Mena Suvari has her best role since "American Beauty" as Brandi, a self-centered nursing home employee distinctly lacking in sympathy for anyone.

As evident from The Brown Bunny and his directing debut, "Buffalo 66," Gallo is talented, although in an unconventional way. Call him an angry young man with a future.

Ghobadi (himself an Iranian Kurd) takes some gorgeous shots against the snow, but his storytelling is uneven and often slow.

Tasteless but sporadically uproarious black comedy.

Mesrine's gentler side is explored, too, as he gets caught up with women portrayed by two of France's leading actresses, Ludivine Sagnier and Cecile de France.

Ultimately, for the show’s fans, it may not matter if “Sponge Out of Water” shows a hint of mildew. After all, my co-critic’s most enthusiastic note — “Hilarious!” — was written before the lights even dimmed.

The Conjuring 2 belongs to Wilson and Farmiga as the sincere, loving, slightly square Warrens, with Wan tightening the screws for a rousing series of cliffhangers that should have audiences screaming. Expect another sequel for sure.

Maybe the Midwest isn't actually like this, but if it were, would that be so bad?

There are a few ingenious zig zags in its otherwise by-the-numbers plot...but what keeps you interested... is the sheer movie-star presence of the actors in the lead roles.

The girl you see stabbing and shooting prisoners and fellow trainees makes the killer from "La Femme Nikita" look like a wuss.

This is grim, bleak material that at times is monotonous, but its woe feels authentic.

Stands in stark contrast to the quickie political documentaries that have flooded into specialty venues since last year.

More wobbly moments of Woman Walks Ahead seem to teeter on the edge of both white-saviorism and becoming a Harlequin romance.

This one is often more interesting than involving.

Ultimately, the immensely personable and talented lead actors manage to push aside the disquieting notion that this group of men are so emotionally stunted that they're happy to abandon their wives and children for the sake of a party.

Comes perilously close to being a vanity production for the obscure singer Isabel Rose, who stars and wrote the autobiographical screenplay with neophyte director Robert Cary, based on her own struggles as a cabaret singer.

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.

Inside Beautiful People, . . . there's a terrific film trying to get out.

In To Rome With Love, Allen approaches the leitmotif in a strange, oblique and interesting way. I fear, though, that the Italian entry in his "Let's Go: Grab Some Euro-Film Subsidies" period will be remembered as being forgettable.

Buzzes around in random menace for an hour until its third act, when - zzzzzt! - it flies straight into the zapper.

Demonstrates that not only is sisterhood powerful, it can be awfully entertaining.

This genre-busting hybrid is a scattershot affair - bad jokes land with a thud that seems to echo, but the winning ones prompt hearty laughs.

It's a simple tale of father-and-son bonding that director Huo Jianqi injects with a quiet power, and it benefits greatly from the gorgeous lushness of its backdrop.

That's My Boy is pretty raunchy, and by "pretty," I mean "amazingly," as in Howard Stern- or Seth MacFarlane-style gags.

Sputnik Mania has a happy ending, thanks to German scientist Werner von Braun, who had been recruited for America after designing Nazi rockets that rained terror on England during World War II.

Oddly, though, for a film so dedicated to celebrating what he can still accomplish, his early performing career gets a lot more emphasis than the music still being composed. And that's a pity, because what little we hear is entrancing.

There are times when the urban dialect is so thick, you wish the film came with subtitles.

It's only when you're leaving the theater that her spell wears off and you realize just how bad the movie, directed by Andy Tennant, really is.