Reiser has written his characters with an indelible sweetness and vulnerability, which allows the cast to deliver performances with some depth.

A realistic slice of pioneer life that offers a disquieting alternative vision of America's most mythic location.

Williams gets us on intimate terms with one of Hollywood's most enduring and tragic icons. If much of what surrounds her in Simon Curtis' biographical drama is less nuanced, her work alone keeps the movie entertaining.

An effectively emotional look at the power of music therapy to trigger memories lost after brain surgery.

Has plenty of contemporary sparkle and life, courtesy of a masterful central performance by grande dame Catherine Deneuve.

Could easily be filled with cliches but in the hands of filmmaker John Gray, it's a sparkling piece of entertainment that deserves a wide audience.

A giddily over-the-top, super-entertaining goof on the Everyman crimefighter flick written and directed with evident relish by James Gunn.

Directing from the nonjudgmental script he wrote with Michael Armbruster, Ku's assured, unadorned documentary style allows his leads ample breathing room to inhabit their devastated characters.

This true story of a dolphin with a prosthetic tail has been precision engineered for full inspirational, heart-warming value.

Courageous reveals the duo's growing expertise as filmmakers with its skillful blending of moving drama, subtle comedy and several impressive action sequences, including a well-staged foot chase and a harrowing shootout between the cops and bad guys.

It's the affable cast, headed by Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski, that really makes the picture so widely accessible.

A quick pace and always-enjoyable lead Joseph Gordon-Levitt will please moviegoers, even if the picture's ticking-clock approach isn't as invigoratingly pulpy here as in the Koepp-penned "Snake Eyes" and "Panic Room."

Danish director Lone Scherfig skillfully adapts David Nicholls' best-selling romantic novel to the screen.

Armed with a splendid voice cast and a gorgeously-rendered 3D-CG landscape, Dr. Seuss' The Lorax entertains while delivering it's pro-environmental, anti-greed message wrapped in a bright package of primary colors that truly pop.

This touching if insular drama about a woman grieving over the recent death of her aunt is well acted and incisively observed, although it's ultimately too low-key to have much dramatic impact.

It's tempting to call The Four Times documentary-like, except that documentaries usually explain what it is we are seeing. Instead, Frammartino uses his background as a video installation artist to create something that one could just as easily come across playing at an art gallery.

Blank City may not be groundbreaking, but it's vibrant and well researched.

A portrait of the short-lived artist that will move fans while letting the uninitiated witness enough onstage highlights to leave them wanting more.

A Greek film with style and verve, writer-director Athina Rachel Tsangari's second feature, Attenberg, is an offbeat coming-of-age tale.

Director Andrew Stanton's Disney extravaganza is a rather charming pastiche.

There's little facetious comedy a la the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. It's all traditional stuff, done well but without an original spark.

Genre enthusiasts will lap up the mixture of action and fantasy, while history buffs who don't mind a bit of rewriting will dig into an alternative spin on the Civil War period.

Visually stunning and strongly voiced, but doesn't take any real risks.

It's familiar, drawn-out shtick, and the humor lacks the subtlety of the first and best Ice Age, but there are some visually inventive high points.

Never less than gripping.

For all its aesthetic deficiencies and self-promotional aspects, it at least provides a valuable and important message.

An appealing coming-of-middle-age comedy, My Afternoons With Margueritte exhibits a pleasantly light touch even when dealing with some fairly weighty issues.

Zokkomon gives Indian youngsters not only their first super hero but, even more tantalizing, he is a young boy "terrorizing" susceptible adults in a small village to the increasingly delight of the town's children.

It's messy and leaves an unusual taste on the palate, but Bellflower has a strange, ugly-sweet appeal that couldn't have been produced without the schlocky entertainments that have channeled the imaginations of gifted but impressionable kids for decades.

How To Live Forever is less about how to delay or defeat death than a film about what gives life meaning.

Haroun is uninterested in big war scenes and is best at evoking the little details of life.

A gritty, low-key hybrid of horror film and road movie that aptly demonstrates the stylistic flexibility of this undying genre.

The spotlight illuminates a well-chosen quintet of subjects, all wholesomely passionate practitioners of a readily dissed form of entertainment and each at a different point in their career.

Informative if selective documentary will eventually find its natural home on the History Channel.

Fly Away is an affecting portrait of a single mother and her severely autistic daughter.

By keeping things simple and understated, director Chris Weitz and screenwriter Eric Eason have crafted a little gem where humanity is observed with compassion, not condescension.

The movie is fast, funny and light on its feet, dipping less into politics or religion than into cultural quirks and characteristics.

The result is a stylishly executed but punishing ultra-realistic thriller that might be classified as family torture porn.

A quietly captivating portrait of an unlikely character, Buck is as modest as its subject and wins viewers over just as easily.

So strong are the emotions - and, yes, the melodrama - that Snow Flower and the Secret Fan represents one of Wang's best films to date.

Tomnay skillfully shifts the film's initial tone from suspense to dark comedy so that the transition never feels forced.

If the lighter scenes sometimes lean toward sitcom cuteness, Jacobs has a sufficiently deft touch to get away with it. The territory often seems closest to that of NBC's unjustly short-lived "Freaks and Geeks," which is by no means a bad place to be.

Deeply felt first-love tale offers convincing performances and a fine-tuned storytelling sensibility.

Morris clearly invested so much time and energy in McKinney's story because he saw her as emblematic of our crazed times. Others might wonder whether the sad saga deserves quite this much attention, but there's no denying the film's morbid fascination.

Mitchell still manages to plant a flag on this well-trodden territory by steering more toward drama than comedy, though he scores points on both fronts. Where he exceeds those films are sensual visuals that recapture summertime adolescence in all its vivacity.

Occasionally borders on hagiography, but it nonetheless provides wonderful insights into the book's social and literary importance as well as its author's personality.

Informative and insightful for films buffs without sacrificing accessibility to the casual fan, "Cameraman" is essential viewing for anyone interested in film history.

A sweet 'n' sassy period comedy with a "Juno" sensibility and the soul of a "Little Miss Sunshine," the hard-to-resist Dirty Girl announces the official arrival of Juno Temple.

Duvall can play an avuncular cowboy sage in his sleep, but there's truly no one on Earth you'd rather see dishing out homespun aphorisms, so it's pointless to resist the pleasure of watching him do what he can do better than anyone else. Baker and Melissa Leo, as the waitress' mom, are not asked to exhibit a fraction of their talent, but they further class the joint up.

Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel's latest collaboration offers a more relatable rom-com scenario while generating laughs that should still satisfy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" fans.

While Hooper favored shock value and jump scares, Kenan and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe construct far more fluid sequences as the camera glides and hovers over its subjects, reserving the most impactful shots for the climactic scenes, particularly a concluding sequence that’s particularly thrilling.

First-time writer-director Robert Persons' documentary on the Deep South introduces a new filmmaker with a distinctive sensibility.

For anyone with a keen interest in this unique American musical form, Rejoice and Shout is a must-see and see-again.

Jolie deserves significant credit for creating such a powerfully oppressive atmosphere and staging the ghastly events so credibly, even if it is these very strengths that will make people not want to watch what's onscreen.

So fetishistic about high-powered weapons that it qualifies as an NRA wet dream, G.I. Joe: Retaliation pretty accurately reflects the franchise's comic book and cartoon origins, which is both a good and a bad thing: good if you're a 12- to 15-year-old boy, bad if you're just about anyone else.

The loggerhead turtle's journey is indeed incredible. But you would rather the narration, delivered intelligently by Miranda Richardson, didn't feel a need to remind you of this fact so frequently.

After exhibiting an almost craven fidelity to his source material the first time out, Jackson gets the drama in gear here from the outset with a sense of storytelling that possesses palpable energy and purpose.

Camera stays very, very close to faces, emphasizing their humanity, and by the end of the film you feel you know something about these women.

This muscular thriller--led by Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro--strives to be a genuinely good film, but unwilling to let go of proven formulas, it falls short.

As much spectacle and action — minute-by-minute, frame-by-frame — as any movie anyone could think of. Zack Snyder’s huge, backstory-heavy extravaganza is a rehab job that perhaps didn’t cry out to be done but proves so overwhelmingly insistent in its size and strength that it’s hard not to give in.

Savages represents at least a partial resurrection of the director's more hallucinatory, violent, sexual and, in a word, savage side.

While the new edition doesn’t quite catch that inspired spark, there’s still plenty to enjoy here courtesy of those zippy visuals and a pitch-perfect voice cast led by the innately animated Steve Carell.

Oblivion is an absolutely gorgeous film dramatically caught between its aspirations for poetic romanticism and the demands of heavy sci-fi action. After a captivating beginning brimming with mystery and evident ambition, the air gradually seeps out of the balloon that keeps this thinly populated tale aloft, leaving the ultimate impression of a nice try that falls somewhat short of the mark.

This is a film that should be seen by anyone who wants to learn where we've come from as a nation.

Meryl Streep gives a fully realized portrait of British Prime Minister Thatcher in a biopic that values character over context.

Ripples with the emotions and the saddened circumstances of those gallant and talented folks who sing the blues.

Director Abhinay Deo and producer Aamir Khan's gleeful experiment in "Hangover"-caliber humor delivers the laughs, and its young stars, including Khan's nephew, A-lister Imran Khan, rise to the challenge.

There's still much to admire about this carefully drawn but concise character sketch, especially the strong performances and a unique, affectingly ominous score by folk-rock-gospel outfit Bruce Peninsula.

To kill time between action set-pieces, del Toro has done an above-average job of avoiding tedium via some flavorsome casting, passably interesting plot contrivances and, above all, by maintaining strong forward momentum. Unlike so many similar crash-bang action spectaculars, this one feels lean and muscular rather than bloated or padded; the combat is almost always coherent and dramatically pointed rather than just splashed on the screen for its own sake.

While by no means a masterpiece of the form, John Carpenter's The Ward is an economical period piece that still effectively demonstrates what a skilled technician can accomplish in a single location with a compact cast and sturdy old-school effects.

One can't escape the nagging feeling that the film doesn't dig deeply enough into its real-life hero. The film doesn't explore all those "whys" and "whats."

Aarakshan is heavy on speeches, but the film manages to work because director Prakash Jha has cast it wisely, and has clearly put time and care into exploring the nuances of the issue.

Its raw performances and dirty-realist immersion in a harsh environment keep Cook County engrossing.

A high-wire act that almost slips as it edges perilously closer and closer to the edge of improbability. But it never does.

Even with all its ups and downs, there are more than enough bawdy laughs and truthful emotional moments to put this over as a mainstream audience pleaser during a holiday season short on good comedies.

Clearly, these films are the work of people who love animals. More importantly though, going beyond the pat eco-conscious message that every kids’ film has to have, HTTYD2 touches on how complex the emotional bond between a person and an animal can be.

The result is that rare thing in cinema -- an intellectually-stimulating crowd-pleaser.

An endearingly cheeky tribute to suspense and slasher classics.

Good Neighbors is a film of acquired taste. If one is willing to accept humor in a movie about a serial killer, if one likes a thriller than emphasizes character over thrills, if one is susceptible to a cast of characters that includes three cats, then the movie has found its very selective target audience.

Their scenes together are the film's best, with Theron and Oswalt, who have very different tempi and temperatures as performers, parrying and thrusting with great expertise.

This is, in a way, a real horror film about everyday things and a disconnected family.

The film has its flaws in storytelling due to the unwieldy size of its narrative but strong performances and an unwavering observation of inhumanity on all sides make Habermann a provocative film.

Young director Marek Najbrt, commendably, is not interested in wringing easy tears from the European experience of World War II. In the handsome drama Protektor, he brings a cool, noirish slant to a story of Czech artists and intellectuals as they accommodate and to a lesser extent resist the German occupiers.

While it might not amount to epic animated filmmaking in terms of scope and invention, Epic, a 3D, CG adventure-fantasy from Blue Sky Studios, nevertheless makes for pleasantly engaging viewing.

The plot gets itself tangled up in multiple villain strands, but in the main this installment is emotionally weightier and more satisfying than its predecessor.

The picture is far from great, but it's a serviceable B-movie with some A-list talent on a slumming expedition.

This is a safe, serviceable, carefully crafted action drama in which the subversive seeds planted in the first story take welcome root.

For admirers of the artist and the open-minded, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow actually presents the ideal way of appreciating Kiefer's extraordinary work.

The Grey, a man's-man of a genre picture that will satisfy the action audience while reminding more discerning viewers what they saw in director Joe Carnahan's decade-old breakthrough, "Narc."

Cameron Crowe's feature documentary is among his most effective and deeply felt work.

Director-writer Chris Paine's upbeat follow-up to his controversial 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" features a number of colorful industry leaders in addition to cameos by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jon Favreau.

Oroves nimbler and truer to its origins than last year's "Rodrick Rules."

Hysteria, is a pleasurable diversion, even if it could have used a touch more spark in the writing.

The film is chock-a-block with extraordinary performances and no one will fault the filmmaking either. This is a well-made movie, make no mistake. It just suffers from a dysfunctional hero.

The actor (Shepard) delivers a beautifully understated, world-weary turn that largely makes up for the slow-paced film's longueurs, and which in a better film could be described as iconic.

Will undoubtedly mean a great deal to Romanians who struggled during this dark period, but not much to anyone else.

In a sense, this is not a financial thriller so much as a financial mystery. Which gets a bit lost in the movie's stylized presentation.

Like the amped up comeback tour of two rockers who had their heyday sometime in the mid-'80s, Sylvester Stallone and director Walter Hill (48 HRS., The Warriors) join forces for a hard-hitting exercise in beefy, brainless fun with the New Orleans-set actioner Bullet to the Head.