Poison Friends deftly sketches the fine line - is there one? - between "critic" and "loser."

Wind Chill is very much Blunt's show - there are no other major characters save Holmes - and she even gets to climb a telephone pole in her Prada heels. Brava!

Solidly old-fashioned entertainment.

A bizarre quasi-documentary that more or less tries to rationalize bestiality as a harmless quirk.

Nobody familiar with To will be surprised by the way he presents stylish violence in innovative and humorous ways.

A real actioner, generous with the bullets and blood and chase scenes, that simultaneously mocks shoot-'em-ups.

The acting is solid, especially Whaley, whose nasty variation on Norman Bates is his showiest role since he memorably played Kevin Bacon's assistant in "Swimming With Sharks."

This is a slickly entertaining package, beautifully photographed on well-chosen locations with an unerring sense of pace by Gregory Hoblit.

In the Land of Women is one of those films informed by intimate personal experience - the experience of seeing "Garden State."

Sweet but not especially original.

As always in Veber's films, the predictability is part of the fun.

The movie amounts to an extended short story that progresses slowly and fades away with key questions unanswered. Ambiguity isn't necessarily interesting.

Strictly for art-house types, particularly those familiar with the director, who makes no concessions to mainstream audiences. You have to abandon any preconceived notions about movies and allow your mind to be seduced by the mystifying, occasionally humorous world of a one-of-a-kind filmmaker. You might even find yourself becoming a fan.

Dickie is intense in her screen debut, which requires her to be in nearly every scene. The supporting cast is strong, and Robbie Ryan's handheld camera provides gritty ambiance for this taut thriller.

It's ragged, and at times it scrapes your comedy ganglia like a cheese grater. But 15 minutes or half an hour is an ideal chunk of time to set aside for truly inspired absurdism.

The movie takes us on a journey to an ugly, contentious period in our misty, ancient past - all the way back to four months ago, when "Apocalypto" came out.

Have you ever seen a movie without a single believable moment? Perfect Stranger, a convoluted and altogether risible thriller with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, manages this difficult feat.

Some ideas are auto-stolen (from Coupland's last novel, "JPod"), but those quirky atmospherics aren't enough to sustain a largely plotless film.

Too much of the film is given over to the soap opera of Elmer's life.

Clever, wise and witty.

Shannon is wonderful as a woman pushed over the edge by the death of her pet in Year of the Dog, a very low-key, well-acted dramedy.

An amusingly preposterous last act keeps you guessing, or maybe keeps you ducking, as it lets rip an avalanche of startling revelations and double-crosses. Nothing is what it seems - unless it seems cheesy.

In his later years, Smith, who was also a gifted photographer, largely abandoned films in favor of performance art - and his art apparently included deliberately contracting the AIDS that ended his life.

There are a few decent jolts in Disturbia, but overall this ultra-predictable thriller doesn't live up to the hype.

To get to the best part first, Tarantino's adrenaline-pumping "Death Proof" is actually a good movie that - unlike Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," - rethinks its genre in ways that say something to contemporary audiences. And it's got some of Tarantino's best dialogue since "Pulp Fiction."

Hugely entertaining because director Lasse Hallstrom and screenwriter William Wheeler have greatly embellished the "truth" in Irving's book about the hoax.

Satire is merciless; it demands that mocker be superior to mockee.

Like a Canadian "Six Feet Under," the indie dramedy Whole New Thing mixes characters (teen and adult, gay and straight, married and single) who seem both completely plausible and capable of anything.