As inconsequential and virtually indistinguishable sub-Judd Apatow white-boy comedies fueled by prison-rape gags and pants-pissing anxiety around black people go, Horrible Bosses is pretty solid entertainment.

I'm not quite saying that the unabashed squareness and silliness of Larry Crowne are negatives. They're almost admirable in themselves, and certainly constitute a selling point.

As a performance-art act of juvenile Id-fulfillment, it's magnificent.

A fun, silly, kid-friendly summer popcorn entertainment.

A gripping, mysterious use of no-budget cinema at its finest, and an intimate character study with surprising emotional power.

What's clear from the film is that there's a massive, almost tribal demand for O'Brien's brand of slightly more upscale comedy (maybe less so for his rock-star stylings), and also that being that famous doesn't do wonders for anyone's personality.

A remarkably evenhanded story about an eager young activist who was drawn down a slippery slope toward property destruction and violence, and who wound up as a baffled defendant in a widely publicized federal terrorism case.

Tells the story of a love affair and a new family, and reminds us that even billionaires are not omnipotent.

A haunting, beautifully told tale about a genuine American original.

It's all just an embarrassment, the kind of pointless slog you'll encounter on Netflix in two years and wonder, How the hell did that get made?

For all the CGI action sequences and butt-rocking Dolby sound effects, in fact, Green Lantern is most satisfying when it sticks close to stodgy comic-book archetype.

There's no story beyond the utterly formulaic and not the slightest semblance of realism, but your kids will enjoy it if they're young enough and pretty easy to please.

Rossi's film makes a compelling case on behalf of the traditional values of journalism.

My eyes never left the screen and my attention never wandered; in a restricted, technical sense of the term, Kidnapped is a masterpiece. But I make no claims for its moral value or for any cathartic or redemptive qualities.

Under the guise of being nothing more than a quasi-documentary about two comedians cutting up and scarfing gourmet cuisine, The Trip may be the wryest and most affecting of all the recent movies about middle-aged male angst.

At its best when it feels specific to its setting; Erik Wilson's often lovely cinematography captures the distinctive, watery light and raw weather of the Welsh seacoast in winter, and Hawkins, as always, captures a character who is completely specific in terms of class, place and period.

It's an expertly constructed thrill ride with wonderful atmosphere and tremendous good humor; if its heart of gold is artificial, that won't stop you from enjoying the heck out of it.

A sad, sweet, funny and ultimately unforgettable love story about a man and a woman and a father and son, and also ranks among the most affectionate and sensitive portraits of homosexuality ever crafted by a straight person.

I was startled to look up the running time and discover that X-Men: First Class is only 104 minutes; the second half is so clunky it feels much longer.

More broadly this is a resonant, vivid and finally heartbreaking tale about the universal difficulty of marriage and the endless self-delusion of the human condition, driven by a trio of amazing dramatic performances.

It's a dumb, ugly and, most of all, painfully unfunny movie.

The Tree of Life is pretty much nuts overall, a manic hybrid folly with flashes of brilliance. But even if that's true it's a noble crazy, a miraculous William Butler Yeats kind of crazy, alive with passion for art and the world, for all that is lost and not lost and still to come.

Marshall delivers old-fashioned swashbuckling action-movie thrills more than computer-engineered grotesquerie.

Allen seems to be paying attention in a way he hasn't always done in recent films, and has found a way to channel his often-caustic misanthropy, half-comic fear of death and anti-American bitterness into agreeable comic whimsy.

It's a movie that succeeds, often beautifully, not by forcing its characters to be as naughty and gross and pathetic as men are. It soars by letting them be as naughty and gross and pathetic as women are. Three cheers for equality.

It's refreshingly honest, depicts the kinds of American lives not often seen on-screen and shows us a familiar star in a striking new light.

If it plays in any theaters beyond New York and Los Angeles, that'll probably come as a surprise to its distributor (the estimable Lorber Films). None of that diminishes the power and intensity of this claustrophobic mini-masterpiece of the Japanese antiwar tradition, which blends a B-movie aesthetic, brilliant use of montage and documentary elements and a scathing critique of nationalism and militarism.

I suppose the perfect ending to the chapter would be to report that The Beaver is a masterpiece. It isn't quite, but it does offer an astonishing and resonant performance by Gibson, who spends most of the movie playing two simultaneous characters, often in the same shot.