It's Mamet without the rich slanginess and heat of which he's capable at his best.

Nunez's direction is as self-consciously homey as a floral welcome mat.

A film worth your time, and if you know going into it that there's no closure, it'll give you all the more freedom to enjoy what IS there.

For a general audience the entertainment factor is quite low. The project may best serve us not on the screen, but in a time capsule.

Too bad it commits the crime of being so intensely average, because what could have been sensational turns out to be merely this week's heist movie.

While it's crucial to preserve and make available every bit of available footage of such an earth-shattering event, it must be said that Rosenbaum's film manages to become slack and uninvolving after a while.

Les Destinées has a leisurely, contemplative pace without ever growing boring. Still, at the end, we are left somehow empty. For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.

The actual finale, which so betrays what's come before it that it leaves one walking out of the theater holding a grudge against what was.

Sad to say, the story is simply too slight to sustain the film.

For three jerks bitching in a box, Tape makes the most of its minimalism. At its best, it's Betrayal for the Breakfast Club set.

Heavy with mood and Finn's fine music, Jeffs' debut feature merely moistens us when we should be soaked. Maybe next time she'll let it all come down.

Not a film for everyone, but if you're in the mood for a little sensory overload, some spirited intellectual gymnastics and an introduction to the most intriguing new actress Europe has produced in years, get in line with the rest of the thrill-seekers.

If you're not in the mood for explicit discussions (and occasional depictions) of the sex life of French adolescents, close your eyes.

Primary Colors lacks the buzz and crackle of observed experience; you never feel like you've been plunged into the workings of a real campaign. It's a sham movie about a sham world.

Audiences are advised to sit near the back and squint to avoid noticing some truly egregious lip-non-synching, but otherwise the production is suitably elegant, a fine retreat from summer cinema overkill.

Give Care and McFarlane points for trying to do something innovative with the same old thing. But realize that, as spruced up as the facade may be, this movie is indeed still the same old thing.

What's in it for you? Mostly a bunch of astronauts and cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station, floating around filming each other.

A lacerating study of sexual alienation.

If you can roll with these moments, the rest of the film pays off, but even with a relatively happy ending (one that, given the characters in question, may not last), it's a heck of a downer for date night.

Hu has crafted a charming and modest movie.

what we've got here is a little propaganda film. A mild one, certainly, but the cliché of DIY hopefuls (band) versus the Big Machine (music industry) foments the same tedious struggle of art versus commerce.

Isn't as funny as it should be. Cedric's speech impediment only goes so far -- he's actually funnier in Serving Sara, without having to rely on a big wig to do his acting for him.

It's far more than merely disappointing that Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams lacks the charm and wit -- and humanity --of its predecessor. It's dispiriting.

It's by turns poignant and cold, twisted and sweet, dreamy and drab, effortless and overwrought. In short, the movie is a stunning, ambitious mess that leaves you wondering how much better it might have been without Kubrick's specter peering over Spielberg's heavy shoulders.

Even before the film has worked up a head of steam, it has started to pile up the improbabilities, giving us reason to question its credibility.

It's the usual struggle of growing up and growing old, but Muccino's twists are plucky and revealing when he's not suffocating us with heavy-handed mortality and pathos.

The challenge faced here by writer-director Robert Guédiguian (Charge!) is to keep his cheap melodrama from curdling his insightful societal appraisal.

The cumulative effect is less thrilling than it is merely amusing.

Muhammad Ali's spirit, his life force, is not quite present here, despite Smith's astonishing mimicry and Mann's considerable perspiration.

Like so many other allegedly scary movies, it gets so tangled up in The Twist that it chokes the energy right out of the very audience it seeks to frighten.

With no aspects of the personalities represented outside of their music, Grateful Dawg ends up feeling dry and incomplete; its two subjects are stripped of all other characteristics and come across as not very interesting.

Certainly a terrific sense of urgency underlies the story and Tom's desperation over Claire is palpable, but that may not be enough for viewers who actually like to understand how the riddle is unraveling.

May be too low-key for its own good. Still, if you want to get in on the ground floor of Aidan Gillen's certain-to-be-skyrocketing career, it's a good place to start.

In the end, it demonstrates all over again the virtual impossibility of doing Nabokov justice on film, because his work is so resolutely and brilliantly made of words.

A small story, with fewer lofty ambitions than its lead character, the film runs out of steam at a certain point. Overall, its leisurely pace and lack of overt action will bore some filmgoers, while the movie's final section, during which Ganesh pursues his political aspirations, feels strangely hurried and less satisfying than the rest of the story.

The problem with Secretary isn't that it is offensive or unnerving -- although you get the idea the filmmakers hoped it might be at least one of those. The problem is that the story is slow-moving and dull.

The problem with Wendigo, for all its effective moments, isn't really one of resources. At its heart, the story seems confused, as though the director has given it one too many twists.

Star Jeremy Renner seems shorter than Dahmer, but is otherwise a look-alike and gives a convincingly intense and weird performance. Bruce Davison (as Papa Dahmer) and the rest of the cast also do nice work.

While nostalgically recalling the past, this is a clear-eyed look at Jewish history that should prove compelling even to those who've never heard of the Yiddish theater.

A mess, but it's a rousing mess, with ample humor and action to satisfy the discerning dullard within.

"Center of the World" portrays a much more believable example of what happens when a computer nerd realizes that his erotic fantasies aren't the same thing as love.

Roberto Schaefer's cinematography keeps things visually interesting, but spending an hour and a half with a gloomy, static lunatic hardly makes for a scintillating evening out, no matter how pretty she may be.

It just doesn¹t get very good until halfway through, in large part because the usually excellent Walston is miscast.

Picture the dopes from "Dumb and Dumber" getting mixed up in organized crime -- but without benefit of Jim Carrey's rubberized pratfalls or his go-to-hell anarchism.

Austere little creep-out.

Doesn't quite scale the heights it could and should, often because of its inappropriate humor, which could be blamed on cultural mistranslation.

Filled with sharp observations and interesting, often subtle, bits of visual trickery, much of it evoking the technique of Douglas Sirk's American domestic melodramas. Still, the very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost arbitrary.

Like all films constructed out of pop-culture effluvia, Zoolander runs the risk of being so last month; this is a movie that treats Fabio as the ultimate punch line and regards David Bowie as the prince of style.

In the end, it's a film so short on style and verve it feels lifeless; audiences might feel imprisoned in the Château d'If, praying for escape or quick death. Thankfully, one need not tunnel out of a movie theater.

Unless you count "Lilo & Stitch," this is the first of several surfer-girl movies out of the gate, and it seems clear that in the rush to put it out there, a script was the last thing on Universal's mind.

The texture is reminiscent of last year's "Suzhou River," but the basic material isn't as rich.

Not as tumultuous as "Happy Together" (the best gay break-up movie to date) it nonetheless offers much food for thought, particularly in regard to issues of trust and condom use.

It makes as good a case as any for the use of animation as a medium for serious, mature features.

Viewers expecting another enchanting, whimsical tale of high energy and mischievous spirits will be sorely disappointed.

The muddiness of the basic concept and the thinness of its execution eventually defeat even Witherspoon's talents.

The film takes an incredibly wrong turn when it shifts to the courtroom trial -- It all but kills any goodwill Silberling has engendered up to this point.

It's always risky to characterize a new film as "unique," but Tuvalu, the debut feature from German director Veit Helmer, has as good a shot as any at claiming that label.

Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking.

Either a put-on or a straight shooter; that you can't tell the difference underscores its small but ultimately overwhelming flaws.

The real star of the film is the food, which is sliced, diced, shredded, rolled, sautéed and fricasseed to mouthwatering perfection.

Will probably please hard-core action fans who have become inured to plot idiocies, but it remains a terrible waste of talent.

That Osmosis Jones plays like a sloppy hodgepodge is no surprise: The live-action scenes were done by the Farrellys, the animation by Sito and Kroon (whose names sounds like bodily functions), and the script was penned by another first-timer, Marc Hyman. Nobody seems to be on the same page.

There is more anxiety than loving humor in the proceedings, and a noticeable lack of charm.

It's refreshing and unusual to see clever strategy trumping ritual honor in a film of this genre, even if one of the tricks seems gratuitously brutal.

What's somewhat ironic about Bread and Roses is that it's bound to be more interesting to people outside of L.A. than in it.

Startlingly, this is not the trite beer commercial one might expect.

When it's all over, one is less compelled to applaud than to give each "character" a sympathetic hug.

It's a feel-good movie that happens to have a lot of feel-bad in it. The gratuitous violence sucks, and the pat conclusion prompts one to shout don't believe the hope!.

The new documentary Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy shows, all is not quite as it seems.

Sometimes it bounces along, other times it feels forced. Kids and hardcore fans will love it regardless, and those who don't will nonetheless be talking about it for the next three years.

An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.

If you're a Basquiat fan, or were around in New York back then, you'll want to take a look. If not, this film has little to recommend.

Rock Star takes itself so seriously it becomes full-on parody -- "This Is Spinal Tap" as a sanctimonious cautionary tale. And how rock 'n' roll is that?

Weber uses Faye as base from which to branch out in bizarre directions.

Damon looks like a kid lost in the wrong neighborhood, and his acting manners underscore that impression--everything is a bit too fine, too neat...An intermittently interesting, intermittently foolish film.

The film was shot with six cameras simultaneously and the images are projected on six split screens, à la Mike Figgis' "Time Code." While the subject's appeal is limited and the film's 106-minute running time excessive, viewers who do respond to the pic will find it raw, real and cathartic.

The movie is beautiful to look at (lensed by Pierre Gill) as are the girls, but it takes its clunky message so seriously that it often verges on silliness.

If only good intentions were enough to redeem a picture, perhaps ABCD would be worth a look.

It's a visually poetic style, and likely to find hardcore devotees, especially among the ranks of Terence Malick and Marc Forster fans. Others will just find it painfully slow.

The film generally looks like a TV special, with low production values and lots of closeups.

Even Hartnett, designated Next Big Thing last year, seems like he's barely trying.

Enjoyable, if utterly stupid, upscale entry in the old Amityville Horror genre -- that is, a horror film allegedly based on spooky and inexplicable real-life events.

The cold distance that LaBute brings to the material keeps the viewer at arms' length.

Serendipity already feels archaic, like some dusty relic that's been unearthed from an antique store's attic and polished off for display.

This innocuous, frothy fairy tale isn't so off-putting as you might imagine, thanks in large part to Andrews' ageless charm.

A teen-anxiety movie that leaves no doubt where it stands on "family values" and moral absolutes: It approves. The shock troops of the Cinema Without Limits army are unlikely to buy many tickets, but those who do will probably see the thing as sanctimonious pabulum -- even for its target audience of adolescents.

The prettiest Dogme film to date may be the one that has the least to say.

After a few very funny early sequences, tricked up with grotesque, surreal editing and camerawork, the movie gets bogged down a bit during the first third.

Their (Tunney and Nelson) interplay is what saves the movie, and possibly should have been expanded upon to the exclusion of the other plot points.

The over-the-top sincerity that is so rewarding in "Face/Off" (1998), Woo's best American film, feels too clichéd in this more conventional context.

Distinguishes itself by its subtlety and good taste. Even if we catch a hint of gypsy music on the soundtrack -- or glimpse a disturbing American neighbor lady -- Gardos steadfastly guards us from caricature. She wants to keep it real.

Originally, somebody may have wanted the film to be a serious exploration of the dark side of high school sports, but it ended up as just one more sports picture.

Thankfully, the final, long action set piece, which owes a debt to "The Manchurian Candidate" among others, is free of such problems. Shiri manages to go out on its most exciting sequence. There are worse ways to go.

The next time Irwin wants to make a feature, however, he should find a director who knows how.

Solondz's singular game plan is to dangle profoundly obnoxious caricatures before us, then punish them mercilessly for their stupidity, which is amusing enough if you're in the mood for that sort of thing.

The film desperately wants to play like "Three Kings," a war film with a guilty conscience, but it's too pat and familiar to earn its high-minded stripes.

That's not to say Simone doesn't offer a good time. Shove aside its self-righteous agenda and it's a deft kick, a light comedy whenever it's not trying to play heavy. And it's bolstered by Al Pacino in a lively performance.

Where "Twin Falls" was slow, brooding and haunting in a manner that fit the subject matter -- the imminent death of one of the principal characters -- Jackpot is just slow and uneventful, like a cross-country Greyhound bus trip that never stops.