Take the Lead mixes classical dance with hip-hop gyrations and features perhaps the most scrubbed set of delinquents since "West Side Story."

Turns one of the greatest geniuses of German literature into a love-struck rapscallion.

Speaking of Tarantino, who should never be allowed to act under any circumstance, he's cast in a key storytelling role, and it's one indication among many that the whole project is little more than a stunt.

The material is familiar and the ending is corny, but Huston's acting and directing keep the comedy-drama likable if not very imaginative.

The title refers to the commercialization of just about everything in modern society, and Ferrara brings touches of his ornery filmmaking imagination to bear on the pessimistic parable.

Essentially The Conspirator is a courtroom drama with occasional bulletins from the outside world. It plays out to its predictable end with the doggedness, if not the verve, of a "Law and Order" episode.

At best, Helena's wiggy adventures recall such Jean Cocteau films as "Orpheus" and "Blood of a Poet." At worst, they resemble the Vegas act of Cirque du Soleil.

Some movies are so flagrantly awful that they achieve classic status. To this rarefied company we must now add The Astronaut Farmer.

Caine acts dignified throughout, but there's no way to dignify dreck.

The story is unmemorable, but the characters are engaging and their predicaments are all too recognizable.

The facts of this true-life story are highly dramatic, and they'd have much more power without the sappy sentimentality Beresford needlessly adds to the movie.

Hicks doesn't always keep the story clear and compelling, but Hopkins is in top form.

If the film is too similar to Ritchie's first movie, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" with its multiple story lines, complex plotting, and double-crossing antics, it's at least colorfully told with dialogue that shines with the inventive slang of Ritchie's screenplay.

The sensationalistic beginning and needless mumbo-jumbo ending aside, this is a female buddy film with bite.

Gentle and life-affirming, if too sentimental in the end.

The screenplay is overwrought at times, but the acting is superb by any standard.

It tells its story crisply, and it doesn't hesitate to exlore the seamy side - i.e., the money side - of the racing game, along with the usual stuff about galloping to glory.

Himmler in one of his letters says that “in life, one must be always decent, courageous and kind-hearted,” and “decent” is apparently how he saw himself right up to the time he swallowed a cyanide capsule after he was captured by the British.

While it roots the heroine's compassion in her Christian beliefs, it suggests Indian occultism is equally powerful. And the last third is a lackluster barrage of stalking, shooting, and fighting. Too bad the movie doesn't ride into its own sunset about an hour earlier.

Less a heart-stirring historical study than a nostalgic fantasy, built on a foundation no firmer than Cruise's superstar persona.

Poehler is the life of the party and steals just about every scene, although there's not much to steal.

The black comedy Noise may be a one-joke movie but it's a resonant one.

Whether this is all a case of life imitating art or vice versa matters little. Few of these movies aspire to art. What counts is the trajectory of uplift.

The one full-fledged inspiration of Outrageous Fortune is the pairing of Long and Midler into a team that adds up to even more than the sum of its parts.

Smart and surprising.

Kicks off the Oedipus theme that gallops through the story.

Stiller strives to be a wild and wacky villain, Vaughn endeavors to be a likable and average hero, and both fall flat on their faces, like everything else in this unspeakably stupid comedy.

The Adam Project won’t win any prizes for originality. But, thanks to its self-awareness, the sci-fi comedy adventure’s amalgamation of homages never actually grate.