If Coixet's film is substantially more restrained than its explicit source material (Nicholas Meyer, himself a fine novelist and director of the second and best Star Trek film, adapted), it is no less provocative as a poetic meditation on love, sex and death.

There's a xenophobic element to Taken's premise, to be sure - the idea that travel, even to Western Europe, isn't safe for Americans, and that foreigners (Albanians, Arabs) are by nature shifty and sinister.

The film turns into a story of corruption on many levels, and it moves fast, without a scrap of fat in the telling.

Moon is a deceptively simple study of alienation, paranoia, and loneliness.

Its positive message about education, the value of hard work, and the power of social commitment make it a must-see for parents and kids alike.

Scorsese’s adaptation is overlong and at times insufferably self-indulgent, but contains sublime moments of transcendent beauty and a wealth of beautiful performances.

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.

With varying degrees of success, the filmmaker gets each musician to talk about the personal and musical roots that blossomed into his technique.

"March of the Penguins" - phooey! Those smelly little birds are built to survive in the frozen tundra, and nobody's asking them to pull a sled.

A shamelessly fun B-movie with A-movie effects.

This simple story of a Guy and a Girl and their music is very appealing.

Entertainingly creepy.

As a character assassin, Moore fails, because you can't kill anyone with contempt and sarcasm. And as an independent counsel prosecuting Bush for bamboozling America, Moore likewise misses his mark because many of the exhibits he offers as evidence are emotional rather than factual.

Filmmaker Maria Sole Tognazzi is going for a quiet, thoughtful character study: a modern woman, sure of herself, but still trying to come to terms with her place in the world.

A goofy conflation of Coenian elements: the numbskull huggermugger of "The Big Lebowski", the La La Land surrealness of "Barton Fink", the Old Testament overlay of "A Serious Man."

The result is a funny and raucously lewd comedy fueled with enough penis jokes to keep an actual fraternity in stitches for a trimester.

Satisfying and spirited and laced with humor.

In part, the documentary answers the question of why some couples flourish and others flounder.

It is a keenly observed movie about loss of identity and finding love, in which Brooks serves up funny-ouch humor with slapstick heartbreak.

Boy begins with an epigram from E.T.: "You could be happy here . . . . We could grow up together." That's what the film is about - finding happiness, growing up, feeling like a stranger in a strange world.

A film that leaves cinephiles breathless and the mainstream movie maniacs scratching their heads.

A disconcerting experience.

A rollicking, mascara-smearing, intergenerational coed crowd-pleaser. Imagine "Sex and the City" negotiating "Terms of Endearment" with "The Golden Girls."

Shelton and her cast are so skillful that before long it seems we are not moviegoers watching a screen but flies on a wall witnessing real encounters and the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

Intermittently hilarious if also interminable.

Partridge portrays David with immaculate timing and meticulous attention to detail. We feel for the character's pain, but never quite trust him.

Wahlberg does what Wahlberg does, bringing muscular conviction to his troubled, tough-guy role. The city may be broken, but the movie star's formula is working fine.

When the tobacco is extinguished what comes between April and Frank Wheeler is bigger, colder and more formidable than the iceberg that sundered Kate and Leo in "Titanic": shattered hope.