There’s one bright spot amid all the awkward groping and abundant onscreen texting, and his name is Zach Gilford.

The movie does an uncommonly sensitive job probing the psychologies of blocked men, less so the urges of a widow who needs more than comforting words.

The results are often tasteless moments, like Hugh Jackman cackling over footage of an Australian aboriginal ritual scored to techno.

Giggles, not belly laughs, come frequently, and it’ll help if viewers love U.K. comics.

One of the main explanations for our country’s inner-city high-school dropout rate is that public education doesn’t teach skills applicable to life outside the classroom. Director Mary Mazzio’s film, part documentary and part public-service announcement, offers a plausible alternative, which may prompt a discussion of totally revamping standard curriculum.

It’s a dud.

The film slowly loses the sobering toughness of its initial inquiry, and finally comes off as bloodline-biased hagiography.

Even if Women in Trouble didn’t keep bringing to mind a superior artist, the film would still be badly written (DOA tangents about cunnilingus and kink don’t make dialogue edgy, only vulgar), not to mention unevenly paced and an embarrassment to all involved.

"Southland Tales" was a soporific mess, and while The Box (based on material by novelist Richard Matheson) is superior by a certain margin, Kelly derails his newfound discipline with the usual shimmering portals and hazy notions of apocalyptic sacrifice.

Given the months-long hype, what’s most bewildering about Sundance sensation Precious is its overall shrug-worthiness.

Unfortunately, none of the subsequent noise is all that scary, and the striving for "Paranormal Activity’s" buzz is shameless.

The unspoken theme underlying Dickens’s prose--that the money-grubbing Ebenezer is conversing with semblances of his own self--finds near-perfect cinematic expression through Carrey’s efforts.

An unfocused comedy about weird Army pseudoscience, ends up blinking before we laugh.

While this totally impartial approach is admirable, it also robs Collapse of any invested sensibility. Smith has given this bull a stage on which to rage, but why the filmmaker has bothered to mount the platform in the first place is, frustratingly, anybody’s guess.

Fans of "The Wire," take note: Clarke “Lester Freamon” Peters does an impressive turn as Nelson Mandela.

Equal parts Hollywood meet-cute and quirky coming-of-age tale.

The grizzled veteran actor, naturally, elevates the material like a pro, yet the entire exercise feels thin and reedy, trading in geriatric sentiment instead of hard-forged emotion.

Both Project Greenlight runners-up, directors Michael Aimette and John G. Hofmann get the teen angst and Gaelic aesthetic right; too bad their third-act thuggery isn’t just routine, but ridiculous.

Storm’s remarkable poignancy is made all the more palpable by its restraint.

It’s unfair to blame Hess solely for condescension comedy’s bad aftertaste--he’s not the only perpetrator--but his particular brand is the most graceless.

The story is too rich in incident for Fabian, whose episodic TV-movie approach speeds through Laing’s lifetime of abuse.

Only Billy Connolly, as the boys’ way-of-the-gun pa, brings a smidgen of sobering gravitas to the proceedings, though he can hardly counter the pounding hangover brought on by all the mock-virtuous butchery.

West is far more adept at and interested in sustaining an unrelentingly ominous mood than in executing the genre-required spook shocks.

This shapeless series of unfunny vignettes (interspersed with pointless street interviews) deserves to be slapped hard.

Even when it’s shooting in the swing states, the film never finds drama, focus or any greater purpose other than some dubious horn-blowing about the SEIU being singularly responsible for electing President Obama.

Krakowski’s modestly charming culture-shock comedy has an unusual midpoint game changer, as it suddenly mutates into an intimate familial-generational drama.

Michael Jackson was obviously shooting for the moon right before his death, as you can tell from these stunning bits of concert spectacle.

What’s ultimately more impressive than the vigorous madcap action and innocuous humor, however, is Bowers’s willingness to address adult themes--alienation, regret, class tensions--with a directness that shows a surprising respect for his target young-adult audience