Documentarian Morgan Neville has fashioned a spirited riposte to the groundless cliche that Los Angeles is a cultural wasteland.

A young cast and hotheaded melodramatic streak make it broadly accessible, perhaps enough so to help the film scrape past boxoffice challenges faced by other Iraq-centered features.

By-the-numbers screen parody fails to resurrect an increasingly tired genre.

A relatively lame exercise that never achieves comic traction.

What The Grand lacks in originality it more than makes up for with its high percentage of funny moments.

The film hardly could be credited with breaking any new ground, but it has a hangdog charm, much like its leading actor.

Features a fine performance by Angela Bassett, but her work is the sole subtle element.

Genuine scares are few and far between, and the climactic explanation for the ghost's appearances comes as something less than a revelation.

An eye-catching combination of cultural history, performer profiles and competition footage that should see enthusiastic response from niche audiences in urban and specialty venues.

Marianne Faithfull is unforgettable as a middle-class, middle-aged frump …in Sam Garbarski's crowd-pleasing comedy-drama Irina Palm.

Mitra, clad in the requisite tight, sexy outfits, conveys a suitable toughness but little in the way of personality, while such distinguished British actors as Bob Hoskins and Adrian Lester dutifully show up to collect their paychecks.

A delight, brimming with colorful, elastic characters and bountiful wit.

Although the movie set in the hot new arena of mixed martial arts is a bit short on star power, it's energetic and warm-hearted enough to become a word-of-mouth hit.

Even if the movie takes you to some dark places you would rather not visit, at least you will remember the actors who navigate the tortured journey.

The movie is, arguably, too long and overladen with ideas. Klotz and Perceval are particularly keen on nailing the use and abuse of language in formatting human behavior.

The plot development of Flash Point is purely utilitarian, like a shuttle bus that transports stock characters from one action set to another.

Perhaps the best way to appreciate the picture, its few intellectual pretensions notwithstanding, is as a classy horror film with a particularly nasty edge. It's not exactly entertainment, but it casts a poisonous spell.

The film's economical style, vivid cinematography and tremendous acting should attract audiences far and wide.

As one might expect, there are campy moments and far too much reliance on God-like interventions in the affairs of early man. Less expected is that 10,000 BC works just fine as an action Western with handsome actors in striking costumes and a few CG predators, which are giddy fun.

A slow-paced and often confusingly plotted crime drama that never lives up to the delicious potential of its premise.

What is puzzling is the incompatibility of the two leads with their roles. Raven is supposed to be a high school senior on a road trip to check out prospective universities. But she acts like a adolescent on a sugar high during a weekend sleepover.

Sustains itself through terrific forward momentum and two glorious star turns by gifted actresses Frances McDormand and Amy Adams.

In Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant enters the world of high school kids just as he did in "Elephant," achieving this time a much sharper, more focused portrait of how these rapidly maturing young people act, think, speak and behave.

Snow Angels succeeds because of the depth of its well-drawn characters. With no cinematic sugarcoating, it's an organic story that draws us in to these people's lives, as flawed and destructive as they may be.

A hyperactive, wishful-thinking special effects fantasy suitable for family outings.

Put three old friends in a convertible for a cross-country road trip to a loved one's funeral, and what do you get? Very few surprises, in this feel-good fluff that, despite offering nothing novel, could do well with older audiences who rightly feel that too few films are being made with them in mind.

Shot in high definition and filmed at many historic locations, the film somehow still lacks the splendor of an epic, and its urgency to get on with the next plot point leaves much unexplained while context goes out the window.

The result is an entertaining comedy for young girls and older girls who still like a good romantic fable.