Built on such a goofy premise that your average soap-opera scriptwriter would laugh it out of a story meeting.

Despite the curry flavoring Ms. Nair has seen fit to add, this is a Vanity Fair without spice.

An excruciatingly embarrassing display of ego and ineptitude.

Rich in motion -- the very clothes of the characters seem under a choreographer's direction -- as well as imagery.

Unspeakably ghastly sequel to the merely ghastly original.

Directed by E. Elias Merhige, the film is never less than entertaining, but Sir Ben's portrayal of a sympathetic psychopath gives it a special zing.

Well, incredibly stupid is certainly what is delivered to audiences.

Earnest but deeply flawed.

As in most movies of this sort from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "West Side Story" to last year's "Thirteen," adults are marginalized, clueless or absent. I'm with them.

Set ablaze by a startling performance by Laura Dern, it's a stark, often disturbing look at the ramifications of betrayal.

As reassuring and soothing as a nursery story.

Hugely entertaining thriller.

"Working Girl," is also heard in Little Black Book; it serves only to remind audiences of that far more winning story of triumph in the office. But there are many reminders of what a tiresome effort this is.

At times somber, and now and then dangerously close to self-important, Code 46 is nonetheless a smart, mature film that examines who and what we can be to each other, in a world full of invention and change.

Open Water, which was made for $130,000 -- and seemingly without special-effects assistance -- proves you don't have to have a big budget to have an audience on the edge of its seat.

Shrewdly reconceived, powerfully acted and hugely entertaining.

It's bad enough to make parable a four-letter word.

Mr. Luchini gives one of the best performances of the year, in one of the best movies of the year.

Mr. Braff's idea of self-discovery is my idea of narcissism.

It's too much for a feature film, and too little, but it certainly isn't dull.

Supremacy certainly works on its own terms, but those terms are limiting. It's an entertainment machine about a killing machine.

Qualifies as top-grade catnip for connoisseurs of trashy camp.

Impressive for Patrick Tatopoulos's production design but depressive for the juiceless story.

A remarkable -- and harrowing -- debut feature that makes you think there's hope after all for the future of independent films.

One of those rare and complex dramas that you can enter, not simply watch.

The sweet spirit that made last year's "Elf" such a success has curdled considerably.

Every sport, and every sports film, must have its superman. The role is filled here by Laird Hamilton, who, we are told -- and, more astonishingly, shown -- took "the single most significant ride in surfing history." Seeing is believing.

Bleak, remarkably turgid, tediously violent, devoid of drama, deprived of magic, stripped of romance and, except for one of the oddest boy-meets-girl scenes in movie history, a befuddled and befuddling excuse for entertainment.