For all the gushy feelings, the plight of women like Kiranjit, bound not only by domineering, often physically abusive husbands but by racism and oppressive cultural traditions as well, is poignantly portrayed.

Though rooted in broad stereotypes and sassy platitudes, the film's feisty cast and generally sunny outlook make for warm and reassuring comfort viewing, the equivalent of a straight-from-the-box dish of mac and cheese.

It's riveting to watch the shows' respective creators work, clash, whine, celebrate and commiserate as the season and their stories unfold.

The movie opens with the dismal statistic that most teachers quit after three years. Akel and Mass see the humor in the situation, but the laughs are small and sad.

Spare, elegant and tailor-made for intense discussions over dark coffee, Boe's film is a slily bold and delightfully inventive variation on an age-old theme.

In the end, despite Williams' extraordinary, nearly wordless performance, it's impossible to fathom what this young woman is experiencing at her moment of crisis, because we never knew what could have brought her to such a desperate pass in the first place.

Tsai finds great beauty in streets of Kuala Lumpur particularly at night, making this gorgeous film one that should be seen on a large screen in the total darkness of a theater.

Audacious, hypnotic and utterly breathtaking.

A well-acted character piece.

A sad and sometimes funny tale of Alzheimer's, love and loss.

Raimi and company deftly balance spectacle and character-based drama, occasionally tweaking the comic-book mythology but always respecting creator Stan Lee's idea that costumed crime-fighter Peter Parker's life as Spider-Man isn't all derring-do and public accolades.

Director Jeff Renfroe and screenwriter Andrew Joiner's flashy psychological thriller wants to say something important about the dangers of a fear-mongering media and resultant ethnic profiling in an age of terrorism, but their warnings are undone by a tricky plot that tries to have it both ways while leaving the audience arguing among themselves as to what it all means.

Three Belgian clowns wrote and directed this sly, winsome tale of one woman's quest for her destiny in the polar seas after an absurd but life-altering accident reveals the emptiness of her mundane, middle-class life.

The film is a pleasant breeze that refreshes, mostly because it's a rare, thoughtful comedy clearly intended for grown-ups.

As is always the case with compilation films, some segments are far better than others. But they're all so brief that the least of them passes quickly and the best are small miracles of economical storytelling.

Shelly was murdered before she could continue developing as a writer and director, and while this, her last film, is extremely uneven and undermined by an excess of quirk, Keri Russell's performance as a pregnant pie-guru is a charmer with a bracing streak convincingly desperate determination.

Deraspe's film begins as a mystery and becomes a razor-sharp dissection of the self-promotion, pretension and deeply cynical inner workings of the art world. But her greatest achievement is painting the business of art as venal, corrupt, mendacious and built on false surfaces without suggesting that art itself is a form of glorious deception.

Lawrence delves deep into the moral dilemma at the heart of Carver's deceptively simple tale. By deliberately making the young woman in the river aboriginal, the film also opens up yet another dimension in the reaction to the men's inaction: Would they have acted any differently had the murder victim been white?

Steve Austin is conspicuously inarticulate and uncharismatic. Former soccer lout Vinnie Jones, whom no one will ever mistake for Laurence Olivier, acts rings around him.

A textbook illustration of the American movie industry's ability to take an offbeat foreign film and systematically alter or soften every provocative and original thing about it.

Some of the humor is pretty raunchy (there are quite a few sex-related scenes and jokes) and tasteless. Adults old enough to appreciate the choice electro-boogaloo soundtrack and get the "Mr. Roboto" jokes will doubtless find the rest of it painfully dumb.

Misbegotten mess.

Likably low-key, character-driven dramatic comedy.

Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman imbue screenwriter Angela Pell's characters with a quiet authenticity that's surprisingly moving.

This sly, subtle and very French psychological drama dissects the relationship between three insecure Sorbonne students and their deeply flawed idol.

The boys' laddish catchphrase -- "Shut up!" -- is particularly irritating, especially since they never do.

Heartfelt but only intermittently interesting documentary.

Despite its failings, Wind Chill represents a road rarely taken by 21st-century American horror films: Original (in the non-remake sense of the term), subtle and restrained.