Pays homage to a sack of Christmas movies, from the department store Claus of "Miracle on 34th Street" to a standing-on-the-bridge-contemplating-suicide moment, a la "It's a Wonderful Life."

At times soppy, sentimental and shamelessly romantic, at other moments bursting with clever barbs -- and now and then zooming in on something telling and poignant -- Love Actually is just about impossible to dislike.

There are, to be sure, some impressive special effects here, and whoever Warner Bros. hires to make the new Superman movie should take notes.

Remarkable documentary.

The sequences with the melancholy Faunia are monochromatic and those with Lester perfunctory. Benton too neatly -- and too hastily -- wraps up a story that would surely exert more power if it were messy and unrushed.

Fails on a couple of levels. It never really gives you a sense of the psychology, the root causes behind Glass' elaborate frauds... And since we don't know the why, the how becomes considerably less interesting.

My advice: Skip Beyond Borders and write a check to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders.

The real Radio, and the real coach -- seen together in the movie's feel-good epilogue -- deserve better.

Scary Movie 3 is a veritable time capsule of of-this-moment kitsch, schlock and bad taste. And it's funny, too.

Although the story has more than a little Lion King deja vu-doo going for it, Kenai (voiced by Joaquin Phoenix) is likable as both a man, and then a bear.

The film equivalent of Maya Lin's Vietnam monument, that collective gravestone to the fallen, in the way it employs abstract means to quantify the loss of life and elicit a profound sense of grief.

I had the sense that Gordon's ambitious, if awkwardly assembled, film had so many terrific ingredients that he felt compelled to use them all. In this case, alas, more is less.

As a thriller, In the Cut, with its red herring characters and plot twists, turns dopey and predictable. As a portrait of a single woman, burned by love and wary of what's in store, Campion's movie has its trenchant, telling passages.

Its themes and performances didn't stay with me, as did those in "Out of Time." I think this is because, with the exception of Hackman, the actors' performances illuminate strategy rather than character.

For a movie about community and forgiveness, family and grace, Pieces of April is refreshingly unsappy.

Despite an exceptional performance by Paltrow, whose Plath is a layer cake of infinite intelligence and bottomless need, Jeffs' film is an icy affair lacking the fever of Plath's and Hughes' poems.

This furry family comedy about a boy and his border terrier is irresistible, if not exactly in the league of "Babe."

There are laughs here aplenty, and sexy, goofy, off-the-cuff charm.

Structurally and narratively amputated, Volume 1 retains head and guts but loses its heart and gams to the second installment. Maybe Tarantino figured that Thurman's legs, as long as the Mississippi, were sufficient to carry this half of a movie.

Elaborately establishes a mood but fails to deliver a dramatic payoff.

So incrementally does Eastwood's film build toward what seems like an inevitable resolution that when it concludes, you're sucker-punched. You haven't been watching a police procedural, but a Greek tragedy. You haven't been watching a drama about the catharsis of vigilantism, but sitting vigil for a community diminished, and permanently damaged, by violence.

Franklin has enormous fun using these varied technologies to ramp up the suspense in a movie that is the most purely entertaining thriller since "No Way Out."

It's one of the great have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too performances of the year.

It's the old cliche, but (like most cliches) it's true: It's impossible to imagine this picture without this actor.

While "Boogie Nights" was a dirge for the death of pleasure (which coincided with the death of the porn-film industry), Wonderland is death warmed over. Literally.

Duplex's tenant-from-hell scenario is as predictable as it is tedious -- a tinny, unsatisfying throwaway farce.

Somehow the star emerges from this mess smelling like pure testosterone. You can't stop the Rock.

Movie and book both are delightful, but very, very different.

An entertaining history lesson. That is, a history lesson that synopsizes and simplifies a complex life and complicated times into easily digestible panels of action, intrigue, martyrdom and sticking it to the papacy.

Polley's performance is pitch-perfect.

Y&J could have been made anywhere, really; it's a tale of being scared, of being hopeful, of the unsettling intersection between commitment and loss.

Has a dreamy ominousness about it, and a sorrowfulness that speaks to the artificial intimacies of cellular communication, digital images and dial-up porn.

On the plus side are engaging performances by Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci. On the minus side is . . . everything else.

A woefully thin and pointless musical comedy boasting the no-chemistry coupling of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyonc?

Edgeless as a marshmallow and twice as syrupy.

Unlike most Sayles movies, the filmmaker no sooner introduces his memorable characters and deeply resonant themes than his From Here to Maternity melodrama abruptly ends.

Assembles varied and remarkable digital video, archival footage, photographs, interviews and personal reflections and academics' perspectives to convey the scope and history of the Tibetan story.

Roth, who has taken more than a few cues from Raimi, David Lynch (whom Roth worked with), and George Romero (Night of the Living Dead), is working in a horror tradition that goes way back -- and he's working it with nasty glee.

Overall, Matchstick Men, which is based on the novel by Eric Garcia, is more memorable for Lohman's naturalistic acting and Scott's mannerist direction than it is for its O. Henry surprise.

Starts having the same effect as one too many tequilas: the Hong Kong-style stunts, the goofy wisecracks, the foxy presence of Eva Mendes -- all of it becomes blurry and numbing.

This year's must-see film.

Abounds with zero-gravity action ballet, frisky interludes of sapphic foreplay, and weepy drama about doomed love. The film also has an irresistibly kitschy theme song: "Close to You," the treacly Burt Bacharach-Hal David smash by the Carpenters.

The film is intermittently funny and strangely intermittent.

Boy, can Harvey Keitel be bad -- and not bad like "Bad Lieutenant," bad like bad acting.

This low-budget, high-gore sequel can be effectively frightening at times, and just plain boring, too. The suspense builds, the blood gushes, the momentum dissipates. It's an unsatisfying mix.

If that sounds a lot like Rushmore, it is, except that the heart has been sucked out of the thing -- replaced by glib chatter, gratuitous Baudelaire references, and distracting product placement.

Chan's signature mix of screwball comedy and gymnastic derring-do landed him his own cartoon series a few years back, and The Medallion -- with its bumbling spies and bounding star -- is about as cartoonish as live action gets.

Unlike most other teen cautionary tales, Thirteen does not accuse merely one villain for the corruption of a minor.

Connoisseurs of giant, gnarled chunks of charred flesh, rejoice! There's plenty of it -- or stuff resembling it -- in the slasher-fest convergence of two killer franchises.

Uptown Girls gives the impression that everyone behind the camera just threw up their hands in helpless resignation.

The film has the dog-eared look of a homemade valentine and the improvised sound of '60s jazz, courtesy of a score by Mark Suozzo and a spirited soundtrack including Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar," which might be the film's anthem.

While the situations don't add up to a satisfying film, the characters are pleasing to watch.

The screenplay of Open Range, credited to one Craig Storper, is an awesome compendium of cowboy-movie cliches. It borders on parody, and often crosses the border, rustling up a drove of oater aphorisms.

When it's not making the argument that Surfing = Peace, Step Into Liquid can be diverting.

In this episodic film with a soupcon of "Sex and the City" (just as the Merchant Ivory Slaves of New York presaged the HBO hit), cross-cultural misunderstanding, not character, is the point.

Directed by Clark Johnson in an efficient and occasionally exhilarating style that points to the Emmy-winner's TV cop-show pedigree ("Homicide," "The Wire," "NYPD Blue").

The performances, of a higher order than the film's cheesy script and double-cheese direction, are the reasons to see the picture. A reason not to: the means by which parent and child trade bodies.

A film of haunting eloquence and justifiable fury.

Scott and Davis bring heart-rending sadness and telling detail to their roles, and imbue Secret Lives with something real and true.

A gagfest that makes viewers gag at least twice as often as they giggle, American Wedding -- third in the American Pie trilogy -- whipsaws the audience between gross-out and guffaw.

Affleck, for his part, behaves as if a Zero from "Pearl Harbor" dropped one too close to his noggin. He looks permanently shell-shocked.

Crafty, cutting movie.

By turns wry, rueful and explosively funny.

Rodriguez manages to work in some nicely cornball messages (family togetherness and forgiveness is good, Stallone doing comedy is bad) and theatergoers get to walk out with their very own way-cool cardboard anaglyphic eyeglasses.

Somewhat fleeter and more engaging than its predecessor.

The three (human) leads are perfection. Bridges' Howard is as breezily garrulous and glad-handing as Cooper's Smith is laconic and withdrawn. Maguire's Pollard has haunted eyes and orangey hair that makes him look like a human jack-o'-lantern, and establishes his own unique rhythm and less-is-more style.

Clunky and unsurprising.

The film's title is a double entendre, meant to be taken straight as a noun (as in summer camp) and bent as a verb (as in "to camp," an action self-consciously exaggerated or theatrical).

Isn't a good movie, at least by any conventional definition of the word good. But it's not a bad movie, either. It's a Bob Dylan movie.

Finally, a real movie!

Isn't that good. But Moore is.

Beyond turbocharged. It whooshes along at warp speed. And still, despite some awesomely choreographed stunts and the two stars' pedal-to-the-metal appeal, the movie seems endless.

A tiny jewel of a film.

In the psychologically scarred world of The Holy Land, sex and religion, love and hate, survival and despair all ricochet around, waiting to explode.

Sadly too often (and I'm unsure whether this is the result of voices that echo when bounced off stone walls or because the acting is all over the place), the characters create the impression that English is their second language.

Six guys and a gal who flatline on arrival. Easily the lamest action-adventure fantasy since “Wild Wild West.”

Possession, humiliation, jealousy, revelation . . . they're all painted in light, swift strokes by the veteran director and his two stars.

An improbably entertaining, if overlong, adventure that brings new meaning to the term "summer camp." Doubloons! Ripped bodices! Unbuckled swash! Rum galore!

Whether or not Ainouz's stylish directorial debut gets to the "real" Madame Satã is beside the point, but as a celebration of a figure who fashioned his own identity from pieces of pop culture and street poetry, from song and fashion and fury, it's memorable.

An uneasy mix of hand-painted characters and digitally rendered photorealistic backgrounds, the film never fully reconciles its two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds.

But the ending, at once ambiguous and obvious, is a letdown -- a frustratingly literal-minded, or literary-minded, conceit.

Just as a fistful of drooping stalks does not a bouquet make, director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld's random collection of think-pink gags, canine couture and smart/dumb blonde jokes does not a comedy make.

Terminator 3 moves at not-quite-breakneck speed, and the shape-shifting, metal-melting special effects aren't exactly spectacular.

It's “The Wizard of Oz” with a viral infection.

The spike-heeled, postfeminist pajama-party sisterhood that is Charlie's Angels is back, and it's serious dress-up time.

In this frothy beach movie, they make pop-music lite together but create an utterly unconvincing romantic couple, seeming more like siblings or best friends. From Ruben to Clay might work better.

Reiner, who made "This is Spinal Tap," "The Sure Thing," "When Harry Met Sally" -- memorable movies all -- has made this silly slice of Lean Cuisine. And that, in the end, makes Alex and Emma an utter tragedy.

A heady stew of psychological disorders and classic tragedies, borrowing from Shakespeare, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the Greeks.

Long, lumbering and endlessly unfunny.

While Nemo's story line is as clear as its pellucid blues, Wild's narrative is as muddy as its colors.

Ultimately, this movie cowritten by Shelton and former L.A. police detective Robert Souza has more laughs than suspense, but not enough of either.

Not to say that it isn't fun, only to say that it is more about sensation than sense.

The rhythms of Whale Rider are hypnotic as the ebb tide, haunting as the song of the humpback sea mammal, bracing as the ocean spray. It's a movie that rewards the patient viewer.

Featuring seasoned warriors reflecting on whether we can best fight violence with violence is enormously compelling.

Isn't like the classic Japanese drama "Rashomon," which suggested that one person's perspective of an event gave him a different truth from the person standing elsewhere.

Together's mix of classical gems and composer Zhao Lin's plaintive score is stirring, soaring stuff.

Zooms along with confidence, smarts, and some of the coolest car chases this side of the Indy 500.

Though not as great as "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters, Inc.," Pixar movies that are the gold standard for family movies, Finding Nemo is visually entrancing.