Director George Hickenlooper captures the energy and ultra-irony of Warhol's scene, but his attempts to give the film a conventional biopic arc end up wallowing in dime-store psychology.

More interesting conceptually than dramatically, Eric Nicholas' thriller Alone With Her boasts a highly clever technological conceit, albeit one that was exploited many years ago to a lesser degree in "The Anderson Tapes."

While the film bristles with cinematic verve, it also is as second-hand as an antique store.

The laugher about a meek middle manager who finds a life-changing fortune takes a while to hit its stride, but in its best stretches, it offers deliriously spirited farce.

Amongst the cardboard-cutout supporting characters, Lauren Graham brings a welcome deadpan sensibility to the overeager proceedings.

While Kramer's well-conceived screenplay features much amusing dialogue, there's a forced quality to the proceedings that makes the comic premise seem more artificial than it needs to be.

The film successfully replicates the mellow charm of Brit hits "About A Boy" and "Love Actually."

Tigers shares a penchant for rigorous self-analysis with such relatively recent films as "Chumscrubber," "Mysterious Skin" and "Tarnation."

With its clever premise and quartet of appealing comedic star turns, Wild Hogs is a step above the typical comedies rolling off the assembly lines of the major studios.

Alternately provocative and highly silly, the film overcomes its more ludicrous aspects through its glossy visual style, its frequent doses of humor and the obvious associations it evokes to its creator's real-life experiences.

It's very much in "A League of Their Own" league, but what the inspirational sports drama Believe in Me might lack in freshness, it nicely compensates for in heartfelt, winning conviction and spirited performances.

One either likes this sort of thing or not. Even fans might not buy the ending in which more people get wiped out than in Hurricane Katrina.

No doubt about it, the show's certifiably bizarro, stream-of-consciousness sensibility has made the transition notably intact, which should please its young male fan base.

While the duo's crimes were indeed sensational, writer-director Todd Robinson's starry take on the material fails to provide much in the way of a new perspective.

All the action is staged with energy, but it gets relentless without anything really funny going on.

Being in Paris is to be inside a work of art, and it is no surprise that in the charming collection of vignettes that make up Paris je t'aime, the art is love.

Much of the bite and a good deal of the wit of the first two films are missing here. The rude send-up of beloved fairy tale conventions remains -- somewhat -- but these playful jabs no longer come as pleasing surprises. You expect them. And you expect better.

Day Watch does dazzle and even at times amuse. But its imagination is limited. The backstory is shallow and pat. Its characters are mostly one-note. And everything goes on much too long at 133 minutes.

The film is messy the way Piaf's life was messy: It's unafraid of extravagant gestures even when they fail to come off.

"Phoenix" might go down as the problematic film, full of plot but little fun.

Not a bad film and veteran star Daniel Auteuil makes any film he inhabits an interesting place to visit. Perversely, its tissue-thin substance may even make the comedy more commercial in North America than such films of his as "Monsieur Hire" and "Ridicule."

Below-the-line credits are terrific, which only increases an overwhelming sense of disappointment with the film's failed ambitions.

The curious thing here is that Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor rewrote this long-in-development screenplay. Yet the authors of such smart comedies as "Sideways," "About Schmidt" and "Citizen Ruth" can't move the film away from the world of easy laughs and sitcom jokes into a realm where sexual prejudices and presumptions get examined in a whimsical yet insightful manner.

The movie isn't nearly as bad as you would expect when the studio holds its only press screening the night before a national opening.

The good news is that Christopher Walken, resplendent in purple silk, isn't the film's sole redeeming element. The bad news is that even his arch-villain can't save Balls of Fury from losing bounce as the story proceeds.

As usual, Zombie has added an element of camp fun to the proceedings with his clever casting of B-movie icons in small roles, including Dee Wallace, Brad Dourif, Danny Trejo and Sid Haig.

The long buildup is too deliberate to please the mainstream horror crowd, and the finale might alienate more niche audiences, but in between there's a good bit to savor.

The actress, wielding a pair of swords like a chef from Benihana, remains a striking action heroine, though she's more convincing visually -- those taut thighs are weapons unto themselves -- than vocally.