All hail the great Helen Mirren, who after her triumph in HBO's "Elizabeth," delivers the performance of a lifetime as that monarch's frumpy, 20th century namesake in Stephen Frear's witty, touching and engrossing The Queen.

The men who made The Guardian strive to be the averagest of the average - and don't quite succeed.

An excellent case for euthanizing the entire talking-animals genre.

School for Scoundrels teaches one important lesson: Avoid any thing carrying the banner of The Weinstein Co., which is to the multiplex what bagged spinach is to the produce aisle.

It might take a while to figure out what is happening, because Khoo provides no expository dialogue. But viewers' patience will be rewarded as the stories come together in a moving fashion.

This is a gifted director who actually has something to say and knows how to say it. We'll be hearing from him again.

[Hernandez] is obviously a man more concerned with art than commerce, but good intentions don't always make for good filmmaking.

The Last King of Scotland is a parable shocking in its truth, jolting in its lack of sentimentality, Shakespearean in its vision of the doctor's catastrophic flaw.

Lethally dull and self-important remake.

The computer-generated flying effects are the only reason to see the movie, but at some point somebody left the computer on too long, so it went ahead and spat out the script.

A buffet of dumb and degrading stunts halfway between Looney Tunes and Abu Ghraib?

A lavish biopic that gives Li one of his juiciest roles but is relatively light on the action his fans have come to expect.

The highlight is a meta touch: A funny on-screen résumé is posted each time we meet a new character.

A first-rate documentary on this subgenre of punk rock, which flourished roughly between 1982 and 1986 as an anarchistic response to Ronald Reagan and the disco era.

Watching it is like being the only non-stoned person in the room as someone tells a long, long story.

Preteen sexuality is a sensitive subject, but director Auraeus Solito handles it with dignity, never becoming exploitative.

An acid trip of a movie about a piece of Los Angeles history that exists no more: the Ambassador Hotel.

You must lead a dull life if it would be enlivened by 76 minutes' worth of Old Joy.

The women are all beautiful; and the camerawork - by Emmanuel Lubezki, who shot Terrence Malick's spectacular "The New World" - is eye-pleasing.

If this overcooked version of James Ellroy’s novel - inspired by a famous 1947 Los Angeles murder - is less than fully satisfying or even believable storytelling and acting, it’s still possible to get a kick out of this fever dream loaded with eye candy.

Everyone's Hero, a tame CGI cartoon for the simple-minded: the very young, the very old and Yankee fans.

Some movies present their whole story in a two-minute trailer, but Gridiron Gang says it all in its poster.

If I were a member of Generation X, I would be fed up with Hollywood's obsession with the idea that its men are genetically incapable of growing up.

Think you're depressed now? Wait till you see Aurora Borealis, which spends almost two hours watching Ronald Shorter, a suicidal old man, die.

A strained, ultra-predictable and headache-inducing mockumentary.

Ends up feeling familiar.

Those expecting an exhilarating, "Pulp Fiction"-style wrap-up will also be disappointed. Instead, Flowers gives us the impression - as the end of "Traffic" did - that we've just taken a few turns on a merry-go-round of doom that is going to keep spinning long after the movie ends.

Documents the Nixon administration's failed, almost comically inept attempt to deport the most political of The Beatles and his wife, Yoko Ono. Given the latter's cooperation with the filmmakers, it comes as no surprise the Lennons come off as saints.