Trimming half an hour from this bloated, 143-minute blockbuster would have highlighted the film's treasures, not the least of which is Johnny Depp's endearingly eccentric performance as Captain Jack Sparrow.

As lovely as Jimmy’s Hall is, Paul Laverty’s script is not so much talky as speech-y. Some conversations play like bullet points about Irish politics and the iron grip of the Catholic Church.

Looking at the art and listening to the music is wonderful just on its own, but hanging out with Hockney is also a treat. He's a delightful companion.

Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade (interesting combination, no?).

The 66-year-old African-American, the subject of the inspiring documentary A Man Named Pearl, doesn't have scissors where his hands should be, but he turns trees and bushes into topiary sculptures every bit as amazing as the ones Johnny Depp's character crafts in the Tim Burton film.

The Congress doesn’t fully live up to its lofty ambitions, but it does attempt something most filmmakers wouldn’t even dream of — a dystopian blend of live-action and animation that acidly comments on some of Hollywood’s touchiest issues before drifting off into an existential fog.

This time out, Broomfield comes up with maybe enough halfway decent material for a 10-minute segment on a second-rate tabloid TV show.

Luckily for us, Grace Lee recorded everything in the fun documentary The Grace Lee Project.

Mixes fact and speculation in a way that's already raised the ire of some on the right as well as on the left.

It features Sean Penn in a mesmerizing portrayal of the would-be hijacker.

A caper comedy that forgot to put in the laughs.

Deadly dull.

Screenwriter Steve Kloves still seems overly dedicated to cramming in every detail of J.K. Rowling's novel - while tacking on a schmaltzy Hollywood ending.

It’s not a documentary, it isn’t entertainment, and aside from Chung’s intelligent, dignified performance, this sure as heck isn’t art.

The dark side of pregnancy and motherhood has long been fertile filmmaking terrain; this queasy, quiet horror film tips its hat, inevitably, to the genre’s standard-bearer, “Rosemary’s Baby,” but comes up a bit short.

Akhavan plays each change brilliantly in a film that is so tightly controlled that the mere glimpse of a new beard or a prayer mat being unrolled becomes a moment of horror.

Their clashing on the court has steam heat. For well over 10 minutes, the electrifying finals match is re-created realistically and with unexpected suspense, even though we’ve known the result for 38 years.

Perhaps the most sobering statistic in The 11th Hour: Some 50,000 species a year are disappearing. Someday, it might be humans.

Ultimately, this film reveals the Israeli self-image, but not much more. The people with the cameras pass by Arab neighbors, and what the Palestinians’ home movies might look like remains unexplored.

If there’s a flaw in Unsane, it’s that the screenplay by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer doesn’t play its hand closer to the vest. The pleasure here is in watching and wondering what’s real and what isn’t, but all too soon it’s spelled out for us. Nevertheless, it’s great fun to watch it all come together — or, more accurately, fall apart.

I adore Frances McDor mand, but she's seriously miscast in a title role Emma Thompson could play in her sleep.

A solid documentary that examines the art's roots, from ad-libs by black preachers to "toasts" delivered by Jamaican immigrants over instrumental tracks in the '70s South Bronx.

Conforms to many of the tropes of a formula thriller but, aided by an evocative Philip Glass score and Tim Orr's beautifully naturalistic cinematography, it transcends the genre.

Admittedly, I’m far from a fan of Korine’s “Gummo,’’ “Julien Donkey-Boy’’ and the absymal “Trash Humpers.’’ But that he is proud of making intentionally sloppy and tedious movies doesn’t make them any easier to watch. Or all that much fun, for that matter.

Unfortunately, director Marc Foster (who co-wrote the screenplay) never allows anyone except Mitchell to play more than a one-dimensional character.

But even if The Cat's Meow is unsubtle and overlong, in its jaundiced way it convincingly captures a fascinating period in Hollywood history.

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

Their often touching stories of how their lives - and livelihoods - were disrupted are effectively intercut with excerpts from press conferences in which Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Still worth watching for Dong Jie's performance -- and for the way it documents a culture in the throes of rapid change.

The only character who makes much of an impression is a crazed, cannibalistic cockatoo voiced by Jemaine Clement ("Flight of the Conchords"), who gets the best of the handful of musical numbers.

A small-scale charmer that provides a tailor-made role for Malkovich, who is always fun to watch.

This time the execs are lobbying us, yet the public grows increasingly furious as our tax dollars fund corporate welfare, bailouts and dumb ideas like the $41,000 golf cart that is the Chevy Volt.

Lane and Costner are swell, but the film jolts to life the second we walk into Blanche’s dimly lit kitchen, occupied by even dimmer men. The villainous Manville acts like a rooster, clucking, crowing and, worst of all, pecking. A sickening scene in a motel won’t have you taking the kids to South Dakota anytime soon.

An Irish indie that is well-observed and well-acted - but ultimately, not much more exciting than the love lives of its lead characters.

Made to win awards, and I'm here to present it with one: the Cliché of the Year honors, otherwise known as the Hackney.

Performances are up to par, but the story unfolds conventionally - it lacks the fragmented fury of its predecessor. You might call it "City of God Lite."

So once you figure out the first rule of Zombie Fight Club — nothing too bad can happen to Brad Pitt — the movie is, despite intermittent thrills, rote.

As Callas so devastatingly starts to lose it, “Maria” satisfyingly stirs our insides in the mysterious way an opera does.

Field, as usual, goes all-out; the film may be a comedy, but she attains a few moments of real heartbreak.

How can a movie with such a charming cast (let's not forget Ry Russo-Young as Hannah's female roommate) and believable dialogue (seemingly taken from the actors' real lives) go wrong? It can't.

The movie is so heavily weighted toward the Simmons character that no one else really gets to breathe. And though McBride's shtick is brilliant - he could get rich by playing variations on this character for the next few years, and probably will.

A series of beautifully bleak black-and-white images of the sexy actress Islid Le Besco staring gravely out of windows.

Unfortunately, you could probably improve Split by editing out everything around McAvoy and making it an experimental one-man show.

Sweet, funny, well-acted and nicely shot on locations in the south of France -- but on the dull side overall.

The result is a remarkably beguiling documentary, on a number of levels.

Doesn't always succeed -- the premise is hard to believe. Still, it's an unusual and interesting piece of filmmaking.

Makes its biggest misstep in failing to persuade the viewer the five family members are charming eccentrics rather than irritating weirdos.

Not a definitive portrait of the designer, nor does it pretend to be. But it should be of interest to viewers even if there's not a single YSL label in their wardrobes.

Binder has allowed Allen, a brilliant actress, to go overboard with Terry's obnoxiousness, just as Brooks (his apparent role model) did with Téa Leoni in "Spanglish."

Director Philip Martin’s film is not poorly made per se, but its efforts to make the behind-the-scenes scramble to get the Duke of York on TV exciting are for naught.

A miracle of badness, a kind of art- house "Showgirls" -- which actually exceeds "Showgirls" in its self-indulgence, shallowness and sheer stupidity.

At the Professional Bull Riders championships, a rough animal is called "rank." In this skillful documentary, you can almost hear the cracking bones as brave and/or stupid riders attempt to stay on these snorting 2,000-pound monsters for eight seconds.

One of the 10 best American movies released so far this year, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is the surprisingly satisfying first theatrical film inspired by a long-running series of historically themed dolls.

It's not exactly going to be on PETA's 10-best list.

So full of solid performances and appealing characters that I wished writer/director/producer Preston Whitmore (“The Walking Dead") had considered the dictum “less is more."

The best thing about the film – which is true of most of his roles – is Rockwell.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, the sequel to the 2006 comedy that’s not at all about Anna Wintour, is a good time, even if the high-pressure world of Vogue, er, Runway magazine is no longer the epitome of New York luxury and glamour it was back in the aughts.

A funny, shambling buddy comedy that mostly serves as a vehicle for our two stars to do what they do best, which is riff on race and pop culture.

While “Murder On The Orient Express” and “Death On The Nile” were hack-job excuses to force as many disparate and ghastly celebrities onscreen as possible, “Haunting” is an actual, surefooted film with strong performances and a luxurious-yet-frightful tone.

A dispiriting return to the tired, star-driven, pop-culture-ridden formula that DreamWorks Animation ran into the ground before its best feature in years, this spring's "How to Train Your Dragon."

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.

The film has enough funny lines and weird situations - some comedy business with a sex chair lovingly constructed by the Clooney character is the highlight - that it could age into a cult film like "The Big Lebowski."

It has grit.

After two lousy sequels, here’s a pitch for Warner Bros.: “The Matrix Retirement.”

Disappointing.

Pays off with emotional dividends well worth the time investment.

Scorsese has great fun with a story that in the final analysis does not really demand to be taken any more seriously as history than "Inglourious Basterds."

If you want an introduction to the director's work, you're better off with "La Belle Noiseuse" (1991) and his masterpiece, "Celine and Julie Go Boating" (1974).

The overlong Amigo has its heart in the right place, but its approach to complex issues is too simplistic to win over unconverted minds.

It's a sobering slice of life that puts actual faces to local violent crime statistics.

I have to confess that this surreal departure by the iconoclastic filmmaker tried my patience more than a bit.

A sort of grown-up version of “Moonrise Kingdom,” France’s Love at First Fight has some youthful free-range charm but not nearly as much as its predecessor.

One of the more interesting low-budget experiments Steven Soderbergh has indulged in between flashy Hollywood entertainments.

The film mostly avoids easy laughs or simplistic characters, reminding you how few black movies claim the huge middle ground between chardonnay-sipping buppies and hardened criminals.

An improbable but hilarious combine of losin’-it comedies and the rarefied, Europhile air of the Cinema du Twee.

Mostly a second-rate action picture that's content to use apartheid as a colorful background.

Picture "Fargo" played with no sense of comedy, and you'll get some idea of the absurdity of this drunken floozy, clicking and wobbling on high heels, often with bits of her anatomy hanging out, trying to pull off the perfect crime.

There are a few scares, but not enough to make up for the murky script.

Too much of the film is taken up by creaky plot devices and one sibling vowing to track down and talk to another one to resolve a problem.

A real pleasure, a sweet, funny, ensemble comedy...utterly authentic.

It's a funny and occasionally poignant movie.

An entertaining piece of pulp fiction.

Overrun with malicious goblins, a vengeance-minded pig, a fast-moving troll and a giant horned ogre, but the true source of terror is scarier than all of these combined: New York real estate prices.

The crime and aftermath (based on a real story) are the best parts by far, but these come well after many overextended scenes of selfish, squalid people treating one another like dirt.

Only marginally interesting.

The classical music is soothing, the cinematography handsome and the acting strong, but the Swedish coming-of-age saga Simon and the Oaks is burdened with a sappy, soap-opera-ish script.

In their refusal to be up-to-the-moment, the Narnia movies are bound to age beautifully, perhaps much more so than the two Shrek films Adamson directed.

Tilda Swinton narrates this oddball, meandering essay film.

“Solo,” sadly, should be frozen forever in carbonite.

The villains are all wrong, the motivations are muddy, even the gadgetry is off. And the swaggering genius at the center of it all has become a preening fool.

They'll say that this year's two Superman pictures could not be more different, but they'll be wrong: Like "Superman Returns," Hollywoodland is laden with atmosphere but moves like it has lead in its tights.

Kevin Smith's attempt to combine sketchy low comedy with long-winded theological speculation results in a mostly unfunny and occasionally tedious mess.

The direction is never more than conventional, with a tear-inducing finale better suited to a TV soap opera.

42 may not be a home run, but it’s certainly a solid three-base hit as worthy family entertainment.

There are a few decent jolts in Disturbia, but overall this ultra-predictable thriller doesn't live up to the hype.

Carlyle gives a quietly engaging performance as a Golden State farmworker with a secret in the likable indie California Solo.

Strange and quirky.

Directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly overload their too-long film with subplots. Yet the actors — including a terrific Aiden Gillen (“Game of Thrones”) as Casper’s no-good father — perform as though unaware that any of this is a cliché.