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.

The Paperboy can't decide whether to be an unfunny sex comedy, a half-hearted detective story or a woeful race drama - so it decides to be all three, then becomes yet another movie (a swampy "Heart of Darkness") in the final act.

When Neeson engages in bare-knuckle fisticuffs at the climax of the cartoonish Taken 2, I honestly couldn't figure out if the 60-year-old actor was actually present at all except for the close-ups.

Tim Burton's best film in years.

It's a time capsule from a strange moment - like "Hair" without the groovy music.

The siblings react with humor and horror to what they discover. So will many viewers of this self-indulgent but engaging work.

I haven't seen a timelier or more important film this year, and the film's passion for school choice could hardly be more warranted. Along with documentaries such as "The Lottery" and "Waiting for 'Superman,' " the film comes with a background sound of the ice of inertia cracking.

Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane is been there, done that.

These characters, especially the uninteresting primary couple, can't sustain almost two hours of movie. Overall, BearCity 2 deals in mild amusement, not wit.

Bouncy vocal rearrangements of pop songs, sparkling choreography and a hilarious script make for a movie that's made to be obsessed over, seen 50 times, quoted as devoutly as such sacred texts as "Heathers" and "Bring It On."

The presentation is conventional in style but uplifting in spirit, and worth seeing even if you know nothing about basketball.

More likely to play well with older children, due to its split-up story line, Ocelot's creation is like nothing else they are likely to see animating the multiplex.

A serviceable animated movie about a soft-hearted Dracula.

An indie-inflected popcorn movie with major brains, brilliant acting and a highly satisfying payoff, Looper is the first must-see movie of the season.

Yes, there are the requisite jump-in-your-seat scares, many of them false alarms, and it all plays out basically exactly like any other horror movie, but Lawrence does elevate the proceedings.

This carefully observed slice of life is dragged down by the dreary and distracting hand-held camerawork.

Director Ben Hickernell soft-pedals the material into a blandly feel-good dramedy. As Abigail's spirited young trainees, Alexandra Metz and Meredith Apfelbaum give Backwards their all, but can't row their way clear of its clichés.

Long before Occupy Wall Street, there was Bob Fass, the legendary overnight host on WBAI whose 50-year career is lovingly saluted in the documentary Radio Unnameable.

The setting for "17 Girls" is a French seaside town with a gorgeous beach. Aside from that, what you have here are the ingredi-ents for a Maury Povich show.

Initially, this low-budget film writes a lot of checks on the First National Bank of Whimsy, but I was astonished when none of them bounced.