The dialogue, at best serviceable, becomes completely superfluous.

Ohayon doesn't judge Thompson or his customers, but you don't need to be a Harvard-educated psychiatrist to realize that the bunch of them are dirty old men who treat women as commodities.

Harry likes Willie's white girlfriend, played by the Australian actress Rose Byrne with a riveting, sad sexiness. So much screen time is devoted to the men that her part is underwritten, but there are novels in her eyes.

Kirschner's excruciatingly earnest coming-of-age comedy, is about as fresh as year-old matzoh and plays like the unholy spawn of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

But exciting as La Scorta might be, it is at heart a conventional thriller that breaks no new genre ground.

Paints an entertaining picture of the cherubic gentleman, who as the first curator of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art brought new excitement to the stodgy institution.

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

Sir, no, sir.

If you experience any laughter while in the presence of this movie, it's a credit to your imagination. But if you can tickle yourself, why spend the $10.75?

I enjoy a cozy homage to Dickens - it beats another ripoff of "The Matrix" - but though the movie has a gentle spirit, neither the actors, whose performances are broad caricatures, nor Thompson bring any wit to it.

Offers a few laughs - and little sexual heat.

Albou's chosen a touchy subject, which she treats sensitively. Her mature script is complemented by heartfelt turns by Fanny Valette as Laura and Elsa Zylberstein as Mathilde.

Another ridiculous anti-American screed by the minimalist Danish director Lars von Trier, who has never set foot in this country.

A splendidly photographed IMAX 2-D film, takes us breathlessly through the process of designing Spirit and Opportunity, the two plucky Mars rovers that have been sending images 300 million miles since they hit the Red Planet in 2003.

This movie is a proudly esoteric piece of comedy jazz: Freewheeling and low-key at the same time, it'll thrill audiences that know the meaning of the word esoteric but bore others. For a small cult, it seems likely to get funnier the more times you see it.

Go for Zucker was a smash back home, where it was hailed as the first German comedy about Jews since World War II. But it will take more than that to make American audiences laugh.

It's a sly, low-key comedy in which he casts himself as a neurotic, self-absorbed curmudgeon.

This rehash of familiar pacifist arguments offers neither heat nor light. It's "Fahrenheit: Room Temperature."

A sincere but underwhelming dramatization of one of the biggest news stories of 1956.

Underworld Evolution has antecedents in literature ("Dracula"), film ("The Matrix") and song ("Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue"). How does it rip off so much, yet learn so little?

Promising new writer-director Mark Christopher is like "Dollhouse" director Todd Solondz's more cheerful little brother.

Enlightening.

Schwartz throws in so many characters and implausible subplots - none worth mentioning - that Perception sinks under its own weight.

Loads of fun, especially if you use the site yourself. But it plays too much like a paid ad.

Perry - who also produced, wrote and lensed - was able to talk Fujimori into letting her interview him on camera in Japan. He puts on a great show.

As Coach Haskins would say, it wins because it sticks to the fundamentals.

A thoroughly mediocre dramedy.

Tristan & Isolde makes sacking and pillaging about as exciting as the line at the post office.

Painfully sincere. But it wrings almost no laughs or tears from this seemingly idiot-proof premise.

Meet Peter Berlin - the man whose eccentric life style has earned him the title the Garbo of gay porn.

It's nice to see a love story that deals with mature people. We're not likely to get anything like it from Hollywood. So enjoy When the Sea Rises while you can.

The film looks like it cost 10 cents, but a lot of the jokes are gold. Hollywood, take notice of writer-director James Westby.

Arlyck spends more time following himself and his own lefty family than checking up on Sean.

Profound and majestic.

What kind of hellspawn might result if "Saw" bought a copy of "Let's Go: Europe" and went backpacking across Europe to have a one-night stand with Dracula? Something like Hostel.

A pathetic stoner comedy.

Sort of a poor man's "Rent" - minus the music and the AIDS - and much blander than the title would have you expect.

Censors in Iran must have been smoking weed when they approved I'm Taraneh, 15, a sympathetic portrait of an unwed mother.

Semicoherent.

Boasts a lovable ensemble cast, with a standout performance by Zaira Valenzuela as 14-year-old Paola.

Andy Lau and Siu Fai Mak, the men behind the successful Hong Kong police thriller trio "Infernal Affairs," should be arrested for directing Initial D.

The Promise employs laughable computer effects and second-rate martial-arts fighting to tell the hard-to-figure story of a princess and her three lovers.

Its many pleasures derive from the way this drama unfolds unexpectedly from the characters rather than imposing itself on them.

Hats off to Elisabeth Marton, who has taken a bunch of dry facts and fashioned them into the gorgeous My Name Was Sabina Spielrein.

Director McLean doesn't let up on the suspense, which builds to an electrifying climax that is greatly abetted by Will Gibson's gritty cinematography and Francois Tetaz' nerves-inducing score.

Don't confuse the 18th-century Vene tian setting in Casanova with sophisti cation. The film's one-dimensional characters and lame one-liners make it a sitcom with petticoats.

Reiner, who came in to rescue this picture after the original director was fired, once gave us "When Harry Met Sally," but seeing him work now is like watching Willie Mays hobble around in a Mets uniform during that pathetic final year when he hit .211.

This lavish coffee-table-book of a movie gradually reveals itself as an uninvolving, crashing bore.

If we send Sally Struthers money, will she be able to stop this kind of suffering from taking place in Beverly Hills?

Masterful, atypically political - and flawlessly acted.

A deliciously elusive mystery.

You could make a very funny comedy about a guy who pretends to be retarded so he can win the Special Olympics, but The Ringer isn't it.

So, should you see The Intruder? Yes -- but only if you're willing to ignore bothersome concerns about narrative and let the poetic images take over your mind.

The point isn't really to make you laugh. The film is supposed to make people feel good about their families, and it does a fine job of it.

The material has been dumbed down for contemporary tastes and Carrey's frantic comic style.

Following his triumphs in "The Constant Gardener" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Fiennes is superb as Todd.

A satisfying, big-hearted celebration of diversity that will brighten holiday moviegoing.

Oh no, another let's-drag-a-dead-body-to-Mexico flick?

The Chinese pleaser Electric Shadows belongs to a genre they don't teach in film school: Triple S, as in sweet, sappy and sentimental.

From bad to worse - Even in verse - The Producers moves like a hearse -Mildness and blandness -Mugging like madness - Who knew that "Rent" would win this fight? - Murdering a genre's just not all right!

Zippily written and directed by the team of Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech, Hoodwinked just wants the audience to have fun - something that's been in sparse supply in theaters of late.

Beware of blood-sucking Mormons! At least that's the tongue-in-cheek message in Trapped by the Mormons, a campy sendup shot as a 1920s silent movie.

Break out the popcorn and prepare to be blown away. King Kong is the most pulse- pounding and heart-stirring romantic adventure since "Titanic."

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

Almereyda's muddled Happy Here and Now should have stayed on the shelf - where it's been gathering dust for several years.

It's based on a novel, but you'd guess it came from a coffee-table book. Marvelous design, photography and costuming mark this period piece.

This is one of the best serious films about homosexuality ever made, but though it's sad and sobering it's still only a rough draft of a great movie.

Constantly battling, Hoskins and Dench have terrific chemistry together.

Overlong, poorly paced and woodenly acted film.

An outrageous horror flick.

A disturbing and daring thriller with an exceptional performance by 13-year-old Laurien Van den Broeck.

White-haired Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers -- the group was blacklisted during the McCarthy years -- is in especially fine voice.

Pietro Sibille is exceptional as Santiago, and the rest of the cast turn in dynamic performances.

Hopkins' larger-than-life performance as the crusty and crafty Burt rivets your attention for two solid hours in this most entertaining labor of love.

Aeon Flux is by far the year's worst movie, a most dubious achievement.

Like a preoperative transsexual, Transamerica is neither one thing nor the other. It yanks at the heartstrings too much to qualify as an edgy comedy-drama, but it's far too bawdy to make it to the Hallmark Channel.

an overlong and surprisingly dull documentary.

THE mesmerizingly awful The Kid & I is a historic first: a comedy about the making of a vanity production that is ITSELF a vanity production.

A master class on turning a talky, one-man play into a visual delight.

an infomercial for death starring Townes Van Zandt.

The story is so contrived and the dialogue so stilted that no amount of talent could save Exist.

Seventy percent of black boys in Baltimore do not graduate from high school. They're more likely to land in jail -- or a cemetery. But there is hope, according to The Boys of Baraka, an uplifting documentary.

Writer-director Debra Granik has found a star, and wisely builds every scene around Farmiga's character.

Newcomer Friend, a Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike who can also be seen in small roles in "The Libertine" and "Pride & Prejudice," has a winning manner, but Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a terrific, long-overdue vehicle for Lady Olivier.

Pretty dry stuff that verges on an infomercial, despite cameo appearances by Sarah Jessica Parker and Mizrahi himself.

Thornton is in great form as the sardonic Vic, whose disposal of an apparently dead body in a trunk is a hilarious set piece.

In the dumps.

There's a line between rogue and jerk, and Reynolds lives on the wrong side of it. As Dusty, Klein is such a smooth operator that he could have been - should have been - the lead.

The screen version's Drama Club dorkiness is going to ruin the Rent brand of alleged downtown cool for everyone. If anything can re-shevel the disheveled multitudes of Alphabet City and chase the hipsters into pleated khakis and sweater sets, it's this film.

Lame family filler.

Everybody involved in 39 Pounds of Love probably had the best of intentions. But watching the filmmakers scurry about to record every last tear, I couldn't help but feel that this twisted little man was being exploited.

This film isn't pretty, but it has some kick: It is to "Shakespeare in Love" what wild pheasant is to Chicken McNuggets.

Clooney, who gained 35 pounds for the role, gives a self-effacing but highly effective performance.

Fine for people of developing minds, but the story so often stops its forward motion to take us on long detours into the land of CGI effects that it amounts to a $150 million magic show.

Walk the Line superbly combines music and two of the year's most riveting performances to tell one of the screen's great love stories.

The Greeks have a word for Blackmail Boy: boring.

Israeli soldiers are cast as the killers, while the Palestinians are the hapless bunnies. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is thus reimagined as "Bambi."

Tabatabai delivers a strong performance and the script, although not always plausible, touches on important issues like bias against gays and Muslims.