A symphony for tin ears, a sniggering assessment of human nature delivered with the faux-lofty tone of a Lexus commercial.

One of those rare collaborations that artists dream of, and that film lovers crave.

Given the white-on-white color scheme, I didn't expect so many shades of feeling.

Secret Window has an ending that lets one of our most reliably interesting actors pull out all the stops. But getting there from a good beginning followed by a slow, repetitive middle is a test of resourcefulness for him and a test of patience for us.

Feelings play second fiddle to stylized attitudes in Spartan, and fancy style can't conceal the film's clumsiness.

Full of life -- which is a very good thing to say about a story that turns on death -- wonderfully odd, and a gallery of perfect performances.

What's wrong with this picture? Nothing, as long as you don't expect more than a tossed-off goof.

This movie needs a star performance at its center, and the director, Joe Johnston, doesn't seem to know it. His closeups dote on Mr. Mortensen's striking face, and on the actor's interesting inwardness, but he doesn't ask for, or find, the sort of zest that could turn laconic into romantic.

Entertaining and improbably endearing.

The crucial evidence has to do with rigor mortis. The movie's a stiff too.

What I do know is that I was gripped for a while by the strength of Mr. Gibson's filmmaking, only to be repelled and eventually excluded by his literalist insistence on excruciation. There is watching in horror, and there is watching in horror.

Some comedies make you laugh out loud. This one makes you smile inwardly, but often.

A shopworn studio contraption, slapped together from second-hand parts.

No one comes out of Mooseport unscathed -- not Rip Torn, as the president's campaign manager, not Christine Baranski as his avaricious ex-wife. It's a democracy of mediocrity, or worse.

Adam Sandler's 50 First Dates isn't just slovenly and smarmy but creepy.

Choose to pass this one up.

Recreates the Taliban era with chilling details and startling beauty, and follows its terrified heroine on a journey that no child should have to take.

The material is hardly original, but the moment is affecting all the same.

It's sometimes exciting but rarely thrilling, a victory of formula over finesse.

More unfortunately still, the elements of the story fit poorly, like a Tucker decked out as a sexmobile.

A film that asks its audience to invest serious thought, and in return, bestows serious pleasure.

Go in with lowered expectations, and expect to have them dashed.

The great lesson of the film is that humor, honest feelings and genuine exuberance trump technique.

An absolutely thrilling recreation, in documentary style, of a now-legendary story.

It's a terrible life, and a terrible movie.

In the not-so-grand scheme of such things, Along Came Polly is certainly harmless, and occasionally very funny. It's just not clever enough to keep you engaged.

The energy is genuine, and the level of invention is remarkable, sustained as it is by Mr. Baseman's genially garish art, Timothy Bjoerklund's direction from a script by Bill and Cherie Steinkellner, and Nathan Lane's madly passionate performance as the canine who was famously born on the wrong end of a leash.

A singularly strange and affecting comedy.