This essentially good-natured movie, a massive hit in France, is more likely to strike American audiences as trite than offensive.

This one's a thoroughly campy exercise in teen melodrama and Grand Guignol gore (how gory? it's one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite movies), the other (The Hunger Games) a straight-faced action picture.

This only mildly bloated and convoluted action comedy has enough inspired moments to wipe out memories of the abysmal 2002 first sequel as surely as one of the black-suited heroes' neutralizer.

His late father directed "Rambo: First Blood,'' but Panos Cosmatos' debut feature couldn't be more different - this would-be cult classic is the movie equivalent of gazing at a lava lamp for nearly two hours.

Mansome is basically a reality-TV episode, with similar production values and precisely the same depth of perception.

While recollections of the participants in the rescue are often riveting, the subject of Jonathan Gruber and Ari Daniel Pinchot's film remains elusively out of grasp.

A would-be piece of pulp fiction about a parolee trying to go straight, The Samaritan proves that even Samuel L. Jackson can be boring.

While never exploitative, Polisse can be extremely disturbing. Is it possible for a parent to mistreat a child in the ways shown here? Sad to say, the answer is yes.

Gore is always with us, but when it comes to horror, there's nothing like a haunted house. And Lovely Molly has a humdinger.

Nadezhda Markina is splendid as Elena, who speaks little but still manages to make her thoughts and emotions crystal clear.

American Animal is a wildly experimental debut for D'Elia, who uses hand-held digital cameras and lots of jump cuts. It is well-acted and features witty repartee.

Alcoholics Anonymous founder William G. Wilson, known mostly as Bill W. before his death in 1971, was played by James Woods in a fine 1989 made-for-TV biopic. But the drama didn't have room for some of the darker corners of Wilson's life, fascinatingly explored in Kevin Hanlon and Dan Carracino's documentary.

Black loses control of Virginia as it lurches from political satire to unintended black comedy to mom-and-son melodrama. But the performances and the movie's sheer crazy audacity make it watchable.

If director Tanya Wexler occasionally wanders into excess cutesiness...she makes up for it with a surplus of eye-opening historical details and a refreshing warmth for all her characters, even the ones whose views are clearly on the way out.

While it certainly isn't good, Expecting isn't as charmless as you might have feared, largely due to a cast working furiously to sell every scene.

It makes "Top Gun" look like the work of Orson Welles. At least the Tom Cruise movie remembered to cast actual actors.

As for Baron Cohen, he's a great comic but his acting can still use work - most of his funniest lines appear to have been dubbed over other actors' reaction shots in post-production.

Nesting is a sitcom, but a really slow and dull one that barely grinds out 22 minutes' worth of plot to fill a 90-minute hole.

The two lead actresses rise to the occasion when they're finally forced to confront each other at the climax.

Rebecca Hall is wasted as Sandvig's sister and the film's voice of reason.

It's a nice, mud-free way to spend a bit of time rocking out in the rain with the Scots.

This isn't a story of Shakespearean proportions, but it's a sweet peg for this complex, carefully constructed gem.

Director/co-writer/cinematographer, Yam Laranas, still delivers a maximum of suspense and horror, working wonders with a small budget.

Nobody Else But You has a great deal going for it, not the least of which is Rouve, who takes the novelist's obsessiveness, depression and general boorishness and turns it all into the source of his appeal.

A thoughtfully conceived and tastefully executed tribute to a venerated author.

Even an appearance by Alec Baldwin as Moretz's eventual - if highly unlikely - savior isn't enough to keep Hick from leaving a bad taste.

It's a hodgepodge of subplots and wildly disparate tones that even Federico Fellini (to whose "Amarcord" Labaki also owes a debt) might have had trouble controlling.

There are so many monologues about obnoxious behavior that they begin to lose their luster - something I'd never have thought possible.