Grace doesn't need a high body count to frighten, although its gore is stomach-turning. It's a horrifying meditation on the unbreakable union of mother and child.

In nearly every moment, an incredibly rich mix of their music, groundbreaking, defining, which alone would almost be enough. That It Might Get Loud comes with a righteous story too is a lovely bonus.

If only Spread were half as entertaining as a Van Halen video.

A brilliant, often grotesquely bizarre allegory on life in Hungary from World War II to the present.

To Twohy's credit, he does a decent job of keeping you guessing -- and interested -- until almost the very end.

A consummate entertainment that echoes the rhythms and attitudes of classic Hollywood, it's a satisfying throwback to those old-fashioned movie fantasies where impossible dreams do come true. And, in this case, it really happened. Twice.

Somewhere between the rabbit-hole absurdist comedy of Charlie Kaufman and a navel-gazing Woody Allen film is the somberly humorous indie Cold Souls.

The action is mostly brisk and bracing and the battleground, particularly Cobra's headquarters -- a vast network of tunnels under the polar ice cap -- are wonderfully imagined, as are the futuristic machines at the Joes' disposal. Basically, the Joes are not bad, it's just that they could have been much better with a little less conversation, a little more action.

Beeswax has a rhythmic quality, and it eschews conventional plotting for sharp observation of human strengths and foibles.

Self-discovery always comes with a cost, and in Bliss the price is a great one. It is mesmerizing to watch it unfold in the lives of these two young people.

The movie's not without charm -- the creature effects are fun and the mix of vampires, zombies (et al) is amusing. That's not enough to save it from the Curse of the Predictable Plot Twist and the Blight of the Creeping Shadows.

At best, they entertain in a "people say the darndest things" kind of way. But they do support the notion that people still fall in love and find a way to make it work for a lifetime, which is about as happy an ending as you could wish for.

Entertaining portrait.

Any sort of new insight into comedy's darker themes, to say nothing of life's, eludes Funny People. Instead Sandler and Rogen and the rest are left to wander aimlessly, with tedious comedy gigs, an even more tedious faux sitcom and relatively vapid relationships masquerading as a plot.

A powerful and effective piece of advocacy filmmaking, but it's difficult to watch it without thinking of subtitles like "The Place Where Evil Dwells" or "The Little Town With the Really Big Secret." Which is no accident.

Are you hungering for that rare vampire movie with serious intellectual heft, ravishing undead, biting passion and a healthy splash of irony as well as iron in all that spilled red blood? Wait no longer, Korean auteur Park Chan-wook's Thirst should satisfy.

Perfectly calibrated for the pre-adolescent set, highlighting broad physical comedy and themes of kid empowerment and featuring one of the stars from "High School Musical."

Either you go for this sort of extreme, senseless gore or you don't. With its plot and lead performance, The Collector is, at least, an unusual specimen.

A gritty, deceptively low-key, no-fuss, no-frills movie of consistent originality and surprise in which suspense arises straight up from the heroine's evolving character.

It's a kicky, slightly exhausting look at a bygone era of low-rent moviemaking, whose colorful trove of film clips should delight fans of cinematic esoterica, nostalgic schlock and high octane drive-in fare.

A deeply involving look at people living permanently on the knife-edge of danger, Flame & Citron does more than radically rethink the World War II resistance drama. Its biggest accomplishment may be to make these historical conflicts and dilemmas seem surprisingly contemporary.

Gotta Dance is a feel-better movie. Warm and cozy with just the tiniest dollop of tension.

Subtlety and nuance mark both the film's dialogue and performances. It's hard to see how Dancy and Byrne could be any better.

You, the Living suggests that we would do well to discover the joy we find in each other that so often goes along with the pain.

In the Loop is no precious show dog. It's a snarling, frothing little beastie straining at its leash.

Clocking in at more than two hours, the movie teeters between psychological horror and violent blood-letting and, as such, probably won't completely satisfy fans in either camp.

Conveniently, everyone wears their symptoms on their sleeves, but because the characters are so haphazardly drawn, their pain remains elusive to the end.

Ironically for a film revolving around psychotherapy, Shrink doesn't stand up to analysis.

Something seldom seen: an original romantic comedy.

It's intelligent, provocative and intensely dramatic. Its subject matter may be tough but it is as powerfully authentic as anyone could want.

Death in Love is occasionally pretentious but always riveting. Strap yourself in, especially for those gruesome flashbacks of Nazi medical experiments -- this is one endurance test that's worth the effort.

This one-of-a-kind film cycle has become as comfortable and reliable as an old shoe, providing a degree of dependability that's becoming increasingly rare.

A funny and endearing character comedy whose extra-brief, 70-minute running time proves perfectly adequate for its slender, episodic story.

Like a wayward love child of Lenny Bruce and the Three Stooges, Brüno is an idiot savant of penetration -- breaking through borders, boundaries and anything that resembles good taste on his way to whipping up as much cultural anarchy as he can. I would guess Brüno is holding on to an R rating for this sublimely spicy soufflé by the skin of his, well, let's just not say.

Unlike a lot of institutional raunch in today's comedy, Humpday finds laughs out of what is rarely made explicit between buddies.

Blood's only surprise is that the filmmakers landed Gianna (also known as Gianna Jun, or Jeon Ji-hyun) for the lead. The South Korean megastar proves a more-than-capable action heroine, despite the creative detritus around which she has to navigate.

Not a remake -- it just feels like one.

A vibrant and joyous new documentary.

You can reliably forecast most of the beats in Blayne Weaver's breezy romantic comedy Weather Girl, but that doesn't diminish the small pleasures the movie delivers.

Entertaining, nostalgic and well-organized documentary.

This is a film with a mission: Get to the grand-gesture climax without disturbing any clichés in its path.

A lovely bit of memory and mischief.

Simultaneously an art film and a crime film, Mann's latest work may not give you a ton to hang on to emotionally, but the beauty and skill of the filmmaking keep you tightly in its grasp.

A sometimes lively, sometimes listless wilderness adventure that will keep the kids cool and mildly entertained for a little while.

Overwhelmingly tense, overflowing with crackling verisimilitude, it's both the film about the war in Iraq that we've been waiting for and the kind of unqualified triumph that's been long expected from director Kathryn Bigelow.

There is always a fine line between moving and manipulation in telling heartbreaking stories, and it is here that Cassavetes largely fails us. Where restraint might have raised up My Sister's Keeper, a heavy hand has brought it down.

If you believe that bringing the questionable virtues of "American Idol" to Afghanistan would do that beleaguered nation no favors, the remarkable documentary Afghan Star will change your mind in an instant.

Michelle Pfeiffer is back, and her reappearance in Cheri, her best role in quite some time, underlines not only how much she's been missed but also how much the world of film has lost by her absence.

While Giovinazzo's crude approach undercuts his occasional stab at gravitas, "Cracktown's" cast keeps things in the ballpark of relatable humanity. Best of the lot is Kerry Washington.

The Stoning of Soraya M. goes well beyond its angry didacticism and its specific indictment of men's oppression of women to achieve the impact of a Greek tragedy through its masterful grasp of suspense and group psychology, and some superb acting.

At the end, all is horrifically explained, the body count inflates, yet hardly anything makes sense. In Papa Lynch's films, little is explained, yet because he's so gifted at mining our deepest fears and scariest desires, logic is excused.

Kabir Khan's New York -- part Bollywood potboiler, part overwrought examination of the war on terror -- is a slice of the Big Apple that you should skip.

Exhilarating or excruciating, depending on your point of view.

A sour romantic comedy, only sporadically amusing.

Just a good old-fashioned romance, one in which people actually bring out the best in one another rather than the worst. How novel is that?

There is no real plot either; instead the narrative seems designed to get this prehistoric pair from one funny sketch to the next, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

Less than the sum of its parts. The connective tissue of its episodes and set pieces -- some of which pack a memorable punch -- is not a compelling story line but the painterly physicality of the movie's stop-motion animation.

Any horror movie with the moxie to play Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" during a zombie attack can't be all bad.

An apocalyptic documentary that is as beautiful as it is damning.

Frightening, powerful stuff.

Try as they might, the filmmakers never hit the outer reaches of imagination that both Kubrick and Bowie did. Which is not to say the film completely implodes into a black hole either.

Essential viewing.

So professionally done you rarely have the luxury of taking your eyes off the screen.

In his illuminating, timelessly timely Sex Positive documentary, Daryl Wein calls attention both to unjustly neglected pioneering AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz and his still widely ignored groundbreaking promotion of safe sex.

Best when exploring the nitty gritty of N'Dour's life as a musician, favorite son and cultural ambassador.

In Tetro, nearly every time Coppola should have clung to intimacy, he opts for excess. Especially tedious are the meta excerpts from staged productions -- overcompensation trying to masquerade as illumination. Regrettable since there is such fine work being done in the smaller moments.

There is a sort of perverse brilliance or brilliant perverseness to be found in this story of a bachelor party gone terribly wrong.

What makes Seraphine, directed and co-written by Martin Provost, so exceptional is that it neither condescends to nor romanticizes its subject.

A self-satisfied film about insecure people, a quirky and episodic comic drama that squanders its genuine assets and ends up not as special as it tries to be.

Like its characters, the film keeps getting lost too, stumbling as it struggles to keep kids and adults from squirming in their seats.

Doesn't skimp on the life lessons or instant transformations. But the movie primarily exists to give amiable Everywoman Vardalos the chance to regain her kefi.

The dramatic payoffs are either nonexistent or overly manipulated, and for a journey that starts with so much deep-set pain and regret to end with a sentimental twist feels, to use a phrase anathema in Carey's world, off-key.

The Vogels' story is a very specific one, at once more unexpected and more moving than it might seem at first.

Its privileged glimpse deep into unfamiliar spiritual territory has the strength of revelation.

Rarely has any film, let alone an animated one powered by the logic of dream and fantasy, been able to move so successfully -- and so effortlessly -- through so many different kinds of cinematic territory.

With that fire in his belly, Raimi's Drag Me to Hell does everything we want a horror film to do: It is fearsomely scary, wickedly funny and diabolically gross.

The film manages to be anything but dark; whimsy and sweet irony are laced throughout, a warmhearted blend that turned it into the surprise winner of 2008's Oscar for foreign-language film.

Glatzer aims to wring laughter out of this desperation but succeeds only in producing a series of contrived characters and situations that make "The Breakfast Club" look like an unfiltered documentary.

Stephenson's a true original, worthy of her own reality TV show. As Pressure Cooker proves: Anything is possible.

A compelling monotony, but one that's never quite pleasure, never quite pain and, therefore, never quite an experience.

This is a gentle comedy, both funny and melancholy, about a timid soul who discovers the necessity of embracing life in all its absurdity and unlooked-for joy.

Elliott has created a wonderfully rich battle for propriety in Easy Virtue. The humor might sting, but the pain is worth the pleasure.

It's not so much a movie as a series of running antiquity gags, good for a comedy club, not so much for the multiplex.

The miss-and-hit parodies score best when focusing on the Julia Stiles-styled girl next door.

The Boys is so heartfelt that it elicits a sense that complex creative relationships may ultimately elude explication, leaving Jeffrey Sherman to speculate that the friction between his father and his uncle was what brought their songs alive.

If you're a "Terminator" fan, though, "Salvation" is mostly worth it. The machines are mindless, yes, but there are enough pyrotechnics and heavy artillery to feel like Armageddon squared. And when the story starts to crumble around Bale, Worthington is there to pick up the pieces.

Filmmaking at its most fearless, with Ostergaard creating a suspenseful, harrowing account of his original key subject, known only as "Joshua."

French films traditionally take France and its eternal appeal for granted. Summer Hours is the rare film that worries about that, worries about the future, and that proves to be invaluable.

The leads aren't only miscast -- Brody over-mopes and the usually wonderful Ruffalo seems out of sorts as a rascally schemer -- but interest in the con plot fades as the director's bag of tricks empties further.

Ultimately everything wilts under the weight of the complicated story lines of its many saints and sinners.

The film has slow sections that test the viewer's patience. But it also touches on themes of family, heroism and nationalism, and the finale, which has plenty of surprises and rewarding references for fans of the genre, is worth the wait.

Petzold, who has a crisp style and sharp sense of the visual, is too talented and imaginative to allow his film to become predictable. Rather, Jerichow offers implicit, sardonic social comment as well as a compelling playing out of the eternal triangle.

Though it doesn't always work, it's an idea with its heart in the right place and, paired with nonshock comedy, it's a nice change of pace.

There is always a risk with having such a singular focus on a single theme; you might wake up to find the walls of that favored niche are closing in on you. And that is where we find Egoyan in Adoration.

As Julia struggles to survive her bad decisions, the film struggles to survive Julia. We never get a good look at her demons, just the havoc they wreak.

A trifling historical fantasy, gossip wrapped in gossamer, beautiful to watch but it takes only a light wind to leave the story in tatters.

This is pretty unremarkable stuff that has little to excite outside of its nicely done twirl-and-dip sections, choreographed here by West Coast swing dancing guru Robert Royston.

That's about all Next Day Air can muster by way of invention, trying to slap a new face on a gaggle of rote gestures in a vain attempt to cover its own uselessness. But no matter how big the guns it draws, every shot is a dud.