It's a heavy-metal opera with humor.

My Best Friend, not surprisingly, is about what it means to have friends - and not to have them, to be alone. It's about connection, about trust and vulnerability. That Leconte's little film is a mild-mannered farce, makes the heartache funny, but really, this is serious stuff.

As funny as it is sick (and it's plenty of both).

Orphan, with a perverse plot twist at the end, will keep you on tenterhooks from its nightmarish opening scene to its chilling last frame.

With its moody, noir lighting and poetic voice-over, Flame rehearses virtually every element of the classic genre piece: violence, sex and romance, gunplay, spies, betrayals, a femme fatale, and a murderous Gestapo officer.

Delightfully creepy suspenser.

It's human drama, high and mighty.

Manages to pull off a couple of startling surprises.

Slower and talkier than the five Potters that came before - but not necessarily in a bad way - Half-Blood Prince is a bubbling cauldron of hormonal angst, rife with romance and heartbreak, jealousy and longing.

The plot is canny, but it would be little more than an ingenious springloaded device were it not for the performances by Howard and Iures.

Few movies are as eloquent in their performances and their art direction.

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

Man, oh, man, much of the dialogue is so heavy, and heavy-handed, that you can see fine actors such as Derek Luke and Michael Ealy buckle under the weight. Clearly, Lee fell in love with McBride's words and couldn't bear to cut them, even when the visuals made those words redundant.

It's an involving journey, remarkably free of sentimentality, deepened by the performances.

Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who oversaw the elegant title sequences from the first film, likewise gives Kung Fu Panda 2's series of flashbacks a different look, harking back to Chinese shadow puppetry and delicate watercolors. With its mix of vibrant CG and classical elements, the movie dazzles.

Stands apart from the trite conventions of most coming-of-age drama chiefly through the originality of Pool's approach and the honesty and conviction of Karine Vanasse's portrait of Hanna.

Seething, searing tragedy of unmannerliness.

Don Jon is about a man's unwitting search for intimacy, for real connection in a world where everyone is connected - by social media, by the Internet, by TV and computer and smartphone screens. That's not exactly an original idea. But Gordon-Levitt goes at it with gusto, and style. Give the guy some props.

Skyfall is certainly the most cultured Bond film to come along in some time. It's also the first of the three Craig endeavors to seriously (and wittily) acknowledge its pedigree.

Let the Fire Burn does not glorify MOVE. What it does do is force us to consider why and how this surreal event - a city bombing its own citizens, leaving innocent children dead - occurred. And ask, could something like it ever happen again?

Mixes the intimate, indie vibe of "Daytrippers" with the absurdist screwball streak of "Superbad," to winning effect.

Some tacky animated sequences notwithstanding, Youth in Revolt is smart, cool and frequently hysterical.

The Cartel does what good reporters are supposed to do: follow the money.

Air Doll covers some of the same ground as that other postmodern Pinocchio story, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, while avoiding its facile sentimentality.

In Little Odessa, Gray proves that you can go down what looks like a familiar road and make it seem much less traveled. [30 June 1995, p.06]

A Monster Calls is an engrossing tragic fantasy, sustained by genuine sentiment.

The Next Three Days is genre fare - no pretensions, no nonsense.

Blending facts, anecdotes, and no little conjecture, Elvis & Nixon finally finds the two American icons face to face, sharing M&M's and Dr Peppers.