Lena Dunham, the writer-director-star of the microbudget Tiny Furniture, has a distinctive comedic take on the world – a kind of haggard spiritedness.

The Bhutto family is often referred to as the "Pakistani Kennedys." After seeing this film, that designation doesn't sound so glib anymore.

An overstuffed odyssey that, while disappointing on many levels, has standout performances by Paul Giamatti.

The movie, at its best, is compellingly odd, which is also the most accurate description of Carrey's performance.

A love-it-or-hate-it movie. Put me in the (sort of) hate-it column. My slight qualification here is because Darren Aronofsky's movie starring Natalie Portman as an increasingly unhinged ballerina gets points for being unlike anything else that's out there.

I would rather have seen a documentary about the real women instead of this workmanlike dramatic rendition.

In its final half-hour, all the stops are pulled. The movie is still wildly implausible but at least it's hurtling forward. The only thing missing from the proceedings is a windmill for John to tilt at.

A long wallow in misery and, after a while, the pain morphs into polemic.

Tries mightily to make the case that Spitzer was brought down by his political enemies.

Morning Glory isn't targeting the dumbing down of TV news. It's pandering to the audience that craves the dumbness.

It's more than enough that the Wilsons were punished and pilloried for telling the truth. We don't need to see them sanctified by righteousness.

As a testament to positive thinking, 127 Hours will probably stand as a ringing affirmation for reckless survivalists. For those of us not so affirmed, Boyle's paean to heroism – a better title for it might have been "A Farewell to Arm" – is merely the best gross-out music video ever made.

Described in the film's production notes as a "classic French comedy" – although I've never heard of it – and perhaps this is the core problem. French farce doesn't mix well with English gooniness.

For the most part, plays like a pretty good TV police procedural.

Although von Trotta seems to regard von Bingen – played with a cool ferocity by Barbara Sukowa – as some sort of medieval feminist precursor, there are enough fault lines in the portrayal to subvert hagiography.

He is the least intrusive of great directors, and Boxing Gym, which is about a gym in Austin, Texas, is so offhandedly observant that, for a while, you may wonder if much of anything is really going on.

With scrupulous fairness, Ferguson meticulously lays out for us the whole sordid mess.

Despite the all-too-harrowing familiarity of these scenes, they seem more like illustrations than dramatizations of trauma.

Eastwood and Morgan are not con artists, but their awe here is so unblinking that their film comes across as a transcendent con job.

There is one aspect of Conviction that is a real cheat. No mention is made that Kenny, six months after his release from prison, accidentally fell and fatally fractured his skull. Did the filmmakers think that our knowing this would wreck a happy ending? For a film that prides itself on its realism, this omission is unspeakably wimpy.

Erotic comedies are often attempted but rarely realized. Tamara Drewe is proof that sexy and funny need not be mutually exclusive.

RED is a poisoned valentine to the CIA, and that approach, too, is in keeping with its cold-war sentimentality.

Disney studios, director Randall Wallace, and his screenwriter Mike Rich, obviously targeting a "faith-based" audience à la "The Blind Side," lard the soundtrack with "Oh Happy Day" and readings from the Book of Job.

A more contrived and tenuous premise you would be hard-pressed to find, although, since this is a romantic comedy, suspension of disbelief comes with the territory.

It's effective but schematic storytelling.

Even though the various patients too often come across as cutesy case studies, Fleck and Boden for the most part avoid working their lives up into some grand-scale "Cuckoo's Nest"-style microcosm of humanity.

The problem is, the geek in question, at least as Jesse Eisenberg plays him, doesn't have the emotional expansiveness to fill out a movie. Perhaps sensing this, the filmmakers play out the story line from multiple points of view and crowd the stage with a pageant of voluble supporting characters.

The film is provocative but also scattershot and not nearly as conclusive as it pretends to be. The almost complete absence of naysayers in any of the sections is a tip-off that the game is rigged.