It's an exemplary and incendiary instance of documentary filmmaking as real-world advocacy.

Among the Dardennes' more accessible films, despite a drawn-out finale that still doesn't quite satisfy.

When it's not lapsing into disease-of-the-week prose, Adam presents a credible account of the challenges inherent in this misunderstood and often-ridiculed condition.

The movie pads the good stuff out with a bunch of mediocre mainstream-thriller junk. It takes too long to get started, it pulls some key punches, its dialogue is deeply uninteresting, it relies way too heavily on endless jump-scares and its finale is pure slasher-flick formula.

One of those should-I-laugh-or-cry satires.

The film does a lovely job of balancing emotional clarity, formal trickery, pop sweetness, and heartfelt narrative. It is, yes, cute, and it is, yes, quirky. And it is entirely justified, estimable and loveable in being those things.

Like "The Reader," this film treads unsteadily over the terrain of German guilt.

By an order of magnitude --- the strongest (or at least the most mature, subtle and emotional) entry in the series thus far.

I was stunned to learn that "Beth Cooper" was adapted by former "Simpsons" writer Larry Doyle from his young-adult novel and directed by "Harry Potter" helmer Chris Columbus. Rarely have two seasoned Hollywood professionals produced something so painfully, amateurishly, relentlessly unfunny.

Crude both in form and content while at the same time capable of evoking explosions of shocked and, often, shamed laughter.

There's a wonderful chemistry between them -- though the film wisely allows Duplass and Delmore an equally intimate connection. Choices like that enable the modest Humpday to capture the lives of its protagonists more credibly than any Hollywood-manufactured comedy of recent vintage.

It's best seen as a breezy entertainment and a reminder of how potent some of these performers -- many of whom are dead -- were in their primes.

It’s absolutely charming to be reminded of -- or, in most cases, introduced to -- Berg and her particular genius.

The problem here is that while some of Mann's work is overwhelmingly great, the sum of it simply never compels.

The interesting ethical and moral issues of the situation are hashed out in courtroom scenes (with Joan Cusack as the judge!) that devolve into hysteria in jarring contrast to a sensitively handled death scene that soon follows.

Episodic and, at times, overwrought. And occasionally its deliberate opacity becomes too cloudy. But the things that shine through are remarkable. War is indeed Hell, it tells us, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're filled with demons.

Whereas "Liaisons" mixed cruelty, wit, sensuality and drama into a deliciously tart frappe, Cheri is pretty, tepid and dull.

The film oddly mirrors "The Passion of the Christ," as a show trial leads inexorably toward an almost sadistically filmed public execution (it doesn't hurt that Jim Caviezel plays the reporter). Like that movie, it gets its point across with all the subtlety, sorry to say, of a rock upside the head.

Revenge of the Fallen almost feels like it's signaling an end-game for blockbuster movies: all sensation, no content, catastrophic expense.

The film is flat and false in the exact same way that director Anne Fletcher's last rom-com, "27 Dresses," was flat and false.

If you love the genre, you'll likely be engaged. But if not, there's not much point.

At one and the same time it feels like a decent-but-not-great film of his '70s period and a perky and tart entry in his modestly successful revival in the last half-decade. Neat trick.

The film is thus more of a technical showcase than a human drama. It's diverting enough until it gets dumb, but so strong from the start is the certainty that dumb is on the way that you can't get too vexed when it finally arrives.

Kenner mounts it all with a pleasingly fluent and varied style, which makes it more or less easy to absorb his arguments, even if they're familiar from other books and movies and are presented with unopposed certainty.

Moon doesn't arrive with a train of ballyhoo, but its quiet charms easily drowns out the clatter of bigger, dumber pictures.

The increasingly crude plotting and stock dialogue are killers. All the beauty the eye can hold can't, in this case, fool the ear and brain into falling for Coppola's strained tale.

A lot of what happens is gross, puerile and gratuitous, granted, but Helms and Galifianakis are truly funny in offbeat fashion, and the script allows Phillips room for some brilliant slapstick. You will not be ennobled. But you will be entertained.

I'm pleased to report the new Land of the Lost movie keenly understands that what was once scary is now ridiculous.