About the kinds of showbiz hangers-on seen in the background of a Scorsese movie, and it feels like those guys decided they were the real stars.

Like the last gift buried under singing Billy Bass fish, dancing Coke cans, joke books and mounds of wrapping paper, there's a glimmer of fun in Four Christmases that almost gets vacuumed up with the tinsel.

Writer-director Wayne Kramer adds what could be called mainstream threads to his messy script, but the result is simplistic across the board.

The film's major action sequences are never exciting, and even the now-requisite destruction of New York feels lazy.

Sandler's shambling Yogi Bear-ness will be the big appeal to holiday-vacation audiences.

If characters talking to dogs and dog reaction shots are some of your favorite things, add some stars to this review.

Cenac is witty and Heggins has a wary stillness, but the movie itself seems too shy to let them really engage each other.

Neeson's better than this. You can't watch him here without thinking, Geez, every fight-choreography session could have funded "Love, Actually." This bash-the-door-down action scene likely took as long to film as "Kinsey." That gunfight required more stunts than all of "Schindler's List."

Fanning's watcher is watchable, yet the kid-actress extraordinaire is so polished it kind of makes your head explode.

The International almost seems like a Monty Python spoof on spy-game thrillers in which the phrase "secret agent" is constantly replaced by "banker," resulting in lines like, "...If I die, 100 other bankers take my place."

Movie references abound, but there's not enough humor to fuel even 90 minutes.

Another nicely understated performance from Jesse Eisenberg anchors this shambling drama.

The splintered viewpoints help with the monotony, but from the taunting of new inmates to the cell-block sadist, we've gone through all this before, right down to the final twists.

Marries an unengaging love triangle to a flat visual style, nearly squashing the one good thing in it -- a scruffy, slouching performance from Peter Sarsgaard.

Haunting ideas and efficient storytelling, but director-cowriter Alex Rivera needed to fine-tune a bit more.

It's hard to talk about The Soloist without falling into cliches, because this well-meaning but ham-handed drama is full them.

The story and performances (save for Matthew McNulty’s angry Luis Buñuel) are paint-by-numbers, with social upheaval and sexual adventurism as dramatic as an after-dinner mint.

Luna and Bernal have amiability, but not enough to earn a recommendation for this clichéd movie.

When a movie is this strange, it's gotta count for something.

Too many threads are woven together here, but occasionally, it just connects.

Patric and Baldwin react to all the morbidity with restraint, and Vassilieva keeps her bald head high. But they won't be able to help this barefaced vulgarity earn any terms of endearment.

Nowhere near as kinky or thinky as Soderbergh’s "sex, lies and videotape," Girlfriend pretends it has more on its mind than it really does.

Orphan doesn't add much to the genre except, disturbingly, a fetishistic bent that's creepy in the wrong way.

This often haunting stop-motion Claymation movie ultimately suffers from what bedevils many live-action movies culled from short stories: a herky-jerky plot.

While the film is slightly better than similar efforts Allen made between the ’90s and his recent time in Europe, it’s both too broad and too shallow.

For all the trickiness and bluster, Shutter Island is dead inside.

The oh-so-out-there mentality earns some chuckles, but that, along with Piven's preening, gets very trying. A hard sell is still a hard sell.

While Montias' actors do their best, even good intentions have limits. Still, it never feels false. And remember, even Martin Scorsese (born in Queens) had to start somewhere.