It's a sly, subtle portrait of systematic hypocrisy.

Heartwarming is not always a bad thing.

Though Bittner's slacker charm may not be to all tastes, the parrots are natural-born scene-stealers with more than enough charm to seduce the most dubious viewer.

It's the perfect "smackeral" of adventure for youngsters craving Pooh Bear and his pals.

This is first-rate comedy of discomfort, so don't sample it with a date unless you're looking for a very queasy evening.

A frustrating lack of details compromise this much-needed look at how the promise of American diversity failed a community of Somali refugees in a large Maine town.

If you can't spell "bogeyman," you shouldn't make movies about him.

It might be best to discreetly misplace your invitation to these strained festivities.

Sensitively played but ultimately undone by its unconventional approach.

For all its maturity - and nice performances from Johnson and Phoenix - the film winds up dancing around the 500-lb gorilla in the middle of the room rather than facing the pathology of its real subject head-on.

Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's most accessible film to date is also his most wrenching.

And if you never learn much about the man behind the mask, well, that's as Nomi would have wanted it.

The manipulative climax works, even as you feel like the jerk in tear-jerking.

Fingleton turned his own story into a feel-good fable; neither Martin McGrath's gorgeous cinematography nor the hypnotic score by Run Lola Run(1998) composers Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil's can compensate.

Aside from the women themselves, the most remarkable thing about Gabbert's unexpectedly entertaining film is how effortlessly it dispels misconceptions about the elderly.

Greenebaum manages to portray old-age as a condition with its own peculiar beauty and considerable grace.

Runge's coolly photographed, intricately plotted feature is always interesting in its execution, but disappointingly pat in its resolution.

McKenzie's mercurial performance is the centerpiece of this sad, surprisingly absorbing story.

Turturro's sweaty, lumpen Cain is a profoundly disagreeable guide down the rabbit hole of hallucinatory paranoia.

Offbeat and ravishingly beautiful.

Too lazy to play your own d--- video game? Lucky for you there's horror director-for-hire Uwe Boll, who's making a career out of adapting successful Atari and Sega games into tedious popcorn fare that's the ultimate in cinematic passivity.

The film's last 20 minutes devolve into a tedious slog through the kind of pointless, predictable running and screaming that give horror movies a bad name.

An equally discomfiting mix of popular science and ballyhoo, serves up amazing images of the bizarre life that flourishes in the deepest ocean depths.

The less said about the story's twists and turns the better, except to warn that they become increasing preposterous with each passing minute.

If you have the stomach - or the Dramamine - it's a touching, humorous take on Jewish life in contemporary Argentina.

The subject can sharply divide even the most liberal-minded critics, but it's no secret on which side of the debate filmmakers Bathsheba Ratzkoff and Sut Jhally find themselves.

Repetitive, predictable comedy.

Like his intrepid hero, theater-turned-film director Ekachai Uekrongtham never misses an opportunity to brighten an otherwise ordinary palette with just a bit more color.

Fatih Akin's surprisingly grisly feature spills more blood than both of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films combined, which is strange when you consider that it's a love story.

Even when the script takes a turn for the chatty, there's always something pretty to look at.

Each woman is a terrific interview, and if the climactic vision of these still beautiful ladies gliding through the water doesn't bring a lump to your throat, you surely have no heart.

Alnoy's narrative is better suited to a trashy thriller than a vehicle for weighty political themes.

Viewers are left to draw their own conclusions, which inevitably will be colored by individual reactions to unabashed frontal nudity.

A slicked up, perfectly watchable update of a movie that was just about perfect on its own bleakly seedy terms.

Wood's drama packs an emotional gut-punch that's all the more devastating for its being rooted in a dreadful historical reality.

As an explanation of where we are today, the entire film makes for crucial viewing.

Delivers its commendable message with affecting eloquence.

Pinup appeal alone does not a compelling movie make.

Bland family comedy.

Barratier has assembled an unforgettable gallery of faces both young and old, and prolific character actor Berleand plays the perfect villain.

The film's lingering exploration of their sleek surfaces verges on roboporn.

This excellent documentary from Iraqi writer-turned-filmmaker Sinan Antoon presents their hopes and fears directly from the Iraqis themselves.

Increasingly preposterous, thoroughly credibility-straining escapades.

Orenna, Thornton and Belton deliver strong, surprisingly subtle performances that make the modest fireworks genuinely engaging.

The animation is truly breathtaking, the action sequences are spectacular (and sometimes very violent) and everything floats along on the strains of Il Won's spare, hypnotic score.

If the movie overall had the bitter brio of Malcolm McDowell's brief turn as Globecom guru Teddy K, a Franken-mogul stitched together from bits of Richard Branson, Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch, it would be a pointed black comedy.

Uncomfortable as the film is, it's a beautiful, sensuous experience.

This smooth concoction goes down with a pleasant tingle and leaves behind a warm glow.

Unfortunately, the trajectory of Mueller and co-screenwriter Kevin Kennedy's repetitive screenplay echoes "Taxi Driver" so closely as to invite unfavorable comparison with Martin Scorsese's benchmark chronicle of alienation.

Basic knowledge of the original series is mandatory, but the more familiar you are, the more glaring this movie's considerable deficiencies will seem.

All of this of course would be forgivable if it all added up to a scary movie or made even a lick of sense, but Balaguero manages to disappoint on all possible fronts.

Kassell's visual influences are evident -- she's clearly a fan of the down-and-dirty films of the '70s -- but the consistently fine performances smooth over the rough patches.

An enjoyable hour-and-a-half for adults that creates a wholly unique world of colorful sets, costumes, and characters.

Danner, whose Dina actually resembles a human being, would be its saving grace if her gracefully controlled performance weren't lost in a sea of braying caricatures.

But beneath the bombast it's pure paste and tinsel and, robbed of the thrill of live performance, the show's deficiencies are glaringly apparent.

It's a great part for a great actor and Cheadle does a magnificent job turning this living legend back into flawed, flesh-and-blood reality.

The result is an astonishingly complex, striking original portrait of an artist whose deeply personal art, intended for no one but God and himself, demands to be treated on its own terms.

Even more astonishing that the superb acting is the simple fact that director Gianni Amelio has managed to craft a touching tale of a father reunited with his disabled son without the slightest whiff of sentimentality.

Brisk, glossy and gloriously art-directed, Scorsese's lavish biopic is a pop trifle, engaging but not compelling.

Carrey's relentless showboating is almost its undoing.

Surprisingly heartfelt tale.

The first-act crash is admittedly spectacular and the ending adequately suspenseful, but what comes between is disappointingly routine and completely lacks the kind character complexity that made the original a thrill every step of the way.

In the end, Spacey's devotion to Darin may have blinded him to the bigger picture.

The result isn't an easy film, but it is rewarding.

The first-rate cast is lost at sea.

fans of this venerable Eurotrash form will welcome any evidence that it's still alive and writhing lasciviously.

Is there anything remotely new left to be said about the world's oldest profession?

Eastwood's slow-building story of loss and deliverance is a fine, understated piece of storytelling that earns every emotional body blow it lands.

Hate the holidays? You're in luck: Here's a bottomed-out Santa story.

This lackluster sequel was surely much more fun to make than it is to watch.

It's so cool all the life has drained away, leaving nothing behind but a faint whiff of attitude.

Whether this measured exercise in romantic melancholy moves you to tears or bores you to them is probably a matter of personal susceptibility to the sting of bitter regret for love lost.

This intermittently interesting symbolic tour through European history once again places ideas over aesthetics and technique.

cinematographer Mo-gai Li's keen sense of color balance and composition make this freaky fairy tale the most beautiful - if not the scariest - horror movie in ages.

There's nothing beneath the flashy editing and self-consciously cool production design but a soulless adrenaline machine that's never scary and rarely engrossing.

In a rare and inspiring example of the way art can both reflect and alleviate human suffering, photojournalist Zana Briski's wrenching documentary traces her valiant use of photography to help children trapped in one of the most wretched places on earth.

Overall, Owen and Law are more nuanced than Roberts and Portman, but Portman's dewy youth is 90 percent of Alice (the remaining 10 is an eleventh-hour twist), and Nichols uses the unkindly costumed Roberts so skillfully that her performance looks like a revelation.

This film pivots on a romantic triangle as overwrought as it is stylized. It's like a Douglas Sirk melodrama ratcheted up with fists of fury and wrapped in apparently endless yards of shimmering silk.

The gorgeous Mole Antonelliana is the breakout star of Ferrario's fluffy valentine to the cinema.

The limp thriller plot Deery constructs to frame his theological inquiries is both artificial and not very interesting, a lethal combination.

It never fails to come as a shock to find how profoundly moving it all is when these gentle films draw to their graceful conclusions.

The competition between man and machine is fogged by distrust and obfuscation. And for now, the result is a draw.

While probably not suitable for the wee ones, older kids and most adults will love this exciting and heartfelt adventure of one boy's survival during the darkest days of post-war Europe.

The result isn't exactly funny, just profoundly peculiar and even occasionally, unexpectedly poignant.

Highlights how far we've fallen.

If watching devout churchgoers pray to Jesus before a static camera sounds like the dullest idea ever for a documentary, think again: This might be the most fun you've ever had in church.

Set mostly over the course of a single evening, the film is lugubriously paced and filled with improbable turns of events.

The film is a trifle long too long for its rather slim mystery, but in face of so much beauty and invention that's a small quibble.

Weinstock's trump is Moreau, a natural-born charmer.

The film is beautifully told and superbly acted. More importantly, Paul Laverty's screenplay goes along way toward showing how the traditionalism that can turn a community inward on itself is often a response to racism, and in that sense the film's timing couldn't have been any better.

Though Hearst is the hook, Stone's unwavering focus is on the heady mix of social and personal dynamics that spawned the SLA.

The effect is hypnotically disorienting, but the less familiar you are with this period in 20th-century Chinese history, the easier it is to get hopelessly lost in the tangle of personal and political loyalties and betrayals.

Melodramatic.

There are two stunning battle sequences, and that rose-tinted bloodbath is a stroke of the eccentric genius for which Stone is famous.

Curtis' considerable and diverse talents don't go entirely unused.

Alternately accessible and obscure, the film is almost too rich to digest at one sitting, but even if experiencing this remarkable films means latching onto just a few of its myriad ideas, it's still a richly rewarding encounter.

Rough around the edges but rock-solid in its sense of place and its depiction of real people overreaching their apparent limitations.

The film's secret weapon is its kicky soundtrack.