Lone Scherfig directs it all as if it were a breezy lark, so a third-act tonal shift makes for an incongruous, excessively moralistic fit with everything that’s preceded. Most insulting, though, is the way in which the climactic passages miraculously tidy up every frayed edge of Jenny’s life.

Forgive the film its "Napoleon Dynamite" overquirk; a loving god is watching all, genuflected to on bedroom-wall posters and seen in the film's final five minutes--and if you're not a Rush fan, this is not your movie

Refn has somehow found his way to an authentic English hard-man drama, anchored in a dynamite performance, even as it celebrates thug life.

Hardly the heady stuff of "Frost/Nixon"--or then again, maybe exactly the same thing. This one’s more rude and fun.

A slipshod documentary about a fascinating subject: the loaded history and current complications of African-American hairstyling.

Peter and Vandy is crippled by DiPietro’s interest in repetition. Activities that were cute and fun at the beginning, we see, ultimately become tedious. The novelty of the film’s gimmick follows suit.

You sense the Demme-esque working-class comedy that might have been.

It’s an unnecessarily quirky affair, with collages, archival footage and interviews in extreme close-up, which--perhaps intentionally--make it seem like an experimental ’70s throwback.

Visual Acoustics goes out of its way to remain as kindly and pleasing as Shulman himself.

The movie’s b&w images of craggy landscapes and shirtless young men have never looked more vibrant.

God bless their antics, but the Yes Men’s jestful jousting feels more like tilting at windmills

Shallow snapshots don’t diminish the raw emotional potency of this inspiring tale, in which art provides in-need kids with both an escape from daily hardship and a vehicle for restoring confidence in themselves and the future.

The movie isn’t particularly scary--not a crime when your goal is laughs. More egregious is the niggling fact that this simply isn’t as witty as "Shaun of the Dead," forever the yuks-meet-yucks standard.

Once the sharp, clever satire gives way to what feels like a special must-see-TV episode, the movie’s promise slowly deflates.

Marcia Gay Harden is the picture’s treasure; watching her swell with concern at her daughter’s choices, you understand how hard it is to let go.

The Coens nod at some familiar stylistic tropes – florid swearing, sexual euphemism, crusty, aged characters – but the film’s potency is rooted in quiet precision and detailed realisation.

With the film heavily favoring extensive on-court footage at the expense of in-depth individual portraits, the “more” offered here is merely skin-deep, basketball-is-a-brotherhood uplift.

Clichéd and formulaic.

The public appetite for high-school high jinks may be limitless, but the pretentious camerawork and empty ideas of this feature-length mope yield little pleasure or insight.

Ferrara’s unconventional methods only manage to serve Chelsea on the Rocks, his loving portrait of Manhattan’s boho landmark, the Chelsea Hotel.

Far more deserving of the hoopla Mike Figgis received for his single-take, multicamera drama "Timecode" (2000), Finnish visual artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s experimental narrative truly pushes forward the possibilities of split-screen cinema.

Conventional as the film may be, the two leads are quite adept, and director Florent Emilio Siri proves to have an exquisite eye for battlefield tableaux.

Though Hilary Helstein’s film displays depth, its structure relies too heavily on Maya Angelou’s narration to flesh out deeper implications.

The Horse Boy comes off as both an edifying work of advocacy and an invasive home movie.

It helps that Fame has been cast with performers who have the glow of possibility about them.

Anne Fontaine’s biopic transforms the designer’s early life into highbrow guilty-pleasure gold.

What follows is pulp made near-profound through director Jonathan Mostow’s sure-handed guidance.

This is hackwork of the highest order, lacking in all poetry and barely comprehensible aurally or visually.