Early on in The Slammin' Salmon, a customer sends back a plate of undercooked fish. I can't imagine a better metaphor for a movie that is named after a fish and that is as half-baked as this one is.

It is edifying, it is emotionally engaging, it is embraceable.

Local viewers will be tickled by the wealth of New Orleans details in the production. One of the best just might be in the film's music.

The result is an often-screwball jaunt that isn't without its fun moments.

One of the reasons it's so effective is because it's based on a real-life, odds-defying story: that of mountainous Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher (played by Quinton Aaron).

The result is a deliriously watchable and darkly comic portrait of a high-velocity death spiral.

Almodovar lets his movie become boring, and insufferably so.

For all of its faults, ends up being relentlessly watchable as well, a summertime popcorn spectacle plopped down in the middle of the fall movie season.

Even though it's right there in the title, "fantastic" might be a touch hyperbolic in describing director Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, but only by a whisker.

It's a tremendously moving drama, filled with heartbreak, humor and, more importantly, humanity.

There's an overly episodic feel to it all, as Curtis and company seem happy merely to float along from gag to gag.

Precious is painful, it is harrowing, it is emotionally exhausting. It is also a singular film, one that is as difficult to compare to another as it is to forget.

As beautiful as the animation is, Zemeckis' real masterstroke is combining it with a loyalty to Dickens' story.

An up-tempo and upbeat concert documentary that celebrates, rather than mourns, the last hurrah of a pop-culture touchstone.

Trades breathless romance for a fun "Ripley's Believe it or Not"-flavored weirdness.

His (Jonze) obvious affection for, and veneration of, Maurice Sendak's 1963 Caldecott Medal-winning children's book is palpable in his near-perfect live-action adaptation, a dreamy -- and, like Sendak's book, faintly nightmarish -- exploration of one child's tantrum-y side.

It's a career-making performance that relies as much on charm as on acting ability -- and Mulligan has both.

It's provocative stuff, and The Yes Men approach it with a wicked sense of humor.

It's great, gruesome fun, a well-written and fantastically cast romp.

The result is a film that is equal parts fluff and tough.

The only thing missing from the film -- which is frequently amusing but too bleak to be consistently laugh-out-loud funny -- is a genuine connection with its audiences, or at least those audiences not raised in 1960s Jewish suburbia.

It is an inspiring, well-assembled portrait of one man's love for his autistic 6-year-old son and the measures he's willing to go to help the boy -- and the family -- cope with his neurological challenges.

A better title: "Coco Before She Was Interesting."

That it's all true might make it more heart-tugging, but it doesn't make it any more interesting.

After watching the bailouts, the bank foreclosures and the Bernie Madoffs of the world dominate headlines, Michael Moore is mad as hell, and he's going to try to make you mad as hell, too.

It's all good, goofy fun.

The truth, however, is that for much of Soderbergh's film, it's all as yawn-inducing as its premise.

9, though animated, isn't really a movie for kids. The problem is that, despite its strikingly original set-up and its cool steampunk visual vibe, it's not much of a movie for grown-ups, either.