Funny and heartbreaking, this is a movie that would have made the '80s-era Jonathan Demme, attuned to American anxieties, blush with pride.

Surprise! The upper-middle-class family is still rotten to the core. In Vivi Friedman's overstuffed farce, the parents cheat on each other, the daughter dresses like a streetwalker, and the Bible-thumping son starts carrying a Glock.

The closer this parable inches toward tragedy, the more you can feel the gap between good intentions and generic exotica-grandstanding widening into an unbridgeable chasm.

What might have been a long walk off a short pier becomes a valid, vital rethinking of a crime classic.

Thankfully, the 3-D is surprisingly well-used, not just for arterial spray but to accentuate the constraints of the mega-bland, housing-bubble architecture of the characters' neighborhood. That anonymity is the real horror show.

That all sours by the time of the film's "shocking" climax, which is so hilariously telegraphed, it plays like a Benny Hill gag rather than a tear-duct stoker.

The film's secret weapon proves to be Freddy Krueger–fingernailed witch Marique, whom Rose McGowan plays with the kind of fuck-it-all brio - imagine a cross between Madeline Kahn in "History of the World: Part I" and Lady Gaga - that should garner her a Razzie and an Oscar.

Mona Achache's character study plays like a Gallic version of a Sundance flick, complete with on-the-nose references - Igawa's character is named Mr. Ozu - and just enough offbeat touches to make it seem more deep than it actually is.

This haphazard "exposé" only proves that hackery plus hot air [time] does not equal skillful muckraking.

The film's dogged repetitions regarding Nannerl's real-life raw deal dilute the reparative nature of the story after a while, and not even the movie's grainy, retro–art-cinema look can keep viewers from gradually tuning out.

An attempt to detail the plight of North Koreans in their new homeland, The Journals of Musan doesn't soft-pedal the hardship; Park, however, apparently felt obligated to stack the deck against the film's passive protagonist to a ridiculous degree.

Ford has come up with a nifty way of exploring the enduring allure and troubling underside of the superhero myth. It's just too bad his own all-too-human powers aren't quite up to the task.

The hard fact, though, is that Harlin's instincts - always toward the massive and slo-mo - make him a fairly dunderheaded political analyst.

Amigo's penchant for polemics keeps upsetting any semblance of balance; how can anyone hear the grace notes when the soapboxing is so deafening?

Inventive yet exhausting tale of two circus clowns.

The subjects - a husband and wife struggling to make ends meet, mostly for the well-being of their infant daughter - are eminently engaging.

It isn't long, however, before the film's caricatured bad-guy shtick starts to wear gossamer thin, and an overabundance of "clever" twists-no one is [Yawn] who they seem to be! - begins to sap whatever little goodwill has been built up.

Interviews with real-life Gleeks contribute to the signature mix of schmaltz and earnestness one can expect from any Ryan Murphy vehicle, and there's nothing here that couldn't be accomplished in good old 2-D. Still, there's no need to stop believing.

But you do take the film home with you - to all your own toys - and that's what decent horror is supposed to do.

Phenomenally sad yet exhilarating.

Breathtaking imagery competes with a scary lack of human interest in this hypnotic, potentially alienating documentary.

The ugly Americanism gets piled on thick - racists, dickwads and ignoramuses, oh my! - but there's a melancholy to this indie's cross-cultural explorations and communication breakdowns that compensates for the broader swipes.

Damn! clearly knows a thing or two about fameballs, but it leaves the rest of the heavy lifting to the viewer.

It's hard to hate a movie that affectionately references the oeuvre of Kathryn Bigelow (both The Hurt Locker and Point Break!) and uses a whiny Third Eye Blind ballad as an acidic punch line.

Spencer, a superb performer mainly known for small character parts, gives a star-making turn as the won't-take-no-guff Minny.

The middle section of the story is where Rise truly takes off, perhaps in ways that will have viewers forgiving the rest.

Our heroine plods doggedly through her frequently stymied investigation, and The Whistleblower follows suit, trudging forward one encumbered step at a time.

Protektor is simply another in a long line of diluted stories about life during wartime, one whose diminished returns only further trivialize a legacy of real-life horror.