There are certain elements in life that you either have a taste for, or you don't. Like coffee. Cats. And Mr. Bean.

A measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul.

Though intermittently shrill, Shopping does have enough moments of insight to blunt charges of sexist stereotyping.

A charmingly loony tale of two young loners who form an unlikely bond, this droll Japanese import puts the predictable banality of most Hollywood teen flicks to shame.

The moments when "Z&M" works are, almost without exception, the ones that are more sweet than shocking. All the rest, frankly, feel like Apatow Lite.

It's disappointing when a big-screen romance can't match up to the one in your imagination, at any age.

Some may still be surprised at this fun, well-informed chronicle of what was happening in the U.S. as lighted floors, boogie shoes and Saturday night fevers were the rage.

A slog to get through, but Jeanie Drynan's nuanced performance as the enduring matriarch makes it all worthwhile.

A serious and thoughtful movie that probably does not mean to trivialize the Holocaust and blame the victim. But it is playing with fire nevertheless.

Yes, this important film will deepen a debate about the game's safety. And, yes, it makes the National Football League look like a tobacco company run by the Nixon administration. But immigration is the ultimate political football right now — and when I left the theater, it was with a renewed sense of what one dignified man can achieve when given a chance in a great nation.

In Hollywood, all is forgiven if you can deliver the goods. On-screen, at least, there’s little difference between this Gibson and the one we remember from earlier films like “Ransom” and “Payback.”

Because his self-conscious musings are given so much space, it helps to arrive at the movie already awed by Shicoff's talents so you can overlook his (and this dramatically unfocused film's) flaws.

Only DeWitt looks at home, but Shelton allows “Touchy Feely” to be so wishy-washy that we can never get a hold of the star, or the movie.

When you name your movie Dom Hemingway and then require the titular antihero to repeatedly declare, “I am Dom Hemingway!” the filmmakers must be very confident that there is something special about their character. Too bad there isn’t.

We never learn why most of his subjects remain loyal to a faith that so explicitly rejects them.

Now that’s a kick in the head: A Western filmmaker is taking Jackie Chan seriously. The Foreigner, however, takes him a little too seriously.

This slickly packaged bit of Disneyana would probably work best as an attraction at Epcot.

There's no avoiding the fact that it's a one-joke movie, 86 minutes in the telling, and without any serious social underpinnings, it grows old pretty fast.

A perfect example of an "art" movie that is so lugubrious and soul-sucking that it's hell to sit through.

At its best when it embraces its true identity, as frivolous fun.

Manages to entertain, and yet, like so many flat-footed attempts at waving the flag, it feels disingenuous and dogmatic.

There's no denying the beauty of Schwartzberg's landscapes, or the power in many of his chosen stories - from the Texas oil well fighters to the Boston father who helps his handicapped son win marathons.

The sexy, psycho Mad Love is like a Spanish "The Story of Adele H.," in which a woman loves once and only once, to the point of self-destruction, in the days before Prozac.

The Brighton Beach crowds come off more like tourists, and the Odessans in Israel can't seem to decide which is their real homeland. And it's all very confusing.

While "FWK" never challenges us, it does remain consistently engaging.

Quirky, but infinitely more interesting than big-budget Hollywood cousins.

While a good director can spin a worthy movie from any subject, first-timer Carlos Brooks does surprisingly little with the jaw-dropper of a topic he chose.

The serious-minded result has many super-cool moments. But when it gets clunky, it’s super-meh.

The most adorably filthy movie you may ever see.

Like a dime-store holiday card, this Christmas Carol is well-crafted but artless, detailed but lacking soul.

The actors are emotional, but the presentation is theoretical to the point of absurdity.

Almost Christmas is frustrating in its failure to not surpass what's expected of it. It's shallow in its emotions and misses opportunities to develop more realistic characters with more relatable feelings.

We can't quite shake the feeling we've seen this all done before, and better.

It tries to be more existential than gumshoe but falls way short.

Originally intended as a comedy, the snippets of lightheartedness that remain seem awkwardly out of step with the unsurprising drama that replaced it.

Wood is compelling, but Charlie Hunnam ("Nicholas Nickleby") is the one to watch.

Something of a traffic jam--even with his usual restraint, Lee couldn't recount a key moment of the '60s without a blurry parade of personalities--and also lullingly dull.

This old-fashioned sword-and-sandal drama has all the bread and circuses we've come to know from the movies. It flirts with interesting story choices, but ultimately, all roads lead to boredom.

Fred Schepisi's sly, stately comedy-drama that will please fans of BBC melodramas. But even on its own merits, its mild manner has sneaky stings.

An overstuffed failure that mistakes sleight storytelling for dazzling entertainment.

For all its strengths, the film is cursed by an ADD-style structure and a flashy but inevitably ineffective casting stunt.

Despite its definitive title, you won't actually learn much about Alfred Hitchcock from Sacha Gervasi's briskly superficial biopic. But you'll enjoy the experience anyway.

The film itself is a tedious melodrama whose sole saving grace is the performance of Samuel L. Jackson as Tommy Kincaid.

Still, every time Kurt opens his mouth you wish he would refocus and realize that, in fact, we've come to see a movie about someone else.

Some of Hyde Park on Hudson feels like lost scenes from "The King's Speech," the 2010 Oscar-winner about King George. It doesn't help that "Hyde's" own rhythms, appealing as they are, are often soporific.

The kids almost universally express the need for peace, equality, tolerance, homes for all and a safe planet.

It's not sharp or ironic, but drab and downbeat. Unfortunately, it's also going to feel utterly familiar to those who've seen their share of independent dramas in the last 15 years.

If any life story should make for a compelling biography, it's certainly Hugh Hefner's. Unfortunately, this love letter is so lacking in any edge, the end result is not just unsexy but unforgivably staid.

Whether it works is a matter of taste, but the fact that Burton's revisit unearths enough fun while feeling like four films in one is testament to the source's seductive bloodline.

This is the kind of movie in which Jarrod's nemesis turns out to be paraplegic, while his dad lives in a wheelchair despite the fact that he can walk just fine. Ha.

A fast and relentless hostage thriller that never stops.

Most of the movie's rewards are in watching Morton.

The story offers an interesting twist, but the only really spooky part is when a Benny Goodman record insists on playing without human aid. More scares, please.

Lee pushes this joyride into stimulation overdrive, playing with colors and film speeds and surfaces and shadows until it makes perfect sense that a movie should be all about energy, rather than -- well, about anything else at all.

There's humor and expected back-story pathos.

Nolot elicits the last response expected from a movie that's almost entirely about sex: a yawn.

Mostly, Benazzo and Day leave us alone to take in the extraordinary sights and sounds.

After its clichéd first scene - a solo LAPD officer battling a well-armed gang of thugs - Street Kings becomes an enjoyably tough, blood-splattered action drama that revolves around the one good cop at its center.

Despite its problems, there's a touching sweetness at the heart of Nancy Savoca's intimate family drama about estranged sisters trying to reconnect.

Director Jodie Foster's Money Monster runs a trim 98 minutes, but it's still not quite worth the investment.

After three disturbingly violent films, this may be a concept that deserves to be purged.

Not bad. It actually might have been considered pretty good had it been made 30 years ago, when people might have cared about the backstory of Father Merrin.

LaBeouf ("Holes") has a scrubbed, ego-free innocence that is perfect for his working-class hero.

Helstein doesn't have to work so hard to remind us of her subject's gravity; the stories chronicled are chilling enough without embellishment.

With its sense of what can be accomplished on a small budget, The Craft suggests the classic B-horrors of the '40s particularly The Cat People and The Seventh Victim.

Hellion is a glimpse into rural American childhood that’s both tense and melancholy.

Perry also spices things up with two of his most reliable fallbacks: music, and Madea. Having packed his cast with singers, he allows them all a moment to shine, with songs that deliver his patented lessons (trust in yourself, trust in others, trust in God).

Barnes, on the other hand, is the macho-sensitive singer coeds dream about. He plays guitar and repairs roofs, proving that sexy and useful is a winning combo. Barnes reminds me of a young John Hawkes — with a little bit of Nick Drake.

The meltingly beautiful Newton gives a solid performance, but she and Wahlberg do not glide like Astaire and Rogers, to put it delicately.

Its premise had me worn out by the second reel.

The movie portrays Guerin -- regarded by many as a hero -- as an irritating figure.

From performances to pacing, nearly every element of Rao's debut is uneven. But her passionate vision of so much useless prejudice leaves a lingering impact.

Cowan, a gay Mormon himself, deftly melds facts with emotions, alternating between a history of the church's anti-gay drive and interviews with those directly affected by it.

Pure charisma is sometimes the best special effect. That’s what Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg bring to 2 Guns, and after a season full of superhero duds, they deliver a crucial dose of cool.

In what is more a cry of regret than a coherent story, Shepard's character mopes his way through meetings with an old girlfriend (Jessica Lange) and the grown children he sired, the only apparent lesson being that bad behavior has a way of circling back on you.

What makes the calculated sentimentality palatable is Curtis’ intelligent assurance as he guides us through each step. It’s a gooey indulgence, to be sure, but one that will please anybody with a cinematic sweet tooth.

The screen smokes with sexual heat. But what's really erotic is how much fun the actors seem to be having.

Noble but dull.

Safe arrives filled with bombast and sneers but barely any thrills.

It’s the fun kind of crazy. And The Visit is undeniably, admirably intense when it needs to be.

Foster seems to be having real fun, twitching and skittering around, that steel jaw of hers comically tense. But this family movie shouldn't be about a shut-in trying to get from A to B; it needs to be about an unconventional girl growing up and helping an equally unconventional grownup cut loose on a volcanic island. Sadly, Nim's Island is a missed opportunity.

Any movie with food as a motif runs the risk of pouring on the metaphor, and that happens here, too.

Proudly, and often hilariously, juvenile, "Destiny" is packed with typically grandiose Tenacious D anthems - the sort that thrill 15-year-old boys listening alone in their bedrooms.

Plays like a throwback to gritty-but-softhearted English dramas of the 1980s like "Mona Lisa" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid."

Structurally, Love Actually is less like "Four Weddings" than it is "Scary Movie 3." ­Curtis throws every gag he can think of at the screen and the ones that don't stick, he throws again and again.

Rois has moments of desperate urgency and depth, but Twyker's love of parallels is finally done in by artsy shots of the threesome au naturel against stark white backdrops.

This engrossing documentary winds up being about nothing less than making one of Shakespeare’s greatest works come alive through hard work — and the spark that happens within an acting company.

Understatement is one of Mark Wahlberg’s greatest assets. But that admirable trait winds up working against him in The Gambler, Rupert Wyatt’s otherwise intriguing dramatic thriller.

The triumph here is the natural, fluid way the characters interact, many of them displaying real-life, quirky senses of humor you don't often find in screenplays.

It's too big an ensemble to provide enough back story for each player. But Sayles doesn't give his characters easily digestible labels, like "kook" or "pathetic loser."

The new buddy comedy movie that assumes the names of the series' characters and features the same hot-to-trot, tomato-red and shocking-white 1974 Ford Gran Torino is more fun than a Heidi Fleiss open house.

Lean's wonderful 1946 movie are taken down a peg with a tawdry update of Great Expectations set in modern-day Florida and New York. [30 January 1998, p. 44]

Long before your 140 minutes are up, you may wish you went to see "Sparkle" instead.

Krasinki's soft-sell script, lets the movie's ideas get absorbed without grandstanding or pretension. Its issues go down with a smile and common sense, which turns out to be exactly the right formula.

The Croods are not meant to be beauties — they are, after all, a family of Neanderthals. But is the animation meant to be ugly, too?

The cinematic equivalent of the mad-scientist experiment gone awry. It seems to be grooving on its own strangeness, at the expense of its connection with a paying audience.

not a good comedy. But there's no airbrushing out the funny surrounding its star.

There are some problems with the pacing, but this topical thriller about CIA-sanctioned torture is one of the most important "message" movies of the year.