Without restraint or subtlety, but with a lot of heart and energy, this movie tells a real-life tall tale.

It's cathartic and exhilarating.

A refreshingly unpredictable and fizzy comic fantasy. It tickles the fancy even when it strains credibility.

Jonze lets the magic ebb away in a sorry mesh of strained relationships.

The cascade of ideas proves to be both pleasurable and frustrating. As the movie retreats into a happy-ever-after ending, even its outrageous lies seem more like little white ones.

The movie ended just in time. Any more of it, and I'd have been crying uncle. Or maybe, given the grrrl-power of it all, crying aunt. This is one supposedly contrarian film that rouses the counter-contrarian in you.

The symmetry doesn't work. Capitalism is an economic system; democracy, a political system. Perhaps Moore should have come out and said what he really wants to see us adopt: a democratic socialism.

It wouldn't stick in the memory were it not for Matt Damon's audacious, baggy-pants portrayal of corporate whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, the antihero of this reality-based farce.

It pulls together diverse residents of the city, from produce vendors to academics, and trains a loving eye on their unique environments and the urban landscapes they all share.

Bright Star delivers a prismatic depiction - tart, funny and piercing - of the romance between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne in the three years before he died, in 1821, at age 25.

Not a perfect 10, but its imperfection is what makes it gripping and bewitching.

Extract is an exuberant original...like no other and one of the best comedies of the year.

It's a nightmare that starts like a normal daytime drive and ends in a vortex-like sinkhole.

Siegel takes us to the brink of operatic melodrama, then lands us in a tragicomic spot: a psychological landscape of alternate life and make-believe death.

A love letter to the time, and the period, and the legend that has grown around both. Maybe it's all too wonderful to be true, but that's OK. If Taking Woodstock is a fantasy, then it's a most benevolent one, and more power to it.

The result is an exciting, infuriating, combative experience.

It's affable entertainment -- a road movie with a smart map and characters who are unpredictable human beings, not just billboard attractions.

Best of all, Ponyo never ceases to be a genuine odyssey in short pants.

You'll never see a more tactile expression of the intimacy between artists and their instruments than in Davis Guggenheim's elating It Might Get Loud.

In Julie and Julia, Ephron, like her heroines, has finally found what suits her: a surprising comic and romantic realism.

Paul Giamatti - that huddle of broiling instincts, out-of-control impulses and aggravated ardor epitomized in "Sideways" - you feel his soul's absence as dearly as its presence.

It's got a smattering of hearty laughs and a career-high performance from Sandler.

The climax and epilogue are the juiciest, most tough-minded bits in the movie. Too bad Mayer didn't work his way backward from the end.

The whole movie aspires to set an Annie Hall vibe, especially when Tom keeps trying to re-create, first with her and then with someone else.

It flows like fast-moving lava to a climax filled with pyrotechnics. And for once in a summer blockbuster, the fireworks are both emotional and physical. The movie leaves you sated, yet wanting more -- just what you want from a series with two entries left to go.

Humpday mixes hilarity with upset as the irresistible force of male pride meets the immovable object of sexual identity.

For a documentary about a music festival, Soul Power doesn't include nearly enough music.

Without ever telling viewers what to think or how to feel, it raises more questions about the corruption of crime and crime fighting than any expose or thesis.