Almost as an afterthought to the ringingly true performances--and Marco Bellocchio’s unusually approachable direction--comes a deft analysis of fascism, likened to lovesickness, insanity and a gust of orchestral strings. It’s all of that and more, not to mention a lousy matchmaker.

Writer-director Minos Papas channels both David Lynch and Dante’s "Inferno," but Shutterbug lacks the poetry--or precision--of a true phantasmic freak-out.

Thankfully, the actor-director prepares this potential recipe for hokeyness with all-natural ingredients, casting four of the feistiest biddies he could find, who are all the more endearing for being unadorned.

Bong is so concerned with whodunit that his creaky genre mechanics diminish Kim's determined performance.

Not since a Nam-scarred Sly Stallone asked, "Do we get to win this time?" in "Rambo: First Blood Part II" has an American action star been deployed to rewrite history so thoroughly.

When you have an actor as suggestive as Kazan, swallowing up the lens with allure and complexity, your writer-director becomes superfluous.

you sense that "The Hangover" loomed large over this production. Still, Eve has a true flair for zingers, and the movie’s heart survives intact.

Aside from an uncomfortable-looking Carlos Mencia, who seems to actively cower before the camera, the cast is robotically efficient--though that’s not the same thing as coming out of this lifeless mess unscathed.

Bless you, R.Patz & Co., because this gloriously steaming pile is officially in the bad-movies-we-love pantheon.

Stolen’s major flaws result from writer Glenn Taranto’s screenplay, which keeps piling on plot twists at the expense of anything resembling character development.

Though it’s divided into three chapters--“Voices,” “Recollections” and “Innocence”--the film takes a largely free-form look at a dying community that’s more reminiscent of Frederick Wiseman’s nonfiction case studies than the usual sociopolitical hand-wringing.

Like the big-budget thriller “Green Zone,” which is also opening this week, Kristian Fraga’s documentary catapults us back to the chaos of Iraq circa 2003. But instead of action figure Matt Damon, we get garish, staccato images and hard-bitten voiceover from First Lieutenant Mike Scotti.

Taking a page--or rather, several chapters--from the Eastern European art-house playbook, Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó works this stock tale into a deliberately paced parable of desire and dread.

Children of Invention seems furiously scribbled in shorthand, undermining what it has to offer in contemporary resonance.

Unlike Carroll’s perversely idealized protagonist, Burton’s Alice is just another anachronistic feminist tearing down Victorian patriarchal norms. Even her—[shudder]—Avril Lavigne–blared theme song is a skin-deep grrrl-power accessory.

Antoine Fuqua’s second-rate retread of his own "Training Day" is a bloated, multithread drama concerning three burnt-out cops at the end of their seemingly unconnected ropes.

The movie isn’t quite suitable for the extremely young, but its apocalyptic tint may be catnip for smart preteens. They’ll breathe in the chilly air of a mysterious forest--the way forests should be.

It’s impossible to believe these three clashing personalities would put up with one another for whatever loose change they could split as Washington Square Park buskers. You’re better off giving your money to a real street performer.

Still a mystery: Harlan’s own sense of guilt. But there’s plenty to go around.

Desperation oozes from every frame of Cop Out, which front-loads its best joke -- then spends the rest of its running time endlessly spinning its wheels.

Unlike Romero’s film, what’s missing is a trenchant sense of connection to our historical moment.

Why do we care? Because never before have the steps to thugdom, as depressing as that destination may be, been so rigorously detailed, neither romanticized nor negated. Don’t miss.

Despite the unsubtlety of the movie’s stance, a dizzyingly complex portrait emerges: that of pissed-off museum neighbors, arrogant critics and even the NAACP’s dignified Julian Bond, articulating a racial component.

The dialogue is blandly speechified and the film’s pro-Taiwan agenda seems to have taken precedence over our enjoyment.

Instead of pushing deeper into any psychological dilemmas, this dirty-laundry doc gets lost in a sensationalistic flurry driven by a serious emotional unraveling.

It’s a shame that Toe to Toe adheres so stridently to Indiewood clichés.

Even though the Bello-Hurt thread is unconvincingly brought up to date at the end, this inside-out movie gets good mileage out of letting us watch characters watch each other.

Geraghty’s performance is harrowing: Clinging to the phone and tortured by his ecstasy, he weaves empathy out of a flawed loner’s dysfunctional fetish.