What do you get when you mix a Douglas Sirk melodrama with a Sergio Leone Western? Tears of the Black Tiger, a high-camp Western from, of all places, Thailand.

The actors can't escape the confines of the warmed-over, coming-of-age-in-suburbia script by Mills, from a novel by Walter Kirn.

May be the most fun you'll have at the movies this summer.

Science fiction movies don't come much more ponderous than the beautifully filmed Never Let Me Go, which reduces the debate over genetic engineering to a mild, moist romantic soap opera.

The conceit is slight, but Hong's playful structure conceals sharp observations about fantasies, communication, and how foreigners and natives interact.

This is a serious movie overflowing with memorable acting, unforgettable images, searing tragedy, unexpected humor and an eloquent plea for international understanding. And while it's by no stretch of imagination light entertainment, it's fundamentally a more optimistic work than either "Amores Perros" or "21 Grams."

There can only ever be one Bad Lieutenant: Harvey Keitel. In Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Nicolas Cage, pretend tough guy (Malibu accent, long floppy coiffure, nervous smile), is more like the Bad Used-Car Salesman.

I wouldn't want to see five movies like this one each week but it's a cheeky, madcap joyride.

You can't help wishing they'd thought a little further outside the box.

Boisterously amusing.

Gripping and even-handed film.

The film has all the visual flourishes we expect of Doyle and Wong, and they're reason enough to see Ashes of Time Redux. Just don't expect to make sense of the plot.

From the rapid-fire, purposely unreadable opening credits to the final baby POV shot of a birth, this is a dazzling and brutal exercise in cinematic envelope-pushing.

Winslet (Mendes' wife) once again demonstrates why she's one of the best actresses working today.

Willis, who at 52 looks great in an intensely physical role and can still spit out wisecracks and insults with the best of them.

A wry, "Rashomon"-like tale.

Excellent performances are given by all, with Alidoosti, who has the face of an angel, once again a wonder.

The result is a thoughtful, dreamlike (at times, nightmarish) tour through the day-to-day lives of several suburban California teens.

This is a true story, and at times a gut-wrenching one, even if it necessarily sugarcoats some aspects of the plight of lost children.

Beaded with amusing moments.

As Mark Twain didn't say, reports of the death of mumblecore are greatly exaggerated. As proof, I offer Andrew Bujalski's wise and wondrous Beeswax.

The very German lack of emotion is so acute it can be hard to tell when Hausner’s playing for laughs, but Friedel is hilariously — if morbidly — tedious as the tortured writer whose pickup line is, “Would you care to die with me?”

Ron Howard's bio-pic is an Oscar-baiting fairy tale that manipulates the audience at every turn of the clich.

I was surprised to find “Cameron Post” a sweet indie film in the tradition of John Hughes. Calmly directed by Desiree Akhavan, the movie doesn’t get tangled in the weeds of politics, but instead focuses intensely on its lovely characters.

Freddie Mercury may have had the better voice, but it’s Elton John who gets the better movie. Rocketman, director Dexter Fletcher’s trippy new biopic about the flamboyant rocker is braver, deeper and more enlightening than last year’s slobbering piece of Queen propaganda “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which he also partly directed).

The best thing Baldwin has done in years, and a triumph of low-budget storytelling by a director to watch.

an infomercial for death starring Townes Van Zandt.

The only thing missing is the mud that the big boys love to sling. But the Stuyvesant candidates are kids - give them a few years.

It’s involving, as biopics go, but the shattering debates that still swirl around Arendt’s view of the Holocaust are relegated to walk-ons.

Whip-smart, sexy and delightfully twisty romantic thriller.

Despite a fierce lead performance by Naomi Watts, The Painted Veil is a quaintly bloodless, picture-postcard adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 China-set novel - more Merchant Ivory than David Lean.

The gory-as-hell movie is as campy and fun as any chapter in producer Sam Raimi’s four-decade-old horror series. But trapping kids in an apartment — as opposed to college-age friends in a cabin — raises the stakes and brings on legitimate scares. And some hearty laughs, too.

The literal ghouls here take a back seat to the subtler ones, which are really where It shines darkly.

Per Swanberg’s signature style, the dialogue is largely improvised, the performances loose and funny. This may be his most star-studded cast yet, but the work is as intimate (“mumblecore” is so passé) as ever.

A dry but enlightening documentary.

Giamatti tries very hard to put over Cold Souls -- some of his reaction shots are priceless -- but it's going to leave some people, well, cold.

Butterfly doesn't require much knowledge of history to appreciate, but it really isn't suitable for very young audiences either.

This film is no fairy tale for children. Not only does it contain nudity and sex, both straight and lesbian, but it also presents childhood as a time of terror.

A creative mix of horror, noir and psychological thriller. At times the story defies logic, but viewers who can accept that will find themselves caught up in the film's intensity.

While it obviously isn't for all tastes, this is a big, thematically rich step forward -- mostly it's about tolerance and forgiveness -- from the empty provocation of Solondz's "Storytelling" and "Palindromes." About time.

One of the most beautiful per formances I've seen this year is given by Blanca Engstrom in the Swedish coming-of-age charmer The Girl.

Q Ball is a moving and dynamically shot portrait of the Northern California prison’s basketball team, which is sponsored by the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

Morris is likely to disappoint liberals in The Unknown Known by failing to take down an apparently weak target.

Packs a dramatic wallop that makes it one of the year's best movies.

Director Ferzan Ozpetek's film doesn't break any new ground; rather, it recycles every cliché about gays in what is essentially an extended soap opera.

Petty larceny - but Allen's fans won't want to miss this lowbrow caper.

A cute, spunky found-footage thriller undone by a lumpy plot and a weak ending, Operation Avalanche revisits the urban legend that the moon landing was faked, with some fresh twists.

The filmmakers are clearly fans, and any of Vreeland's personal shortcomings - child-rearing, for instance - are only hinted at.

Alcoholics Anonymous founder William G. Wilson, known mostly as Bill W. before his death in 1971, was played by James Woods in a fine 1989 made-for-TV biopic. But the drama didn't have room for some of the darker corners of Wilson's life, fascinatingly explored in Kevin Hanlon and Dan Carracino's documentary.

In the film’s most visceral scene, as the trio stands on the site of a mass grave in Lviv, Ukraine, von Wächter still can’t bring himself to admit his father’s direct culpability.

Blockers is the latest example of the millennium’s most dispiriting film trend: Stupid drunk people making stupid drunk decisions for two stupid hours.

The lighthearted drama, about a road trip by two men — one white, one black — is unflinchingly optimistic.

The movie focuses tightly and obviously on role playing, but the most unsettling observations concern how fragile it all is - our health, our minds, our denial of death.

Big Star’s fans are so passionate that this film may well please some of them, but as for myself, I already knew their music was genius. By the end, I was muttering at every critic and musician and record producer, “Guys, tell me something I don’t know.”

Boy Erased is the second gay conversion therapy movie of the year, after “The Miseducation of Cameron Post.” Both are worthwhile. Where “Cameron” was an intimate charmer focused on the importance of camaraderie to get through hard times, the more dramatic Boy Erased is about accepting our family for who they are, in whatever condition they arrive in.

The Avengers is neither overwhelming nor underwhelming. What it expertly is, is whelming.

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.

This oddly cheerful, decreasingly dark comedy actually works and can boast some of the most enjoyable performances of the year.

Throughout, Mrs. Marcos comes across as an elitist, insulated against real life by wealth and power -- yet one who truly believes she is misunderstood and has done nothing wrong.

A first-rate documentary on this subgenre of punk rock, which flourished roughly between 1982 and 1986 as an anarchistic response to Ronald Reagan and the disco era.

The 25-year-old filmmaker takes no sides himself. Wisely, he allows folks of all opinions to put their feet in their mouths all by themselves.

The many silences in Hide Your Smiling Faces don’t speak quite loudly enough, and the film ultimately gets bogged down by its own ponderousness.

The posthumous campaign to polish Michael Jackson's tarnished reputation continues apace with this Spike Lee infomercial, commissioned by Sony and the money-grubbing Jackson estate to promote the 25th anniversary of his 1987 album "Bad.''

Reijn’s film, which was written by Sarah DeLappe and Kristen Roupenian, succeeds in making a young basement horror movie for today. And, as least year’s “Scream” reboot showed us, it’s a genre that’s been stuck for far too long in 1996.

Joshua falls a bit flat at the end, but overall it delivers some genuine old-school chills - something that was missing when Macaulay Culkin played a similar role in "The Good Son."

If the plot becomes a bit scattered in its third act, a generous interpretation might be that it’s a reflection of the chaotic cultural backdrop. Chon directs with style and a humane eye for all parties; he’s a dynamic young director to keep your eye on.

There is something both mischievous and moving about a world-famous director who, closing on his 10th decade, designs a movie that celebrates his actors: their varying ages, their versatility, their heart.

An extraordinary woman like Eva Kor deserves a less ordinary biography.

Octubre has the feel of something Jim Jarmusch might have made in his early years -- lots of dark humor that you'll think of in the middle of the night, and laugh about.

Plot and dialogue take a back seat to a series of inventive sight gags that unspool with effortless charm. An ensemble cast of talented amateurs is in top form.

Overall, The Last September is a real snooze.

Despite inadequate editing and overreliance on bad background music, The Girl Next Door doesn't disappoint.

Infused with the hazy golden glow of nostalgia and unfolds at a leisurely pace, reminiscent of "The Virgin Suicides."

Alternately fascinating and frustrating.

This film is best when arguing that drugs should be treated as a multibillion-dollar commodity business in need of regulation, and not as a moral failing.

With great power comes the responsibility to make a decent movie, but the mysterious force running through Chronicle is the power to supersuck.

Ho-ho-huh? Arthur Christmas is an animated kiddie comedy that delivers all the wonder you'd expect in a movie about a guy delivering one package. Maybe they should have called it "UPS Man: The Movie."

James Rasin's documentary is surprisingly the first to focus on one of Warhol's biggest attractions, the attractive male-to-female transsexual Candy Darling, best known for inspiring Lou Reed's song "A Walk on the Wild Side."

The presentation is conventional in style but uplifting in spirit, and worth seeing even if you know nothing about basketball.

Stephen Sondheim’s stage classic Into the Woods, a dark and subversive musical take on fairy tales, not only survives but triumphs in the composer’s most unlikely collaboration with Disney.

Weirder and more contemplative than many of its time-traveling brethren, Predestination is a stylish head trip. It also marks Australian actor Snook as one to watch, as she demonstrates some serious gender-bending range.

It's shocking only in its banality, impotence and utter lack of heat.

While the slow buildup won't bowl 'em over at suburban multiplexes, the film should please Fessenden's loyal followers and win him new ones.

Fortunately, Chicken With Plums does have its pleasures, including Isabella Rossellini as the silkily jaded mother.

Trying to understand the story can make you feel like you’re sitting on a stool in a dunce cap.

Generally delightful, and reminiscent of two vanished ages: when men were men, and when movies were movies.

Far more interesting and intelligent than anything coming out of the studios. It fairly brims with superb performances by a terrific cast - you simply can't take your eyes off the female leads, Edie Falco and Angela Bassett.

It's highly entertaining, even if it's almost entirely one-sided.

The film is worth seeing for George Clooney's performance. More than ever he seems like a Clark Gable for our time.

Cadigan is honest enough to leave in a disturbing scene in which he talks about the "violent imagery" in his head and fantasizes about using a kitchen knife on his mother, before breaking down in tears. It's raw stuff.

A nifty piece of entertainment that says a lot about American society.

Superb as an auto salesman who sinks deeper and deeper into disgrace in Solitary Man, Douglas' juiciest vehicle since "Wonder Boys."

Jason Statham, possibly the greatest B-movie leading man of this era, stars in a complicated and clever imagining of what might have happened in the mysterious 1971 London bank heist dubbed the "Walkie-Talkie Robbery" - in other words, it was unbelievably high-tech.

Similar to the recent Emmanuelle Devos drama "Gilles' Wife," but it's as cool as that one was melodramatic.

Don Cheadle has a fine time jiving through Talk to Me - accent, please, on the middle word. It's a black "Good Morning, Vietnam."

Nuclear Nation is likely to attract those who already oppose such power plants. But supporters should see it, too, if only to hear the opposition’s arguments. The film raises issues that aren’t going away.

Both broader and deeper than the relentless and monotonous “12 Years a Slave,” it’s one of the few important movies to hit cinemas this year.

The film achieves a mild uptick in the final act, with a surprise change of heart and a race to save a little girl, but up till then it's thickly earnest -- a conquista-bore.