What is missing is any sort of psychological insight. Just what made Renato run? You won't find out here.

If you were among the many who thought highly of "A Prophet," the French prison drama that played here last year, you'll want to see the brutally realistic Danish thriller R.

Buck is best left to TV, where it will land soon. It's "The Horse Whisperer" that should be seen on the big screen.

There's no way to put this gently: Watching people slam their heels and toes on the boards while drifting around the floor is about as fascinating as watching the carousel rotation in your favorite microwave oven.

Basically a carefully airbrushed and authorized portrait of the Gray Lady during 14 months when there was serious speculation about the paper's impending demise.

Unfortunately for the film, it's clear from the outset this is a totally one-sided battle that well-connected developer Bruce Ratner is fated to win.

There's still no good reason to suffer through a half-baked little movie that proves indies can be every bit as boringly formulaic and artistically bankrupt as their big-budget brethren.

As Popper himself notices, his and the penguins' saga gets so endearing that it could have been narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Blake Lively doesn't have a whole lot to do as Hal's employer and occasional lover, who sometimes requires rescuing. No great loss; she and Reynolds have minus-zero chemistry.

The American Muslim comedian Ahmed Ahmed does lots of jokes about how he isn't a terrorist. How odd: As I sat through his tepid act, I could have sworn he was bombing.

A beautiful nature film, with gorgeous, multicolored shots of bees and flowers. It also is a well-made documentary about the troubles of the honeybee.

You'll want to catch this clever movie before Hollywood ruins everything with a dumb remake.

While there are some giggles in the film-within-the-film (also called "Road to Nowhere"), the artsy-fartsy direction and flat-as-a-pancake acting (including a cameo by Variety columnist Peter Bart as himself) invites invidious comparisons to "Mulholland Drive."

The kind of lush, epic romantic weepie that Hollywood used to deliver on a regular basis for packed matinees at Radio City Music Hall.

The loose feel and sense for random comedy (as when a bore suddenly starts lecturing Coogan about the geological details of the cliff he is standing on) are spiffy.

The mystery is why the filmmakers thought third-graders or anyone else would be willing to pay for this master class in tedium.

It's an enjoyable, well-acted, old-school geekfest pitting a group of middle-school students against an escaped monster from outer space.

While I have no argument with Leeson's political views, her presentation -- mostly a succession of talking heads -- is dry and uninspired. These women deserve better.

Appalachian mountains get blown up to extract coal in the documentary The Last Mountain, a film in which activists are at least as hot as the TNT.

Only rarely does the film present a genuine insight, such as the observation that many black people loved to dress up in their finest for church because, during the week, they were so often dressed as servants and manual laborers.

You would be hard-pressed to use the word "accessible" to describe Film Socialisme, and that's exactly the way the master wants it.

Except for Brolin as an unlikely born-again Jew, nobody fares well under Mulroney's ham-fisted direction.

You don't have to be stoned to watch Mr. Nice, but it might help to be in the same state of mind as its real-life anti-hero, drug kingpin Howard Marks.

The excruciating and the hilarious mingle nearly to perfection in this marvelously visualized and deeply felt British film.

Beautiful Boy ends up being an endurance test.

This superbly acted and ultimately disarming dual coming-out comedy-drama -- which turns out to be semi-autobiographical -- certainly grows on you, despite all of the twee touches.

Director Matthew Vaughn, who did last year's delightful "Kick-Ass," doesn't do witty this time around, but he does keep up a spiffing pace while making the action blaze.

If Ed Wood had directed "The Silence of the Lambs," it might have been as unintentionally hilarious as the goofball would-be thriller The Abduction of Zack Butterfield.