It's a stilted thing--overstylized and inexpressive, like high-school kids playing dress-up, or bad Kabuki.

With the transformation of Al Franken from comedian to activist, Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus stumbled onto a good subject, but in the documentary Al Franken: God Spoke, they stumble around in it.

Reeves had an easy but peppy presence that was very likable, and Affleck's moroseness doesn't do him justice...and it doesn't help that Adrien Brody--as the film's ­other protagonist, a burnt-out gumshoe--is more actorish than the supposed actor.

That's a knock on ­Bujalski -- that his characters exist in a vacuum, with few references to popular culture or politics or much of anything, really. Of course, one artist's vacuum is another's poetic distillation, and there's something about Mutual Appreciation (which is shot in an unassuming black and white) that spoke more directly to my inner slacker than any film since, well, "Funny Ha Ha."

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

It's the worm set pieces that rule, as our hero must carry out a dare to eat ten worms ten ways between sunup and sundown.

The ending dispels a lot of the magic, but the silent-movie palette is gorgeous, and the film is worth seeing for the inspired hamming of Paul Giamatti as Vienna's chief inspector, whose plummy tones made me sure I could hear the ghost of James Mason cackling.

Each film in Nicolas Winding Refn's mesmerizingly brutal Pusher trilogy can stand on its own, but it's fun to see all three and observe the way the bad guys in one become the sympathetic heroes (or anti-heroes) in another.

Each film in Nicolas Winding Refn's mesmerizingly brutal Pusher trilogy can stand on its own, but it's fun to see all three and observe the way the bad guys in one become the sympathetic heroes (or anti-heroes) in another.

Downbeat as it is, Half Nelson is a genuinely inspirational film--a terrifically compelling character study and a tricky exploration of the links (and busted links) between the personal and the political.

A true story of courage and survival, yes. But viewing the destruction of the World Trade Center--in a film called World Trade Center--through this kind of prism represents a distinctly Hollywood brand of tunnel vision.

The movie does a good job of capturing how ostracism and liberation are sides of the same spinning coin.

It's a sensational trip -- gorgeous, gaga.

The first Allen picture since "Sweet and Lowdown" that doesn't leave a bad odor in its wake.

Little Miss Sunshine is an enchanting anthem to loserdom -- a dark comedy that piles on setback after setback and yet never loses its helium.

What's odd about Lady in the Water is that for all Shyamalan's histrionics, he's overcontrolled.

The movie might be scary for small kids--but good scary, with goose-bump-inducing frames, witty repartee, and three resourceful kid protagonists.

As with all Ozon's work, Time to Leave resounds with grace notes. The wide-screen cinematography by Jeanne Lapoirie offsets (or maybe disguises) the movie's narrow scope, and there's something private--withholding--in Poupaud's beauty that gives his misanthropy a touch of mystery.

Depressing, disgusting, and dated, Edmond is worth braving to experience America’s best-known serious playwright at his most gruesomely undiluted.

A collection of swashbuckling set pieces with the hustle of a vaudeville show.

A scantily clad revenge memoir.

The bigger problem is that Singer’s weighty rhythms are disastrous for Superman, and the movie actually gets heavier in its last half-hour.

The filmmakers have done their job brilliantly: The Road to Guantánamo is yet more lousy PR for the infidels.

The new 9/11 movies aim to rekindle feelings that most of us have, by necessity, moved beyond. But there’s more than one way to move beyond, as suggested by the spottily affecting ensemble psycho-comedy The Great New Wonderful.

Deliriously stupid romantic time-travel drama.

The movie is semi-infantile camp but often riotous.

Niceness also takes the edge off Patrick Creadon's otherwise revitalizing documentary.

This one is dully conventional even by family-uplift standards. The details are sweated, all right: It's a triumph of perspiration over inspiration.