The super-hip style is groovy but doesn't mask the fact that Son of Rambow doesn't really go anywhere special or say anything much. For a film about falling in love with the movies, its insights on them are next to nil.

The genitally ambiguous as well as transsexuals and gay people deserve more than XXY's good intentions.

Subtly acted, with Aridjis showing remarkable trust in her performers, The Favor is that rare film that at every turn exhibits good taste and a sense of restraint.

While writer-director-star Anna Biller often strikes an uneasy balance between camp and spoof, milks the jokes either too much or too little, and isn't a good enough actress to play a bad one (the performances here are purposely arch or vacuous), she's concocted a curio that's as watchable for its intended awfulness as for the morbid curiosity it prompts about what will come next.

The movie hardly allows itself any sharp moments at all -- it's much too sweet-natured to be cruel, and much too cheerful to be angry. It probably could have pushed a few more buttons, but Baby Mama aims to please and succeeds.

Deception would be laughably bad if it weren't so rotely inert.

The freshness and originality that flow through Roman de Gare now burst into full flower, revealing the director's depth and perception.

Focus is really the heart of Morris' unsettling film, which strikes a remarkable balance between art and disturbance, between beauty and pain.

There's something about Hunt's put-upon persona that grates, and it would be nice to see her for once in a role that doesn't call on her to be so angry, short-tempered and disappointed all the time...Still, all in all, Then She Found Me is a warm, entertaining and well-made little movie and an auspicious debut for Hunt the director.

One of the real pluses of Up the Yangtze, aside from its empathy with its subjects, is its striking visual quality. Beijing-based cinematographer Wang Shi Qing has an impeccable eye, often coming up with haunting images that show both the beauty and uncertainty of this pivotal time.

The direction by Gil Cates Jr. is inept at best, and the script by Cates and Marc Weinstock seems to operate under the assumption that trafficking in flabby clichés -- the kindly call girl, the scrappy youngster, the angry dad -- will somehow smooth over the underdeveloped characters.

There's nothing really wrong with all this in theory, but the overall doofiness of the execution is finally too much to overcome. The filmmakers come off like their protagonist, wide-eyed tourists in an exotic realm. If you've been looking for a martial arts film to take granny and the kids to, this might be the one, but a Jackie Chan-Jet Li collaboration deserves better than that.

The movie's big revelation, though, is Brand's Aldous, whose idiot-Lothario exterior masks a frank, accidentally wise and Yoda-like interior, and whom we grow to like more and more despite getting to better know him and his faults. The same can be said about the movie.

A poignant, ambitious romantic comedy that overreaches its premise with a hopelessly convoluted denouement; it plays like a last-minute attempt to pad out Tori Spelling's part to justify her star billing.

Though atmospheric and occasionally suspenseful, its gimmickry keeps it from being transcendent.

A nasty, naughty little film, a delightfully disagreeable horror-thriller.

Filmmaker-gadfly Morgan Spurlock is back with the warm, amusing -- and decidedly mistitled -- "Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?"

Zombie Strippers is a B-movie whose ideas and wit set it well above the great unwashed of the genre.

As a work of nonfiction filmmaking it is a sham and as agitprop it is too flimsy to strike any serious blows.

Director H.S. Miller thinks he's made something broodingly visionary when you're more likely to be aesthetically shaken up by one of Mad magazine's Fold-Ins.

Filmmakers Brad and John Hennegan follow six horses and their trainers through the arduous 2006 race season, building up to the Derby, but they are never able to find the balance between insider wonkery and genuine human (or animal) drama.

It is easy to see the film as two movies crammed together, neither of them being very good.

This is as listless, mindless and utterly useless a piece of corporate brain-clog as one is likely to come across for quite some time.

An unassuming but quietly heartbreaking drama.

Not exactly bad, but it disappointingly never really discovers the movie that it wants to be.

If you were going to show what happens to a man who loses the best part of himself, you'd want to cast John Leguizamo, who has spent his career leaping from one extreme characterization to another.

The contrast between grainy videos of street fights and gorgeous scenes of the same boys conquering enormous waves is simultaneously inspiring and sad. Imagine a world in which gang members looked forward to singing in the Sunday choir.

Bubbly to the point of indigestion and mechanical about ticking off the romantic trajectory.

It's the kind of observational comedy, that'll be hard to find come summertime and should be enjoyed while there's still a chance.

If you swiped the most insipid dialogue of the teenage-angst movies of John Hughes and Kevin Smith and Amy Heckerling, you would still have a script -- and a movie -- far superior to the newest of the genre, Remember the Daze.

Politics recede in the face of the realities of Young's life, and Spiro and Donahue would have succeeded in making the same point had they omitted all but his day-to-day existence. Together, however, they comprise a powerful indictment of the tactical politics that led to the invasion and a heartbreaking account of one man's living with the aftermath.

This may sound like a suspect enterprise, a musical gimmick impossible to embrace, but the reality is otherwise. For what the members of this uncanny chorus lack in pure ability they make up for in irrepressible spirits and a desire to simply have fun.

The camera is so unobtrusive and the acting so naturalistic that it takes a while for a narrative to emerge. When it finally does, you're surprised to find you're deeply invested in the characters.

Yes, Jellyfish says, it's a wonderful life, not in that old-fashioned style we've perhaps tired of but in a surprising new and magical way all its own.

Leatherheads proceeds agreeably, hitting occasional high notes when it isn't getting bogged down in forced slapstick hi-jinks.

It isn't any good.

The use of recognizable movie stars doesn't help, r serve Wong's style. My Blueberry Nights" should have played like a memory, but its hard-living, luckless losers are too beautiful to be believed.

The premise, from the book by Wendy Orr, is terrific, but the execution seems designed to make all but the youngest viewers fling copies of the book at the screen in frustration.

The characters never evolve past mere functionality, and the adherence to certain tried-and-true horror tropes -- the good girl who doesn't want to go but does, the generic naughty kids who get it first -- feels workmanlike, robbing the story of any real suspense or surprise.

Shine a Light may not be the last Rolling Stones movie, but it's likely to be the last one with a touch of the poet about it.

The elegant Water Lilies is not about answers but about discovery of self and of others in all its pain and pleasure.

Thoroughly gratifying in its consistent inventiveness and has a grasp of human nature so universal that there's no feeling of the exotic about the film and its people.

Snarkiness and sentiment are in constant battle for supremacy throughout Run, Fat Boy, Run with no chance of a comfortable draw.

What might have been a complex story dealing with greed and high-stakes betrayal among the young intellectual elite in America's gaming playground is instead treated as a slick, glossy romp.

Petraglia and Rulli once again display their gift for bringing the texture of reality to family drama, for creating people and situations that involve us completely. My Brother Is an Only Child is not the only film that does this, but it's a product that's in shorter and shorter supply every year.

A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, or so the saying goes, but the unadulterated joy Irène takes in throwing open the closet door to show Jean how this gold digging is done is positively infectious.

Stop-Loss is a film that does it right.

The very act of writing critically about Superhero Movie inspires something of an existential crisis -- no one likely to turn out for it is reading this review, and anybody reading this review is probably not inclined to see it under any circumstances.

The luminous humanity that characterizes the films of Alexander Sokurov is in full force in Alexandra. On the surface, it is a work of the utmost simplicity but is charged with the eternal complexities and contradictions of both love and war.

An understated gem. Writer-director Jeff Nichols, making his feature debut, has created a richly textured world.

Wilson is as sincere as ever at being insincere, though the sweet minor notes of his trademark melancholia seem here to be in search of a more boisterous presence -- say a Vince Vaughn -- to riff with.

Lacks any sort of urgency or inner propulsion; the actors do their little goofs, then hand them off to the next, lending the jest the frolicking but ultimately monotonous quality of a game of tag.

What you have here, essentially, is a classic "Honeymooners" episode juiced with tropes from the most recent "Rocky" movie.

Even his brief appearance onscreen as his most popular character, Madea, the sassy, tough-talking grandma, feels like a calculated addition rather than an organic necessity.

The plot may be murky, but actress Asia Argento is a clear and commanding force throughout.

An attractive and talented young cast brings this graceful film alive in all its tenderness and emotion.

Genially preposterous and pleasantly diverting, it balances calculation against humanity and generally comes out on top.

This largely Spanish-language film brings on the waterworks because its core story is undeniably affecting. The whole movie, however, would be more convincing if the elements around that vital core were more multidimensional and less contrived.

Just to shake things up a little, I guess, the creators of the laughably over-the-top Doomsday thought it might be fun to turn the survivors of a deadly epidemic, rather than its victims, into maniacal murderers.

Unlike so many computer-animated movies, "Horton" doesn't have that garish, sealed-in-plastic effect that can be so claustrophobic.

A disposable sports drama.

Terrific performances and a bleak, riveting look at life on the economic fringes eventually gives way to an overly familiar tale of abuse, denial and catharsis that feels like warmed over Sam Shepard minus the poetry.

In the end, the difference between "Funny Games" and Hollywood schlock horror may only be a matter of breeding. Funny Games is "Saw IV" with a PhD.

This is a resolutely tough-minded, beautifully crafted film so compelling as to make bearable watching the nearly unbearable.

10,000 BC is as crazy as it wants to be, plundering the past and other movies with that peculiar Hollywood combination of the earnest and the preposterous that can result in the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.

The film dawdles at times. but for the most part Donaldson keeps just the right amount of tension present in each scene.

As over-the-top as Raven-Symoné and Lawrence are, the most live-action cartoon characters in College Road Trip are the father-daughter tandem of Doug (Donny Osmond) and Wendy (Molly Ephraim), whose nitro-powered perkiness pass the point of grating and move into a perversely antic state of grace.

The appeal of the cast, the witty dialogue, the gorgeous costumes and production design, and the refreshingly grown-up subject matter can't be discounted. Maybe it is about compromise, after all, because though Married Life has its moments, it's bewildering as a whole.

Bharat Nalluri directs with a light touch and a great eye for costumes and sets, which are gorgeous enough to make up for any contrivances in the plot. It's pure romantic fantasy, and you won't believe it for a minute. But it's fun to watch Miss Pettigrew and Miss Lafosse live for a couple of hours.

Youth and death meet again in Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, a gorgeously stark, mesmerizingly elliptical story told in the same lyrical-prosaic style that has characterized his latest films.

Despite all-around wonderful performances and excellent dialogue, the story never quite coheres narratively. Instead it moves toward a hopelessly bleak -- and I mean bleak -- climax that's more traumatic than dramatic.

As clumsy and awkward as his previous films were stylishly silly.

Though Girls Rock! is nothing if not well meaning, it doesn't always feel like the best possible film on the subject.

Walker was the best choice to document this journey. For one thing, her first film, "Devil's Playground," and its examination of how Amish teenagers react when confronted with the outside world, showed her to be both curious and fearless. Plus, it turns out she is herself blind in one eye.

Morelli uses plentiful flashbacks drawn from the earlier movie and television series that are at times intrusive to the narrative but eventually serve to deepen the relationship of Ace and Laranjinha.

The wave-like "Rashomon" structure of the story, combined with the steady pace and moody look of Vivere are lulling, but in the end the situation is neither believable nor fantastic enough to be very compelling.

Scarcely original and in no way earthshaking, but its notable cast is a pleasure to behold.

Morgen's decision to avoid talking heads recounting events and find a way to dramatize them instead is consistent with his intention for the film. The director wants to bring recent history to life for people who weren't around to witness it, and in that he succeeds pretty admirably.

Not content to be a mildly diverting royal bodice-ripper, it spirals out of control into the kind of overwrought dramaturgy that's out of its league.

There's no real rigor or craft applied to this story -- just mood, tone, neo-gothic imagery and frantic attitude. If only Penelope knew what it truly wished to be and how to go about it. Which is probably what this overly coy fantasy's modestly appealing title character wishes as well.

For all its sad moments, Romulus, My Father is a love story between father and son kept aloft by unalloyed admiration.

Harrelson and Maura Tierney, who plays Monix's love interest, seem to be inhabiting a different, more interesting, movie, one that follows the familiar path of a has-been athlete seeking redemption at what looks like his last stop. The strange thing is that the subplot is so tangential to the rest of the movie that the scenes could be omitted with no one the wiser.

Though The Unforeseen has a few too many clips of Robert Redford, its environmentalist executive producer, its strength is its realization that these unforeseen developments are making few people happy.

Chop Shop"exudes a sense of joyousness amid harshness. Bahrani celebrates those who never give up, no matter how badly their dreams are shattered.

For the most part, it's an uneven if amiable and occasionally inspired comedy about getting through adolescence that hits some false notes along the way.

Sweet-natured and likable as the movie is, it never really delivers on the promise of its ingenious premise, which hints at a subversive retelling of mainstream Hollywood movies but stops short at goofy homage.

The Counterfeiters demonstrates that no matter how many Holocaust stories the movies tell, there are always new and unexpected ones waiting to be revealed.

The truth is that two other films with Greengrass' name on them, "The Bourne Supremacy" and "The Bourne Ultimatum," have spoiled us for this kind of thriller filmmaking, and stacked against that, Vantage Point doesn't have a chance.

Jacques Rivette has brought the Balzac short story to screen as a superb chamber drama. His is a graceful work of austerity and formality that perfectly captures the chaos of repressed emotions that see beneath the rigid conventions of aristocratic society.

The story possesses a true depth of character; there is every reason to hope that Anno’s multiple meanings become increasingly clear in the subsequent installments.

The movie suffers from the same malaise Romero diagnoses in society. It's just too mediated to be scary, despite its zeal for gore. You can't feel the characters' fear, and they don't seem to feel it either.

A sweet and somber film that works hard to overcome its limitations.

This is a film bound and determined to do whatever it takes to be your Valentine. If it had trusted itself more, it might even have succeeded.

Jumper is all high concept with little invested in characters or story.

Suffers slightly from that not-so-fresh feeling.

Both sweet-natured and sharply pointed, a film whose poignant, emotional effects and subtle acting sneak up on you.

It's a big, cheesy, familiar bore. With its garland of set pieces featuring Matthew McConaughey in mortal danger strung together by beach-groovy musical hooks, Fool's Gold feels at times like a third-rate Bond movie set to a Jimmy Buffett album.

It's not like Paris Hilton to rise above her material, but The Hottie and the Nottie sinks so low that all she has to do is stand upright.