A general lack of charm make this pretty tough to sit through.

This French variation on the backwoods horror movie proves that even a little thematic complexity in the early scenes can yield a substantial payoff when things get going.

As a well-directed star vehicle with a couple of good action sequences, this is good, effective filmmaking, but I was periodically bored; when Ford and Pitt aren't lighting up the screen nothing much happens.

There's charm and insight in the candid depictions of the teenagers' sexual experiences and discussions.

I'm not sure how much has been gained in the updating.

You can't set the comedy bar much lower than spoofing the old Rock Hudson-Doris Day romances.

I was engaged by Chick's characters...But that point passed pretty soon after the credits rolled, and nothing has come back to haunt me since.

One thing I especially like about it, apart from the flavorsome 40s decor in color, is that it's silly in much the same way that many small 40s comedies were.

Jaglom's 14th consists of his usual weakly improvised relationship comedy.

The problem is that happy endings this strident and overextended begin to seem somewhat desperate.

Despite all the anguished huffing and puffing, there isn't a single authentic moment in it, and all you're left with in the end is the fading memory of two overscaled, Oscar-bait performances.

Brewer knows how to guide his leads through this improbable story, and he kept me interested in spite of everything.

The murder trial and the possibility of a real attack on the attorney nicely offset the sexual gamesmanship, though the movie is badly compromised by a final left turn into serious drama and plot machination. Up until that point, it's an uncommonly shrewd and funny farce.

This begins to get interesting in the home stretch, as the woman's chronic deception begins to catch up with her, but for the most part it's an extended Geritol commercial.

This is familiar but atmospheric, with good performances by Peter Falk, Blythe Danner, Joey Bilow, Michael Santoro, Merle Kennedy, and former football pro Don Meredith.

Bardwell manages a sincere portrait of what it's like to be young and closeted.

The involved backstory and Hartley's own generic music both prove burdensome; the main attraction is the cast's amusing way of handling Hartley's mannerist dialogue and conceits.

Slack and saccharine more often than it's funny.

This is the scariest movie I've ever seen.

This is an ideal straight-ahead version of Jesus's story, built around Christopher Plummer's offscreen narration, for people who don't already know all the details and can't follow all of "The Passion of the Christ" without a synopsis.

It's more like a feature-length music video, with grainy images illustrating songs from (Youngs) recent album of the same title and actors lip-synching to his reedy vocals.

A genuine charmer by George Roy Hill, a director best known for such ersatz charmers as Butch Cassidy and The Sting. His crowd-pleasing instincts have been subsumed by a bracing technical assurance here; the contrivances are still there, but they're presented with a smooth and rare professionalism.

Sitting on the shelf since 2008, when it was muscled out of the marketplace by "Cadillac Records," Sony's glossy, star-studded movie about Leonard. But it's clearly the better movie, earthier, wittier, and more intimate in its treatment of America's racial divide in the 1950s.

Distinguishes itself with three-dimensional characters and an engaging storyline.

Crary struggles to explain the eruption and influence of the extreme rock underground that began with the late-70s "no wave" scene and eventually generated acts like Swans and Sonic Youth.

The end credits are accompanied by clips of Porter from the Emmy-winning documentary Gridiron Gang (1993), which prove that key scenes from this movie were lifted straight from life and that life needs better writers.

Director Simon West hits just the right note between self-conscious silliness and real dramatic intensity in this 1997 action thriller, which uses typecast actors to make the characters' one-liners and predictable behavior resonate.

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are both such guarded celebrities that I have a hard time imagining them as lovers, a problem this Chicago-based romantic fantasy surmounted by isolating them from each other almost entirely.