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.