The performances have heart, and a sorrowful tenderness courses through the self-described "fairy tale," even at its kitschiest.

Whatever the facts of the case, Berlin 36 doesn't clear the bar for dramatic impact.

This expertly constructed film follows the curious and tragic life of the troubled chess icon as he went from child prodigy to global legend to paranoid recluse.

Black Power Mixtape's contemporary audio, though it tries hard to involve us, can't hold a candle to this kind of footage. But if having these current voices on board helped get the luminous glimpses of the past back on the screen, we owe them a vote of thanks.

The picture benefits from its performances, notably Evans' roguish appeal as a guy simultaneously driven and destructive.

If anything, watching the film is like attending an old-style Southern tent revival - you want to believe in the fight against all that fire and brimstone. Heck, you want to join the righteous brigade. But when the lights go up and the fever dies down, it feels more like you've witnessed a show than a real showdown with the devil.

Starring Brad Pitt in top movie star form, it's a film that's impressive and surprising.

The insistently quirky details don't disguise the fact that the drama grows ever more predictable and precious, complete with falling-in-love montage. Screenwriter Jason Lew's character insights take the form of the obvious.

Special Treatment is a serious film, but Labrune allows a touch of dark comedy in her depictions of Alice's clients and Xavier's patients.

Summer Pasture has an earthy intimacy and compassion for its subjects that will have you thinking about their plight long after they've packed up and moved on for winter.

In making Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure, a documentary that tells the story of not just the tapes but their strange and increasingly sad afterlife, Australian filmmaker Matthew Bate faces the challenge not only of visualizing the audio artifacts but also of finding a way to position their makers and explain all that has transpired since the tapes were initially recorded.

The film is a reminder of the pleasure to be found in simple things - reading a book, sitting on a park bench with a friend, spending an afternoon with Margueritte.

A sensuous intellectual romp whose strong casting makes it involving, even when sentimentality creeps into the story or ideas present themselves in boldface.

An extraordinarily moving examination of how the AIDS epidemic both devastated and transformed San Francisco's gay community, this clear-eyed and soulful documentary brings us inside the contagion in a way that is so intimate, so personal, you feel like you're hearing about these catastrophic events for the first time.

Drive is a Los Angeles neo-noir, a neon-lit crime story made with lots of visual style. It's a film in love with both traditional noir mythology and ultra-modern violence, a combination that is not ideal.

At times, Happy, Happy is cutting comedy at its brutal best; at times, it slips on the black ice. Still, the love of life is exuberant, the pain exquisite.

Despite its grander ambitions, the film ultimately feels minor and superficial.

The scenario makes for an inept, lazy R-rated movie whose sole purpose is as a glossary of euphemisms for genitalia and sexual acts.

Though it doesn't exactly have pretensions toward the rhythms of real life, the film does nail the breezy movie feeling of a buffed-and-polished romantic comedy.

A pair of detectives lingering on the periphery of the story help provide a twist at the end that is well-handled and carries an unexpected irony, but it is really too, too little coming far, far too late.

With dependably creepy character actor Sid Haig to goose things along as leader of the locals, Creature is delightfully dopey.

It shows promise but finally hits things so hard, both literally and metaphorically, that it's hard not to feel pummeled yourself by the time it's over.

The better moments are fleeting. More often, the film feels flat-footed, and the story plays out as you'd expect. Long before Tanner Hall ends, you may well find yourself wishing for the final bell.

This may not fit any conventional definition of entertainment, but it certainly keeps your eyes on the screen.

Sure, this frequently improvised spoof isn't intended to be taken seriously, but it's also not funny or incisive enough to counter the unappealing persona the actor-comedian has concocted here: an impulsive, clueless narcissist on a journey to reinvent himself as an action star.

Even if Apollo 18 is not exactly as it presents itself to be, it is less of a stunt than a low-key and unassuming film of rising tension rather than big scares or wild shocks.

It has opulent, stylized settings of elegance, grandeur and scope, flawless special effects, and awesome martial arts combat staged by the master, Sammo Hung. Yet bravura spectacle never overwhelms either the plot or the key characters. Chang Chia-lu's intricate script bristles with wit and suspense; the film from start to finish is a terrific entertainment.

A rousing example of Bollywood-style pure escapist entertainment.