It doesn’t help that the characters in some cases have been rendered with such realism that they have lost all human expression on their faces. Maybe that’s the idea — to not anthropomorphize them too much and to stay grounded in zoological authenticity. But they’re still talking, and singing, only now their faces are inexpressive; it’s a weird disconnect.

Frankie is a messy movie that spreads itself too thin over this sprawling cast of characters.

Tusk is not a particularly good movie, but the vivid anxiety dream at its heart makes it one of the most personal films this writer-director has ever made.

Caine makes a grave, soulful vigilante avenger, and first-time director Daniel Barber gives the film a dank, streaky, genuinely unnerving palette.

Most movies take a while to slip you into a stupor. All the Pretty Horses makes you groggy right away. Set in 1949, it's a lackadaisical series of vignettes apparently culled from a much longer movie that never made it to the screen. Be thankful for that.

The problem with all this don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it dramaturgy is that ultimately everything is sacrificed for effect. When you're dealing, as Ritchie is, with explosions of real violence and viciousness, the hyperslick technique can't accommodate the real pain that comes with the territory, or ought to. What we're left with is a cackling amorality -- not a philosophy of life, just a posture.

You can believe this man (Jones) left his family because he felt born into the wrong tribe. Now if only he had picked the right movie . . .

The film’s brooding tension would probably work even without the recent tragedy of real-life events. But now, while uneven, the film is uniquely involving — right down to a final shot that will break your heart into a million pieces.

The Last Samurai is an idyll in which the savageries of existence are transcended by spiritual devotion. That’s a beautiful dream, and it gives the film a deep pleasingness, but the fullness of life and its blackest ambiguities are sacrificed.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which was written by Abe Sylvia, is unable to decide if it wants to understand its subject or make fun of her, and ends up never really committing to either.

Iñárritu has a flair for the cinematic, for bold and striking images, but he is not an experimental filmmaker. He doesn’t have that kind of deft touch, that willingness to throw ideas at the wall, see what sticks, and — most importantly — move on.

This is familiar terrain jazzed up by unfamiliar voices--principally Terrence Howard and his high-pitched, singsong drawl. You don't quite know what he's thinking; he might even be demented. But he keeps you watching and guessing.

But the reason it all works so effectively is that Marcantonio trusts his audience. His direction is perhaps the film’s greatest strength, demonstrating a striking sense of tone and mood amounting to a destabilizing effect.

It’s an assemblage of ideas from other popular films that just hangs there with little cohesion. It’s like watching a movie that hasn’t been made yet.

A surprisingly moving tale of friendship and family, dressed up as an adorably frivolous sci-fi comedy.

Idlewild is diverting enough to suggest all the unexplored avenues in movie musicals.

We get a reboot that takes no risks and steers away from the uncomfortable sexual jolts of its predecessor. This movie doesn’t raise hell. Honestly, it barely raises heck.

You can find fault with virtually every scene in Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby — and yet in spite of all the wrong notes, Fitzgerald (and the excess he was writing about and living) comes through. The Deco extravagance of the big party scenes is enthralling. Luhrmann throws money at the screen in a way that is positively Gatsby-like, walloping you intentionally and un- with the theme of prodigal waste.

Like Shelley’s much-adapted creature, The Bride! is a creation of enormous ambition. It’s also an incoherent disaster — and not of the noble folly variety. It leaves you with the sinking feeling of watching someone fight their way to the front of a crowd to speak, only to realize when the spotlight is finally on them that they’re not actually sure what to say.

The movie is physically beautiful, but the ideas are kitsch -- it’s a New Age love story, the latest version of the doomed romances of 50 years ago.

It starts off with a flourish and winds up limp, like a rabbit pulled out of a hat that turns out to be dead.

The result is perhaps the most elegantly shot, and certainly the most disturbing, of the recent fantasy films.

I was blissed out during much of To Rome With Love, but I have to acknowledge its creepy side.

Keys takes a scattershot approach to Cuban music, filming not only specific artists, like Los Cohibas and Los Zafiros, but also street musicians in the barrio and just about everywhere else he can find them.

Exquisitely produced, immaculately acted, and thoroughly uninvolving, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a perfect nothing of a movie.

Director Dennis Dugan knows his way around shin-whacking slapstick, and Sandler is mesmerizing.

It has an energy all its own, and Gondry’s voice is always welcome, and essential. Mood Indigo is somehow both unmissable and whisper-thin.

As a final-girl structured horror film, it has plenty of imaginative moments.