At best, the film serves up mild chuckles, with occasional cute jokes.

Briskly effective, humanizing.

Both characters are riveting, and they even manage to earn most of the freight that Donovan loads onto his heavily ironic title.

Unpleasant as it is, you can't exactly call Sherman's perspective misogynistic, if only because the protagonist hates himself every bit as much.

A decent idea for an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond," The Do-Deca-Pentathlon falls short as a movie.

The trouble is that the film also wants to make Kev at least partly sympathetic, despite his monstrous treatment of his son, and nothing we learn about him ever does, or could, accomplish that.

Familiar elements such as a dark family secret, a ghost and a Ouija board start to seem trite after a while, and the third act is a little ridiculous, but debut writer-director Nicholas McCarthy does a lot with a little and seems fully prepared to handle a big-studio horror project.

Chang doesn't pull his punches in this continuing look at a changing, out-of-control China.

Even in an underwritten role, the delightful Madsen shines in her best performance since her comeback role in "Sideways."

Despite its excesses, Savage" is never unintentionally funny, just gritty and mean. The run time is more than two hours, yet it's also tight: no drag, no waste, no message.

Sometimes dull and mostly uninspired, it's much less a satisfying reboot like "Batman Begins'' than a pointless rehash in the mode of "Superman Returns.''

The nicest thing I can think of to say about the doc Neil Young Journeys is that at least it isn't in 3-D.

It's apt that the Rome weather in this stodgy film, contrary to the title, seems quite temperate.

Both Venice and Bouquet are photographed to ravishing effect, and like the city, Judith is meant to suggest something trapped into being a fantasy for others.

The overall mood of Gypsy is despair.

Canadian actor Kirby's bedroom-eyes shtick is infused with just the right amount of creepiness, as Polley's film plays with the blurry line between soulful romantic obsession and just plain stalking.

The considerable talents of Banks make the movie bearable.

The best reason to wade into this (let's be honest) challenging but hugely rewarding film is Quvenzhané Wallis.

The surprise of Ted is that it goes for honest Spielbergian wonder, too, and even earns some tears.

As we face yet another summer of brooding superheroes, it's Magic Mike to the rescue! He's got the civilian alter ego and the acrobatic skills to rival Spidey or Batman.

Provides a fascinating tour of the city's past.

Sheen's throwback portrayal is appealing enough, but flat characters, dull revelations and uninvolving complications make this deliberately small film feel nearly microscopic.

Gandhi is talented enough, and compassionate enough, that his tour of the human need to believe in something becomes not just mocking, but touching.

For sheer infuriation value, you can't do much better than Kirby Dick's quietly scathing documentary on rape in the US military.

In To Rome With Love, Allen approaches the leitmotif in a strange, oblique and interesting way. I fear, though, that the Italian entry in his "Let's Go: Grab Some Euro-Film Subsidies" period will be remembered as being forgettable.

Has its laughs, but pretty much every single one of them is in the trailer. And even more unfortunately, the improbable new romantic comedy team of Steve Carell and Keira Knightley works about as well as you'd guess - like oil and water.

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

I didn't know whether to be more offended as a moviegoer or as an American, but I do know I'd rather gargle nitroglycerine than watch this again, though given that the film looks like it were buried under a log cabin for a century, I barely saw it the first time.

That's My Boy is pretty raunchy, and by "pretty," I mean "amazingly," as in Howard Stern- or Seth MacFarlane-style gags.

So deadpan are the dialogue and narration that it's hard to tell whether the laughs are intentional. What with all the shrieking, dumb bad-girl hookers and the wistful, wounded good-girl hookers, the sexism is so creepy it might be an ironic genre critique. Then again, maybe it's just creepy.

The movie is so inept - with its flat characters, histrionic acting, dull dialogue ("Killing him is not going to change anything"), a dreadfully overdone musical score and la-la-la flashbacks starring the kid - that its clichés grow slightly funny. But not funny enough to make the endless torture scenes bearable.

T's formulaic interview style gives the proceedings a bit of a student-project vibe - perhaps understandable for a guy who clearly thinks artists should always be open to learning more.

A sluggish and murky sub-Polanski-esque psychodrama.

The second half offers shot after shot of the people who sat opposite Abramovi - an unexpectedly enthralling record of reactions that range from stark agony to rather phony amusement.

The film's first half has a lovely feel for how bizarre California must seem to foreigners, and there's a piercing sense of the stop-and-start ways that people deal with grief.

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

Shankman's staging of the numbers - especially the leaden choreography and hackneyed locations such as the Hollywood sign - was far sloppier and less creative than for his last musical, the vastly superior "Hairspray."

A crowd-pleasing comedy that isn't going to win any awards for originality.

This is an exhausting, eyeball-gougingly ugly 90-minute assault of non-stop action, with an all-star voice cast shouting witless lines and a wide variety of objects lobbed at the audience in the crudest 3-D fashion.

Bel Ami is handsome enough, although the directorial skill runs mostly to careful framing of magnificent bosoms, Pattinson's included.

It's a typical Solondz sad-sack tale, but this film seems to be disgusted by its own characters, which isn't true of the director's best work ("Happiness," "Welcome to the Dollhouse"). We don't need to like Abe, but it's unsettling to feel the director might actively dislike him.

The main flaw is that, as an actor, Duplass isn't able to make the audience love him. Picture "Bottle Rocket"-era Owen Wilson in the role, and you've got something special.

Lola Versus, like Lena Dunham's show "Girls," brings an indie perspective and cast to this mainstream genre. In the more limited medium of film, this is a mixed bag.

Williams, who was elected president of ASCAP in 2009, speaks frankly and eloquently about his problems dealing with fame, and his recovery. And more important, he earns our thanks by resolutely refusing to let Kessler turn this into a clichéd documentary.

Gorgeous set pieces thrill the senses, but there is philosophical inquiry as well. "Alien" was, after all, just "Jaws" in space, but Prometheus ponders where evil comes from and how it conquers its makers.

Disliking this film feels churlish, like rooting for the Yankees to crush the Little League champs. But amiability, and the natural affinity most people have for David over Goliath, can't substitute for skill and imagination.

What truly makes U.N. Me repulsive is its crassness.

The inspiring story of Chely Wright, the first major country singer to come out as gay. Her decision was a brave one since the world of C&W music is notoriously homophobic.

The sometimes painfully sincere and slow-moving For Greater Glory clearly aspires to be inspirational, but history won't cooperate. The Cristeros triumphed not because of their faith, but because the United States exerted diplomatic pressure to protect its oil interests in Mexico.

Grueling vanity piece.

The movie seems to think it's building up massive suspense by not telling us our hero's back story, but given that the wife and kid aren't around and he keeps telling people who ask that he's not divorced, it's obvious they're dead. The only mystery, then, is what exactly happened to them. The answer is: nothing interesting.

The issues are complex and not easily solved. But no matter which side you are on, you'll be moved by this intimate work.

Pink Ribbons, Inc. viewers looking for an evenhanded discussion may be disappointed.

Slight and unremarkable.

A lame stoner comedy.

The nearly two preceding hours often feel like three, as the patchwork script keeps introducing characters and subplots and dropping them, all while rushing characters through eye-popping environments.

Disarmingly sweet.

Through it all, Clayman struggles to keep himself, and OC87, on track - and it's easy to cheer his ultimate triumph.

If you can overlook Andie MacDowell's Mitteleuropa accent as a Jewish Holocaust survivor (I know: big if), the cinematic roman a clef Mighty Fine has some quiet charms.

Despite its themes, Oslo, August 31st is an exhilarating film, with impeccable direction and pitch-perfect performances that make the bleakness worthwhile.

This essentially good-natured movie, a massive hit in France, is more likely to strike American audiences as trite than offensive.

This one's a thoroughly campy exercise in teen melodrama and Grand Guignol gore (how gory? it's one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite movies), the other (The Hunger Games) a straight-faced action picture.

This only mildly bloated and convoluted action comedy has enough inspired moments to wipe out memories of the abysmal 2002 first sequel as surely as one of the black-suited heroes' neutralizer.

His late father directed "Rambo: First Blood,'' but Panos Cosmatos' debut feature couldn't be more different - this would-be cult classic is the movie equivalent of gazing at a lava lamp for nearly two hours.

Mansome is basically a reality-TV episode, with similar production values and precisely the same depth of perception.

While recollections of the participants in the rescue are often riveting, the subject of Jonathan Gruber and Ari Daniel Pinchot's film remains elusively out of grasp.

A would-be piece of pulp fiction about a parolee trying to go straight, The Samaritan proves that even Samuel L. Jackson can be boring.

While never exploitative, Polisse can be extremely disturbing. Is it possible for a parent to mistreat a child in the ways shown here? Sad to say, the answer is yes.

Gore is always with us, but when it comes to horror, there's nothing like a haunted house. And Lovely Molly has a humdinger.

Nadezhda Markina is splendid as Elena, who speaks little but still manages to make her thoughts and emotions crystal clear.

American Animal is a wildly experimental debut for D'Elia, who uses hand-held digital cameras and lots of jump cuts. It is well-acted and features witty repartee.

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.

Black loses control of Virginia as it lurches from political satire to unintended black comedy to mom-and-son melodrama. But the performances and the movie's sheer crazy audacity make it watchable.

If director Tanya Wexler occasionally wanders into excess cutesiness...she makes up for it with a surplus of eye-opening historical details and a refreshing warmth for all her characters, even the ones whose views are clearly on the way out.

While it certainly isn't good, Expecting isn't as charmless as you might have feared, largely due to a cast working furiously to sell every scene.

It makes "Top Gun" look like the work of Orson Welles. At least the Tom Cruise movie remembered to cast actual actors.

As for Baron Cohen, he's a great comic but his acting can still use work - most of his funniest lines appear to have been dubbed over other actors' reaction shots in post-production.

Nesting is a sitcom, but a really slow and dull one that barely grinds out 22 minutes' worth of plot to fill a 90-minute hole.

The two lead actresses rise to the occasion when they're finally forced to confront each other at the climax.

Rebecca Hall is wasted as Sandvig's sister and the film's voice of reason.

It's a nice, mud-free way to spend a bit of time rocking out in the rain with the Scots.

This isn't a story of Shakespearean proportions, but it's a sweet peg for this complex, carefully constructed gem.

Director/co-writer/cinematographer, Yam Laranas, still delivers a maximum of suspense and horror, working wonders with a small budget.

Nobody Else But You has a great deal going for it, not the least of which is Rouve, who takes the novelist's obsessiveness, depression and general boorishness and turns it all into the source of his appeal.

A thoughtfully conceived and tastefully executed tribute to a venerated author.

Even an appearance by Alec Baldwin as Moretz's eventual - if highly unlikely - savior isn't enough to keep Hick from leaving a bad taste.

It's a hodgepodge of subplots and wildly disparate tones that even Federico Fellini (to whose "Amarcord" Labaki also owes a debt) might have had trouble controlling.

There are so many monologues about obnoxious behavior that they begin to lose their luster - something I'd never have thought possible.

Maybe it's because I share Burton"s twisted affection for the 1970s, but for all its shortcomings, I'd sooner watch a sequel to Dark Shadows than another installment of the bloated "Pirates of the Caribbean" saga any day.

There's little reason to see the claustrophobic Chronicling a Crisis unless you have a fascination with the Kolleks. Watching the vanity project is like being forced to sit through a friend's boring home movies.

With the abysmal A Little Bit of Heaven, Kate Hudson's possibly unprecedented losing streak remains unbroken: She hasn't made a good movie since Almost Famous, 12 long years ago. Even Nicolas Cage can't say that.

The most engaging is straight-shooting Erin Brockovich (whom you'll remember from that Julia Roberts pic), still helping average Joes fight uphill battles against corporate toxin-dumping.

The movie still seems fresh in the way it respects both the art in ballet and the discipline it demands - even in childhood.

Wilkinson's reflective and regretful searcher, burdened by secrets, is also touching, as are Dench and Nighy's creations, so it's easy to cheer them on as they inch toward revelations and rebirth.

Make no mistake, though: The Perfect Family is Kathleen Turner's show. And when a series of crises forces Eileen to re-examine her values and beliefs, Turner rises magnificently to the occasion.

Even for a surreal black comedy, Jesus Henry Christ requires massive suspension of disbelief.

Glawogger doesn't make any moral judgments, but you can't help but feel sorry for the "girls'' and their johns.

This remarkable new documentary from Raymond De Felitta ("City Island") fruitfully revisits the aftermath of a TV doc that his father, Frank, produced for NBC in 1965.