Fiction can sometimes be used to access a deeper truth than mere fact, but in this case all it does is obscure and confuse a fascinating life story.

There's a sense of self-satisfied naughtiness to the film that undercuts any claims it can make to being transgressive.

As slapstick, as satire, as sheer gut-busting comedy, Borat is top notch.

It's not life-changing stuff, but it's brisk and clever and funny and avoids some of the predictable pitfalls that hobble so many films of its ilk.

In Volver, the latest marvel to emerge from his sharp and joyful mind, Almodovar blends autobiography, gossip, melodrama, music, the supernatural and the suffocatingly quotidian in a story about a woman -- indeed, a tribe of women -- struggling through a life of pain and disappointment.

Generally, thanks to solid performances and very nice cinematography, it hits, if not a home run, at least a solid double (or the British equivalent).

Unfortunately, the film's charm ends with the plot gimmick.

Whatever you make of the film's politics, Luke makes a vivid impression in his most substantial role since "Antwone Fisher," and Robbins resists the temptation to make the thinly written Vos a villainous caricature.

Even as Inarritu has matured as a craftsman, he has stood perhaps one beat too long in the same place as a storyteller. In ways, Babel is his best work, but it's time to move on.

There's much to admire here, but less to like.

Is it a worthwhile movie? Yes, for the most part.

While these interviews are affecting, and the movie talks about suicide in a refreshingly straightforward manner, it's the images of these actual deaths that induce horrified gasps.

For all the technical beauty of Marie Antoinette, there's nobody at home at Versailles.

The hearty performances are undone by the forced eccentricity of the sets, the clothes, the music and, especially, the characters. The film is ugly and facile and childish in its love of its own naughtiness. Only Jill Clayburgh, as a creepy woman in whose home Augusten must live, feels human. The rest is no more real than a "Simpsons" episode -- and offers fewer laughs.

Like "Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers," it fills in our sketchy impression of that famously reticent generation of ordinary young men who were asked by a frightened world to accomplish an extraordinary feat. In this case, the homage takes the form not of a photograph or a statue but of a deeper, more sympathetic understanding of their experience. A finer tribute is hard to imagine.

It's hard to argue with the movie's big heart, solid craftsmanship, likable characters, decent acting, gorgeous scenery or the fact that it's going to leave its audience blubbering and smiling.

It's a gorgeous, strange little piece -- but I did find myself wishing it poked fewer aces out its sleeve after urging us to pay such close attention.

A riveting and impeccably researched documentary.

Sweet Land brushes against the true spirit of American independent cinema.

The writing is lazy, the movie focuses on all the wrong things and the tone lurches unpleasantly between gum-soft comedy and lukewarm thriller.

As a study of a predator, "Evil" is fascinating and enraging.

Grint's role is larger and more "mature" than we've seen from him. During his adventures, Ben is seduced by a Scottish lit-festival flack (Michelle Duncan). But in some ways, his work is more limited here than it is in the "Potter" films. I have no idea why so many people consider Ben worth fighting for, or over.

A garish and fascinating little movie that comes bouncing in the wake of Bennett Miller's "Capote" like a yipping puppy trying to keep up with an elegant show dog.

The sort of movie that makes you feel like a heel for not liking it: Independently made and heartfelt, it also happens to have been shot in Portland. Nonetheless, the accumulation of cliches big and small manage to erase whatever goodwill its other features have engendered.

Like "In the Bedroom," the film is studded with brilliant acting, and it's all rendered with gorgeously fluent technique. The result is a film that skirts cruelty and easy satire for deep, troubling realities -- a nearly thorough triumph, in short.

It isn't in the same league as the director's best work, chiefly because it lacks the bravura flourishes of cinematic craft that helped make his name. But it's so vital and bloody and funny and wicked and tense and unapologetic that it feels kin to those films, which little of the director's work of the past decade has managed to pull off.

In addition to a vast array of incredible autos crafted from fiberglass, Roth also created the anti-Mickey cartoon character Rat Fink, a deranged-looking, filthy rodent.

While the film has visual verve, its faux-Fellini finale only underscores how remote, repetitive, uninvolving and contrived the whole enterprise is.