Inexplicably, there are people who still haven't had enough of these movies. The first was a nifty novelty. Now the appeal has worn threadbare.

Texas Killing Fields begins along the lines of a police procedural and might have been perfectly absorbing if it had played by the rules: strict logic, attention to detail, reference to technical police work. Unfortunately, the movie often seems to stray from such discipline.

There is nothing to complain about except the film's deadening predictability and the bland, shallow characters.

For me, Richard Jenkins is the heart of Norman. How often I've admired him; even in unworthy roles, he has such strength, he never seems the need to try.

Margin Call employs an excellent cast who can make financial talk into compelling dialogue. They also can reflect the enormity of what is happening: Their company and their lives are being rendered meaningless.

Though I usually take pleasure in Almodovar's sexy darkness, this film induces queasiness.

Here is a film of great beauty and attention, and watching it is a form of meditation. Sometimes films take a great stride outside the narrow space of narrative tradition and present us with things to think about. Here mostly what I thought was, why must man sometimes be so cruel?

A home invasion thriller that may set a record for the number of times the characters point loaded pistols at one another's heads. First we're afraid somebody will get shot. Then we're afraid nobody will be.

Winner of Sundance's grand jury prize for world cinema, Happy, Happy is a very strange film. Yet I was happy to be watching. It is short and intense enough that it always seems on track, even if the train goes nowhere.

This new Footloose is a film without wit, humor or purpose.

This version of The Thing, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., provides such graphic and detailed views of the creature that we are essentially reduced to looking at special effects, and being aware that we are. Think how little you ever really saw in the first "Alien" movie, and how frightening it was.

World on a Wire is slowed down compared to most Fassbinder. He usually evokes overwrought passions, sudden angers and jealousies, emotional explosions, people hiding turmoil beneath a surface of pose. Here there's less of that emotional energy. But if you know Fassbinder, you might want to see this as an exercise of his mind, a demonstration of how one of his stories might be transformed by the detachment of science fiction.

The first-time director is Mateo Gil, known for the screenplays of "Open Your Eyes," "The Sea Inside" and "Agora." Ironic, that the film's weakness is its screenplay.

The screenplay shows signs of being inspired by personal memories that still hurt and are still piling up in Michael's mind. Fair enough, but the film doesn't sort this out clearly, and we experience vignettes in search of a story arc.

The Big Year is getting the enthusiastic support of the Audubon Society, and has an innocence and charm that will make it appealing for families, especially those who have had enough whales and dolphins for the year.

The film is reprehensible, dismaying, ugly, artless and an affront to any notion, however remote, of human decency.

The movie's strength is in the acting, with Gosling once again playing a character with an insistent presence.

Real Steel is a real movie. It has characters, it matters who they are, it makes sense of its action, it has a compelling plot. This is the sort of movie, I suspect, young viewers went to the "Transformers" movies looking for.

It's unfair to complain that Weiss seems over the top. The portrayal seems to be accurate.

It's a sweet and sincere family pilgrimage, even if a little too long and obvious. Audiences seeking uplift will find it here.

At the end, there is no great revelation, but Huppert has succeeded once again in making us wonder what's going on in there.

Students of the Little Movie Glossary may find it funny how carefully Tucker and Dale works its way through upended cliches. I though it had done a pretty complete job already, including the two or three chainsaws and the wood chipper, but I was much gratified at the end when a sawmill turned up.

The film concludes not with a "surprise ending" but with a series of shots that brilliantly summarize all that has gone before. This is masterful filmmaking.

This is a smart, sensitive, perceptive film, with actors well suited to the dialogue. It underlines the difficulty of making connections outside our individual boxes of time and space.

Like another recent feel-good film about the disease, Gus Van Sant's "Restless," it creates a comforting myth. That's one of the things movies are good for.

Munger Road does an efficient, skillful job of audience manipulation using the techniques of darkness and vulnerability, and the truth that a horror not seen is almost always scarier than one you can see.

He seems fueled more by anger and ego than spirituality and essentially abandons his family to play with his guns. It's intriguing, however, how well Butler enlists our sympathy for the character.

The film is confoundingly watchable.