Such are the timeless joys of the books (and now the movie), this sparkling absurdity and knack for buckling swash under the worst of circumstances.

The resulting film is neither better nor worse than the Swedish film, but it's more cinematic.

I know this is heresy on a number of fronts, but much of The Love We Make is boring.

A breezy account of a man whose obsession began early.

It's original and poetic, and if you see it you will probably remember scenes from it a year from now, because it's not really like anything else. It's very much its own thing.

If you widen your eyes and turn off your brain, it all adds up to cracking good fun.

Screenwriters Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan have clarified a few things that needed clarifying, camouflaged a few things that needed camouflaging - and gently tugged some passive flashbacks into the active present. It's a cagey adaptation.

Instead we get Knightley, who juts her chin, quakes, shakes and bugs her eyes, but nothing about her pain calls out to us, because nothing in it seems real.

There's nothing here but wreckage. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is so ineptly made that the story is advanced solely through announcements.

It's an uninspired and instantly forgettable film. But it completely succeeds by its own standards: an 87-minute rainy-day distraction that will probably make a zillion dollars.

Don't invest too much in the word "Golf" at the beginning of the title. Golf in the Kingdom is arguably less of a sports movie than the first "Harry Potter." (At least someone won that game of quidditch ...)

Many scenes in Outrage are crisply filmed and stylish enough, as serial assassinations go. But the film doesn't add up to much.

As Barkin's nemesis, Moore is evil, and that's a good thing - she doesn't back off. Kate Bosworth plays Barkin's fragile daughter and is a pleasant surprise: Who knew she was an actress?

Innocuous and dull.

A dark comedy that confirms Diablo Cody as a screenwriter of importance, eliminates the last shred of doubt that Jason Reitman is a major director and gives Charlize Theron her best showcase since "Monster."

The Sitter is not (Funny). At all. By any definition, although an argument might be made for the alternate meanings "perplexing," "deceptive" and "slightly unwell."

Seducing Charlie Barker is a movie made by people who haven't been making movies, but should be. As in, often. As in, from now on.

As fascinating - and at times oblique - as the famous couple themselves.

Even his wife barely knew him, recalling for her son the peculiarities of raising a family amid Daddy's cloak and dagger - and if she's baffled by his behavior, what hope is there for anyone else?

The result is a diligent brand of gloom. When it isn't being diligently gloomy, it's being obvious. When it isn't being obvious, it's being sneaky, and when it isn't being sneaky, it's marching toward a climax of B-movie violence, stupidity and nuttiness that summarily bumps off the movie's least annoying character.

Shame has a lolling pace and stunning visual clarity. Structurally, it's close to perfect - its precision echoed in the Glenn Gould piano recordings of Bach keyboard works that Brandon listens to obsessively.

In many ways - in all ways - The Artist is a profound achievement.

Less subtle than its predecessor, Tomboy is like a pint-size "Boys Don't Cry," and as such, it's practically unique.

There's nothing dark about Arthur: It's as bright and twinkling as a Christmas tree, decked with warmth and humor.

A triumph of simplicity, innocence and goofy jokes.

Michelle Williams doesn't just survive. Called upon to glow, she glows. Her performance doesn't solve all the riddles of that personality; none could, and it's for the best that Williams doesn't try.

The result is a movie that's kinetic yet slow, whose joys are architectural more than spiritual.

It's impossible to listen to Francesca's parents, deadly serious about art as a higher calling, without feeling both saddened and disturbed.

Patterson's verite style is bettered by the work of cinematographer Eric Koretz, who surrounds the bleak characters with beauty and color.

The movie is a mess.

Lindberg, who wrote a book on the subject called "Punk Rock Dad," is at the center of this sweet, revealing and proudly foulmouthed ethnography on rock and the modern dad.

So the situation is fraught, without being clear-cut; in other words, interesting.

The movie's bereftness of invention can be measured by how no story element builds on another. Instead, Happy Feet Two is plotted so that a bunch of disparate things happen, until it's time to end the movie.

About as loony and soapy as a movie can get. In other words, it's about as loony and soapy as the novel, and I say this as one who obsessively consumed all four installments in Stephenie Meyer's mega-selling series.

The movie itself is a worthy thing, too, but it's not as good as Clooney is here, which is to say, it's not great.

He was so good at his job he was awarded an honorary knighthood by the British and the Iron Cross II by the Nazis. Talk about playing both sides!

Kaurismäki stalwart Kati Outinen, as the old man's silent and ailing wife, is the key to the movie, even though she appears only sporadically. Something in her timid, understanding and impassive gaze, which is Kaurismäki's gaze as well, lets us know that she sees things in the old man that we don't see.

A fly-on-the-wall look at the inner workings of the famed Spanish palace of avant-garde gastronomy that closed its doors in July. If you're passionate (and open-minded) about food, you'll be fascinated.

Herzog, as ever, is obsessed most of all with human nature: Into the Abyss explores our deepest urges to love, and live, and kill.

If only Lars von Trier took into account that audiences might actually want to enjoy Melancholia, rather than endure it, or sift through it, or submit to the director's will, he might have made something extraordinary.

Though the Jill problem is too insurmountable to ignore, almost everything else in this comedy succeeds.

It's watchable and reasonably entertaining, to be sure. Eastwood doesn't make movies that are hard to sit through. But something in the film's point of view is off, not at cross-purposes, not contradictory, but incomplete, irrelevant and ever-so-faintly ridiculous.

The actors keep their clothes on, but everything else is naked in Like Crazy, a romantic drama that makes other romantic films look obvious and calculated in comparison.

A curious thing about "Revenge" is that auto executives who might have been portrayed as villains in Paine's earlier documentary are likable characters here.

Let us recall that the first film was, in its blithely vulgar way, hilarious. And let us demand a moratorium on coked-out-baby jokes, which seriously kill the buzz.

Coming now, today, In Time is not just satisfying. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's important, because that would overstate it, but it certainly feels like part of the national conversation. It arrives in theaters at a time when people are camped out in New York saying the same things as the people in the movie. It's weird the way films often anticipate the near future.

That the movie is leisurely and unconventional is all part of its charm, too - until it isn't anymore. The movie is a tale of corruption, but then it's not. It's a love story, but no, not quite. Later, it flirts with becoming a great journalism tale, or at least a whimsical journalism tale, but that vein leads nowhere, too. Nor is it much of anything else.

Alas, Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life loses steam and grows more perfunctory as it wears on.

So if you don't mind, I'll just go back to believing that someone named Shakespeare (whoever he was) wrote Shakespeare's works. And I'll just go back to regarding them with awe.

All in all, the 3-D animations wow without gimmickry, Banderas purrs without peer - and it's a cheerful movie.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a strange case, a drama that's disturbing and yet inert. Writer-director Sean Durkin builds an atmosphere of dread, which means that he persuades us to believe in the characters and in the central situation. But he doesn't build interest.

The plot is somewhat pedestrian and the dialogue needs more zip. But it's amusing to watch the Bayaka poke good-natured fun at the gangly Larry, who has only their best interests at heart.

Emily Watson, who always brings a special grace to the screen, gives a multilayered performance to the role of Margaret Humphreys.

Besides the fact that the film is flabby (way too much time is spent on history), its efforts to tie subliminal messaging to a vast array of political, media and pop cultural events turn the proceedings a little hazy (or a lot hazy, depending on your worldview).

Fabrice Luchini is one of the delights of world cinema, and in The Women on the 6th Floor he finds a role ideally suited to his odd mix of fussiness and sensitivity.

Mighty Macs further distinguishes itself by, for once, giving a fair shake to nuns, who are treated with respect both in the performance of Ellen Burstyn, as the mother superior, and of Marley Shelton, who plays the assistant coach. It's about time.

Chandor's writing goes to some darkly interesting places, and there's fun to be found in individual performances.

With The Way, writer-director Emilio Estevez has made a respectable failure. What's respectable - and undeniable - is that this is a sincere effort to make a film of sensitivity and spiritual richness.

Pedro Almodóvar is one of the few filmmakers with the ability to infuse the screen with his own consciousness, and to see The Skin I Live In is to enter into his nightmare.

The laughs, including the big laughs, keep coming right up to the closing seconds.

Campbell's admirers will probably enjoy the documentary, but I don't think it will do much for anyone else.

Trespass never advances beyond being a grand manipulation.

The curdled Norwegian comedy-drama Happy, Happy, which dissects a pair of poisoned marriages, is sometimes heavy-handed (like its title) but has much to recommend it.

Instead of concealing it, I'll just come out and say that I find it difficult to be enthusiastic about this well-acted and gracefully directed movie, but for reasons that might be called philosophical.

Those who should go near The Big Year, if not flock to it, are fans of avians, mild PG comedy and gorgeously shot travel footage dotted with humans.

Blackthorn imagines a scenario for Butch's later years and gives us a different kind of Western - somber, reflective and set in the elevated plains and salt flats of Bolivia.

It's an imperfect facsimile, guilty of borrowing too many ideas from the earlier film, and then executing them with differing results.

The new Footloose does everything it needs to do. It's a vibrant youth musical that will appeal to audiences who haven't seen the 1984 original. And it has enough charm and life to it to compete with the memory of the earlier version.

Your heart will go out to Shlain, who clearly adored her father. But other parts of Connected may remind you of an Al Gore lecture.

In just a short period of time, a weekend hookup tests the boundaries each man has set for himself.

Chan, though, is very good in an all-dramatic role as a rebel general. There's lots of battle scenes, well-filmed, but only one martial arts scene. It seems out of place, but is most welcome nonetheless.

If the movie ends too abruptly, it still gives plenty of screen time to its nicely screwed-up central character. And it's still a solid, assured feature debut from the latest brothers to watch.

Watching this movie is like eating a hot fudge sundae and lasagna in alternating bites.

A half hour before the finish, Margaret loses altitude and starts looking for a place, any place, to land. Instead it crashes, in slow motion. But up until then, Margaret is committed and unusual.

Take Shelter has a problem, the simplest of all problems but no less serious for its being simple. It's a film without suspense and with a slow-moving story that unfolds without surprise or embellishment.

If you can get past the ridiculousness of the setup - easy to do, because the posters make it clear this isn't a Woody Allen movie - it's pretty much impossible not to have fun.

There is no point in discounting smart, engrossing entertainment like The Ides of March, though it's hard not to notice when a film that could have been great falls short.

Despite a too slow pace for my own tastes, Hauer helps move the film along by being captivating even in just a few scenes. He, Michael York as a businessman and Charlotte Rampling as the Virgin Mary provide what little dialogue exists in a screenplay that could have used a little more backstory.

I've seen many films about Italy, but this one - possibly because it's so colorful and stylized and possibly because the songs are such economical distillations of a state of mind - feels like being there.

Sarah Palin -You Betcha! is probably the scariest movie you will see all year.

There's no greater meaning to any of this, and the slapstick turns won't seem particularly ambitious to anyone who grew up on Bugs Bunny cartoons.

We are told at the film's beginning that we are about to see a "diary of suffering," and it is that, but the effect, after four-and-a-quarter hours, is exhilarating.

She's hopeless, he's hopeless, and this movie is just ghastly.

Is he a hero or a lunatic? He's possibly neither, or possibly a little of both, but this is the problem with making a movie about a real person.

Just as essential is Seth Rogen, as Adam's best friend. Rogen isn't even 30 yet, but he is already an important actor - not just because he's popular but because he best embodies this particular comic moment.

Despite its fascinating and humorous moments, one can't help but be frustrated when at times it switches away to spiritual pretentiousness.

City of Life and Death, a stunning re-creation of the Japanese army's annihilation of Nanking in 1937, will make you flinch, even as you admire its brilliant black-and-white cinematography, breathtaking art design and unerring direction.

Interesting and often compelling, and a must-see for organic food zealots.

Sometimes the film, even if it's a "mixtape," bites off more than it can chew, delving into the Attica Prison uprising, heroin addiction and the Vietnam War. But all in all, this film will give you a new perspective on the past - and the present.

The film is morbid and mawkish, and packed with enough forced whimsy to make you scream.

Director-co-writer Gary McKendry seems to know a thing or two about hard-fisted fight scenes, but he muddies up the visuals with obligatory spasms of shaky-cam.

Casadesus infuses Margueritte with a lilting quality, underscored by the sadness of someone who knows she is the last person standing and inhabits an alien world.

Even with the conflict overkill, most of the small moments ring true. Dolphin Tale has more in common with "The Swiss Family Robinson" than most modern live-action family movies, where slapstick and cheap laughs feed short attention spans.

Naysayers have been claiming for years that the "Moneyball" book wouldn't work as a movie. But ultimately, it's the cinematic touches that keep this film version from becoming something exceptional.

The film takes its time detailing his mundane activities, often withholding the kind of information audiences usually expect, and it's Puiu's talent to transform it all into a highly disturbing portrait - both of an individual and a society.

Because Benavides is a south Texas town, the screenplay touches inevitably on the flow of immigrants at the border - and resentment at their presence. But All She Can puts a new face on this resentment, highlighting the frustration of legal Mexican Americans.

Pure escapist hokum, with action choreography by Sammo Hung, but I sure miss that old-school wire work.

The film perhaps shines brightest when it depicts two telling relationships Nannerl has outside her family. The first is with Louis XV's 13-year-old daughter, Louise...The other relationship is with Louise's troubled brother, the dauphin.