Says Rampling: "If you're going to do a story like this, it's not going to be all flowers and roses and smell nice."

Unlike traditional zombie romps, these crazies don't stumble around mindlessly, noshing on human flesh. They look and act like normal people - until the second they go bonkers.

Ali Zaoua doesn't have the fireworks that made "City of God," the story of Brazilian youth gangs, a crossover hit. But in its own, low-key way, Ali Zaoua is just as stirring.

Often thrilling, sometimes charming, occasionally clunky family entertainment that perhaps wisely doesn't attempt to scale the heights of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Ferrell's manic, overgrown-kid energy sweeps all before it, announcing him - after his standout turn in "Old School" - as a major leading-man talent who can charm as well as amuse.

The Japanese whalers are clearly in violation of international law, but no government is willing to take action. That leaves it up to ragtag groups such as the Sea Shepherds to do their best to shut down the whalers. The planet owes them a big "thank you."

Dieter Laser is grand as the doc, a character Christopher Walken would be comfortable doing, and Akihiro Kitamura provides laughs as the first part of the centipede.

If it’s possible to make a morally old-fashioned film about teen orgies, writer-director Eva Husson has done so with Bang Gang, a quietly chilling look at the sex lives of a group of bored high-school students.

There are no end of tear-jerking moments in Perlasca, a well-made and heart-rending Italian "Schindler's List."

Story of Tobias Schneebaum, a gay New York artist famous for living with, sleeping with - and, gulp, eating with - cannibals in New Guinea.

It’s the ensemble that wows most, though. Faist makes an unusually spindly Riff, yet he is scarier than any I’ve seen. Bernardo, the best role in the show, is given real intensity by David Alvarez and Ariana DeBose dances the dickens out of “America” as Anita.

The folks on "Survivor" have nothing on Julia Butterfly Hill.

Although director J.J. Abrams tries his darndest to finish the job, conjuring up nostalgia like a TV medium, “Rise” doesn’t feel like the last chapter of the biggest American movie franchise. It’s just another well-made “Star Wars” flick.

It really all comes down to the Bellas. With brilliant actresses like Wilson, who has a badass fight scene this time, and Kendrick, the stealthily vicious pixie, the studio could drop this cast in a DMV with a pitch pipe and they would make a decent movie out of it — a movie that I would pay to see.

Despite a too-tidy wrap-up, it’s a humane film, one that sees the war as a tragedy for the Afghans, not just Western soldiers.

It’s not quite “Once,” but Song One, featuring original music by Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice, captures a similar, unselfconscious beauty in the way music can make sense of big, ungainly emotions — as James puts it, “for three to five whole minutes.”

A gut-wrenching experience.

A roaring old-school action adventure for kids, with as many mythical beasts as a year at Hogwarts and a healthy dose of smiting without the crazed bloodlust of “300.”

There are enough sharp one-liners and funny situations to keep things entertaining even as Braff delves (lightly) into genuine dilemmas confronting many a married couple.

Spanish director Achero Manas' El Bola shows how the boys' bond leads to salvation of a sort for the needy Pellet. He does so with great sensitivity, never sinking into exploitation.

Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor are good, but the real surprise is Ross. She's so magnetic that you can't believe this melodrama didn't lead to a real movie career. [06 Nov 2005, p.76]

This unlikely micro-budgeted project is written and directed by Marianna Palka, who also plays the female lead. The guy is portrayed by her real-life boyfriend, Jason Ritter (son of the late John). Their performances are quite remarkable and their chemistry is palpable, even if Good Dick is primarily intended for more adventurous moviegoers.

A feast of great acting, although in the final analysis it's a filmed stage play rather than a brilliant movie.

Even the most extreme punishments are softened by hilariously neurotic dialogue. Vive la Delpy!

The movie grows steadily more arresting as it goes on and saves its best parts for last.

You are left with two emotions - despair and hope - after watching producer-director Jennifer Dworkin's disquieting documentary.

An amazing portrait of the great filmmaker Ingmar Bergman in his later years.

Is it an essential continuation of the story of Russell Crowe’s fallen fighter Maximus? Eh, not really. A likable diversion, the film is not as epic or weighty as its acclaimed predecessor.

Nutty as The Lego Batman Movie is in conception, it’s nifty in execution.

There's not much new in this Filipino film by longtime director Gil M. Portes. But it's so endearing that only a grouch wouldn't be charmed.

The film is hard on the eyes, having been shot in a low-budget style with the ubiquitous digital palette of gray-beige-taupe. Fortunately, it’s also hilarious, full of humor that is understated, wry and dependent on familiarity with interests as wide as Houellebecq’s own.

Amenta draws from the diary that Rita kept in the nine months before her death in 1991, interviews with survivors and news footage to tell a riveting and inspiring story right out of "The Godfather."

An intoxicating attack on the homogenization of wines around the world - a "Fahrenheit 9/11" for the oneophile set.

What the film lacks in freshness...it makes up for in its sympathetic and compelling portrayal of its subjects.

Rulfo adds punch to his material with speeded-up visuals and an eye-popping, six-minute helicopter shot of the entire 10-mile project - which alone is worth the price of admission.

Breezy, entertaining and enlightening.

A pleasantly diverting period romp that Annette Bening turns into a wickedly funny tour de force.

Based on a lesser-known Dostoyevsky work, Brit director Richard Ayoade’s breathtakingly realized oddity will appeal to fans of David Lynch and the comic surrealism of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil.”

Bowfinger's terrific set-pieces... more than make up for the odd weak moment or thin performance.

It isn’t quite as clever as it thinks. This is one of those man-written feminist parables that looks an awful lot like a Penthouse art director’s idea of a feminist parable.

There is much sadness in this finely wrought drama, winner of nine prizes at the Israeli Academy Awards, but the family's hard-won escape from emotional lock-down is ultimately uplifting.

In Born To Be Blue, Ethan Hawke plays the heroin-addicted jazz trumpeter Chet Baker as a kind of guy version of Marilyn Monroe — breathy, fragile, a country naif struggling to stay anchored in this world instead of drifting off into the next.

An exploration of the power of religion -- should delight Dumont's fans. For others, it will take a bit of getting used to. The effort will prove to be worthwhile.

The film's flaws probably won't bother less jaded kids one whit.

In a move sure to infuriate “nanny state” critics, director Stephanie Soechtig names the US government and food corporations responsible for a campaign to get Americans addicted to junk food — particularly, and most dangerously, sugar — as early as possible.

Marker's documentary, shot on video, uses interviews, film clips and shots of Tarkovsky on the set to examine the Russian's work.

The attraction between the resolutely empirical scientist and his “spiritual,” hippy-dippy girlfriend gives the film an unpredictable quality.

Operation Filmmaker is eventually about Muthana blackmailing Davenport by withholding access to him as she fruitlessly seeks a happy ending for her film. "Now, I'm just looking for an exit strategy," she finally concludes.

Strel's 2007 adventures on and in the Amazon are detailed in John Maringouin's fun documentary Big River Man.

Examines in entertaining detail the way Hollywood has treated North American natives going as far back as the days of silent flicks.

Luce is a taut, extremely watchable movie, though the dialogue could loosen up a touch.

Frantic and out of control - and great fun to watch.

The Price of Milk, which boasts a lush classical score recorded by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, has a few more twists that make this a Valentine's Day delight.

The film's unusual look lends a magical feeling.

Much closer to Scorsese than "Scarface," Notorious gives a heartfelt yet clear-eyed sendoff to the late Brooklyn rapper Christopher Wallace.

The final twist is completely unexpected.

Metallica brought back the rights and funded the project, and it's their honesty and willingness to front the cameras, warts and all, that makes this well-edited, often very funny, documentary so compelling.

High praise for the movie Mother and Child: It's as good as a TV show. Although it's not as fine as HBO's "In Treatment," a show run by this movie's writer-director, Rodrigo Garcia.

This extremely well-acted dramatic farce of grief and betrayal actually has a resonance beyond its target demographic.

Open Range could easily have lost 20 minutes in the editing room, but its very casual pacing and beautiful vistas - gorgeously photographed in British Columbia by James Munro - are a soothing alternative in a season of movies seemingly aimed at sufferers of attention deficit disorder.

A guaranteed crowd-pleaser for the whole family.

The indie film is funny and, at times, heartbreaking. Wisely, it avoids the happy ending that Hollywood would have insisted upon.

Raya doesn’t have any coming-of-age experiences, she doesn’t sing, she’s not trying to please her father, there’s no romance subplot, nobody helps her get dressed. What there are are crossbows and swords. And on that front, it is a success. The battles and missions in each separate place are visually exciting.

Statham is an essential tough guy, what the Brits call "well'ard," as self-assured as Lee Marvin.

Scary and sad, Trapped is for anyone who cares about the precarious future of reproductive health for American women.

Walker's breezy film turns Muniz into a folk hero. And who am I to argue?

This freaky fairy-tale world is really a playground for Stone, whose willingness to be foolish and risky is a breath of fresh air amid all the polite Oscar-bait turns we’re handed this time of year.

This charming kid's-eye movie, full of comical and vivid detail about the lives of these cheerful children, has the loose, lanky feel of a memoir and of French New Wave films.

It isn't much of a contest: The clear winner is John Wayne, because the Coens are playing his game. The Duke couldn't do the Coens' sly in-jokes, but they've never been able to reach out and move the audience to heights of emotion. Before now, they've never tried.

The movie is much like a really long beer commercial - but a really dark one.

You’re a Big Boy Now is no “The Graduate” but it holds up far better than most comedies from this era I’ve revisited.

The late Akira Kurosawa's shamelessly sentimental last film is a fond and fitting farewell.

t's an exciting, well-directed thriller that, while providing more than enough action and gore to satisfy genre fans, also offers the political commentary that has characterized zombie movies going back at least as far as "Night of the Living Dead."

It's frightening enough, to be sure, but too often it feels like a well-executed but rote exercise.

RoboCop is topically up-to-the-moment but stylistically it’s retro. Far from using the story as an excuse to string together cheap thrills and blowout spectacle, its hero has all the heart of the Tin Man.

Riddled with sores, his lips locked on a crack pipe, the "sub-basement"-dwelling subject of this cult-rock doc initially seems plucked from an episode of "Intervention," or maybe "Hoarders."

It's certainly a lot more charming than the last attempt at a Peter Pan sequel, Steven Spielberg's star-laden, ham-fisted "Hook."

Slyly funny.

Talking heads include friends, fellow artists, art dealers and former girlfriends. One contributor is Julian Schnabel, the painter and filmmaker who directed the 1996 biopic "Basquiat."

Perry - who also produced, wrote and lensed - was able to talk Fujimori into letting her interview him on camera in Japan. He puts on a great show.

Be advised: The film opens with a warning about “flashing lights and hallucinatory images,” and, while effectively unsettling, these do eventually get a little hard on the eyes.

Ultimately a moving, poignant tale about triumph in the face of the unthinkable.

Apart from its thin characters and occasional trite moments, as well as a silly attempt to set up a sequel, Don’t Breathe is just about perfect. It’s as lean and relentless as the best John Carpenter films.

Hopkins' larger-than-life performance as the crusty and crafty Burt rivets your attention for two solid hours in this most entertaining labor of love.

It’s never too early to introduce your kids to the magic and emotion of the monster movie.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, crosses over from thriller into magic realism for a lavishly staged climax that's a bit much.

Shifting the self-deprecating japery of "High Fidelity" from a record store to a quiz show makes Starter for 10 a sweetly endearing date movie.

Surprisingly funny and sweet, despite some missed comic opportunities and curious casting choices.

By the time its credits rolled, I was ready to forgive Rogue One any imperfections. Its last 10 minutes are spectacular and dark, with a final flourish that should give any “Star Wars” fan goose bumps — and a new hope that the next main installment will be this good.

Though its resolution is a bit pat, most of The Girl in the Book is a smart and pointed look at abuses of power and roles women too often play in the literary world.

Take a stroll down London Boulevard if you enjoy surly, smart, hard-edged British crime movies like "Sexy Beast" and "Croupier."

Hunger is almost silent, most of its sounds being unintelligible moans and screams.

At a certain point, the pattern of Knoop’s reticence, then acquiescence to Albert’s masquerade becomes slightly repetitive, but JT LeRoy still gives a compelling inside look at the head-scratching hoax that succeeded, in part, due to musty notions of what a hot shot writer ought to look like.

Yet the film is marred by Hawke’s blundering intrusions as he keeps changing the subject to Hawke: He tells us he often wonders “why it is I do what I do,” as if anyone but he is interested in the answer.

The Depp sequence is especially poignant, apparently rewritten with references to other celebrities who died before their time -- Rudolph Valentino, James Dean and Princess Di -- and who will remain "forever young" in our imaginations.

While immersed in the horror of their plight, you might forget to breathe.

This Morgan Freeman-narrated documentary doesn’t stray much from the nature-doc formula of making its stars look frisky and winsome while sprinkling in a few info-nuggets about the critters (they’re older than dinosaurs!). And that’s just fine.

A mystery that isn't suspenseful so much as realistic, in which the detective's motivation is understandable and the story moves the way life does, instead of as a thrill ride.