Fans may be disappointed that some of the show's secondary characters, like Lizzie's pal Miranda, are AWOL from this Prince and the Pauper-style escapade, and some of the scenes involving Gellman are disappointingly flat.

Moncrieff offers a rare, unromantic take on female adolescence as sharp as a razor: It cuts right to the bone.

An enthralling, suspenseful documentary about spelling bees.

The puzzle pieces are all there. But when you put them all together, the result is a bit of a gyp — neat but utterly forgettable.

The cast — a felicitous blend of character actors and up-and-comers — work together like a street-smart machine, and Hoffman's scummy turn as porn-peddler and all-around creep King is a reminder of just how sleazily funny he can be.

To an outsider, it's pretty thin stuff.

The real trouble is Jack: He's narcissistic and tough to like (Pontevecchio's fine, but a younger actor might not have brought an impression of arrested development to the character), and his crude sense of humor borders on the disgusting.

Dumb premises have driven some wonderful romantic comedies, but for all its vaguely mystical trappings, Prywes's film lacks the magic that makes them work.

Pacino's no-holds-barred performance is either the reason to see this tepid thriller or the reason to avoid it. His evocation of a Sidney Falco-style flack worn to a nub by decades of trying to spin this dirty town is nothing if not bravura.

The film doesn't really go anywhere, other than outside for endless games of basketball, and the group-therapy environment allows for far too many young-actor monologues.

Dillon makes an assured directing debut, neither indulging in unnecessary stylistic flourishes nor allowing scenes to run too long, a tendency in actors-turned-director.

On a miniscule budget, Ghobadi conveys the terror of war, while the beautifully edited sequence in which Iranian villagers make bricks resembles nothing so much as a choreographed dance number.

Undeniably entertaining.

An excellent introduction to the subject, and a movie buff's delight.

The quality of the CGI-heavy special effects is variable and Nomura's fey performance as Seimei gives his relationship with Hiromasa a distinctly homoerotic cast that may or may not be intentional, but the demon zombies and Doson's cackling familiar are crowd pleasers.

The film delivers some genuine laughs — Diggs and Anderson are a hoot throughout — and real rapper Snoop Dogg all but steals the picture with his brief voice turn as Ronnie Rizzat.

Simultaneously nakedly formulaic and oddly clumsy, particularly in terms of character introduction.

In light of the aesthetic of ugliness that informs von Trier's Dogme films, it's easy to forget how subtly beautiful his work once was.

Akinshina and Bogucharskij are remarkable together, and Moodysson once again demonstrates a sophisticated visual skill matched only by his innate understanding of the adolescent heart.

Its real liability is on the special effects front: The sub-par digital effects — particularly in the scenes featuring poisonous lizards — detract noticeably from the overall atmosphere.

Absolutely breathtaking documentary whose close-up shots of birds in flight are so freakishly intimate that the film is compelled to open with the statement they're not special effects.

So formulaic it starts to fade from memory before the last punch is thrown.

The energy is infectious, and while the female empowerment angle is no doubt sincere, the whole up-tempo construction jiggles a bit too much to be taken seriously.

Extraordinary documentary.

Exceptionally satisfying and enormously entertaining.

While the unfortunate epilogue strains the naturalism of what's gone on before and leaves a bit of a sour taste, this semi-improvisational comedy otherwise reaches Balzacian brilliance.

William Klein's film documents a turbulent time and an outsized personality, but the film's glories are in the details and its intimacy would be unimaginable in the rigidly spin-controlled atmosphere of 21st-century sports.

Jelski's screenplay, a finalist in the fiercely competitive Walt Disney Screenwriting Fellowship competition, is repetitive and stagy.