This is a movie of excesses that doesn't know when to settle down. It aims to be a slapstick comedy, a romantic comedy and a plain old romance but falls short of each goal.

With Milk, a great San Francisco story becomes a great American story.

The fight scenes are lackluster and the plot is needlessly complicated. If you're making an action film that centers on fast cars and fast women, it's usually best to keep the rest of the story simple.

Twilight has a few gory plot turns - mostly offscreen - and one near-sex scene that may offend a few Amish people, but the rest is maybe 33 percent less wholesome than "High School Musical." It's almost certainly less risque than what you were watching when you were 14. (Cue the soundtrack to "Risky Business.")

A riveting works of humanism.

It's doubtful that audiences go to animated features to hear movie stars talk. They go because a film sounds like fun and something their kids and maybe they themselves might enjoy. Bolt is all that and more.

A respectable and fairly decent movie.

Riveting.

Australia shows all the signs of having been a labor of love for director Baz Luhrmann. One problem: It's his love, and the audience's labor.

After the heights of "Casino Royale," the series falls back into routine with this above-average thriller, filled with over-the-top action, familiar Bond atmosphere and a story that's impossible to follow - and why bother anyway? Daniel Craig is still the coolest man in the universe. That definitely helps.

With Desplechin, it doesn't ever feel as though he's straining to show us things. It's more like we're just hanging out. We're in this house, and by some strange coincidence, every time we turn around, something interesting is happening.

A compelling Irish drama.

A remarkable cast for a small, non-mainstream effort.

Doesn't hit its stride until the last 30 minutes, and by then, it's just a little too late.

A funny and twisted movie from beginning to end, closing with an emotional payoff.

A shrewd satire about stardom and the cult of celebrity.

Told from a different angle than any other Holocaust film I've seen.

A nice surprise, surpassing the quality of the first film.

This illuminating film by director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail Disney is a much-needed attempt to put the spotlight on a moment of history that still inspires, especially because that moment led to Taylor's exile and to Liberia's election of Africa's first female head of state.

Needless to say, Soul Men has a lot to overcome in its effort to be funny.

Along with the awkward romantic exchanges that always seem to find their way into Smith's movies, there's also a sweetness that you don't often see in films that average multiple f-words per minute.

It is exactly as one might imagine it: slapstick humor, gross-out monsters and more self-referential digs per minute than "Arrested Development."

As presented in "What Just Happened?" the world of Hollywood looks like a very expensive, lethal version of high school, not fun to live in, but lots of fun from a safe distance.

Strikes a surprising array of notes: scary, sad and hopeful. The director, Tomas Alfredson, does a great job of presenting peril in the film.

The temptation to be emphatic about Synecdoche, New York is overwhelming but should be resisted, because the movie really is a mixed bag. A particularly odd mix.

A disturbing film about grim subject matter, but the overall experience is more exhilarating than saddening. There's just something satisfying about seeing a movie so well made.

Kristin Scott Thomas' performance in I've Loved You So Long is one of a small handful of highlights by which people will remember this year in movies. This is acting at its most exalted.

Hackl weaves scenes from the previous films into this one in clever ways, without adding to the confusion. The director also does a good job of maintaining the dark tone, which includes FBI offices that look as if they're being illuminated by night-lights, and dungeons that look as if you'd catch a venereal disease or two just by touching the door handles.