A shaky effort to make a point about art triumphing over all.

So patchy in its laughs, so calculated in its grossness and so lacking in genuine comic exuberance, it makes you look at "Road Trip" in an admiring new light.

When the villain is revealed, you are neither surprised nor scared. You just think, "That guy?"

The cacophonous ending sets up a sequel, but I hope it never sees the light of day. Actually, considering it’s about vampires, maybe I do!

What dooms Never Die Alone even as amoral pulp entertainment is the screenplay by neophyte James Gibson, which combines clichéd characters and a contrived plot with stale dialogue.

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.

Behind the glitz, Hollywood is sordid and disgusting. Quelle surprise!

Strictly summer schlock.

A bad film with some oddly charming moments.

In Pay the Ghost, Nicolas Cage investigates a supernatural abduction, but has no solution for the maggot-eaten zombie that is his undead career.

Devotes most of its energy to its costumes and makeup, which are fabulous. But that and a tabloid-worthy star just aren't enough to revisit this sordid tale as a kind of twisted comedy.

Colpaert makes nice use of blue and green hues, and he makes some valid points about the Iraqi war. But the script lacks coherence and ends with a 180-degree flip that lessens the impact of what has gone before.

So beautifully filmed (as if through a gauze curtain), it is especially sad that the script doesn't measure up.

A windbaggy film of Phillip Roth's novella "The Dying Animal."

The movie has the feel of a weary business trip.

A mild, slow-moving drama that belatedly tries to argue that graffiti writers are political artists, not an urban blight.

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

This mild drama plays out like one of those dull message movies that TV networks used to crank out almost weekly, but the earnestness is at times almost appealingly old-fashioned.

Hokey, inept tear-jerker.

There’s a secret at play in After, which director Pieter Gaspersz communicates via many side-long glances. I won’t give it away, but it’s a fairly far-fetched twist that feels out of place in this realism-based drama.

The cast includes Oscar winner Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched herself) and Henry Thomas of "E.T.," and the special effects look like they were executed on somebody's laptop.

The NYU film grad steals liberally from Woody (especially "Annie Hall") - from camera placement to body language to plot twists to the whole Ingmar Bergman thing. That's not necessarily bad, if the project works. This one doesn't - it just annoys.

Is nothing sacred? In the schizophrenic war epic The War lords, Jet Li, the hunky action hero, cries -- no, make that sobs -- several times. What will his legion of young male fans think?

Markopolos repeatedly tells us he was scared for his life -- accompanied by hokey archival clips and music -- though nothing actually happened to him.

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

Well, nobody said The Grand was another "Best in Show."

About as exciting as watching someone else's home movies -- albeit, beautifully photographed ones.

Boynton isn't interested in telling a story, only in the atmosphere of political consultancy.