Plodding and unfunny.

Lower your expectations going into Volver and accept it for what it is: a ridiculously entertaining melodrama with loud echoes of "Mildred Pierce" that provides Penelope Cruz with a vehicle for her multifaceted talents.

A gentle fable, full of wit and charm.

Black Bear Ranch's legacy of environmentalism (the residents were on the forefront of the anti-deforestation movement), and the endearing long-term relationships it engendered, endure.

Despite a clever script and top-notch cast, whose commitment to doing service in the indie branch of the industry is commendable, Unknown falls apart just when it should be coming together.

An amusing melodrama.

A modest documentary, small in scope and ambition, but it achieves one of the higher callings of art in that it forces viewers to look at a something in a newer, deeper and more humane way.

It's a film of unquestioned visual artistry, and the filmmakers' empathy and human understanding are apparent moment to moment, scene by scene. But despite sensitive performances, it's an experiment that fizzles.

This deeply moving and disturbing film derives power from being based on the true story of a black South African who does everything possible, no matter how degrading, to get by within an immoral system, but becomes radicalized almost despite himself.

While "Saw" and "Saw II" were pretty good splatter films hampered by spectacularly unbelievable endings, Saw III is annoying for almost the duration of the movie.

This is contemplative moviemaking, with its deliberate pace, often static scenes and emphasis on direct sound. The director keeps the dialogue pared to the bone.

The movie appears to be a contrived, poorly produced attempt to sell more of the author's books.

Documentary filmmakers pray for something to happen to their subjects when the cameras are rolling, and two-time Academy Award-winning documentarian Kopple struck gold when Maines told a crowd on the opening night of the band's first European tour that she was "ashamed" that President Bush was from Texas.

Depictions of an aide talking about her hospital vigil and her words of comfort to a distraught Laura Bush are creepy and exploitative -- and borderline disgusting.

This is an ugly film, but with an undeniable allure.

Befuddling.

The real item under consideration here is the movie itself, and the bottom line is that it lands in a humane place. True, any viewer will go in with a certain curiosity, ghoulish or otherwise, about what it's like to jump off a bridge, and yet the overall effect of the film is broadening. To see it is to dread the bridge jumps and to come away with a feeling of compassion and empathy.

Coppola has no trouble convincing viewers that Marie Antoinette is an interesting historical subject, but there's a big distance between that and creating a fascinating personality or fashioning a compelling narrative.

A wildly erratic, often annoying but never boring endeavor.

As painstaking as a documentary but without the satisfaction of a documentary or the impact of a drama.

There are some nice moments and beautiful scenery, but the film is often slow and the dialogue is overwrought.

Thus, we find ourselves watching an ice-cold movie about competition that contains not a shred of rooting interest.

Lacks the marquee names and production values of big studio romantic comedies, but it connects on an emotional level most of them fail to do.

One of the year's most important documentaries, a real must-see.

An unusual look at love and how it can unexpectedly develop. Those for whom the concept of an arranged marriage is foreign will get a little history lesson on the immigrant experience watching this sweetly engrossing film.

Block's hypnotic documentary, among the finest of the year.

There are fun distractions, but it's easy to focus on the flaws.

Man of the Year remains an interesting proposition throughout, and a tale well told.

A throwback to all those guilty pleasure action movies.

The spellbinding power of this almost certain Oscar nominee for best documentary comes from its chilling subject matter.

With the aid of a charmingly offbeat story and a jolly good dialect coach, the stars leave you thinking, well done. Their spirited performances help cover up glaring holes in the plot.

Watch Infamous on its own. It's a worthy film in its own right, with its own virtues.

Immediately shoots to the top of the list of the year's worst movies.

While it's filled with quality actors, this James Bond tale for tweens feels like something you should be getting for free on television.

There's no attempt at greatness here, just a fabulously successful attempt at a good crime movie. The Oscar-bait self-consciousness of "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" is gone. In its place is a buoyancy, an impish delight in telling a harsh urban story in the most effective terms possible.

Perrotta and Field succeed, not by guessing, but by knowing this world. They understand it enough to see it with cold precision -- and to approach it, at times, with disarming warmth. The characters aren't types, but people.

This will never be the movie of the month, but you could do a lot worse at the multiplex.

A lot more enjoyable if you can leave your cognitive skills at the door.

Taken as a whole, these films constitute one of the greatest uses of cinema a documentary filmmaker has ever devised. Like the other films in the series, 49 Up is alternately touching and mundane, part soap opera, part reality show and part anthropological study.

A film of stark and galling contrasts.

Mitchell may be another Russ Meyer -- a dubious honor -- but he's no Tony Kushner.

A canny piece of filmmaking, sure to absorb both audiences familiar with Kushner's plays and those who know little or nothing about him.

An absolute delight, combining the cheap thrills of a biopic with the gentler, but more lasting, pleasures of a brilliant character study.

When Costner is good, as he is here, his acting has a purity to it, an unspoken moral dimension. Underneath the sensitive, stoic facade is a loquacious, intellectually alert actor with an encyclopedic understanding of the film tradition he occupies: the rugged, humble movie hero, embodied by the likes of Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda.

This is the animated children's film equivalent of "Another 48 Hours."

It would require a near-lethal injection of nitrous oxide to induce laughter.

Compelling.

Fortunately, there are many concert sequences to keep the film from being more than one awkward silence after another, and onstage the Pixies still sound great. But watching the movie is not as much fun as listening to the old records.

A 2-hour, 20-minute bore-de-force of virtually dialogue-free angst.

Unlike Sean Penn's demagogue in "All the King's Men," you're able to forget that Whitaker is acting. He embodies the role. When clips of the real Amin are shown at the end, it's almost shocking to realize the extent to which Whitaker has become him.

Recalling the earthiness Broderick Crawford brought to the original, I couldn't help thinking Gandolfini should have been cast as Willie.

This is the "Godfather II" of tasteless prank films.

The movie is an enjoyable but flawed attempt at an epic story, with too much of the best action concentrated in the beginning.

Kind of a bore.

At heart, all documentaries aim to be important films. Few actually pull it off. Minor flaws and all, Jesus Camp is among the year's most important films, if only because it forces us to learn about an America we seldom see and seldom want to see.

There's a lot of interesting material here, but Rachman doesn't offer any real analysis of his own, and the film suffers from a lack of narrative focus.

The biggest mystery of all is why director Marc Rosenbush, whose background is in theater, bothered putting this story on film when it's so obviously meant for a stage.

The title is all that's boring about director Michel Gondry's latest mind bender, as trippy as LSD.

Although intriguing to look at, Renaissance -- the latest animated film geared to adult audiences -- is undone by a plot that is ridiculously hard to follow and hackneyed.

The film is ultimately as much an indictment of liberal apathy as of conservative dirty dealing, and a canonization of McKinney for her continued refusal to follow any party's party line.

Director Shosuke Murakami efficiently packages the material, deftly weaving in the individual stories of Train Man's chat-room buddies and how his success also gives them courage.

The result is a film that fails to completely involve you, even as you admire its artistry.

The world of The Black Dahlia is beyond bleak, beyond film noir.

A strange film, because it seems designed specifically for extremely old moviegoers to see with their great-great-grandchildren.

Gridiron Gang gives you a lot more to think about during the ride home.

The Last Kiss ponders what you give up -- and what you gain -- from sticking with what you've got.

True, the film doesn't need 110 minutes to tell a story this pat, but hey, in dark times, it takes longer to deliver a feel-good message.

May be too convincing for its own good.

Powerfully documents the human cost of the Iraq war.

It's just horsing around that comes to nothing. No, it's worse. It's horsing around designed to disguise nothing as something.

Within limits, this is an excellent documentary. Even fans who think they've seen everything will see things here they haven't seen.

The problem with this one may be that it just isn't British enough.

A documentary in search of a story.

The film, actually, is a little like Reeves himself: It starts promisingly and trails off into indistinctness and mystery.

A bad film with a great star and some truly amazing action sequences.

There's no objectivity in this film -- Greenwald's goal is not to offer balanced coverage but to roil the waters.

Doesn't accomplish its objective.

Keeps you riveted through parts that might otherwise be difficult to watch.

More than on "Prime Suspect," more than any film in recent memory, Le Petit Lieutenant conveys the relentless toll of big-city police work.

The makers of Man Push Cart seem so dedicated to making a film that defies Hollywood conventions that the finished product lacks enough entertainment value to justify price of admission.

A gentle, pleasant film about people you genuinely like.

There's an Impressionistic feeling to all this, and sometimes it plays like a travelogue -- Bush is trying to do an awful lot at once. But the material is so compelling that we keep watching.

It's all about the dumb thrill, baby. Leave it alone, or leave your brain and pocket change at the gate, strap yourself in and just enjoy the ride.

Crossover has one redeeming quality: a heart that's in the right place. It's a bad movie with a good message -- but does anyone really want to pay $10 for an ABC After School Special version of "He Got Game"?

Well intentioned, but only occasionally creepy.

Bujalski's writing is so good, and every shot and edit seems exactly right. Hopefully, there will always be a place for a film like this on a theater screen, no matter the whims of the marketplace.

Although "Riding" is a small-scale movie as opposed to a big-scale epic, it is just as ambitious.

Extremely amusing.

Although the "weird" factor is very much in play here, director Tomer Heymann does a fine job of peeking behind the curtain and discovering real humanity at work. We not only get to know these transsexuals as people, but also their patients.

To enjoy it you almost have to be stoned on marijuana.

If Idlewild had something beyond OutKast's songwriting, it would make a swell musical.

It's a pleasant and well-intentioned end of summer diversion that doesn't possess the imagination-stoking qualities of a premier children's movie.

The movie is shamelessly manipulative.

The desperation TV stars must feel to be on the big screen is the only explanation for Edie Falco and Elisha Cuthbert's appearance in The Quiet, a creepy family drama that reeks of pretentiousness.

Pleasant, light-hearted fun that's soft, not edgy, but lest you think it's a Spanish "Birdcage," consider that Forque's nymphomaniac, who gives way to her urges "in the worst moments, and with the least appropriate people," seduces her son's fiancee by "accident."

Extremely bleak but occasionally compelling debut feature.

As a film, "Levees" is a significant and exhaustive achievement. Although it can be argued that it might have been even more effective if it had been edited down a bit, the power of its human stories compensates for whatever minor flaws it has.

If you can find a better time at the movies this year than this wild comic thriller, let me in on it.