A provocative character study and portrait of the times.

Stop laughing long enough, and you'll see that it's a picture about compromised lives and love for sale. But no one who watches Priceless will stop laughing for that long.

Clearly, Peirce's motives are pure. She's not using the "stop-loss" issue as a wedge to make the government or the administration look bad. She's using it to dramatize an injustice and to advocate on behalf of the soldiers.

Almost gets its right.

In the hands of visionary filmmaker Alexander Sokurov, this simple material makes for a haunting drama about war, generational relationships and the human condition.

An austere rural landscape, festering hatred, class tensions, terse dialogue - these are common currency in indie movies these days. Shotgun Stories uses them all, but manages to stand out from the crowd.

Another dreadful, not-funny Owen Wilson movie, in which Wilson is the best thing.

The performers don't really seem at the top of their game here.

Nothing groundbreaking, but there's an easy charm in the movie.

Features a superb performance in the lead role, a strong supporting cast, very good cinematography and, most of all, emotional authenticity.

There are a few laughs and some touching moments, but nothing you couldn't get by watching episodes of "Good Times" and "Little House on the Prairie" back to back.

Fans of J-horror (for Japan, where the genre was born; its conventions have since spread to South Korea and Thailand) will find Shutter familiar; others may just doze.

Call it a victory of conviction over substance, but when Argento is onscreen, you look at her - not because she's good, but because she's there in a way nobody else is.

A surprisingly joyous musical.

Infectiously energetic.

Sam Garbarski's use of slow-motion shots is pretentious, and he paces the film too slowly. But he captures the seedy side of London, giving you a feel for Soho during the day when sunshine exposes a cheap gaudiness.

Although based on a fictional story, it has the feel of truth and is a vivid reminder of the hell Mexicans put themselves through to live in the United States, even illegally.

A junior version of "Fight Club," only with no movie stars and different moves.

A slow-moving family drama guaranteed to induce a nap if not somnambulism.

Has a solid story, which keeps things interesting during the quiet moments when nobody is getting kicked in the head.

Just because it's a conscious commentary on other vile, useless, pointless cinematic exercises doesn't make it any less vile, useless and pointless.

A potent drama from Yang Li, one of China's Sixth Generation filmmakers noted for the stark realism and documentary feeling of their work.

Completely ridiculous, but fun to look at.

A brisk, entertaining crime thriller.

Relies on slapstick scenes that are neither essential nor especially clever.

It's a drama with elements of black comedy and suspense, European in feeling but American in attitude. Just for fun, it's set in 1949, an era of glamour, of Hitchcock and of husbands even more clueless than they are today.

Frothy and exuberantly entertaining - in part because of the sexual innuendoes - it's the best romantic comedy so far this year.

Appropriately structured like a ride on skateboard: It swoops back and forth in time, hovers in midair, twists back on itself over and over again, then rolls into silence.

Revelatory as well as unsettling.

A bit of a letdown. The manic comedian who has gained fans worldwide for his outrageous slapstick and special effects-driven antics in "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Shaolin Soccer" takes a backseat this time - and that's part of the problem: This is lesser Chow because there is less Chow.

As the camera follows four campers in a Portland, Ore., rock school for girls, the result is less a journey than a collage of random thoughts, circumstances and events. There's plenty of telling, but not enough showing.

Simultaneously a sports adventure film, a tear-jerking tale of hope and inspiration and a captivating meditation on culture clash.

A compelling and visually arresting drama.

When you've got three of the nation's best actresses in leading roles, it doesn't matter if your script is only adequate and the audience really has to squint here and there to believe what's happening on the screen.

The movie's effectiveness is distorted by its hero-worship of the Chicago defendants.

An enjoyable movie with an entertaining angle on a hard-to-resist period of history.

Surprisingly pedestrian.

The performances are the best part of this uneven film.

The laughs do come, but not as readily, not as heartily and not as joyfully as you might expect.

What's unforeseen in Unforeseen, a superior documentary by Laura Dunn, are the consequences of a certain mind-set about mankind's relationship to the world and, finally, to itself.

A relentlessly earnest teen film.

The picture eventually collapses under the weight of its own gimmickry, but it's still an entertaining distraction for cerebral horror fans who want an appetizer before the B-horror feast that is "Diary of the Dead."

Inside 10 minutes, at most 15, Be Kind Rewind reveals itself as an awful mess, and it only gets worse.

Well made, provocative and compelling.

Vantage Point has nothing going on. There's no artistic, philosophical or even jolly entertainment reason for adopting this strategy. It's just arbitrary, a gimmick.

The movie's satisfactions are subtle, but they run deep, and there are many.

Indian director Ashutosh Gowariker, who won an Oscar nomination for "Lagaan," usually knows how to tell a good story. Here, however, he seems overwhelmed by the sheer weight of history.

It's one of the least scary films that he's made - but still entertaining, and very, very gory.

The filmmakers succeed with an unexpected ending. It's as fresh as everything in the movie, which turns out to be about so much more than one youngster's resilience.

A sophisticated story of disappointment and accommodation.

Goes south as a sci-fi film.

A mostly superb cast, superior special effects, a sparkling musical score and a fantasy-filled plot .

A sequel arrives for Valentine's Day with the unwieldy title Step Up 2 the Streets. If it performs as well, watch for "Step Up 3: the Sprained Ankle."

A lovely, smart and beautifully understated film.

A romantic comedy and an adventure story, but in this case that just means it bombs in two distinct ways.

Witty and lively, with a soul to it, as well.

A funny comedy, and sometimes an even better drama.

The effort is undermined with crass humor, mugging and slapstick.

Well-made and modestly enjoyable.

If it wasn't for the stellar 3-D effects, there wouldn't be much to stop this hastily produced film from heading straight to DVD. But the scene at the end where all the confetti comes flying out and the pyrotechnics go off? Even I was willing to let out a little scream for that.

Seriously lacks both romance and comedy.

Turns into a pedestrian slice 'n' dice feature.

A kind of film opera without music.

It's 90 minutes of flying, dismembered limbs and explosions of blood, but give the man credit. Stallone can do action. If you want action and nothing but, here it is.

Movie cliches are supposed to be bad things because they make the movie too predictable. But you know, there are times when they actually work in a film's favor.

As plain awful as Untraceable is, possibly the worst thing about it is that it pretends to mean something.

Teixeira elicits extraordinary performances from his entire cast.

First, this movie should be enjoyed. Later, marveled at. And then, once the excitement has faded, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days really should be studied, because director Cristian Mungiu creates scenes unlike any ever filmed.

What it brings to the filming of a rock concert other than novelty remains to be seen.

The most important mainland Chinese film this decade.

Funny, very clever and still packs some cover-your-face bloody thrills that top any "Saw" or "Hostel" movie.

In thematic terms, Cassandra's Dream could be looked at as a rebuttal to "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Produced by "Lost" and "Alias" mastermind J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield has been one of the more interesting experiments in large-scale guerrilla filmmaking.

A caper comedy with some definite problems.

It gets worse and worse as it goes along and finally ends just as it's becoming unbearable.

A rage-inducing expose.

The second half of the film is much funnier and warmer than the first, but the movie is still difficult to recommend.

A powerful, frightening look at America's delivery room.

Accessible, and often funny.

The subtlety is the beauty of it.

Though the movie has a handful of shots that are downright gross to witness, what makes The Orphanage scary is not what it threatens to show but what it suggests about life.

Anderson almost brings off a picture worthy of his grandiose ambition.

It's striking how much emotion Satrapi is able to convey through blocky drawings.

Emotionally false.

An edifying and forthright drama that aims to create a lump in the throat, and succeeds.

A solidly made wish-fulfillment fantasy set during World War II.

P.S.: It stinks.

Clever and enjoyable.

A welcome throwback to family-friendly PG moviemaking.

Steep begins to feel a mite in need of tighter editing. In truth, the film will appeal primarily to skiers, while others may get a bit, well, snow-blind.

What looks good on paper contracts doesn't guarantee results. Stylized but spasmodic, this "Sweeney" seems more interested in distancing than captivating an audience.

For pure, uncomplicated enjoyment, it's the movie to see right now.

A movie that features a cartoon rodent eating his brother's feces, and do you really need to know more about this update of Ross Bagdasarian's iconic musical creation?

If you want lots of Will Smith and industrial-strength special effects, the movie delivers.

The terseness of Hosseini's prose has been replaced by the sentimentality of the director's approach.

Lush and heartfelt, but compelling only in fits and starts.

Oliver Twist" meets "A Clockwork Orange" meets a reckless abandonment of credibility.

May be far from perfect, but the big question is why you're sitting in a movie theater watching it instead of cuddling up at home with the remote in one hand and a steaming toddy in the other.