Like an exquisite minimalist painting - its beauty will move you, its simplicity will fool you. For there are layers and complexities to be found in the film, like the many mysteries it slowly exposes.

If that all sounds like a lot of good, clean fun, a word of warning. In what seems to have become the genre's raison d'etre, the dialogue is so blue at times that you'll probably feel the heat of the blushing cheeks on either side of you, especially whenever Reilly's fast-talking savant of smut shows up.

Plays it straight down the middle, neither pushing its contemporary vantage point nor embracing the chance for B-movie glory.

If you're a Sandler film buff, the comedy is classic Sandler and will probably satisfy. Still, the best thing about the movie remains Aniston - she is reason enough to just go with it.

This gently amusing, genuinely sweet animated film makes you smile from start to finish?

Strictly as a piece of filmmaking, Never Say Never is a bit of a mess.

With two gorgeous, compulsively watchable stars doing their best to rise above middling material that often proves more a hindrance than support, Chen has perhaps inadvertently created a faithful Hollywood remake after all.

The Roommate proves that the one thing worse than a crazy, stalker roommate is one that's boring, predictable and no fun.

It's rare to find a movie protagonist who singularly fails on every count to be a compelling, sympathetic or even understandable figure.

aAn ambitious ensemble piece in which every actor is able to shine and every character is a master of the well-turned phrase.

This soapy drama manages to be both half-baked and overcooked.

Araki lets his absurdist imagination run wild, and Kaboom takes the time-honored gambit of gradually revealing that nothing is as it seems to delightfully cockamamie extremes.

The regrettably titled From Prada to Nada has more in common with a slapped-together TV movie than a timeless comedy of manners.

For with songs like "You Can Close Your Eyes," "You've Got a Friend" and numerous others on the soundtrack, this is finally a film hard not to enjoy.

More slick mainland melodrama than rough-and-ready chop-socky picture, Ip Man 2 often finds itself struggling to reconcile those conflicting impulses between drizzly emotional moments and slap-happy frenzy.

Like the Coen brothers at their least convincing, the mix of low-grade depression and amped quirkiness never shakes off the feel of self-conscious posturing.

Sleek, erotic and suspenseful, at least for the first hour, and even with the piece wobbling between dark psychology and campy soap, the cast is compelling as it navigates the uncertainty.

For the most part, this is the kind of immersive fanboy experience that doesn't suffer wandering attention spans.

Gone is the scrappy, brutal wit of the original - nothing more than an unfettered showcase for Jaa's talents - and in its place is more of the overwrought myth making that sunk "Ong Bak 2: The Beginning."

It marks a subtle, assured and altogether distinctive feature debut for writer-director Rao and its radiant leading lady, rock star and stage performer Monica Dogra.

It is a singular performance and a deeply affecting if imperfect film.

Sadly, an obsession with raunchy one-liners trips everything up, turning a clever conceit into something closer to a sleazy, cheesy affair.

My Dog Tulip is as disconcerting and unusual a piece of animation as the 1956 memoir that inspired it, and that is saying a lot.

In its best moments is as big as a movie can be, as big as life itself.

May not be the most tedious superhero movie ever - the competition is admittedly tough - but it is certainly in the running.

Landon's sardonic view of human nature and deft filmmaking skills - plus a raft of sharp portrayals - keep the viewer from pondering the preposterousness of certain situations and instead encourages going along with the fun.

What makes this intriguing, yet woefully uneven film so relatable is that there is nothing about Ned's experience that seems extreme.

Whatever the film's flaws, and like its protagonist, there are times when things get a bit out of control, watching Giamatti use Barney to wrestle with success, failure, friendship, love and increasingly with time is exhilarating.

What The Dilemma ultimately does best is create a platform for Vaughn to drag that iconic character of his into full-blown adulthood.

Season of the Witch is at its worst when it tries to be a straight-ahead action-adventure film. The early sequence set against the epic battles of the Crusades is almost brazenly bad with its unconvincing "300"-style special effects.

Hosoda, who directed the cult film "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," has made a sophisticated yet poignant family entertainment with an appeal beyond Japanese animation buffs.

Though its elusive character is undoubtedly part of its strength, Dogtooth ends up feeling somehow like a dodge and a sidestep. As a film, it's pure and singular, but it's not quite fully formed enough to be what one could call truly visionary.

Sometimes it seems as if Iñárritu is literally carving out his actor's heart, so tangible does Bardem make Uxbal's fears. Iñárritu has so much that he wants to say - too much, in fact, and the film's central weakness - that he has created an emotional tsunami for both the actors and the audience.

That meandering dialogue can be difficult to control, and at times the film feels as if the director has stepped away from the vehicle, leaving it to veer off the path. Still, it's an experiment that works more than it fails by giving Gosling and Williams both the motive and the means to create something extraordinary, a valentine that actually says something true about being in love.

It may sound commonplace, but in the hands of master filmmaker Mike Leigh, the everyday becomes extraordinary.

There is something magical about The Illusionist's world, and that's as it should be.

Oone of those movies that falls between complete disaster and loads of fun. Mild amusement is probably about right.

Country Strong is Feste's second film, and she infuses it with an earnestness that swings between too too much and appealing, the same earnestness that swamped her filmmaker debut last year with "The Greatest."

Slight but often seductive and so deliberately not in a hurry it periodically threatens to dissolve right in front of our eyes, Somewhere is more successful in creating ambience and visual imagery than it is in telling its story of a movie star bonding with his 11-year-old daughter.

It is incredibly tempting to resort to the implied off-color word play made possible by the Focker name and suggest that this third edition is totally - but I won't.

When Iris DeMent's impeccable version of the hymn is heard on the soundtrack as the final credits roll, it's the perfect touch to end a film whose aim is always true.

From its title, Alien Girl seems to promise some kind of playful intergalactic adventure. That, it is not. Rather the film is a grim, artless Russian-made gangster picture that is neither stylish nor fun.

Though the film is peppered with one-liners tailor-made for Spacey to sling with stinging effect, it doesn't so much leave you laughing as just weary, and wishing this weren't a true story at all.

If, as someone says in one of Brooks' trademark excellent lines, we all feel we're "one small adjustment away from making our lives work," this film is one small adjustment away as well.

A tragedy devastating to experience can feel generic when transferred to the screen, and that, despite everyone's best intentions and an outstanding performance by Nicole Kidman, is what happens with Rabbit Hole.

New players, a new story line, a new director and nearly three decades of improved technology including all the whiz-bang-wow the latest 3-D has to offer. Unfortunately, there's not nearly enough new life.

More impressive than the multi-dimensions is Megamind's minimalist, modernist look. It creates a crispness that feels more contemporary than retro, which not only is very aesthetically pleasing but makes it easier to savor the film's many sight gags.

This is a disappointing turn coming from Phillips, particularly since "The Hangover" was such a fresh, bracing brew of black comic fun.

By bringing in a diverse group of big thinkers to take part in a very animated, sometimes agitated, discussion, the filmmaker has succeeded in bringing what could have been a very dry mountain of data, theories and experimental research to vibrant life.

A runaway train drama that never slows down, it fashions familiarity into a virtue and shows why old-school professionalism never goes out of style.

There's also no point in paying the 3-D ticket price for occasional bits of gristle flying your way, or blurry action shots. Whereas the first "Saw" got marks for originality, the filmmakers have so lost their fastballs that this one's extreme gore provokes either laughter or sleep.

Simultaneously poetic, dramatic and realistic, White Material is an altogether stunning work.

A love story that is actually worth falling for, with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal excellent at steaming up the screen in Love & Other Drugs.

Clearly, the directors have to be Merritt advocates to hang in there that long, but the film that resulted has elements that keep it from being simply a fan's notes.

This compelling psychological horror-thriller contains a tremendous amount of heart. That would be largely thanks to a moving and deeply sensitive lead performance by Jim Sturgess

In the face of The Tempest, the stormy tragicomedy of rage, romance and redemption that is among Shakespeare's last and greatest works, Julie Taymor, a filmmaking savant of extraordinary vision and voice, suddenly and surprisingly folds.

The gift of The King's Speech is that it allows us to look on as a pair of masterful actors re-create a monumental test of wills.

It takes a bit of doing, but when Tangled's core sweetness asserts itself and the film dares to wear its heart on its sleeve in a climactic scene featuring 46,000 paper lanterns, it's been worth the wait.

Should you find yourself in the mood for Big Musical Numbers by the score rather than a film, there's a lot to like about Burlesque.

What unfolds is a dark comic thriller and action-hero send-up, a strange alloy of daredevil helicopter maneuvers and night of the living elves. Captured in atmospheric widescreen camerawork, the end-of-the-world frozen landscape (actually Norway) is spectacular and spooky.

Recently deceased master filmmaker Claude Chabrol's 50th and final feature, Inspector Bellamy, proves a sadly bland footnote to an illustrious and influential career.

Handsomely presented, with locations in Spain and Africa, the film at moments accomplishes its ambitions of being a tart piece of steamed-up Jazz Age storytelling.

You might want to tuck Damien Chazelle's name into your memory bank if his filmmaking debut, the terrific jazz improvisation that is Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, is any indication of what his future might hold.

Manages to be both pertinent and dramatically persuasive. Made like it means something (and it does) by first-time writer-director Tanya Hamilton, it demonstrates that social relevance and emotional connection can be compelling fellow travelers.

I'd like to think the earnest sentiments and machine-tooled dramatic complications of Wells' script could find a receptive audience in late 2010. I'd like to think, too, that the mess we're in demands a gutsier script. Good cast, though.

The rousing The Fighter tries a number of risky maneuvers and manages to make them pay off in the end. The movie initially feels like more of a near thing than the filmmakers anticipated, but as in boxing it's only the final decision that counts.

There is a moment in The Tourist when Johnny Depp turns to Angelina Jolie and asks "Why is all this happening?" It's a question moviegoers will be asking themselves as well.

A poorly structured and even more poorly shot mixture of a gothic suspense thriller with a vanilla romance filmed in Des Moines, Dead Awake never comes close to springing to life.

Oh, there are sword fights aplenty (as bloodless as ever), but instead of a real story, we are left clinging to individual moments.

The good thing about All Good Things - that would be Kirsten Dunst, for if there is one thing this strange and creepy film does well it is remind us of just what a talented actress she is.

To be fair to Deathly Hallows, the filmmakers have tried hard to fill the proceedings with battles and chases and debilitating curses. Genuine filmmaking excitement, however, is harder to provide.

What the film does well is capture the confusion of the identity abyss of twentysomethings of a certain social class.

As for the many loose ends the director leaves, you can either tie them or leave them loose, either way is fine since the experience as much as anything is what Antoniak was after.

A piece filled with well-drawn characters and steadily building tensions, a story told in an economical, unshowy way, but as a whole, the movie never quite builds a solid momentum or finds a true sense of purpose.

South Korean filmmaker Sngmoo Lee's debut feature is less a genre-spanning romp than a tiresome lab experiment in computer-generated tropes and green-screen oppressiveness.

As Bhutto, the thorough and involving documentary on her life conveys, Benazir was a formidable personality all by herself.

It's clear from first frame to last that the filmmakers decided to go broad, very broad, with a story that swings between hysterical, hyper-sexual, bizarre, surprisingly tender and just plain awful. This is one mixed bag of a movie.

Not just any kind of trash, it's high-art trash, a kind of "When Tutu Goes Psycho" that so prizes hysteria over sanity that it's worth your life to tell when its characters are hallucinating and when they're not.

Although like the Cold War itself, the film does drag on at times, "Disco" really is a delight.

In a confident yet relaxed feature debut, Fuentes-León has created a wholly unified work of art.

Pastor and Naharro have written a great part for Dueñas and direct her with great care. In fact, her delicately nuanced portrayal is crucial to why this lovely film works so well.

"A Man Within" won't be the last word on Burroughs, who died in 1997, but it's a welcome addition to the biographical canon - less as clear-eyed investigation than for the intimate and moving portrait it paints.

Your Thanksgiving turkey has arrived on schedule and it's called The Nutcracker in 3D.

A warm and enthusiastic documentary.

Hawkins' performance as "Dagenham's" unassuming heroine, an amalgam of several key figures who stepped up back in the day, is first-rate and already generating some Oscar talk.

About 33 minutes in, I couldn't help but think, if they do another close-up of your watch as it tick, tick, ticks toward another three, I will scream. But honestly, any screaming should be directed at Paul Haggis, who both wrote and directed this mess.

Block wears his neuroses so guilelessly on his sleeve and organizes his material with such skill, that what might have been insufferable navel-gazing attains poignancy.

A Marine Story overcomes some flaws in continuity and superficial characterizations to drive home its underlying message about the injustice of "don't ask, don't tell" and the way the controversial policy deprives the military of born leaders. A worthy endeavor.

As a misfit-centric slap at religious conformity, the story's premise couldn't be more primed for trenchant social comedy, but screenwriter Knight and director Eyad Zahra opt for maintaining a thin veneer of tiresome obnoxiousness over exploring the contours of an emotionally complicated subculture.

Made with the on-camera cooperation of Spitzer (though not his wife), it is a sad, disturbing and in some ways tragic tale that in its lurid combination of sex and politics, banal hypocrisy and bare-knuckles power, seems very much an American story of our times.

The filmmaker is at his best unspooling the politics of independence, which he does with such confident fervor that you always understand the fight.

Rachel McAdams gives the kind of performance we go to the movies for. The rest of the film isn't always up to her level, but it does provide genial entertainment until it runs out of steam.

In the end, 127 Hours is one man's incredible, unforgettable journey; it took the extraordinary alchemy of Boyle and Franco to also make it ours.

Whatever stumbles there may be, they are offset by moments when For Colored Girls soars.

It seems to be doing everything right but still doesn't manage to leave you with a completely satisfied feeling.

Doesn't offer moviegoers one obvious message, but rather a complex and considered glimpse into a rarely seen world, one of utter absurdity and horror.

More epic than it needs to be and less profound than it should be, Jolene remains a watchable excursion into human frailty and foibles.

Commendably entertaining.