Eight Below doesn't always quite put across the idea of extreme weather, either; the way the actors keep appearing outside with bare heads and jackets unzipped suggests November in Burbank, not 31 degrees below zero. The scenes in which Biggs appears in shorts kind of clinch the point.

With Roth at the helm of a script attributed to Price, there is minimal suspense, audience involvement or coherent social commentary.

Reyadas' radical rejection of filmmaking conventions is at first off-putting, but he's able to elicit remarkable performances from the cast of non-professionals while building tension that will hold viewers' attention. Love it or loathe it, you won't soon forget Battle in Heaven.

Night Watch may be derivative of American movies, but when our ideas ooze out of the dank Russian filter they're weirder, crazier, grimier.

Its message is sugarcoated in a schmaltzy, clichéd story line about Smith's conflicts with streetwise black minister (Jeff Obafemi Carr) - and sabotaged by hackneyed dialogue, sluggish pacing and a listless performance by Smith, who only springs to life when he's singing.

Sophie Scholl is a powerful story. But it's a little annoying how men become beside the point when the focus is on emotion. Sophie did no more or less than her brother, but he's ignored for nearly all of the movie because it's easier to stir up compassion - it's easier to manipulate the audience - when the subject is a woman.

Deschanel manages to make Winter Passing almost matter. That's real talent.

The finale - a shootout in a church - seems inspired by Hong Kong filmmakers like John Woo and Ringo Lam.

CSA would have benefited from a bigger budget and better actors and it gets weaker as it goes along, but it's still thought-provoking stuff.

Desert Wind will be of interest to men - and especially to women, who might learn much they didn't know about the opposite sex.

Curious George skews very young, but parents should be warned that it arrives not only with the worst ad slogan in recent memory ("Show me the monkey"), but a full line of plush toys and related tie-in merchandise.

Except for the rock soundtrack, these movies could be silent - and probably should be.

The kind of thriller whose ridiculous climax hinges on a hitherto undisclosed GPS tracking device in a dog's collar - an appropriate touch in a movie that's more than a little flea-ridden itself.

Occasionally works and has a handful of great moments.

Syd is a jerk whose anger does not make him interesting. The only reason to keep watching is because you hope someone will drop a piano on his head.

A schmaltzy filmed record of a Nashville concert given by the legendary former rocker, who has morphed into the new Kenny Rogers.

Fails to show indignation that rich white guys are trying to get even richer at the expense of a naive black kid from the ghetto.

The unusually explicit dungeon scenes with Pablo, a leather daddy and a fellow slave may whip a rather specialized audience into a frenzy. But for others, A Year Without Love will be a less pleasurably painful experience.

Johansson never looked more beautiful, nor gave a lamer performance, than in A Good Woman.

Ineptly directed by Simon West, the scare-free When a Stranger Calls is the worst of the seminal horror movies from the late '70s and early '80s that have been getting the remake treatment lately.

Irresistibly warm and surprisingly realistic.

The dialogue, at best serviceable, becomes completely superfluous.

Ohayon doesn't judge Thompson or his customers, but you don't need to be a Harvard-educated psychiatrist to realize that the bunch of them are dirty old men who treat women as commodities.

Harry likes Willie's white girlfriend, played by the Australian actress Rose Byrne with a riveting, sad sexiness. So much screen time is devoted to the men that her part is underwritten, but there are novels in her eyes.

Kirschner's excruciatingly earnest coming-of-age comedy, is about as fresh as year-old matzoh and plays like the unholy spawn of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

But exciting as La Scorta might be, it is at heart a conventional thriller that breaks no new genre ground.

Paints an entertaining picture of the cherubic gentleman, who as the first curator of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art brought new excitement to the stodgy institution.

One of the more interesting low-budget experiments Steven Soderbergh has indulged in between flashy Hollywood entertainments.