with his 1922 Nosferatu.

If the film had allowed them to fall in love in real time, instead of to the drumbeat of history, their relationship would seem immeasurably more nuanced.

Loses something in its transposition to America where the two leads are not nearly as widely known as they are in their home country of France.

Across-the-board, the kids are extremely adorable to watch (not an easy thing to pull off) and will appeal to the other kids in the audience who might identify with them and see the story from the kids’ point of view. But looking at this film from any other perspective, will give you brain rot.

If LaBute wants to plumb the depths of human unkindness, have at it -– only dig deeper next time.

Sexy, sophisticated comedy that only occasionally falls short of its admirable ambition: that is, to be a fun, fizzy, razzle-dazzle thing. Straight to the moon, indeed.

Writer-director Byler, in his first feature film, also proves to be a noteworthy new voice, even if his cinematic sense outweighs his narrative sense in this initial outing.

An altogether more viscerally engaging film, from its relentless pacing and slam-bang effects work to the fine, appropriately heroic score by John Ottman. That the movie has an obvious gay subtext neither adds nor detracts from the film’s smashing popcorn appeal.

Falters in small but important ways -– the suspense, carefully ratcheted up throughout, just plain goes busto in the film’s final moments -– while Malkovich stays resolutely behind the camera, a consummate professional who, this time, misses his mark by the merest of degrees.

The situation is not too far removed from that of Jayson Blair and The New York Times. The corporate oversight in place to catch deceptions is lulled into becoming part of the deception. Mahowny wanders through this film as if waiting to get caught, forced into deeper gambling debt because no one applies any brakes.

There’s more narrative happenstance loaded into the script of Blue Car than its running time should effectively allow, but the real keeper moments in Moncrieff’s movie are the small, quiet ones in which a simple glance speaks volumes.

As good, old-fashioned dorkfests go, it doesn't get much better than the National Spelling Bee, with its arcane words, bespectacled competitors, and stinging little bell.

Shoddy craftsmanship and uninteresting subjects (it's amazing how tedious some conversations can be when there's no one to put words in the subjects' mouths) sink this spring-break movie faster than an outbreak of Leginnaires’ disease on a vacation cruise liner.

The use of Bryan Adams as the madwoman's imagined paramour is indicative of just how mediocre this movie is.

It all boils down to trying too hard, when everybody knows a good grift is one that appears effortless.

Far and away the most original thriller to come out of a major studio (in this case Columbia Pictures) in a long while.

Schepisi underscores each emotional note by pulling the camera away from his actors and pointing it at family photographs, a saccharine conceit that becomes more irritating each time it appears.

As moving wallpaper, Winged Migration is the cat’s meow: One almost wishes the wondrous images had been filmed in the even bigger IMAX format. But as an informative documentary, Winged Migration’s birdbrain comes to the fore.

Frankly, I'm shocked that Disney, frequent purveyor of sleeping beauties and singing animated animals, is the studio behind this wonderfully black comedy/morality tale for children, but maybe Disney, too, saw past the material's deliciously macabre bent to find also a thrilling little essay on friendship, fate, and the restorative powers of onions.

The film feels like a truly awful "Saturday Night Live" sketch padded out to such unholy lengths as to make "It's Pat" seems like a comic masterstroke.

There’s much to enjoy, even if the funny bits don’t add up to Spinal Tap greatness. And the titular anthem, performed in a star-studded closing jamboree, has a wickedly funny payoff.

Monk would probably make a nice rental on a dull evening, with some kind of salty snack and a drinking-game accompaniment. (Drink whenever Scott cries, "Oh, shit!")

Ultimately sinks under the weight of its good intentions. It’s like watching Univision or Telemundo on the big screen.

The cast is an impossibly beautiful bunch of actors who could hold your attention even if they spoke nothing but gibberish, which sometimes is the case in the pillow-talk dialogue provided by director/screenwriter Chick.