Unfortunately, Angelou's detached and often superfluous narration lessens the film's impact.

The story is nothing if not uplifting, but it unfolds in a conventional, uninspired documentary style better suited to the small screen, where it soon will reside. Wait.

The cowardly producers have banished the grit and darkness of Parker’s original.

The movie is neither an affecting romance (Coco even considers marrying Balsan because "I'd achieve social status") nor an inspiring success story. Chanel sold herself to one guy, happened to get customers through him, and took a start-up loan from another lover.

Among cheesy sci-fi movies meant to make you think, I'll take Surrogates over "District 9." Both are highly derivative, but in the course of recombining the basic chromosomes of "Blade Runner," "The Matrix" and especially "I, Robot," Surrogates nudges the robo-thriller in an interesting direction.

Set in a bar that echoes the far superior "Big Night," this labored two-hander plays more like an acting exercise than an actual movie.

An uneven quasi-weepie.

A blast from the 1980s, when the idea that men were essentially rapists and women rapees was a popular way to score chicks on campus.

Like legendary producer Val Lewton in the '40s, director Oren Peli, who shot "Paranormal" in seven days in his own home, understands that what's most frightening is what you don't see but merely suggested.

Adams and the school's students and teachers deserve an A-plus, although the film rates a much lower grade. It unfolds lifelessly, as Binzer parades a contingent of talking heads before the camera in what could pass for an infomercial.

Shouldn’t Moore run his yellow crime-scene tape around the White House instead of Wall Street? Anyway, President Obama said this month that in cases where the government has fully sold its TARP bank holdings, it has gotten back its money plus 17 percent. Damn those capitalist barons, breaking into our treasury and filling it with their filthy money.

Has some witty dialogue and sprightly performances by Karen Black, Andrea Marcovicci, Victoria Tennant and others.

What made Ludwig such a great musician? The documentary In Search of Beethoven, directed by Phil Grabsky, answers that question reasonably well.

It's the Food Network meets The Weather Channel meets . . . the Scary Doomsday Preachers Channel.

More amusing than laugh-out-loud hilarious, but is never boring.

Love Happens is a weepie about the grieving process, mainly my own.

The “Transformers” hottie undergoes her very own transformation here, thanks to satanic possession.

The tales mostly drift along and wrap up unresolved. If this is an accurate slice of Paris life, I'll take the relative excitement of Topeka.

Here the characters aren't compelling enough to ask viewers to give their brains a workout to determine exactly what's going on.

I cannot tell a lie. I derive great satisfaction watching John Malkovich act.

Denis -- who has called the film a tribute to the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu -- keeps dialogue to a minimum as she delicately examines how immigration is changing the face of France.

Catnip for the art-house crowd.

The would-be noir Beyond a Rea sonable Doubt has an absurd story, but on the plus side you can hardly see what's going on because the photography is so murky.

The film makes little sense (the couple refuses to ride subways, but Metro-North is OK), but it's a diverting conversation piece/freak show.

Gogol Bordello plays a mix of punk rock and Gypsy music that recalls the work of the Serbian No Smoking Band. Onstage, Gogol Bordello puts on a visually outrageous show that one member describes as "kick-ass."

IF you ask me, Shane Acker's post-apocalyp tic animated film 9 is better than the live-ac tion flick "District 9." Beyond their similar titles, these sci-fi social commentaries are both expanded from shorts under the sponsorship of a world-class director.

Like its subject, a lawsuit that is expected to go on for another 10 years, Crude has no ending. This is the perfect ending for this Goliath versus Goliath documentary about powerful personal-injury lawyers taking on a powerful corporation.

A disappointingly superficial treatment of a fascinating historical incident.