An inoffensive but bland ode to the talky high school movies of John Hughes and Cameron Crowe.

None of Dunham's humor comes across, except when someone says, "And when you speak, your words are snakes I swat at with swords," which is hilarious, but not intentionally.

Watching this yoga documentary mirrored how I feel about taking weekly classes: The ancient Eastern tradition is demonstrably beneficial for both mind and body, but its execution can be so boring and its teachers so painfully earnest.

No one loves a broad comedy like the French, but Gallic touches of restraint tend to keep such light entertainment pleasing rather than blundering.

The very sex-positive The Sessions treats intimacy with an explicitness and honesty that's very rare in movies. It may be the first film that doesn't turn premature ejaculation into a punch line.

Low on raunch but even lower on laughs. It also looks like half the lighting crew failed to show up.

Utterly delightful.

The results are too predictable.

The classical music is soothing, the cinematography handsome and the acting strong, but the Swedish coming-of-age saga Simon and the Oaks is burdened with a sappy, soap-opera-ish script.

Even if you overlooked the production values from a 1986 porno and special effects like something your nephew cooked up on his Mac, the movie's "Yay, money!" zingers are just a big bag of sad.

Director Ava DuVernay, in showing Ruby's life in waiting, occasionally lets the pace slip into tedium.

The parallels between the kids' war and the real one are made far too obvious by Christophe Barratier, who made the equally treacly "The Chorus" and infests the movie with nonstop musical goo.

Much of the plot stretches credulity, but the way it's constructed keeps tension high.

A raunchy, sporadically funny comedy.

In the end (which continues into the credits), I was left thinking McDonagh can do better than this, and yet I was slightly more agog with admiration than peevish with frustration. Most of all, I wanted to see the film again.

Harris, a talented comic actress who looks more like a real person than a Hollywood facsimile of one, makes every scene she's in shine.

Here's the thing: Found footage is scary when - because - it leaves you to fill in a lot of the blanks yourself. But actually watching whole families have terrible things done to them - well, hard-core horror fans may dig it, I guess. I'd call it forced voyeurism of the worst sort.

There needs to be a 12-step program for movie people to stop sharing their "deeply personal" yet insight-free stories of addiction.

A blue-chip Oscar contender that's also a rousing popcorn movie, Ben Affleck's Argo offers plenty of nail-biting thrills as well as funnier scenes than you'd ever imagine possible in the grim context of the Iran hostage crisis.

While there are laughs, the farcical elements of The Oranges are not presented with sufficient discipline to live up to the full potential of its cast. But as a seven-year veteran of the New Jersey suburban experience, I can testify that it nails the milieu's specifics.

If you can handle the glacial pacing and lack of dialogue, there is a certain squirmy satisfaction to watching this well-worn story of love, cruelty and madness play out minus the long-winded speeches and romantic catharsis.

It's another in the bicoastal indie industry's endless series of self-congratulatory comedies about the alleged dopiness of middle American hicks who do things like read Parade magazine and decorate with flags.

The evidence Jarecki amasses against the drug wars in The House I Live In is more than strong enough to withstand any excess rhetorical zeal.

Borba keeps referring to himself as "a hero," but the directors, Burt Sun and André Costantini, never delve into his psyche. On the plus side is Costantini's luscious cinematography.

Meier's tight focus on her primary characters pays off: Seydoux brings a strong array of emotions to a highly unsympathetic part. And Klein, whether plugging his ears with cigarette filters or suddenly embracing a woman he barely knows, is heartbreaking.

Scrappy and unsettling, V/H/S puts the majority of today's mainstream "scary" movies to shame.

Aside from an additional 30 minutes or so of plot, Trade of Innocents offers no more than a middling episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

Directed by journeyman actor Matthew Lillard, this tame and by-the-numbers effort never succeeds in making the outcast situation cinematic or interesting.