Not everyone is going to appreciate the politics of Barbershop, but you've got to admire it for having a political view at all.

Like Adam Sandler's "Mr. Deeds," this is a hybrid, hipster-cornball movie that wants to celebrate common folk but unapologetically uses words like "trailer trash" to describe them.

A great cast can't quite pull City by the Sea out of the drink.

Few directors are able to showcase actors with fast-cutting techniques. Hill is an ace at it because everything about his action is organic.

This movie doesn't play; it just lies there, waiting to be kicked around by anyone unfortunate enough to have shelled out good money to see it.

It's also unclear just what Niccol wanted this film to be: a satire? a spoof? a black comedy? a pointed social commentary? Perhaps all of the above - way too many hats for a movie this slight to wear.

Romanek does such a nice job of calibrating his film's squirm factor, it's possible to overlook some flaws that would sink a lesser film.

Blue Crush is such a blast to look at, it seems a shame to talk about its formulaic plot, cliched dialogue and absolute predictability.

It's unfortunate that none of the principal actors is able to convey the passion the characters are supposed to have for each other.

The heartbreak comes not from watching her fail, but from realizing how easy it would be for her to succeed. If only she knew better how to try.

What makes this movie an up is that even when its characters are crying for help, they're also crying for Help!

The movie's own style is strictly an anti-style, all pre-packaged post-punk.

If you put the word Tired first, it would perfectly describe the movie.

It's a deft sleight-of-story Aniston, White and Arteta pull off, giving us a character who seems more than she is, but is really less than she appears.

In Spy Kids 2, Rodriguez tries to hold his family-spy saga together with the digital equal of rubber bands and chewing gum.

In this film, Soderbergh appears to judge the actors by how well they spew or swallow bile.

Stops your heart and keeps your belly jiggling with laughter. It's an improbably sunny tragicomedy.

Shyamalan plows the same old ground of juiced-up surprise endings.

Hands-down, the best James Brolin-in-an-Italian-accent movie ever.

Fantasy, not honesty, is the point of The Kid Stays in the Picture.

This picture is jagged and exciting; it tells several plots imperfectly, yet makes them add up to a great American story about integrity challenged and triumphant.

Swimming is perceptive and, ultimately, embraceable. Like the adolescent it so lovingly depicts, this is a movie you want only the best for.

Austin does have a psychedelic buoyancy and Dr. Evil an addle-pated sadistic goofiness that are original and engaging, but Myers doesn't build on their best stuff. That's where a real plot would help.

Manages to pretty much ignore all the strengths of the earlier film while exacerbating all its faults.

It took guts to bring this story to the screen, but at its core it has the wrong stuff.

Has nearly perfect pitch.

Even at its most enjoyable, Eight Legged Freaks is disappointing -- it grazes your funny bone instead of tickling it like crazy.

At times, Sex and Lucia is too precious for its own good; a movie that demands its own flow chart isn't always a good thing. And events turn on one coincidence too many. But Medem's exquisite craftsmanship and full-throttle eroticism make his film a morass worth the attempt to unravel.