The piéce de résistance is a "Rocky"-ish battle between bare-fisted Ip (Donnie Yen) and a racist Brit who uses boxing gloves and goes by the name Twister.

The sort of misfire that Hollywood has long buried in January.

Short, fast and nasty, The Mechanic is considerably more fun than the rather lethargic original.

Satisfying, well-acted drama.

It is beautifully shot, with impeccable acting and visual detail.

Director and co-writer Martin Pieter Zandvliet draws inspired work from Steen.

Directed by C. Scott Willis, this beautifully shot documentary blends Francesca's work -- photos, videos and passages from her diary -- with interviews.

Stirring as it frequently is, The Way Back is a good movie that should have been a classic.

The movie quickly sinks into a terminal case of the cutes and extreme predictability - amid the usual surfeit of wacky supporting characters.

Dryly funny, adult-oriented animation -- hand-drawn on computers in a simple but captivating style by the husband-and-wife team.

A wildly misanthropic and overlong black comedy.

Nothing would help make this dud understandable.

A 42-minute TV soap has more story than this limp and familiar tale of domestic woe.

A slim story that becomes schmaltzy at the end.

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

Overblown, interminable and unfunny.

Don't expect guffaw-inducing comedy, but rather deadpan humor in the style of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati.

Patsy Cline. Loretta Lynn. Gwyneth Paltrow. If you buy that progression, you'll buy Country Strong, an unintentionally campy drama.

A movie that appears to have been shot entirely on leftover sets from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Whistle is the feature debut of director-writer Florin Serban, who studied at Columbia University and lists among his influences Robert Bresson, Pedro Almodovar, Bruno Dumont and Ken Loach.

For boldness of execution as well as vision, The Red Chapel stands out as a singular, important comedy.

Set on the seamy side of Barcelona, Biutiful may not be a feel-good movie for this time of year, but it's well worth your time.

Getting a small cohort of humanity dead right is an impressive artistic achievement, but Mike Leigh's beautifully modulated English drama Another Year advances even farther.

A small but shattering film that marks its writer-director, Derek Cianfrance, as an artist of real depth, observes relationship dynamics at a molecular level, welling with as much understanding as Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage."

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.

Since this low-grade comedy doesn't really even attempt to be funny, the purpose of the movie is to establish (or reinforce) a feeling of luxurious old-timey melancholy.

Black was already the world's biggest little kid, and he might be the only actor who could have made this movie such nimble fun.

The best kid-friendly movie of the holiday season is Nénette, a portrait of an orangutan.

Director Lee Chang-dong could well have cut 30 minutes out of the story, but Jeon's performance is powerful enough to keep Secret Sunshine from drowning in an ocean of tears.

Little Fockers may not be the worst, most vulgar, most pathetic and least funny picture of the year. But it's a strong contender for second place behind the picture Brett Favre allegedly sent over his cellphone.

To compete with the quintessence of nullity that is Sofia Coppola's insufferable Somewhere, imagine a film called "Wanna See Me Crack My Knuckles?" or possibly "Let's Learn How Long It Takes This Shallow Dish of Liquid To Evaporate."

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.

Sillen drags out generic talking heads who say generic things about Bernstein, a generic boho. The film might suffice if you're looking for something to watch on cable TV some early morning. But it isn't worth the hassle and expense of going to a theater.

In his feature debut, Bormatov doesn't much bother with things like character development, relying instead on raw brutality, profanity and sex. It shouldn't be long before the Hollywood remake with Angelina Jolie.

Cavanagh, the always-engaging former star of "Ed" (with whom I am friendly), and the adorable Faris (whom I don't know -- but feel free to look me up, Anna!) make the non-animated scenes amusing, as the ranger and the documentarian fall in love and fight to save the park. But the script doesn't give them a lot to do.

One of the highlights of Casino Jack is Abramoff doing dead-on impressions of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan, among others.

It contains no poetry. It simply conjures up a horrible feeling -- and then sits back awaiting congratulation.

An eyeball party. The score by Daft Punk, which veers from homages to Hans Zimmer's thundery work in "The Dark Knight" to a retro-'80s synth sound, surpasses magnificence.

This rambling, overproduced, tone-deaf melange of romance, comedy and drama is only slightly more engaging than Brooks' other feature this century, the unfortunate Adam Sandler vehicle "Spanglish" (2004).

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."

not so much a movie as an "act," one that belongs at a club called Shenanigans or maybe Chuckleheads.

Cool It -- complete with its own slide show and witty graphics -- amounts to a devastating rebuttal to Gore-ism.

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

The result is as impressive as one would expect.

Porno plus Parkinson's don't quite add up to sexy fun.

Despite much effort, neither Johnson nor director George Tillman Jr. ("Notorious") can make this preposterous tale, live up to its title.

The only thing remotely scary about Monsters is that Magnolia is releasing this boring scare-, suspense- and gore-free horror movie (which reportedly cost less than $100,000) on Halloween weekend.

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

Dutch-born Lotte Verbeek is solid as You, a role that won her the best-actress prize at the Locarno Film Festival.

A supernatural take on "Death Wish" meets "Faust," Heartless is an uneasy mixture of B-movie shocks, social commentary and sentimentality that shows a potent imagination at work.

Whether Tiny Furniture is a mumblecore movie is an open question. It has many of the tell-tale signs of that ill-defined genre; although improvised dialogue, a mumblecore staple, is minimal.

Stewart's intense, courageous performance as a 16-year-old New Orleans prostitute is really something special.

No matter your take on Merritt's persona, there's no denying that he's a unique musician whose songs -- such as "Papa Was a Rodeo" and "Living in an Abandoned Firehouse With You" -- are worth discovering. As is this film.

Old-school filmmaking at its best.

Director Michelle Esrick, who followed Wavy around for 10 years, journeys from Manhattan to Woodstock to Nepal to the hills of California to tell Wavy's story. The journey is entertaining, whether you witnessed the 1960s firsthand or heard about it from your grandparents.

He turns to the furry creatures as a metaphor for life in post-Communist countries. Just as the rabbits were discombobulated by their newfound freedom, so, too, were people, who found it difficult to adapt to life without Big Brother.

The laziness of this filmmaking (which assumes you know that Gray killed himself in 2004) is of a piece with the emphatically uninteresting tales told by a classic dinner-party bore who once referred to his ramblings as "creative narcissism." He was half-right.

Everybody flirts with everyone else as director John Irvin pours on a level of shopping-mall-gift-shop-kitsch that would shame Wayne Newton.

Never amounts to anything more than a rambling, studenty exercise in undergraduate cinema vérité. Some expressive, arty photography and a mildly satiric attitude toward stage poseurs do little to make the picture bearable.

Few directors make action movies with the pizazz of Hong Kong's Johnnie To, although his films rarely get runs in New York. That's all the more reason to see his Vengeance.

A surprisingly unengaging and charmless fantasy from a director whose previous films ("Across the Universe," "Titus," "Frida") were, despite their other issues, never boring.

The extremely well-acted The Company Men ends on a hopeful note, but Wells examines the repercussions of a layoff-based economy with devastating precision.

The eye-popping and entertaining The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader offers a merry seafaring jaunt together with plenty of adventures led by magically empowered kids.

Pity the boxing movie that thinks it can be both "Raging Bull" and "Rocky."

In the dud thriller The Tourist, Jolie basically plays an overdressed, humorless live-action version of Jessica Rabbit, running around Venice dodging hired killers.

Visually, this toon is all over the place. Rapunzel's glowing hair can look alarmingly like fiber-optic cable, but some backgrounds are the computer-generated equivalents of Disney's golden-age work.

Those looking for another "Showgirls" will be disappointed - writer-director Steve Antin avoids the seamy side of the business, and the same-sex flirtation is mostly between guys.

Inspector Bellamy leaves a sense not unlike a summary of Chabrol's entire career -- of guilty stains seeping away in every direction, of motives hidden and of endless stories that frustrate full understanding. To Chabrol, no life is ever a closed case.

Beautifully shot but a soulless cash machine, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 delivers no dramatic payoff, no resolution and not much fun. Hopefully we'll get that in the final installment next summer.

Soldini is able to take the shopworn theme and keep it interesting and fresh despite its lack of new ideas. He's assisted by strong performances by his two leading actors.

A sloppy vanity project, this rambling and toothless Hollywood black comedy stars veteran filmmaker Henry Jaglom's girlfriend, Tanna Frederick.

It raises tangled questions about whether it is better to live humiliated or arm yourself, yet for the most part it's dramatically inert, talky and directionless, and it ends quietly without saying much of anything.

It isn't recommended for impressionable children, who might well experience nightmares. But for grown-ups looking for an alternative to the annual onslaught of ho-ho-ho Christmas tales, the visually pleasing oddity is just the thing, even if it does slow down in its middle portion before picking up again.

Though the movie doesn't use real names and the press notes say it's "inspired" by the Durst case, it seems to follow many of the facts rather closely -- all the while mixing in not a little provocative speculation.

A sour, plotless and witless comedy-drama based on the final Mordecai Richler novel, wants to remind you of "Sideways" and its forlorn drink-moistened soul search. Giamatti is an ideal casting choice, but even this talented actor can't sell a lovable-jerk

It's a welcome alternative to the homogenized Hollywood releases that proliferate during the holiday season.

This eye-popping, inspired and often-demented (in a good way) cross between "The Red Shoes" and "All About Eve" channels horror maestros David Cronenberg, Brian De Palma and Dario Argento.

The longer director Jan Hrebejk's film goes on, the more complex the relationships become, until the film becomes little more than a talkathon.

Lilien is an amateur filmmaker, and his movie -- which at times is more about Lilien than Pale Male -- shows it.

Misconceived, bloated and incredibly ugly fantasy epic.

The clichéd, heavy-handed script lets them down.

Charming and mouthwatering.

Sally Hawkins is the heart and soul of Made in Dagenham, but another actress to watch for is the equally wonderful Rosamund Pike. She steals every scene she's in as the sympathetic wife of Rita's sexist boss (Rupert Graves).

I didn't buy how The Next Three Days plays out - but I almost bought it, and that's good enough for a thriller.

Compelling documentary.

None of its characters is especially interesting.

Now it can be told. The erotic film "Emmanuelle" helped end the Cold War. That's one tasty tidbit from Disco and Atomic War, a subversively funny documentary.

It includes more than a few clever lines, and boasts a stellar cast, including the underutilized Diane Keaton.

A powerful, decades-spanning epic about that country's fight for independence centering on three brothers.

If all terrorists were like these idiots, the US would have nothing to worry about.

Balibar's dreamy voice (I'm reminded of Billie Holiday) is complemented by Costa's hypnotic camera work. The result is a visual and aural delight.

Under writer-producer-director-editor Patrick Hughes, the suspense level is high and the action constant.

Fair Game stars three imposing performers -- Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Sean Penn's lavish and intemperate hair, a fuming gusher of crazy-ass Sweeney Todd locks that dominates every scene. I couldn't tear my eyes from it, maybe because I couldn't maintain focus on anything else in this histrionic and shamelessly misleading wonk-work.

Let us return to reality (all this happened less than three years ago; do documentarians think we don't read the papers?).

Like all great movies, 127 Hours takes us on a memorable journey. Which is not easy when 90 percent of the movie takes place with a virtually immobile hero in a very cramped setting.

"Precious" worked partly because it did not wrap its sordid tale in Christian uplift and dime-store psychology -- elements that have made Tyler Perry a rich filmmaker but have turned For Colored Girls shrill and manipulative.

Maybe being able to look back in time is comforting for Block and company, but what makes him think complete strangers give a damn about his not-especially-interesting family? I certainly don't.

An eccentric little comic thriller filled with enough laughs that I was mostly willing to overlook the fact that it makes virtually no sense as a thriller.