A beautiful evocation of a time and place -- Mohawk Valley in upstate New York, spanning from one Halloween to the next -- and a loving but unflinching probing of the lives of Mosher's family in the course of a year.

There's an unavoidable joie de vivre (symbolized by Rancho's meditative mantra "All is well") and a performance charm that make this one of the more naturally gregarious Bollywood imports.

There's no real depth or texture to the characters of any sort, sentimental or otherwise, and I say that as someone who can be brought to tears by a Hallmark commercial.

This time, with Besson scripting / producing and Patrick Alessandrin directing, it amounts to a raucous and colorfully junky helping of seconds.

An earnest gang-warfare melodrama that may make some Chan fans long for "Rush Hour 4."

It's difficult to get into its "What would I do?" vibe, though, through so thick and transparent a barrier of contrivances.

An enjoyably involving mystery-thriller.

The last thing you see in Ajami should be the first thing on your mind about this compelling new film from Israel. That would be the closing credits, written in both Hebrew and Arabic, separate but equal, side by side, mirroring the creative process behind this potent work and the story it has to tell.

The presence of the ever-reliable Steve Buscemi adds a welcome boost to Saint John of Las Vegas, an otherwise unremarkable debut feature from writer-director Hue Rhodes.

This is a film done right by just about every measure. The extremes of the story seep deep into your bones -- the beauty, the allure, the desperation and especially the cold in this world where life literally hangs on rope and what Mother Nature chooses to throw at you.

Legion may traffic in signposts of the apocalypse, but the whole affair mostly indicates that we're in the movie wasteland that is January.

The story is poignant and compelling, but ultimately the film doesn't have the heft it needs to fill out the big screen.

Best known for 1994's "The Wild Reeds," Techine has been a director for more than 30 years, and the fluidity of his polished, intelligent, at times enigmatic works make him someone whose films are always worth watching.

The prospect that this role would officially shift Bettany to a bigger stage, taking him from the character roles that have become his specialty to leading man status, dies a sort of Darwinian death from bad plotting.

Manages to be appealing, poignant and inspiring in ways that are gentle and quite real. This smartly calibrated film also pulls off something rare by presenting religious commitment as something that's not only potentially healing and elevating, but also kind of cool.

Even though Drool rambles and ultimately slides into overly obvious make-believe, Kissam emerges as a fearless risk-taker of promise.

Leung manages to present a barrage of intriguing theories debunking our generally accepted beliefs and misperceptions about how HIV/AIDS is acquired, tested, diagnosed, defined and treated. It's a vital yet thorny approach whose inconclusiveness is bound to sadden or infuriate anyone who's lost a loved one to AIDS.

The 17-year-old so completely captures the innocence, cynicism and rage of a child of poverty and divorce on the edge of adulthood that it feels as if you are spying on Mia, so achingly real, so tangible does her world seem here.

Structurally, 44 Inch Chest resembles "Reservoir Dogs"; but, without the added amusement of Tarantino's skewing of narrative time, it feels very much more like a direct adaptation of a stage play (which apparently it's not). The filmmakers do goose things up by playing with reality in the second half, but it all leads to a payoff that, while perfectly legitimate, feels limp.

Any higher intentions are brought crashing down by predictability, wooden characters, giggle-inducing attempts at scares (shrieking bats, anyone?) and cinematography so gloomy it should be checked for serotonin deficiency.

Serves as an absorbing snapshot of America's highly influential, reportedly 50-million-strong evangelical Christian movement.

Josh Goldin, a longtime screenwriter whose credits include "Darkman" and "Out on a Limb" -- and whose wife is a writer at the L.A. Times -- makes his debut as a writer-director with Wonderful World. The results of Goldin's dual efforts are promising but uneven.

Despite its obsession with décolletage, Bitch Slap is surprisingly puritanical (much teasing, no pleasing), substituting plentiful violence and a howlingly predictable "shock" ending for the payoff it promises.

We don't go to Michael Haneke films for comfort, but to gaze through a glass darkly. That vision -- tense, provocative and unnerving -- is on full display in The White Ribbon, which could be considered a culmination of this difficult director's brilliant career.

Despite Teardrop Diamond's rough edges, the filmmaker, who has spent much of her career acting on stage and screen, succeeds in transporting us back to that other time; capturing the lyricism of the dialogue and the fetid South that Williams so brilliantly envisioned where nearly everything goes to rot.

There's a mystery at the heart of Sherlock Holmes, and it's not the one the great master of detection has been called on to solve. It's how a film that has so many good things going for it has turned out to be solid but not spectacular.

As unusual and idiosyncratic as its one-of-a-kind title. You'd expect no less from Terry Gilliam, and admirers of this singular filmmaker will be pleased to know that "Imaginarium" is one of his most original and accessible works.

The problem with It's Complicated, a romantic comedy about the menopausal crowd starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, is that it's not nearly complicated enough.