The problem is that once you get past the barriers that Jewish players dramatically overcame between the early 20th century and post World War II, the rest is precipitously less interesting.

A film about how outwardly alienating our circles are (much to the detriment of our careers) and how caustic our supposedly nurturing intimacies can be at the same time.

The entire cast is superb. Crowe's an ideal Robin Hood-born to play the role-he's fully in command but human to the core. He owns it.

The script is ridiculous, the bodies are great and the film skates so long on the line between knowingly bad and bad that by the time the body count hits 100 and the booby count hits 1000, we've lost track of the difference.

Though the film is a fairly plastic British period piece with all the intimacy of a Hitachi Wand, the script captures some delicate and intelligent facets of a tensely conflicted era.

Sitting through The Winning Season you marvel at how it obsessively duplicates all such films that came before but still consistently thwarts your impulse to dismiss it out of hand.

Writer/director Chris Ordal's debut feature is not a documentary nor is it precisely a biopic. Instead the drama captures the artist at a pivotal moment in time.

Michael Apted opts for a certain dated and mannered appeal with a whiff of nostalgia for more innocent times, which lends added enchantment.

A refreshing, hilarious and heartwarming movie for everyone.

Thompson's brutality and misogyny are on full display, but it is too slick, there is little suspense or energy, and the whole affair has a curiously embalmed quality.

The result is an initial comedic buzz, but the further these women plunge into hot water - and are forced to confront their personal and professional hang-ups - the more the story turns screechy and obnoxious.

Kids will fall in love with it as a movie treat full of heart, laughs and fantastic songs, and it could have crossover appeal as a Valentine date night treat thanks to all its pointy-hatted romance.

While "Role Models" mined riches even in the well-plowed comedic soil of cretins befriending kids, Wanderlust's equally musty city-vs-country culture clash plot finds only flecks of hilarity in mostly bland-to-bold mediocrity.

The Book of Eli takes the violent, gritty feel of a spaghetti western, marries it with elements of "The Road," places it in the future and gives it a spiritual twist.

Pleasant is an underrated value in moviegoing, and pleasant is a word that describes director Sue Bourne's look at the world of amateur Irish dance competition in spades.

Directorially, the film takes a few too many trips into prosaic slow motion.

The pace is solid and engaging without putting you on the edge of your seat-you won't be looking at your watch, which means it's at least worth the time spent.

While it is captivating stylistically, and the primer on the China/Taiwan relationship is great fodder for political geeks, even in its deepest moments of intrigue and pathos this is a cable TV movie at best.

In short, if you like her, you’ll likely love her after the film, which I suspect is timed to usher in a return world tour.

Performances are generally first-rate with Hopkins exhibiting an ease and laid-back approach that serves Adam perfectly.

For the most part, though, Who Do You Love does a marvelous job of recreating the times and the music and, most of all, of bringing to life this behind-the-scenes giant of the music business.

It's funny, clever, touching and real.

A crime saga cobbled together from scraps of genre predecessors, Deadfall's unbelievable silliness escalates at every turn.

The movie was written and directed by Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Crash) and when stripped to its logline, it's pretty ridiculous.

This comic fantasy will delight kids and parents alike.

A movie that overrules logic irritates its audience; we don't like to be reminded that there's a writer pulling the strings. And here, the POV horror is a conceit as well as a distraction, a crutch to create suspense from shaky, dark footage.

Insidious could have been something special: a horror movie that actually horrifies without resorting to gore. Instead, thanks to too many cheap jokes and a bit of silly music, it falls short.

Where the actress succeeds, all but disappearing into the role of Thatcher, the rest of the film is a bizarre amalgamation of archival footage, half-baked montages, hallucinations that push the bounds of poetic license straight into the gray area of bad taste, and plain old tedium.