Tautou is, as ever, radiant and deep and affecting, but a film about such an extraordinary personage as Chanel shouldn’t feel so ordinary and wan.

Humor and humanity keep The Boys Are Back from being a cloying mess.

Capitalism lacks the surprising wit of “Roger & Me” and the sobering comparative journalism of “Sicko,” and it isn’t nearly as heartfelt as “Columbine,” which poignantly and repeatedly circled back to Moore’s beloved home state of Michigan.

Its got a deliciously audacious and cheeky tenor.

Structurally, this is as by-the-numbers as rom-coms get, right down to the wacky best friends, played by Judy Greer and Dan Fogler. For a while, it's low-key enough to be tolerable.

Performances are for the most part strong, especially Seyfried's, and Kusama uses Fox well, making the most of the actress' blank-eyed arrogance. It's not a performance that suggests a lot of range, but it's fun to watch.

Portland's dreary climate is used to good effect, but it's not enough to make up for the director's needlessly convoluted approach.

There are nice bits throughout, and your heart can’t help but go out to these impassioned young lovers whom you know are doomed. But Bright Star is too often tarnished by the ordinary.

The film sometimes feels like the kid brother of “Fog of War,” Errol Morris’s far more compelling account of the mind of Robert McNamara, Ellsberg’s one-time boss. There’s reality and depth here, but a chill, too, that the filmmaking never quite manages to melt.

Ultimately, it's an instructive and entertaining examination of both the overlooked environmental costs of everyday life and the possibilities for change.

At barely an-hour-and-a-quarter in length, it's one of those very rare feature films that you wish were longer.

Crude is only a progress report of a case that might last until well into the decade, the sordid details of which are still, pardon the pun, spilling out.

Which leads to the question of whether Extract, clunky title aside, will finally give Judge a box-office hit. It looks and quacks like "Office Space," and previous satirical edges have been sanded down to something palatable to average filmgoers. On the other hand, it largely lacks the audacious elements that have given stuff like "The Hangover" an intense word-of-mouth following.

Oswalt sells Auferio's pasty indecision and makes him a more sympathetic figure than he has any right to be.

Filled with vivacity, charm and, yes, beauty.

It’s a timely and lively film that reminds us that such phenomena as reality TV, YouTube celebrity and living one’s life 24/7 on Facebook and Twitter aren’t necessarily brand new.

Somehow Lee fails to make it speak to us. His heart is in the right place, but like many of the crowd that swarmed Yasgur's farm, he has rather lost his head.

I'm not sure if parents will be counting out each of Shorts 89 minutes or not, begging for it to end, but I'm guessing 8-year-olds will absolutely love it, because Rodriguez isn't talking down to them or using pop-culture references in place of actual gags; he's making what might be called eye-level children's entertainment.

It's a film with many strengths, but it's not a knockout. And that's Tarantino's own fault, though not in the first way you might imagine.

It's jaunty and bright, but Pray never gets under the skin of things or ever truly questions the essence of advertising as an art or trade.

The film is gummed up by Bruno Ganz as an intelligence officer who wants not only to capture the bad guys but to understand them -- and to explain them, hand-wringingly, endlessly.

Yes, a comedy, however dark, about a parent taking advantage of a child's death is a tough sell. But with Williams more restrained and sympathetic than he's been in years (again, faint praise), and a final act that makes up for a ponderous first third, "Dad" shows that it can be done.

This is a delicious premise, and Blomkamp, who first played with it in a 2005 short called "Alive in Joburg," has magnified and improved it with ferocious energy, wit and style.

An entertaining and fascinating film.

In many places it's genuinely, absurdly funny--crass, sleazy and morally questionable, yes, but still funny.

Feels like an iffy concept album with some great singles.

Paper Heart isn't the most cloying instance of earnest indie quirk to emerge in the past few months, nor is it the most charming, but the mere fact that such a continuum exists is reason enough to worry.

If you're willing to have your patience tested, Twohy and his cast reward it.