Justin Timberlake shows that he can do more as an actor than just take his shirt off - though he does that a lot as well - in the irresponsible, uncommercial but surprisingly watchable Alpha Dog.

One of the few monster-crocodile movies that simultaneously tries to rip off "Jaws" and "Meet the Press."

As DJ, Columbus Short eases his way through the movie without trying to impress us too much, which is welcome, but he's also a little bland around the edges.

Abduction uses interviews, vintage photos and re-creations to tell the sad story of love and hope in riveting, suspenseful style. So powerful is this film, it brought tears to my eyes.

The doggedness and good will of these men are irresistible as they pick up on the American dream, finding work and even college educations while trying to locate their missing relatives back home.

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.

Sort of a Bollywood "Citizen Kane," a decades-spanning drama with a compelling Abhishek Bachchan as a ruthless Indian business tycoon who refuses to take no for an answer.

At age 76, Chabrol seems to be just going through the motions, but anyone who has helmed 70 films ("Les Bonnes Femmes" and "La Ceremonie," for example) is entitled to an off day. Look for him to dazzle us next time out.

An ugly, unfunny, headache-inducing fairy-tale spoof.

Swank's character, Erin Gruwell, is a real educator who, in the years following the Rodney King riots, coaxed her students into writing about their bullet-riddled lives.

Isn't as bad as you'd think, but this comic mash-up of "The Bourne Identity" and "Fat Albert" doesn't have much heft.

Suspenselessly directed by Robby Henson, Thr3e commits the eighth deadly sin - boredom.

The director, 30-year-old Dalibor Matanic, allows himself a few weepy moments, but mostly the script stays on target, accompanied by strong acting and lensing.

Zellweger dusts off her Bridget Jones accent - and a constellation of annoying vocal and facial tics - for Miss Potter, an unrelentingly mediocre, TV-movieish biopic of beloved children's author Beatrix Potter.

Nothing this year comes close to being as utterly unforgettable as Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, an extremely dark and disturbing fairy tale for audiences say, ages 12 and up.

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

What happens when several characters' lives intertwine with the maggot-infested corpse of a prostitute in The Dead Girl? A whole lot of crying.

This kids' cartoon from France is such a surreally demented attempt to connect with children that it's the equivalent of foie gras breakfast cereal or a bleu cheese milkshake.

Miller is wincingly good at playing up the innocence.

The longer the movie goes on, the more annoying Benigni's infantile behavior becomes.

It's an underdog story with teeth.

An overdone sex comedy.

Arguably the year's most entertaining art-house film.

Director Alfonso Cuarón has a vision so mesmerizingly terrible that it alone - at least, for those who enjoy a gorgeous nightmare - is reason enough to see the film.

A glacially paced, emotionally frosty epic (with a top-drawer cast).

Strands several generations of performers in a highly derivative script and hackneyed direction.

Has the kind of soulful subject matter that will strike some as profoundly emotional, but it gets a flag for roughing the tear ducts. This isn't football - it's cornball.

A sublime meditation that is one of this year's wisest, warmest and funniest films.

Curse of the Golden Flower could also be called "Curse of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' " In other words, it is yet another attempt to cash in on the success of Ang Lee's 2000 martial-arts epic, which will go down in the history books as one of the most overrated films of the decade.

Taken together, Eastwood's masterworks - two of the best films of 2006 - may be Hollywood's last word on World War II.

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.

Better than decent. But if Stallone (who wrote and directed the flick) had pulled a few punches to the heart, it could have been truly worthy of that first, glorious movie.

Sounds boring, but it's not, thanks to Marker's whimsical irreverence.

Pleasant enough, with funny moments.

Dreamgirls may be good enough to win the Oscar for Best Picture - great costumes, sets and choreography help - but despite stellar work by erstwhile "American Idol" contestant Hudson and Murphy, it's far from a great picture.

While Clooney and especially Blanchett give solid performances, and McGuire plays effectively against type, the movie is best appreciated as an exercise in vintage Hollywood style.

Though Binoche does very solid work, she can't sell the idea of her and Law as a couple; the chemistry isn't there. Not much else rings true in Minghella's screenplay, which is full of coincidences and speeches about race and class.

"Babe" was a classic because of its gentle simplicity. Charlotte's Web, with its insistently "magical" theme music, an overbearing climax and a trough full of bad jokes, is merely adequate.

When the studio tells us that parental guidance is suggested, does it occur to them that they should have taken their own advice?

A viral blast of the American Dream. It's "Rocky" with a briefcase.

The apolitical and well-meaning Home of the Brave is predictable and maudlin.

Yes, The Secret Life of Words owes much to Lars von Trier's 1999 "Breaking the Waves." But Coixet's riff stands on its own thanks to thoughtful performances by Polley and Robbins.

The psychobabble makes for dry filmmaking until Schreber starts going fem. From that point on, it's every man for himself.

More violent than anything Wood ever did, Automatons nevertheless has the kitschy feel and look of something he might have concocted. And I mean that as a compliment.

Complaining about the gooey and generic The Holiday is as useless as railing against fruitcake - this is a slick, throwaway chick flick designed to provide nothing more than mindless diversion between bouts of shopping.

DiCaprio and Connelly give off the sexual tension of pickled herring.

Gibson sure knows how to shoot a sequence, but he also doesn't know when to stop with the blood, gore and maiming.

89 minutes go by like 89 hours. Not just 89 regular hours either: 89 hours of being stuck in an airport. During a blizzard. While Lewis Black sleeps drooling on your shoulder.

After sitting a while in front of my computer trying to come with the right word to describe the Argentine soaper Family Law, I've settled on "diverting." You will be entertained, but you won't tax your brain.

If your film is as downbeat and deflated as this one, you had better be leading up to a more interesting insight than, "The older I get, the more I know that I don't know anyone."

Screamers, one of the most bizarre documentaries you'll ever not see.

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

Days of Glory has good intentions and a well-executed combat scene, but it could do with more originality.

Solomonoff draws out vivid performances by Valeria Bertuccelli (Elena) and Ingrid Rubio (Natalia) that make up for the script's predictability.

What is Inland Empire - which Lynch is understandably distributing himself - about? What is it trying to say? If you figure that out, let me know.

A deadly dull, by-the-numbers rendition of the Nativity story.

Ryan Reynolds isn't around this time - and neither is most of the wit.

Strictly remainder-bin material.

Though nothing much happens, all of the actors get to do lots of teary close-ups.

Brabbee, artistic director of the Nantucket Film Festival, is to be commended for her dedication to this project, but the film isn't hefty enough for a theatrical release. Public TV would be a better showcase.

The skillfully acted and directed The Lives of Others is a timely warning about governments that seek to repress dissent.

Turistas has mastered the international language: stupidity.

A low-key Field is the best thing about Two Weeks, which is set in a Wilmington, N.C., where everyone mysteriously sounds like he just got off a Los Angeles freeway.

You will be so put off by the bland couple (what do you expect from people named Joe and Jane?) and their dumb arguing - not to mention the grating score - that you won't really care.

One big hunk of cinematic moussaka with lots of appetizing shots of food.

A thought-provoking documentary that would go well on a double bill with Richard Linklater's fictional "Fast Food Nation."

There's a geyser of ambition in the visually stunning The Fountain, but the story of a thousand-year quest for the Fountain of Youth eventually trickles out.

It is a better option than the third "Santa Clause."

Starts out a lot like an expensive-looking episode of "CSI" before morphing into a solidly entertaining time-traveling romance.

The beginning and end are classics.

There's a pleasing tension in the air as their relationship comes to seem like something of a contest: With two women this needy, who will out-crazy the other?

A heartwarming family fable that parents and kids can enjoy.

Though it preserves the terrific lead performance of Richard Griffiths - best known to film audiences as Harry Potter's evil stepfather - The History Boys is essentially filmed theater, with minimal, and usually clumsy, attempts to take the action out of the classroom.

Eva Green...Gaspingly beautiful, wouldn't you say?

Happy Feet is not only the year's best animated movie, it's one of the year's best movies, period. Go.

A comedy that locks up Will Arnett's talent and throws away the key.

As the movie's feet get stuck in its own misery, it made me appreciate "Trainspotting" all over again - its wit, how it moved, the way any outcome for its characters seemed possible.

If I wanted to spend $10.75 making myself sick, I'd buy a bottle of cheap tequila.

For Your Consideration isn't quite in a class with Guest's earlier films like "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind," which is not to say it isn't uproariously funny.

Mainstream audiences will be put off by the lack of a straightforward narrative, but adventurous moviegoers will find pleasure in the hypnotic originality of the images.

One of the year's worst movies.

For much of Flannel Pajamas I wondered if the couple's big problem was that Stuart was secretly gay. Nothing so interesting - he's just a narcissistic control freak and she's off-puttingly needy.

The movie is an entertaining stroll through a colorful gallery of characters including, in villain mode, former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving. "She knows nothing. I am an expert," huffs Hoving, who is so nasty he might as well be wearing a monocle - making Horton that much more fun to root for.

May not be vintage stuff, but it goes down fairly smoothly.

If Martin Scorsese were 30 and a Los Angeleno, he'd be making movies much like this one.

The minimalist style keeps the suspense warm. The movie is unusual among teen horror flicks in that it largely avoids the usual cheap thrills and bursts of scare music. Instead, it carefully repeats isolated images and sound bites until they take on a shivery power.

A boldly original undertaking: It's the first movie ever to come up with the idea of remaking "The Truman Show."

All three segments are heavy on blame-America speeches, which may be a fair snapshot of Iraqi opinion, but it's strange how fond Longley seems to be of Saddam Hussein.

Problem: Kidman is the only one in the theater who is turned on. The rest of us are giggling.

The kind of small gem that's becoming increasingly rare in American films.

Sweet isn't a word often used to describe movies these days, but it's one that applies to The Cave of the Yellow Dog.

Harris can be a brilliant actor, and there are flashes of that here. But he's done in by a script that lacks any subtlety.

The initial suspense of Cautiva gives way to sentimental clichés, but Lombardo's performance (including a daring nude scene) keeps us watching.

Rarely has a documentary been so pleased with itself - with so little justification.

I can't wait to see Borat, which has twice as many laughs as all of this year's other movie comedies combined, for a fourth time.

How this thing got made in Hollywood is a mystery, but I laughed at most of it, especially the mean stereotypes about the French and the even meaner stereotype about England's soccer team.

Martin Short as Jack Frost, means we're getting a turkey and a ham for the holidays. As for Tim Allen as Scott Calvin, an ordinary guy who took over Santa's job by chance, he's more like a tasteless lump of mashed potatoes.

Described as a cross between "Mildred Pierce" and "Arsenic and Old Lace" by Almodóvar - which ought to be more than enough to entice his fans.