Much of what we see is revealing, but I was unable to quell an occasional sense that the dice were being loaded, that the subjects were being given just enough rope to hang themselves.

The action scenes are imaginative and elaborate without seeming fake. Nothing is belabored, and the stakes never stop escalating.

Another innocuous film about another unusual girl.

This is a sobering piece of advocacy cinema.

More than most espionage movies, the film is about relationships, the men with each other, the men with their own disapproving wives, and governments with each other. Everyone courts someone.

Charlotte Rampling goes for broke as a sexually rapacious older woman. So does Ally Sheedy as a rich woman. They're memorable, and yet equally satisfying is Ciaran Hinds' sadness and restraint as a paroled sex offender with deviancy in the blood.

People who have seen fellow painter Julian Schnabel's "Basquiat" - with its star-making portrayal by Jeffrey Wright - may reasonably trust its truth as a tribute over Davis' ostensibly more factual exercise.

This is spellbinding, transporting, damn near indescribable and the latest indication that Christopher Nolan might be the slyest narrative tactician making movies today.

It isn't a long journey. Kisses clocks at 72 minutes, which feels something less than feature length. It's long enough to include a few cliches and nagging questions, yet it's short enough to leave you wanting more.

Standing Ovation is an innovative film in the sense that every minute or so it comes up with a different way of being annoying. Moreover, it often goes for a layered effect, in which it's annoying in two or three ways simultaneously.

A deceptively simple but enchanting story about a father who bonds with his young son on the Mexican sea, accomplishes something quite complex: It provides a breathtaking sense of place, chronicles in intimate detail a way of life, and touches us with a relationship that develops naturally, right before our eyes.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice boils down to "The Karate Kid" meets "Harry Potter," with maybe a dash of "Ghostbusters" to keep it interesting.

Like her (Cholodenko) other movies, this one has vivid characters and strong performances and flows like a slice of life set in an appealing, interesting world. But this one also has a good story and, if you're paying attention, a distinct point of view.

You can't fool me. I know it's actually a parlor game.

When compared with the ambition and achievement of recent animated films, such as "Coraline" and "Toy Story 3," Despicable Me hardly seems to have been worth making, and it's barely worth watching.

At its simplest, "Fire" tells of Mikael's efforts to exonerate Lisbeth. At its most baroque, it explores a vast web of sex trafficking and deep-rooted conspiracy that goes back decades and touches on Lisbeth's inflammatory background.

A little movie with a lot of hilarious swearing and an unexpectedly big heart.

A passable follow-up - more ludicrous, less taut, still creepy - that picks up exactly where the original left off.

Despite the title, Ismailos' documentary is not a study of what constitutes great direction. Rather it's a nicely arranged film in which a variety of filmmakers Ismailos likes discuss their inspirations and influences.

A dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest.

Melissa Rosenberg's screenplay is faithful enough to Meyer's soap-operatic inclinations, but I kind of wish it weren't.

An imperfect, fascinating film about an imperfect, fascinating man.

It is a colossal bomb, an epic miscalculation, an excuse for actor self-indulgence and for what sounds very much like bad improvisation.

The film has some chuckles, if no belly laughs; it has some warmth, if no great heat.

Doesn't rank as a great film, but it's difficult to take your eyes off it, as you wonder what impossibly bizarre thing might happen next.

Watching the film one comes away feeling the bond that links these guys.

The worst kind of avant-garde film, one that hides its lack of commitment to the story, the characters and the genre under cover of being experimental. It mocks form and plays with form but offers nothing in its place, just boredom, emptiness and the oldest metaphor in captivity, about grass coming up through concrete.

But to be fair, Stone doesn't seem even to think he's offering the last word here. Rather, he's trying to offer the first word, or at least a first opportunity to hear the other side, unfiltered by television media.