Though it's hardly as uplifting or inspiring, it's hard not to appreciate these driven men who know they've found their calling when they start to anagram in their dreams.

In many ways this is an extraordinary movie: there's probably never been such a portrait of a major star in the grip of old age.

Potter 3 is, in its heart of hearts, a teenage angst movie...Cuaron has done a masterful job of bringing off this shift in the Potter paradigm without disrupting any disruption in the established style of the series and without any pandering concessions to the teen-movie genre.

The live camel birth (shown in all of its excruciating beauty) is enthralling, and the cultural details, however staged, provide a vivid window into a world that is fast disappearing.

Too short to tell the whole story. It is, however, a fast-paced, highly enjoyable and provocative introduction.

Several of the special-effects sequences -- a Tokyo hailstorm, a system of tornadoes ripping through L.A. (and tearing up the Hollywood sign), a tidal wave breaking on the East Side and washing through the canyons of Manhattan -- are just dandy.

Has moments of inspiration, but the scattershot spoofing never achieves enough momentum to get this flight airborne.

Mario Van Peebles, bearing an uncanny resemblance to his father, illuminates the soul of a man driven by a belief in himself and a love for his community.

There's not a vaguely sympathetic character in sight; Kureishi ultimately seems prudishly disapproving of his heroine's last gasp of sexual adventure; and what another writer might have found liberating and healing, he finds distasteful and destructive.

The skewering of spiritualism, dogma and passive-aggressive prayer groups has an exaggerated absurdity that borders on cartoonish and Dannelly's satire is more clever than cutting.

A slick and entertaining package.

It all feels like a performance for the camera: von Trier as madman producer taunting the elder filmmaker.

Once we realize just how deeply hateful these two are, Samuell's free-spirited, romping visuals start to feel imposed on the film as a shameless "me too" ripoff of another, better movie.

Control Room is even more effective in showing the dilemma of the people who make up Al-Jazeera. In a sense, these are "our" Arabs, in that they're Western-educated, conduct their business in English and seem to believe in the basic American principles.

The real humor comes, once again from Murphy, whose Donkey is so genuinely funny and clever that he very nearly steals the film. Except that it's stolen by Banderas as a rogue Puss In Boots.

Full of sharp ideas and wry moments awaiting the inspired ingenuity of a screwball comedy to pull it all together. It never comes.

An exhilarating piece of epic filmmaking that it pulls you in, sweeps you up and works very much as its own thing.

Many will be left scratching their heads at the point of the entire enterprise, but fans of Jarmusch's askew view will clink coffee mugs and toast to the glories of human eccentricity.

The plot contrivances in which the story is ultimately sewn include the death of a father, an unexpected pregnancy, the sale of a house and the rest of the rigmarole that bad writers are prone to drag in at the last moment. It's too bad, because these characters deserved a better story.

Ostensibly a love story, the film is also handicapped by Téchiné's strong gay sensibility and clear lack of romantic interest in his characters.

The film is uniformly well cast, directed (by Alejandro Agresti, who also plays Valentin's father) with a certain flair and a good eye for the nuances of Buenos Aires. I found it light, agreeably short (86 minutes) and mostly quite enjoyable.

Fun-enough teenage adventure suitable for the whole family.

A monstrous disappointment.

Its sex is brutal, its depiction of human nature is crude and pessimistic, and its climax -- which involves animal mutilation -- is enough to ruin your whole week.

The new black-and-white print is gorgeous, the film plays well in this broader key and it sets the historical record straight.

The strength of Super Size Me lies primarily in Spurlock's character -- he comes across as an affable guy with a goofy sense of humor.

Stiller and Black have the chemistry of fingernails-on-blackboard and the movie is disastrously unfunny.

To its credit, the film has an engagingly bleak and minimalist look, and a brisk pace. But the chills are few. Every step seems contrived, predictable or unintentionally funny.

Within the limitations of the script, both stars shine. Moore displays a wonderful flair for self-deprecating farce, and Brosnan is cumulatively endearing as her unflappable nemesis.

The film can't decide between black comedy and bubblegum comedy, so it shoots aimlessly in between.

There's much to admire in this ambitious indie: top-notch production values, a gallery of evocative period detail (with location work on Scotland's famed St. Andrews' course) and solid performances from a cast .

The earthy imagery is delicate while the drama is oddly elliptical, creating a lovely film of storybook images and parables. It's both obvious and elusive and, historical specifics aside, almost timeless.

So stuffed with Maddin-ess that it never manages to get past the glorious surfaces. McKinney strides through his role with a knowing wink, and the sheer volume of creative imagery is as distracting as it is entertaining.

Garner's vulnerable, winning performance strikes emotional chords (not to mention nostalgia) in this fantasy comedy.

It's resolutely grim and rather predictable but very compelling, and it offers a commanding star vehicle for Denzel Washington.

Visnjic is charismatic, sympathetic and believable in the role, and the first part of the film -- in which he's being drawn into the case against his will and then use his hypnotic skills to get inside the mind of the little girl -- is quite riveting.

A rousing celebration of a genuine people's hero and a timely reminder that a free press is the greatest weapon in the arsenal of democracy and freedom.

A jargon-filled documentary less interested in culture and history than mechanics, machinery and the rush of speed.

As a portrait of a collaborative artist at work, the film is an invaluable document, not to be missed by anyone with more than a passing interest in theater.

In its defense, I can only say that, technically, it's an exhilarating piece of filmmaking; it offers a commanding comeback role for Carradine, and it serves as a summation, dead end and, perhaps, epitaph, for Tarantino's unique contribution to world cinema.

It's the chemistry between Vardalos and Collette that gives the film its magical dazzle. Despite Vardalos' ingratiating, big and breathy presence, Collette, as the pulse and conscience of these two dreamers, very nearly steals the film.

It's hard to imagine how anyone could sit through this thing except squirming critics and violence addicts in need of a particularly gruesome fix.

Presents itself as tragedy with the insensitive Joe as its tragic hero, but Joe's fantasies of artistic rebellion and individualism have rotted into simple, solipsistic selfishness.

It's a well-crafted, intelligent, no-nonsense western epic that zips us through the famous siege and the birth of Texas with style, verve and impressive historical accuracy.

Tries to both spoof the fairy tale and retell it from a fresh angle. Curiously enough, its strength lies in the clever approach, and not the goofy comedy around the edges.

Favors giggly juvenile humor over inspired satire and ends up not with a moral, but a moral vacuum.

An excruciating rehash that has virtually none of the wit and charm of the original.

Above all, I'm Not Scared pays off our emotional investment. In the end, its elements come together with the kind of genuinely thrilling, deeply satisfying climax that even the better Hollywood movies just can't seem to pull off anymore.

Tired and glib, it tries to milk humor from the sniping, sass and simple disrespect of its unpleasant traveling companions.

For all its f/x pageantry, it is rather tired, as if it's the third sequel of a franchise, not the initial episode.

Belongs to its trio of "bovine" voice talent -- Roseanne Barr, Dame Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly -- who play with such tongue-in-cheek delight upon their public personas that it's hard to separate cow character from the celebrities.

Director Martha Coolidge attempts to keep the film grounded in reality, but the movie flutters away from her control.

It still celebrates the vigilante spirit and justice delivered with a biblical swiftness, but it has been cleansed of much of its gratuitous violence and more offensive red-neck sensibilities. Mercifully, it's also a full 40 minutes shorter than the original.

The finished film, while competently acted and staged, has missed the high mark Spacey set for it. It's self-important, tedious and ultimately pointless, with absolutely none of the sardonic wit that remains the most memorable feature of "American Beauty."

For all of its good-natured guff, Jersey Girl chooses uncomplicated sentiment over the messy complications of real life.

Not only have they (Coen Brothers) stripped it of all its wit and charm, they've loaded it down with the kind of race-baiting and bathroom humor they've always avoided in the past.

But as an artist, von Trier's contempt for humanity is becoming harder to hide with stylistic flourish. He doesn't even try here, and his arrogance is topped only by his misanthropy.

The script is tight and well-constructed, director Ernest Dickerson has a feel for film-noir aesthetics, DMX exudes a certain brutish charisma and the movie is as morbidly compelling as a good train wreck.

With very few natural gifts, Bingenheimer managed to spend his life doing something he loved among people he worshipped. At the end of the game, very few people can make such a claim.

I'd be tempted to call the whole thing cartoonish, but that would be insulting to the real thing.

While it's flawed and often tedious, Kaufman's script is, on the whole, boldly imaginative and enjoyably challenging.

By the time we get to the unsurprising surprise ending, what seemed innovative and challenging in Taking Lives has lost its juice and reverted to formula form, and we leave the theater with that same old let-down feeling of having endured a ritual one more time.

Romero's satire is largely replaced by a sardonic gallows humor (the zombie-shooting contest is as funny as it is grotesque), but otherwise it's a bloody entertaining zombie apocalypse.

Unfortunately, this latest effort is so mean-spirited and nasty that you wish Farrell hadn't bothered.

Works best of all as an epic. It wonderfully creates a world of fractured deco elegance and endless human duplicity in which everyone is on the run -- exactly the kind of incisive, seemingly effortless historical spectacle that the French have learned to do so much better than Hollywood.

Try as it might, this glossy action adventure isn't nearly as clever as the "Spy Kids" franchise.

The film never kicks in as a character study or a star vehicle.

This a film where men on both sides of the line are seasoned and efficient. Men after Mamet's own heart.

Never as visually or viscerally thrilling as some might expect, but it still manages to be a fascinating study of a national phenomenon that has had very little impact in our part of the country.

Wilson's shtick actually works better with Stiller than it did with either of his former partners, Jackie Chan and Eddie Murphy.

It's mostly quite enjoyable. Director Joe Johnson's many action sequences are lively and engaging, the location photography (mostly Morocco) is breathtaking, and both the horse and Sharif (in his biggest Hollywood role in years) are adorable.

The mystery is never very compelling, Paul McGuigan's direction tends to be obvious and flat, many of the characters are stagy and unconvincing, and Bettany doesn't have anywhere near the star power to hold the movie together.

A loving tribute to Hong Kong stuntmen by one of their own, the directorial debut of stuntman-turned-actor Robin Shou ("Mortal Kombat") is a wince-inducing behind-the-scenes look at the way contemporary Hong Kong action cinema is created.

The new parody from the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, takes another swipe at the corpse armed with the same old weapons. This time, rigor mortis has set in.

Even as the prosaic script gets lost in the intoxicating fantasy of the bloodless revolution, the hot heartbeat of the music drives the film with pure energy.

The movie is a resounding dud: immaculately composed and shot (very much in the Kaufman tradition), but riddled with crime-movie cliches, wincingly obvious in its plot twists and rather badly acted.

In a disarmingly entertaining fashion, this multiaward-winning German bittersweet comedy seems to encapsulate all the emotion and drama of that profound geopolitical event.

Did it move me? And the answer is no. I thought it has a certain ghoulish, voyeuristic fascination, but I found it strangely remote and uninvolving on both emotional and spiritual levels.

The script (by Cheryl Edwards, who wrote "Save the Last Dance") is shallow and dumb, the conflict (success goes to Jackie's head) is especially unconvincing, and director Charles S. Dutton shamelessly allows his own small part (as Jackie's mentor) to hog the camera.

Only Carol Kane, hilarious in roller curls and wide tortoiseshell glasses, gets to sink her teeth into her role. At least for Lohan, "Confessions" is her stepping-off point. Now she has to find a film to be her "real" stage.

Yet for all the debauchery, there's a juvenile candor in its knowing embrace of teen sex comedy cliches, as if the entire film is just one of Scott's fantasies. You half expect him to jolt awake at the end, and why not? The film fades just like a half-remembered dream.

Romano just doesn't have the stuff to bring off a role that requires a Jimmy Stewart or Tom Hanks. He's supposed to be overshadowed by his nemesis, of course, but Hackman chews him up and spits him out so effectively that the movie is glaringly lopsided.

Sandler and Barrymore generate some believable, if low-voltage, chemistry: they're both so shallow and conceited and dingy that you think -- yes! -- in real life, these two people probably would go for each other in a second.

There are too few surprises and even less subtlety in the telling. We can only sit and wait for the next bomb to drop on this poor exploited girl.

Less cartoonish and more generous than the original.

Cast and crew have a blast making a family movie that spoofs its James Bond-like premise, is jam-packed with action, sweaty-palm suspense and adventurous, high-tech fun effects, and yet never loses its at-the-core heart and sympathies.

An extraordinarily exciting, absorbing and satisfying movie. Not quite "Seabiscuit," but comfortably close.

Unfortunately, there's no great performance here. Pitt (who looks like Leonardo Di Caprio) delivers nothing close to Brando's tour de force, and all three stars may have been chosen less for their acting ability than their willingness to disrobe for the camera.

Inspired, inventive and funnier than it has a right to be, Larry Blamire's loopy spoof of 1950s bargain-basement sci-fi and horror knock-offs gets it right where so many well-meaning efforts go wrong.

Only Nam, in a pot-induced drawl, infuses the film with great comic timing.

Just pretend the acting scenes are commercial breaks, and you'll be fine.

This is one of those capers doomed to unravel in comic chaos, but it finally plays less like a con gone wrong than a long, lazy, insubstantial shaggy dog story coasting on nothing but charm.

Time travelers, hobbits, ghosts? Those I can buy. The impossibly quaint world of small-town innocence and Hollywood harmlessness in Win a Date With Tad Hamilton? Now that demands a serious suspension of disbelief.

It's a gripping outdoor adventure and the movies' most inspiring epic survival story in years.

Ashton Kutcher wants to be taken seriously so badly it hurts. So does this metaphysical mess of a movie, a pseudo time-travel drama so complicated it takes more than half an hour just to establish the gimmick. And a gimmick it is.

I found it a surprisingly elegant entertainment: fast-paced, cogently written (by noted English author Arnold Bennett), well-cast (including a bit by a young Charles Laughton) and stylishly photographed on a gallery of stunning deco sets.

So familiar you may have moments of deja vu.

More like the kid shows that populate Nickelodeon.