Zoo is a cool sensibility married to a hot topic, a poetic film about a forbidden, unsettling subject. Elegantly made and eerily lyrical, it deals with what director Robinson Devor has accurately called "the last taboo, the boundary of something comprehensible."

Modest but well wrought and witty, Snow Cake is full of unexpected moments and clever observations.

Paris Je T'Aime has something going for it that not every movie can claim: It always has Paris.

A fascinating and surprisingly involving film.

Perhaps the film's biggest failing is simply that the music of The Hip Hop Project isn't more thrilling, that there isn't a sonic equivalent to the wounded, searching feelings of the young writers' lyrics.

Made to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth last year, In Search of Mozart is challenging and exemplary.

Chalk avoids some of the pitfalls of the mock-doc by showing real affection and empathy for its characters, whose funny lives of quiet desperation inspire more than their share of tenderness.

Exciting, distracting and quite possibly permanently concentration impairing, what Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End offers is a wonderfully scenic medley of impressive action sequences so lengthy, elaborate and numerous that remembering what came before becomes a kind of test of mental focus.

At one point, Klores thought about making a feature film out of the material, but it's a good thing he decided against it. You could not make this stuff up.

A clever, delightfully rendered summer diversion.

Marion Cotillard astonishes as Edith Piaf in 'La Vie en Rose.

Hopefully, the girls who see Nancy Drew this summer will take their cues from the smart, engaged, intellectually curious character Roberts so charmingly portrays.

Most consistently funny is a deadpan Henry Czerny as the pipe-smoking, battle-hardened Zomcon head of security.

In the grand scheme of things, the Dolphin Hotel is no Overlook, but it's no cheesy slaughter motel either.

The cast, including Tammy Davis as a handyman and Glenis Levestam as a housekeeper with a taste for innards, hits its marks flawlessly, even when the material isn't first-rate. Like "Shaun of the Dead," Black Sheep is at once exhilarating and self-deprecating, knowledgeable without being fannish, clever but not too clever.

A wry, charming romance about a New York woman who has given up hope of finding love.

We've seen the inner lives of hit men and mobsters rendered innumerably in recent years on film and television, but You Kill Me does it in a satisfyingly comedic way, loaded with easily identifiable idiosyncrasies.

A forceful documentary set against the 2004 Haitian coup d'état that toppled the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Combines complex relationships with a winning style of storytelling.

The movie belongs to Blethyn, who takes a difficult, easily misunderstood role and gracefully cracks it open to reveal what's inside.

For a film that unfolds mostly in a single location, Interview manages not to feel like a stage piece. But the premise, which may have worked in Holland, gets a little lost in the American translation.

Too serious to be an out-and-out comedy, too funny not to be one, My Best Friend is a lot easier to enjoy than to classify.

With its R&B soundtrack and footage of civil unrest, Talk to Me might seem to cover familiar ground. But as an intimate portrait of the complex, fruitful and extremely volatile friendship between trailblazing African American men whose daring came to redefine an industry, it's fresh and revelatory.

Arias has a tendency toward creative overkill, mostly in the climax that renders with apocalyptic imagery the metaphysical consequences of Black and White's separation.

Writer-director Sean Ellis more-or-less successfully expands his Academy Award-nominated 18-minute short to full length, showcasing his talented young cast to good effect.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is not a missing masterpiece; rather it is a small, tightly coiled spellbinder.

For though it can't maintain its momentum all the way to the end, Sunshine until it stumbles is gratifyingly far from the usual space-opera stuff.

A cheekily fun sendup of Gen X iconography.

Them is surprisingly tight, efficient and economical, conjuring a super-creepy atmosphere and incredible tension seemingly out of nothing at all.

There's something to be said for cinema this perversely naturalistic.

A story peopled by flawed archetypes, it's an achingly funny film that is also a little sad around the edges.

Still effectively creepy and surprisingly unnerving despite the occasional misstep and rumors of a troubled production, the new film illustrates why and how the power of the original story remains undiminished more than half a century after its creation.

Rather than come across as fantastic or dreamlike, the stories have a vivid, hyperreal quality to them.

Enthusiastically smutty and lyrical, the movie attempts to capture the way we unconsciously set the emotional moments of our lives to pop music, turning fits of passion, anger and righteous indignation into elaborate musical numbers in our heads.

The presence of the two actors and the film's mordant sense of humor buoy the downtime between bloodbaths and genre fans may find enough to love here.

It's only when The Bubble takes a swift turn into domino-tipping tragedy in the final act that a tender, fraught love story feels casually discarded in favor of something psychologically pat and ham-fistedly earth-shattering.

A refreshingly gentle treatment of familiar themes such as the inevitability of change, the dashing of youthful illusions and mutability of family. Enhanced by an exotic locale, the movie overcomes a well-trodden narrative path and unflinchingly brandishes its sentimentality as it stakes out its crowd-pleasing territory.

This round-robin of marital malaise has a lot more integrity than one might anticipate from its meet-cute beginnings.

The strange, funny and sad story of a bipolar jazz musician and his long-suffering teenage daughter, reunited after his two-year stay in a mental institution.

Swicord has a playful sense of humor and a good ear for dialogue, and the movie pleasantly accomplishes what it set out to accomplish.

Trade works fairly well as a thriller ticking down to Adriana's auction. It's less assured when it strains for some buddy picture chemistry between Ramos and Kline. Though both actors are fine, with Ramos' performance being reminiscent of some of Diego Luna's English-language roles, the attempts at humor to ease the tension between Jorge and Ray and some of the speechifying are out of tune with the rest of the film.

There's nothing particularly revelatory about the interviews recorded over a two-month span, but there's an intimate quality that gives the impression you're listening to a private conversation, which, in a sense, you are.

As sad as it is to realize that youth activism in this country is dead, it's sadder still to find yourself agreeing that they have a point. Just look at what happened to Kurtz.

By and large a notable piece of work, a strong directing debut by actor Ben Affleck that highlights attention-getting performances...But, as adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, this brooding, somber film is also ragged around the edges and not without problematic aspects.

Language this lethal has all but disappeared from the movies, and it's an unmitigated pleasure to observe Caine and Law attack it with such ferocity. Sleuth is nasty fun.

Attempts to both explain the situation to audiences and offer some reason to hope for the future. It's an almost impossible task, and though the film does better than anyone might expect, its success is not complete.

The sweetest thing about Fred Claus is that the message about filial love feels genuine. I wouldn't have expected that watching Giamatti tell Vaughn, "You're the best big brother anyone could ask for," would make me choke up, but it did.

The film, adeptly directed by Valerie Minetto (from a script she wrote with Cecile Vargaftig), suffers from some awkward subtitling and a few ineffective fantasy bits but is otherwise provocative and well-acted. This one's worth looking for.

a movie about adolescence unlike any other; An intimate portrait of a singular personality in the making and a stark look at our culture of suspicion and conformity.

An emotionally rich and satisfying drama featuring a terrifically understated performance from John Cusack.

Slick, adrenaline-fueled fun.

Because it is so old-school Hollywood, with a weakness for standard moments and pat situations, The Great Debaters initially comes off as easily dismissible. Largely saving it from that fate is the presence and ability of Denzel Washington, who costars with Forest Whitaker and directs from Robert Eisele's script.

An unexpectedly poignant ghost story.

Certain to appeal to the extreme sport enthusiast, but it also deserves a mass audience for its incredible imagery and window into a lifestyle most can't fathom. It's nearly impossible to walk away without a new motivation to find something that can make you feel the way these skiers do.

Pirates relies more on classical and pop culture-driven references to deliver its worthwhile message.

As viewers of his Enron film will testify, Gibney is a scrupulous director, and Taxi to the Dark Side is filled with detailed factual information.

This unflinchingly shot picture is not for the squeamish. Epstein and Lake's own commitment to you-are-there realism is remarkable as well, each bringing new meaning to the phrase "naked truth."

Moved to take charge by something like chivalry, Rambo hits his stride in the film's second half, meting out justice in an unjust world and ultimately the movie works best when warbling its out-of-tune greatest hits.

If Dick Wolf is interested in doing a "Law & Order: Cyber Crimes," he could do worse than to follow the lead of Untraceable, a diverting police procedural about an FBI unit tasked with sleuthing the Internet for mouse-wielding bad guys.

It is sweet but not saccharine, an intimate film that doesn't stint on the desperation and anxiety that go along with the search for love.

The Irish-pretty Cyrus exudes a goofball vitality and sunny work ethic that ultimately wins you over, despite the slickness of her vehicle. The 3-D camera throws drumsticks and confetti in our faces, but the technical effects seem superfluous to the star's bona-fide energy.

A dark comedy with a melancholy streak and punchy sense of humor.

Surprisingly endearing and chock-full of a genuine appreciation of the moment.

Suffers slightly from that not-so-fresh feeling.

The tone of The Witnesses is one of randomness. This makes for an ambling narrative, but an atmospheric one that feels authentic despite its unlikely character pairings.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Stop-Loss is a film that does it right.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Hopscotching time on film is never easy, but Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa handles it with skill and care in Fugitive Pieces, his lovely, absorbing adaptation of Anne Michaels' lauded novel about a circumspect writer haunted by his traumatic past.

Robbins plays David with the self-assurance that there's no combination sexier than smart, funny and self-righteously angry.

Light and fun, if also a little slight, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is like a pleasant sorbet to wash away the aftertaste of the pre-summer clunkers.

A courageous documentary on the plight of gays in the Muslim world.

The action, heavily influenced by Hong Kong martial arts films, is beautifully choreographed.

Suvari's increasingly loopy and cruel selfishness is its own nifty moral suspense, while Rea's sad sack vibe -- he already looks like a collision victim in the pre-accident scenes -- is a bleakly amusing counterpoint to his gritty refusal to go quietly.

Wanted's hyperkinetic antics are sometimes weighed down by a surfeit of adolescent misanthropy. But the adrenaline-overdose strategy works for viewers as well as hit men. As long as Bekmambetov keeps the pedal to the metal, you don't notice the rotten scenery outside.

Although The Mother of Tears teeters on the preposterous and awkward, it is diverting and reveals that the filmmaker's signature bravura flourishes and use of sinister settings are still intact.

Stahl and Farmiga give layered, restrained performances that keep what might have been a schlock fest with an improbable twist ending from devolving into trashiness. Instead, Brooks and his actors manage to render an involving and thoughtful story from some pretty dubious material.

This can be strong stuff for kids, but the film's humanistic approach preaches tolerance and hope.

Though the film could've used more technical insight into Pearl's artistic process, it's hard not to be stirred by this hopeful portrait.

It's sure to satisfy the film's target youth audience's appetite for zippy visuals and swift pacing.