For the most part Mr. Maher is an equal-opportunity denigrator, but it's worth noting that humor fails him when the subject is Muslim fundamentalism. It's hard to make light of what frightens us.

A bright little screwball comedy that speaks for the vitality of new movies.

Mr. Kinnear is fine; he's an actor we always like, and he gives a skillful, heartfelt performance. The problem is the material -- dramatic in the describing but painfully predictable in the telling.

The life that swirls around Kym before, during and after her sister's densely populated, wonderfully detailed wedding seems to have been caught on the fly in all its sweetness, sadness and joy. (In its free-form style the film constitutes an elaborate homage to Robert Altman.)

This ostensibly simple film evokes whole lives in 96 minutes, and does so with sparse dialogue.

Less than the sum of its parts, which were problematic to begin with.

Given the importance of that subject, the real mystery of Mr. Lee's movie is why it's so diffuse, dispirited, emotionally distanced and dramatically inert.

Eventually, though, Ghost Town buckles beneath the weight of contrivance -- so many ghosts to dispel, so many lessons to learn.

Joyless and airless suspense thriller.

Mannered, episodic and slow.

Instead of scintillation, the movie gives us a succession of discrete set pieces, as if the action takes place in rooms but not in the halls connecting them.

It's a cheerful trifle tossed off by the Coen brothers in their self-enchanted mode, an approach to comedy that shrugs off comedy's cardinal rule -- Don't Act Funny.

As a first-time feature director, though, he (Ball) seldom lets the material speak for itself. Every shot is a statement, every scene sells an attitude.

The movie's main appeal is its special comic flavor -- a zesty fusion of picaresque adventure, absurdist whimsy and Chaplinesque grace.

Ultimately, Traitor is a movie at war with itself.

Unfortunately, Ms. Faris has neither an adroit script -- House Bunny is a stale collection of dumb bunny jokes -- nor Ms. Witherspoon's wily charm. And the filmmakers do Ms. Faris no favors by inviting comparisons to Marilyn Monroe.

Mostly, though, there's the endlessly resourceful, endlessly inventive, bedazzling Mr. Coogan. Hamlet Schmamlet. Not since "Death of a Salesman" has failure been quite so entertaining.

A deeply moving story of resilience and redemption.

The Rocker has the requisite vomit, the view of some very unfortunate hind quarters and the suds. It's also got a vein of sweetness and charm.

Clone Wars will appeal only to the most tolerant, galactically minded children and their parents.

The narration, aided by a terrific score, does streamline the storytelling, and adds to it a faintly sardonic top note.

Like a dinner whose hors d'oeuvres are far more satisfying and well-composed than the slightly warmed-over main course. Among them are the inspired mock movie trailers and the fake ad that precede "Thunder's" opening credits.

The best news about this clangorous clunker is that it may well have vanquished the Mummy franchise.

This is a debut feature, though you'd never know it from the filmmaker's commandingly confident style, or from the heartbreaking beauty -- heartbreaking, then heartmending -- of Melissa Leo's performance as a poor single mother who's living her whole life on thin ice.

There's a good subject for satire here, the extended adolescence of American kids. But satire presupposes maturity, or at least some perspective. The movie's calculation is that its subjects and audience share the same point of view. The results are truly ghastly.

A very short and cheerfully scruffy comedy-thriller.

The world didn't need a superficial big-screen adaptation of a rich, dense book that's about, among many other things, the passage of time. The perplexity is why the film is so lifeless and remote.

James Marsh's documentary raises the bar for the genre to skyscraper height.