The Coen brothers’ new movie, set in Hollywood in 1951, brings easy laughs but dissipates from memory moments later, like the cheesy films to which it pays homage – or, perhaps, mocks.

Is it too much to ask that he take a risk next time and kill somebody off, however much we’re used to having them in the “Trek” universe?

The filmmakers do everything they can to balance levity and leavening. The subject says "drama," and the three supporting women deliver well-shaded, understated performances. (Howard shows us how weakness can be just as destructive as malice.)

Super 8 takes its place among the best B-grade science fiction movies of this generation by copying the best of the past 50 years.

For certain movies, the adjectives "formulaic" and "predictable" are complimentary. War Horse is one of them.

This is an extremely simple but likeable film.

The comedy, which verges on farce from time to time, also has the smilingly cynical approach to romance that we identify with the French.

Each major character is complex, none more so than Bill. He's almost Shakespearean in scope.

The Rookie is "Rudy" in a baseball uniform.

Deep as a Canadian lake: Below the placid surface, menacing creatures swim around unseen.

Writer-director Caroline Link (who did the Oscar-nominated "Beyond Silence") adapted Stefanie Zweig's expatriate memoir gracefully, languidly and with full understanding of its heroine.

Howard has never been so grown-up in his handling of tough themes or so inventive in depicting states of mind. Goldsman has never been so down-to-earth or created so touching a character.

You know you’re in a top-drawer Marvel Comics adaptation when even the Stan Lee cameo is clever.

It's a smooth journey across familiar territory to a safe emotional harbor, always professional and occasionally delightful.

Auteuil does an excellent job. He's like Marcello Mastroianni, whose naturalness also deluded people into thinking for a while that he wasn't a versatile actor.

If you liked "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," you're on safe ground here -- Next time, I'd like to see Gedeck serve up a hearty meal instead of a tasty but unfilling appetizer.

Cash made some untamed, exhilarating sounds in its formative days. Walk the Line is strongest when it shows him in love with either his music or his muse.

Allen, rejuvenated by foreign settings, makes us appreciate posh parts of England as he always did Manhattan. (Credit cinematographer Remi Adefarasin for showing us how seductive upper-crust London can be.)

Given a choice between this and the navel-gazing of the novel, I'll take the short ride on a fast machine.

This suspenseful drama reveals pieces of its puzzle steadily and slowly, until the final heartrending picture can be seen at last. Remarkably, it comes from a screenwriter who had never had a feature film produced and a director who had never made one in English.

Wandering, atmospheric, episodic yet strangely appealing story of love.

The film's full of in-jokes, from the Spanish-language billboards to the name of Banderas' character.

Neuwirth vamps up a storm: She's like some silent-screen hellion sending lust rays out of bemused eyes.

A richly satisfying adaptation of Louis Sachar's novel.

They've never been farther into outer space than in The Big Lebowski. Fans (myself included) may cackle at absurd situations and in-jokes. But director Joel and producer Ethan, who write together, have never made so much clamorous ado about nothing. [6 March 1998, p.7E]

Fierce, fast and funny.

If the cast were less likeable, the predictability of the story might become wearisome. (Of course, it’s not likely to be predictable if you’re 9.) But all the actors, especially young Fegley and Laurence, engage us.

Doesn't have the daring lunacy of "Chuck and Buck," the previous collaboration by director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White. Yet it gets closer to the troubled, lonely soul of its main character.