Almost competent but not quite watchable.

In this heady documentary, TV footage of left-wing social critic Paul Goodman being interviewed by conservative host William F. Buckley Jr. in 1966 makes one realize how low public discourse in America has sunk since then: despite the men's political differences, their freewheeling discussion, touching on topics from education to pornography, is playful instead of rancorous.

The tendency that often sinks Angelina Jolie's performances - overemphasizing certain naturalistic behaviors at the expense of well-rounded characterization - more or less sinks her first film as writer-director.

This French biopic of Nicolas Sarkozy plays like a competent TV miniseries, moving briskly and focusing on the hustle and bustle of electoral politics as the protagonist climbs toward the presidency.

Kitano is clearly enjoying his powers as a master of the form, and the movie invites the viewer to share in his enjoyment.

Feels particularly mechanical. The movie isn't a complete waste: it adequately re-creates the comics' Dickensian characterization, and every frame brims with clever details. But once the action begins, Spielberg's incessant, force-fed "fun" quickly gets exhausting.

The movie is quite enjoyable, though, redeemed by Crowe's trademark sincerity and assured handling of oddball character actors.

This may seem slick and sentimental, but beneath the surface is a film every bit as morbid as "A.I. Artificial Intelligence," which also used a nonhuman protagonist to contemplate human death on a mass scale.

This effort often manages to duplicate the magical pantomime of the era; a lovely scene in which Bejo drapes herself in the arms of a hung jacket as if it were a human lover could have come straight out of a Marion Davies picture.

In this cute 2001 children's feature from the Netherlands, the title cat magically transforms into a woman (Carice von Houten, later of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book) and assists a beat reporter with his field research.

The task of dramatizing this proved too difficult for Niels Arden Oplev when he directed a Swedish adaptation in 2009, but as Fincher demonstrated in "Social Network," he knows how to make information technology eerily seductive. Unfortunately Larsson's salacious plot elements - mass murder, Nazism, and the like - feel just as shallow as they did in the earlier version.

As usual with the series, the movie combines a plot line a toddler could understand with gadgets that would baffle an engineering Ph.D.

Like the earlier film, this one has an airless quality, much of the action taking place in the hushed and colorless offices of "the Circus." But whereas the dank tone of "Let the Right One In" served to heighten the moments of poignance and shrieking horror, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy begins to seem phlegmatic after a while.

Never really delivers on that promise, mainly because its scenes of two brilliant men discussing the nature of the subconscious can't compare with Cronenberg's visual rendering of that subconscious in earlier movies.

I found this sequel more tolerable than Sherlock Holmes (2009), though I'm not sure whether it's actually better or I've just accepted the putrid idea of turning Arthur Conan Doyle's brainy detective into just another quipping action hero.

Even with the bar lowered, this seems appallingly bad, a lazy assortment of weak punch lines, sentimental music cues, and trite situations.

As with many R-rated studio comedies, the transgressive humor isn't nearly as offensive as the phony sentiment that's supposed to redeem it, supplied here in stale scenes of the sitter bonding with his little charges.

Documentary maker Edmon Roch spins a zippy yarn of Pujol's improbable exploits from archival footage, talking heads, and clips from classic espionage dramas.

Rife with earthy details and poetic associations, the movie often advances like a daydream.

If you can tolerate the overbearing music (think John Williams at his most manipulative), this is relatively painless, thanks to a lighthearted tone and some energetic lead performances.

Whether the character is supposed to be a stand-in for Cody, who grew up in the western 'burbs of Chicago and has since won an Oscar, is more than I can say, but the movie suffers from the sort of self-pitying fog that can envelop a writer when he dives into his own malaise.

This is jammed with cliches but completely engrossing, in the manner of a movie ardently in love with its own bullshit.

Actor John Turturro follows his charming and colorful travel documentary "Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy" (2009) with this assured and freewheeling look at the music of Naples (2010).

Among the other characters are an African-American TV writer (Kali Hawk) who hates black people and a widower (Erik Palladino) who stumbles onto a kidnapping case. The latter development provides the film with a denouement that's dramatically valid if overly neat.

The leads are the whole show, and the understated visuals give them room to make the material their own. But none of the other characters is all that fleshed out (Eddie Marsan, as the woman's cruel husband, hasn't got much to do), and despite having shot the entire film on location, Considine never establishes much sense of place.

Most of the film feels recycled from sexually explicit art movies dating back at least to "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) and continuing with movies like Patrice Chéreau's "Intimacy" (2001) or Götz Spielmann's "Antares" (2004). With nothing new in its characters, settings, or themes, Shame has little to offer except McQueen's style, which does little to elucidate anything around it.

Fortunately for the company, Largo turns out to be a formidable knife fighter in the corporate sense; fortunately for this sleek, empty thriller, he turns out to be a formidable knife fighter in the street sense too.

This male weepie is ridden with cliches (Farina's character tends to a pigeon coop on his roof, for God's sake) and climaxes with a predictable act of self-abnegation.