This film is brave enough to admit that not all failed movie careers are the result of evil corporate suits, and Affleck makes us care that this likable but weak-minded man threw away what was solid and good in his life for the chimera of fame.

A profession of faith, made with the confident disrespect of a true believer.

Baldwin's perfectly impacted performance as a tough-love provider (the actor gets some of the best lines in the movie).

By the time Princesa finally slides into halfhearted melodrama in its last quarter, we're only too happy to follow Fernanda back to the rim and a little excitement.

Charming, animated retelling of stories from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books.

Saving Shiloh takes place in 2005, but in its setting and sensibility, it feels like 1930s Walton's Mountain.

Incorporating surrealist humor and an ironic patina, Lord of War tries for irreverent satire, but the film (and especially Cage) is too muted and distant.

This glorified infomercial glosses over the underlying tension of a young man's introduction into a society whose materialistic, capitalist tendencies are diametrically opposed to his country's values.

If you cut through Lucas' thickets of self-reflexivity, metaphysical mumbo jumbo and banal potshots at media violence, there are three ace performances here by actors who can elevate and enliven even as mediocre a piece of material as this.

There's something refreshing about a film set in Los Angeles that gets its L.A.-ness right -- the difference in vibe between Silver Lake and the Hollywood Hills, or the types of people at CityWalk versus Saks. It is that sense of specificity, both geographic and emotional, that gives Shopgirl its pull.

The less rosy message of Catch a Fire is that aggression breeds aggression.

It's a fresh installment in what appears to be a self-perpetuating sitcom of British life.

The film quickly becomes a vortex of father-son bonding and rivalry, and what could have been a mere travelogue becomes a bumpy exploration of male identity and communication.

Made may look like a Wong Kar-Wai movie -- the cinematographer, Chris Doyle, has brought to the film the dark, rich romanticism of the movies he's shot for the Hong Kong prodigy -- but the sensibility is Woody Allen, only sweeter.

The small-town Irish feel of the movie is infectious, and McGrath uncovers some great supporting players.

Bell forces us to see characters from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks in a distinctly human light, neither ennobling nor pitying.

Now, Soderbergh has made a movie so cool it's practically comatose. Sputtering along from one half-cocked gag line and self-satisfied in-joke to the next, Ocean's Thirteen is as slapdash and slipshod a three-quel as any in this summer's box-office sweepstakes.

This crazily ambitious film is saddled with a musical score that's often jarringly jolly and a screenplay so busy jumping from platoon to platoon that no single story ever takes hold. Yet, all is not lost. The photography and period detailing are excellent, and Taub, who displays real feeling for the innocent bystanders of war, finds the occasional small, surprising moment.

The imperfect yet affecting new film Beautiful Boy, based on memoirs by the real-life Nic and David, examines addiction and its effects on one family. But it’s also a meditation on memory and the difficulty of reconciling the happiness of the past with a present that’s become too sad to bear.

Pablo Berger's subtle satire Torremolinos 73 is almost there. Almost.

Slow and stately.

The first 20 minutes of Wolfgang Petersen’s new action adventure, Air Force One, are so thrillingly choreographed (and so very, very loud), it’s all the more disappointing that the balance of the movie tends to move less like a Stealth bomber and more like a jalopy — jerking fitfully from plot hole to plot hole, only occasionally finding momentum.

Here, it's the creepily quiet stuff, the stuff that might be rushed over in a different movie -- Annie shivering alone in bed or being visited by her dead grandmother as she hangs out the wash -- that makes the film more than a generic distraction.

Some amusing new characters are added (love the Russian doorman), and the 2-D animation, simple and serviceable after a tortured production history, is fine. But the jewel in the movie’s crown is its gorgeous pastel palette, alternating with warm earth tones.

The film offers an impressive melding of quietly radical images and ideas with, yes, an old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing holiday tearjerker.

A running spoof of "The Godfather" is especially hilarious, as are numerous, sly digs at all things Disney.

Director Tony Kaye may be reaching for opera, but screenwriter David McKenna has set his sights distinctly lower.

The laugh always comes first, and Myers' puppy-dog tenacity to that cast-iron tenet of low comedy, disarming and even somewhat charming in the first film, now has an air of careerist desperation about it.