Just Like Heaven isn't far short of a classic among romantic comedies with a teary chaser, sure to please fans of "Ghost" and "Heaven Can Wait."

Picture how insufferable "GoodFellas" would be if it climaxed with a federal agent making a speech about the victims claimed by organized crime.

Liev Schreiber's film version of "Everything Is Illuminated" achieves the impossible — it's even more annoying than Jonathan Safran Foer's gratingly precocious novel.

An instant classic.

Hard Goodbyes could easily have been maudlin, but isn't. Credit an adult script and realistic acting, especially by Giorgos Karayannis as Elias.

The actors can't escape the confines of the warmed-over, coming-of-age-in-suburbia script by Mills, from a novel by Walter Kirn.

Director Raymond de Felitta, who directed a little-seen gem called "Two Family House" a few years ago, gives Falk plenty of room to do his thing. There's an underlying emotional truth even in scenes that seem terribly contrived.

Garcon Stupide features the best gay seduction scene ever filmed on a Ferris wheel. Unfortunately, you have to sit through the entire movie to get to it. Whether you want to will depend on your interest in explicit gay sex.

This poorly acted, directed and written (but slick-looking) vanity project was produced by Andrew Lauren (Ralph's son also ineptly plays G's major-domo) and shot at least four years ago.

All hopes for suspense and plot twists are snuffed out about as quickly as the film's black characters.

A soufflé that begins promisingly but never quite rises.

Proves that you don't need a big budget to make a dynamite film.

Enlightening documentary.

In his fourth outing with the director, cinematographer Andreas Sinanos produces stunning scene after stunning scene, almost as if each frame were a small painting.

Yet another screwed-up mess that will give audiences another excuse to shun the multiplexes this weekend.

Freeman is Freeman, all homespun dignity. Surely it's time for him to play a saucy interior decorator or a crazed dictator.

This windy courtroom drama is punctuated by cheesy flashbacks.

It's hard to make a dull movie with copious nudity and all kinds of sex (straight, bi and gay), although French filmmakers Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau manage to do so in Cote d'Azur.

Lewis, from the TV series "Band of Brothers," gives a super performance, but the revelation here is young Breslin, who was in Garry Marshall's "Raising Helen" and M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs."

Solid performances can't save Melissa Painter's pretentious teen drama Steal Me, which plays like a cross between "Dangerous Skin" (without the gay sex) and "Picnic" (without the production values or credible situations).

Director and co-writer Lexi Alexander choreographs the fight scenes with thrilling chaos, and the plot unfolds expertly if melodramatically.

What Kamikaze Girls doesn't have is a plot. As nice as the film looks, it soon grows tiresome -- though I could listen to the Johann Strauss II soundtrack forever.

Despite the attention focused on New Orleans these days, though, the film won't win many new converts. The musicians swear this is dance music, but the beats are far too ponderous to get a rise out of the hip-hop generation.

A tediously self-absorbed variation on "The Big Chill" and "The Return of the Secaucus 7."

Could do with a tad of editing itself. Other than that, there's nothing bad to say about this cool homage to the film world's unsung heroes: editors.

Call this a profile in courage.

It busts the credibility meter early on, quickly becomes preposterous, and then really lets its imagination rip.

If 65 million years of evolution have been building up to this movie, then Darwin was wrong. But there's no intelligent design here either.

The only hint of professionalism comes from Cheech Marin as Cannon's boss, who at times seems to be acting in a different movie.

Though Cho occasionally connects with her targets, more often than not she seems as intolerant and hate-filled as she accuses them of being - and that's not funny.

If the sight of naked, sweaty French hunks gets you going, well, then, Three Dancing Slaves is a must-see.

Deadly serious about its message: that the West is just as vicious and corrupt as Africa.

A work of drama, it's more realistic than any TV reality show.

Eggleston doesn't speak much, and when he does, it's usually a mutter, forcing Almereyda to use subtitles. Fortunately, Eggleston's photographs come across loud and clear.

Seriously lost in the woods. This aimless epic about a pair of charlatan brothers sinks under the weight of a problematic script, questionable star casting, hamfisted editing -- and penny-pinching by Gilliam’s latest patrons, the Brothers Weinstein.

A cheesy, often unintentionally funny, direct-to-video-caliber knockoff of "Aliens" that couldn't be more shallow.

It isn't a really good movie, but there's real talent in it.

A zero-joke romantic comedy.

Fairly sexy and stylish. Alas, it's also quite silly and not especially scary.

There are no women or straight men left in Taipei. At least that's the impression left by Formula 17, in which every single person (except for one child) is a gay cutie.

Writer-director Erik Van Looy keeps the action moving briskly. Danny Elsen's cinematography is stylish and the acting top-notch.

Tedious left-wing documentary.

A calculating crowd-pleaser aimed squarely at the under-25 crowd, who can feel free to add a star or two to my rating.

In short, Red Eye hits the bull's-eye.

The best sequence comes when the gang meet a saucy French lady mouse who works for the Resistance and at moments of high drama sings "Je Ne Regrette Rien" ("Ah!" your children will say. "At last, an Edith Piaf joke!")

There's not enough good material to fill the film's overlong 105 minutes. Is there an editor in the house?

A schmaltz-laden soap opera from Saskatchewan.

Savage yet spellbinding.

The 25-year-old filmmaker takes no sides himself. Wisely, he allows folks of all opinions to put their feet in their mouths all by themselves.

A collection of product plugs masquerading as a movie en route to home video.

More than the story of a disillusioned old man, Lustre is a loving tribute to New York.

While type-A Pierson worries about his projectionist showing up and a break-in at his family's home, his wife frets that the mass importation of American films will contaminate the local culture.

Expect a sequel -- perhaps one with a more satisfying conclusion.

Strictly summer schlock.

A vile and laughless follow-up to Schneider's 1999 hit.

Four Brothers? Ringling Brothers is more like it, because John Singleton's latest stinks like something the elephants left behind. It's not clear what the film is trying to do, but it seems safe to guess that it's doing it wrong.

I hereby award the World War II drama The Great Raid a Cement Star for faithful and distinguished service to the cause of mediocrity.

McKellen, Csokas, Bonneville and particularly Richardson are so good and convincing in their characterizations that you can almost overlook the increasingly unbelievable twists that Asylum takes. Almost.

Seeing what Hitler's propaganda minister saw, hearing only his diary entries and what he heard, we effectively live inside the monster's head.

Herzog tries to make sense out of the blond-haired young man, who looked an awful lot like Kinski.

So exploitative and misogynistic that its last-minute dramatic turns and pleas for tolerance and understanding come off as manipulative as its heroine.

Pleasantly free of blood and guts, with Kurosawa using instead the mighty power of suggestion to give Pulse an invigorating aura of menace.

Cheung and Nick Nolte seem unlikely co-stars, but co-star they do in Clean, giving gritty performances under the direction of Frenchman Olivier Assayas.

Has two especially memorable sequences: the eye-popping Mass Games and a visit by a group of schoolgirls to incredibly beautiful Mount Paekdu, which is revered by Koreans on both sides of the DMZ.

A lot of its jokes sputter and it doesn't contain even a hint of a chick movie, but The Dukes of Hazzard has some of the same fratty energy as "Wedding Crashers."

Audiences will laugh, mainly to prove they're awake, but the humor is pretty thin.

2046 is a bit overlong and not for all tastes, but fans of "In the Mood for Love" will relish this second helping, which is more emotionally substantial than the first.

Herzlinger is a flack, not a filmmaker.

All of this is punctuated with refreshingly strange wit.

There's nary a dull moment in the semi-autobiographical Secuestro Express (secuestro means kidnap), as Jakubowicz pleases the eyes with closeups, sped-up scenes, hand-held camerawork and other stylized tricks.

A pleasing fable reminiscent of G-rated nature movies of the '60s and '70s, before kiddie cinema required CGI or hip cultural references.

Sensitive and sincere and has a talented ensemble cast.

A labor of love, Young Rebels is essential viewing for anyone who wants to stay ahead of the hip-hop curve.

The documentary tries to pin Africa's suffering on capitalism, but dances around the real problem. Africa starves because corrupt governments own the natural resources and export them to buy weapons to keep their people at bay.

This movie is never more than a one-liner away from sitcom, yet it goes down like ice cream.

Here's a tagline for Disney's Sky High: "Like Harry Potter, only stupider!"

The scene where a pilot bails out in Stealth is so over-painted with CGI that it doesn't look as real as the sequence starring Shepard that inspired it in "The Right Stuff," a movie made with model airplanes.

You'll either be screaming with laughter - or be incredibly offended.

There are the makings of a funny movie here, but novice director-writer Anna Reeves isn't up to the job. While her cast is talented, Reeves doesn't concentrate long enough on any plotline or character to build viewer interest.

No adventurous filmgoer will want to miss Tony Takitani.

A meditation on literature, love and remembrance that is able to find humor and hope in the dark days of the Cultural Revolution.

An achingly beautiful look at the most tragic victims of the longtime war in Chechnya: children.

Filled with nostalgia for old Chinese movies, respectable performances and lively kung-fu slapstick.

Hustle & Flow promises gritty street drama but delivers "Pretty Woman" with crunk instead of Roxette.

Bay's best film since "The Rock."

Merely a passably amusing excuse to pass a couple of hours in an air-conditioned theater.

A yellow dog of a movie that delights in offending the offendable. It's also a whitesploitation classic, from its menacing sideburns to its demented laughter.

The film accurately reminds you, if you need reminding, what it's like to have your mind hijacked by somebody's body.

You can sympathize with both sides in their ideological battle, which ends in a most unexpected way.

The bottom line of Last Days seems to be, fame's a bitch. Yes, Gus - now start making movies again that tell stories, please.

By the time the closing credits roll, you'll be ready to run out and hug a tree.

There's no real payoff - artistically or emotionally - in Gregory Harrison's gimmicky and tedious psychological thriller November, shot on ugly digital video.

The star of the movie is Caeli Veronica Smith, 12, an accomplished violinist who frequently performs in the park. Seeing her play in person would be worth the bus trip to Philly.

The subject is touchy, but Gund handles it with taste and compassion.

Like Roald Dahl's book, Tim Burton's splendidly imaginative and visually stunning - and often very dark and creepy - new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is squarely aimed more at children than their parents.

The flick brings two hours of great big sloppy buck-wild laughs by morphing into a cross between "Meet the Parents" and "Some Like It Hot."

Way too long, too convoluted and too peppered with title cards...Even so, it's hard to dislike Don Roos' "Magnolia"-inspired triptych of interconnected comic tales about lies, sex and video.

Clever, racially and sexually provocative variation on "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"