The central notion in After the Cup is not the obvious; we can all live and work together to our greater achievement no matter where we are from or who we are. Rather, the question here is-will we-even when we lose the football game? It's a much smarter and more interesting question.

Killer Joe isn't as outlandish in premise as it is in execution, which is saying something.

Moving and more ambitious than a CW serial drama or the long-ago ABC After School Specials because its honesty outweighs its occasionally trite dialogue and sometimes false scenes.

With the stranger in a strange land motif, the movie plays a little bit like the 2007 Israeli dramedy "The Band's Visit" and Liev Shreiber's "Everything Is Illuminated" rolled into one.

Bridged by rude comedy familiar to veteran viewers of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, True Legend is refreshingly unpretentious in comparison to the pompous nationalism of recent Chinese war spectacles like "The Warring States."

A conventional portrait of an endearingly unconventional sister act-with roots in music halls and the dairy farm on which they were raised (and became expert yodelers)-The Topp Twins is a piece of hagiography.

The romantic drama earns solid marks for atmosphere, moving shots of post-Katrina New Orleans and acting.

Bolly-Holly-Tele-Novella heaven, in three languages.

Movies don't get much funnier than Ted.

Beautiful Boy is a discerning film lover's off-season tonic, regardless of where, when or how it's seen. What matters most is simply that it be seen.

A credible suspense story with a surprisingly bold ending, The Woman In Black is a solid step away from Harry Potter for star Daniel Radcliffe - while it, too, is British and fantastical, the tone is sinister, adult and bleak.

It's the sheer lack of investment one feels for the couple that truly sabotages the film.

Like "Amelie," Micmacs is visually dazzling, the ravishing images coming courtesy of "La Vie en Rose" cinematographer, Tetsuo Nagata.

To say that Marshall's technique is so low-brow it may as well be a moustache is being kind--at best this is the sort of lazy, ambitionless hackery that can lead both filmmakers and audiences to write off a genre for dead--or at least until a more skilled storyteller is able to do it right.

A chick flick for do-gooders, The Help suffers from a malady common to the discrimination drama: its treatment of inequality is more condescending than the prejudice it aims to remedy.

As uninhibited as its heroine, this film is full of clever surprises.

Italian audiences are bound to like it and the broadness of plot and appeal suggests casual fans of foreign film should, too.

It's by the book advocacy docmaking at its best.

This story of a hit man who wants out after performing this one last job is so threadbare, trite and predictable that not the star's formidable charisma nor the considerable talent of director Anton Corbijn can come close to erasing its deficiencies.

Directors Keith Scholey (who also wrote the narration) and Alastair Fothergill spent nearly three years capturing this remarkable footage, and have edited it judiciously with an eye to entertainment.

It isn't a problem that 2 Days in New York is implausibly stuffed with incident for a movie that transpires over the course of just 48 hours, the trouble lies in how much time it still manages to waste.

Troll Hunter may be a relatively low-budget fantasy but the film looks epic in all the right sequences.

The bright spot-and what saves Greenspan's debut feature from being nothing more than a long tedious draft of an ordinary craft brew-is James Liston's cinematography.

Inspiring, real and heartwarming, Big Miracle is something of a miracle itself - a family film everyone in the family can love that doesn't talk down to its audience and makes more salient political points than "Free Willy" or "Dolphin Tale."

A fascinating, deeply felt film of wild, untamed emotions and probing insights.

Best Worst Movie is a must-see for students of film criticism and the philosophy of art.

A stirring, unforgettable motion picture experience, a superbly acted and courageous story of one woman who made a difference.

The absorbingly bittersweet result ranks as one of the best non-fiction films of the year.

It's a movie about a life, and life can be kinda funny and kinda poignant, even when it's full of ordinary things, like age, sickness and loss.

For all the innovative dishes we watch being concocted, the movie needs another ingredient or two for flavor enhancement and full satisfaction.

Cool It resonates, and gives one pause not just to consider the merits of the global warming question, but to consider the merits of all that we've decided to do about it, impending doom notwithstanding.

With his cinema-verité treatment of baby-daddy drama in Prince of Broadway, Baker proves himself a worthy heir to the Italian neorealists of the '40s and '50s-capturing capably the desperation, and potential defeat, inherent in poverty.

Leigh certainly has a sense of cinematic style and Emily Browning possesses a fragile beauty that hides a remarkably resilient interior. It's a pity, however, that Jane Campion did not exert a more powerful sway on the result.

It's a trenchant modern western and fans of the genre should embrace it for more reasons than just the presence of the epic Sam Shepard who, by the way, owns this Butch Cassidy.

Has enough laughs, enough good will and enough squirrely strangeness to make you hope that we get to hold on for one more film.

Particularly impressive is veteran cinematographer Dean Semler's inventive cinematography that manages to put the audience right in the middle of the races like never before.

With a sure-to-be-talked about performance by Sean Penn and the dueling themes of overcoming depression and revenge against Nazi atrocities, This Must Be The Place is anywhere BUT the place for moviegoers who aren't in the mood for something different.

Wacky and good-humored, Go Go has a seductive visual appeal that Ferrara exploits to the fullest.

Shooting in Calais give Welcome a realistic atmosphere with vivid details.

Relatively light-hearted for a Polanski film (no one dies), Carnage is fun verbal warfare cleanly filmed.

OKA!, like the mysterious horn the characters hunt, is a real find.

The Bourne Legacy doesn't reach the heights of the previous three films, but a guns-blazing final act and strong performances from its entire cast might give it the juice to try for a fifth sequel.

Jaden Smith is destined to be a star by the force of will (and wallets) of parents Will and Jada Smith, both producers on The Karate Kid. But he's also got the raw material.

There are no surprises in this tale, filmed with deliberately deglamorized handheld camera (yet inexplicably in widescreen); it puts the "adult" in "adultery drama," if by "adult" you mean joyless bores.

Good Neighbors' greatest strength is that even when the plot becomes too obvious and the thriller aspects fall apart, it can always wrestle a laugh out of you.

Fans will presumably get what they came for; what anyone else gets out of it is hard to say.

What Foy and his team discover is unbelievable. More importantly, their adventures will prove popular with street art buffs as well as documentary fans.

This is Rudd's movie and he once more displays an unerring eye for comedy. He comes at it from an actor's perspective rather than a comedian's and it shows as his character as hilarious as he is credible.

A family drama that looks for answers in coincidence (is it really ever coincidence?), this endearing and breezy comic fable watches Jeff's coming of age and promises nothing after his moment of truth.

The stylish sci-fi film makes some eye-popping and unexpected choices that add up to one heck of a fun film.

The action, fantasy and suspense elements are all highly enjoyable, but if the romance didn't work this movie would fall apart.

There is a passionate, combative and riveting documentary to be made about the plight of the American schoolteacher, but unfortunately the well-meaning, unfailingly decent and overly slack American Teacher isn't it.

Mr. Nice is hampered by tonal timidity and the inability to find a sufficiently entertaining through-line in Marks' life story.

Fans of "Train of Life" will undoubtedly embrace the picture's similarly ragtag collection of clever, lovable misfits.

How often can you see Cheech Marin nailed to a cross or Lindsay Lohan in a threesome with Trejo and the actress playing her mother?

No one is expected to take any of this seriously, so Schwentke keeps things light: light on big laughs, light on unique action set pieces and light on any sense that these game but retired spies are too old for this crap.

This doc contributes to the small collection of films on burlesque something more self-aware looks at the matter don't: an exposition of the messy history of a complex popular art that still leaves us with much to explore.

The Music Never Stopped isn't exactly good, but it's definitely better than you fear it is when you reach the halfway mark.

An awkward stew between "American Beauty" and "Harvey" that only touches a nerve at the eleventh hour.

Segal's film tries to straddle the line between darkly funny and just plain dark, but even with a game cast and an offbeat premise, Norman is a disquieting outing with little in the way of honest payoff.

With a sterling cast and an emotionally powerful performance from newcomer Liana Liberato, Trust packs a real dramatic punch.

Europe's Most Wanted is so full of laughs and great characters, it's easily the best in the series. Like "Toy Story 3," the Madagascar gang just gets better with time, and this new adventure is funny, exciting and heartwarming.

Luke Wilson's terrific performance renders an uneasy hybrid of crime drama, comedy and ecommerce far more compelling than it otherwise would be.

This movie will not find an audience. It's got likable stars, a reliable commercial genre and a decent supporting cast, but nobody will turn out to see it, even if it was a labor of love.

This doc is far from perfect, formally it accomplishes nothing new and has opportunities to go places that could have been massive, but these missed opportunities don’t undermine its other accomplishments. It’s imperfect and still does quite a lot.

Frank Ross' newest film, Audrey the Trainwreck, is at once utterly down home and completely philosophical.

Fans of the filmmaker should thrill at the prospect of a new project, but the film's lackadaisical pacing and preoccupation with pulling the rug out from under the audience.

Watching even the most tossed-off gag is worth whatever shortcomings Make Believe has, including its lack of real drama.

A highly entertaining and heartfelt action comedy that ought to steal more laughs than any other film this holiday season.

That Sarah's Key never quite descends into melodrama is a credit to the strength of Scott Thomas' performance, more than to the writing.

Between Eastwood's direction and Dustin Lance Black's screenplay, what you feel leaking off the screen in every scene is missed opportunity.

The doc has won a host of awards at film festivals and it is a policy wonk's dream of a movie, but it is dry, statistic-laden viewing that is unlikely to attract much attention beyond education circles.

A charmingly lo-fi love story.

The Thompsons have a tough task to explain all the machinations in the film's first half but once the scene is set it unravels in an entertaining way, jumping forward a year--but always with flashbacks to that infamous dinner party.

A whipsmart twist on a particular kind of romantic comedy.

Savages is one of Stone's best movies with a ménage et trois love story giving some human dimension to its three young leads.

It's certainly a story worth telling, but hardly as pivotal and all-encompassing as they would like to believe, all of which makes the effort far more exhausting than it ever should have been.

To his credit, director Neil Burger either doesn't realize or doesn't care that the material is hokey to the point of unintentional hilarity-if not for the film's intermittent moments of hyper-stylization and its almost crippling sense of self-importance, Limitless might have been a truly unwatchable bore rather than just annoyingly silly and tedious.

Where Rubber veers off the road is that for all its giggly moments and meta-whatever, it's never quite funny enough or scary enough.

With the woes of Wall Street constantly in the headlines, Oliver Stone could not have picked a better time to reignite Wall Street.

Severe and unflinching, The Whistleblower relies on journalistic realism to pack its punch.

The more traditional haunted house feel and fresh focus should please diehards and pull in new fans.

Sadly, the documentary just doesn't have enough coherent passages to make anything about this now seemingly ancient journey compelling for contemporary audiences.

The director's biggest stroke of genius was casting Baruchel.

Apatow has drifted further and further from comedy with every film, but This is 40 is the first where he hasn't even bothered to write any jokes. Instead of snappy dialogue, we get lazy exchanges.

A smart, winning and comic, if at times bittersweet, treat.

Uproariously funny.

Having spent multiple summers in Kashmir as a child, he (Tapa) knows what the average Kashmiri wants and the difficulties they encounter trying to get it. It's what makes Zero Bridge a winning example of modesty in front of the camera and intelligence behind it.

An amiable endeavor, if something of a puff piece.

It's Cronenberg's most willfully weird movie since "Spider," and it should prove a tough sell despite Pattinson's ample star power.

From start to finish, Brewer's remake exudes the look and style of its forebearers: semi-awkward dance choreography, clunky dialogue and an obedience to formula that borders on cliché. But somehow, it works.

Clint Eastwood and a superb cast hit it out of the park in Trouble With The Curve, a great entertainment filled with heart, humor, family drama and fantastic acting.

Playing like a mash-up between "Enter the Void" and "The Raid," Day of Reckoning is an uncommonly assured slice of bargain bin cinema, as arresting to watch as it is impossible to comprehend.

Hilarious and heartfelt from start to finish, this is the best Shrek of them all, and that's no fairy tale.

Biutiful, which gets it name from a child's misspelling of the word, is in itself a beautiful, mesmerizing film and Iñárritu's masterpiece.

A superb vehicle for Sacha Baron Cohen's over-the-top socio-political outrageousness.

Despite its ultimate lack of profundity, Gainsbourg is certain to still be a sufficiently engaging and meaningful experience to enthrall the initiated while stimulating the curiosity of the uninitiated.

One of the best kid's films of the year, full of delight and action and charm and comedy.