Being Julia is really about the fear of aging and the battle to remain relevant professionally and sexually.

Paced at the speed at which Arctic ice melts, The Dust Factory is a sluggish, heavy-handed fable overloaded with talk of paradise and the man in the moon.

Taxes the patience of even the most willing viewer with its sheer nonsense: It's distractingly illogical.

A Frenchman may have thought of the story first, but this Korean film pays tribute to the original while perfectly standing on its own.

Makes a compelling argument for women's rights without ever succumbing to preachiness.

It's all amiably hackneyed, but it sucks you in anyway.

Loaded with so much drama that the story sinks into a grim, sloppy soap-opera mix.

If nothing else, director/screenwriter Jordan Roberts knows good music. If only we could say the same about his script.

Primer is obviously not for all tastes, but if it connects with you, prepare to be obsessed.

Has a weird, compelling energy, fueled by a deliciously dynamic cast, a cheerfully bawdy and odd story line and a refreshing, impossible romance.

But by the time you understand the meaning of its title, Sabiha Sumar's film has delivered an emotional punch.

This wacky, campy lampoon of 1950s Hollywood musicals is not for everyone.

A fresh breath of air, warmer than the icy village in which it takes place. You'll leave the theater with a wink and a smile.

If this is magic, I'll take "Gigli."

The movie is such an intense, disturbing and exhilarating experience, even five more minutes might have felt like too much.

For all its noble intentions, the movie is really a work of crass exploitation -- an obvious and manipulative grab to cash in on the post-9/11 hero worship of the firefighting profession.

What Shark Tale lacks in originality it makes up for with sassy humor, bright, effective animation and terrific vocal work.

Everyone up on the screen appears to be having so much fun, you wish the movie found a way to let you into the party.

DiG! is raw, just as the band members themselves.

Guaranteed to engage the decided and undecided alike, regardless of party affiliations.

Mines a great deal of its humor from the can't-be-bothered attitude of British culture, but the jokes survive the trip across the Atlantic mostly intact.

Just one more in the plague of weak Cinderella stories released in the past year. It's too sugary to be good for you, but in the end, its over-the-top sweetness won't kill you.

The ending of The Forgotten leaves you feeling the same way, wondering just how much -- if anything -- of what came before actually happened.

It's much easier to linger on his youthful idealism than on how that idealism eventually manifested itself. It certainly makes for a much prettier picture. But when your subject is Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara, it is disingenuous.

Fabulously perverted comedy.

Wimbledon may have its faults, but it's the sort of upbeat fantasy that's tough to resist. Maybe love wins in tennis after all.

For all its Buck Rogers-style derring-do, gorgeous vistas of an Art Deco New York and sepia-toned cinematography, Sky Captain is a static, uninvolving experience.

You might not think it would be easy to make a dull film about love, war and a bisexual threesome, but Head in the Clouds manages this task efficiently.

As a war drama, Zelary is as gentle and pastoral as its setting. At times, you think it's a new chapter in "The Sound of Music."

Huston, unfortunately, is never really believable as a man rediscovering lost principles; he feels out of place in this otherwise fine ensemble.

Entertaining in spite of itself.

Criminal is happy to reprise Fabian Bielinsky's original note for note, and it's a listless, dutiful affair -- a cover version played out of obligation, not inspiration.

A poignant film punctuated with clumsy moments and a resolution that occurs far too abruptly.

I can honestly think of no reason why anyone would want to see Testosterone apart from the rumor that the film contains a full-frontal shot of Antonio Sabato Jr. naked.

If you don't have a dog waiting for you at home after seeing A Letter to True, you'll want one.

A mesmerizing documentary about the rise and fall of a drug lord, perhaps the biggest there ever was.

The whole incoherent mess is sort of like a downbeat Gap ad, only longer and a lot more boring.

With more time and a dash more cynicism, the film just might have achieved the thrilling allure of Becky Sharp's perfectly icy heart.

There are not enough synonyms for ''bad'' to describe the pretension and utter banality of the masturbatory The Brown Bunny, a film so exhaustively awful even its creator Vincent Gallo once disavowed it.

If you found "Crouching Tiger" a stunning bore, you probably won't fall under Hero's spell. But the rest of us, well, we'll be more than happy to savor every moment of its strange, ravishing beauty.

This movie didn't have to be good, but that it's so boring in its badness is tough to swallow.

Ultimately the story of someone who preys on other serial killers, but can't seem to come up with an original way in which to do it.

Results in a weightless film. Worse still, McElwee's languid tone makes his journey lack conviction.

Soon settles down into a drizzle of steady mediocrity, never living up to all the frenzy of those first few moments.

Shares an important slice of German history that is largely unknown.

In addition to providing a textbook example of suspense, Estes also makes us want to know what happens to these kids after the screen goes dark.

Red Lights is actually an examination of marriage -- of what keeps people together long after the passion has fizzled, and all that's left is bitterness and resentment.

It is almost completely devoid of any trace of humor. It radiates a luxurious, all-encompassing mopeyness.

If Andrews oozes regal poise and Hathaway radiates movie star allure -- and they do -- credit the actresses, not this flimsy fairy tale.

The most interesting aspect of Danny Deckchair, though, may be that the film is based on the true story.

Collateral is a small, modest movie writ large by people so talented, they aren't capable of anything less.

Together (Hunter/Murphy) they're actually sort of fun to watch, and it's amusing to realize, not quite halfway through the film, that its most potent chemistry exists between them.

Unlike "Jaws," Open Water isn't much for traditional popcorn-movie scares. Instead, the movie is more interested in depicting the gradual deterioration of its protagonists' sanity, and how that affects their relationship.

Filled with conspiracies, intrigue and the suggestion that modern-day society is purposely designed to drive us a little nuts, The Manchurian Candidate is a paranoid fantasy for our time.

Kids are most likely to be entertained by this live-action offering, although baby-boomer fans of the series will appreciate how closely it hews to the show's foundation.

I will tell you what The Village is not: It is not scary. It is not all that interesting. It isn't even much of a movie.

A hard and hilariously ironic look at the bottom line. As it turns out, love was not all you needed; hard cash came in handy, too.

Clearly, this unabashedly silly movie, written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, is the work of people with a grasp of the stream-of-consciousness creativity that a few bong hits can impart.

A film more psychological than passionate, more mental than emotional.

There's no denying the intelligence at work here, or Braff's skill at weaving off-the-wall humor and sight gags into a story that, at heart, is profoundly sad.

Lee remains a superb entertainer -- like Oliver Stone, he's incapable of ever being boring -- but in She Hate Me, he comes dangerously close to seeming trivial, a crank-for-crank's-sake.

Because Kitano also wrote and directed the movie, Zatoichi also features all kinds of beguiling, if admittedly bizarre, subplots and forays into nonsequitur territory.

Achieves an assaultive intensity that adds a level of visceral excitement to car chases, mano-a-mano showdowns -- even simple conversations. It's a style that takes some getting used to -- the images flit by at near-subliminal speeds -- but proves tremendously effective.

Silly, tedious, inept disaster.

The themes of A Home at the End of the World are all of the greeting-card variety -- home is where the heart is, family is what we make it, etc. -- and while they've been presented with great warmth and sincerity, they still come off as more than a little banal.

The sort of entertainment that makes you happy to be grown up and able to avoid the current onslaught of trite, lazy, unimaginative films aimed at tween-agers.

A slick, shiny video game of a movie bursting with computer-generated chase scenes and cool gadgets.

Shot in the style of a documentary, which lends the movie an aura of utter realism, Maria Full of Grace derives an unsettling power from the clinical details of Maria's ordeal.

Alas, as much as it aspires to mimic the charm of old Cary Grant pictures, Touch of Pink is hardly worthy of comparison to even the least of Grant's films.

Beautiful to look at but aimless as a broken compass.

Despite the actors' admirable efforts, everyone in The Door in the Floor is too affected, too fancifully written, to come off as anything other than conceits.

A lazy, self-satisfied piece of work -- a comedy made by people who think so highly of themselves, they assume they'll get a laugh just by showing up in front of the camera.

The film is probably not evil incarnate, but it's so irritating you wish it -- and just about everyone in it -- would just shut up and get out of your room.

Though all actors are up to the challenge, it is the plot that makes The Inheritance shine.

Every time Riding Giants starts feeling a little too insidery for casual viewers, along comes another, even bigger wave, daring these puny mortals to conquer it.

Forget all that accuracy business and just enjoy the movie for what it is: a large-scale, passably engrossing tale of valiant knights doing valiant deeds.

There are not enough thrilling musical interludes, and few come close to capturing the sly joy in Porter's music.

Although it is technically a sequel, Before Sunset stands perfectly well on its own. In fact, the new movie plays better if you haven't seen the original for a while, so its details have grown appropriately fuzzy.

What's missing most in the film, though, is a palpable sense of tension.

This shameless cheerleader of a documentary is the sort of propaganda you might expect in a Republican campaign ad or perhaps featured at a small theater located somewhere in Fantasyland.

Nothing in it -- plot, dialogue or character development -- reaches today's standards of filmmaking.

A masterpiece of pop filmmaking -- a fantastic, exuberant entertainment that manages to be both sleek and substantial without being patronizing.

You won't necessarily applaud The Notebook's excesses, but its final moments of grace will leave you in a sodden heap on the theater floor.

The movie's ''bless the beasts and the children'' moralizing is simplistic and skews a wee bit too young, but it's hard to fault a film whose greatest vice is sentimentalizing an animal humans have pushed almost to the brink of extinction.

Like its eponymous subject, it succeeds only in being shallow and crass and not very much fun to be around.

Unapologetically slanted -- and often hilarious.

In Dodgeball, Vaughn is stuck playing the straight man to a collection of stooges, and he looks utterly bored doing it.

So beautifully directed, so pleasurable to watch and so thoughtfully put together, it's a disappointment when you realize, halfway through, that the movie is going to fall way short of a masterpiece.

In I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the night grows long while your eyelids grow heavy.

May not offer anything new, but in its well-tested premise, you can't fail to be seduced.

Emits a fishy odor, like a recruitment film for an obscure cult you'd rather stay away from.

There's nothing here you haven't seen before, especially if you own a PlayStation.

Isn't so much bad as it is puny: a sporadically amusing, occasionally funny, but ultimately bland and pointless time killer.

Now here's the reason America won't love Garfield: The Movie: Garfield's gone from the listless feline we all know and love to a fast-stepping, break-dancing cat about town. What's worse, the other characters are even farther from their roots.

As slight as the picture is, though, its hero is an indelible creation.

Here, finally, is a Harry Potter picture that lives up to its potential -- that, plainly, LIVES.

Serves as a beautiful and delicate reminder of the myriad ways in which life is lived on this huge planet of ours.

Takes one side, but it tries to offer hope that change can happen.