The Help may be more interested in the moral at the end of the story than the story itself, but what saves the film from its meticulous one-dimensionality is that nuanced, deeply moving cast.

Counselors and campers' moms tend to tear up when they talk about the lessons these girls are learning, lessons that go way beyond how to tune a bass, but this isn't exactly a "rah-rah" film.

What is so surprising – even exhilarating – about The Names of Love is that it shucks off the desultory roadblocks that engine the modern romantic comedy – all that razzmatazz of missed connections and dunderheaded misunderstandings.

Funny, bewildering, giddy spectacle.

Movingly captures the terrors and delights of being lovesick at 17. Would that it hadn't felt constrained to target only the 17-year-olds.

Big Miracle is all formula, but with just enough savvy to temper the gentle-spiritedness and qualify it as that rare family film with an emotional manipulativeness that doesn't leave a sick slick in the mouth.

You can easily lose five minutes making sense of it - and another 10 poking holes in it - but what of it? The preceding 100 minutes pass so pleasurably, the few false moves barely register - maybe the biggest con of all, but consider me happily snowed.

A grinning but toothless comedy, this Christmas-themed outing pales in inventiveness compared to the original, which brought sweet, silly anarchy to its one-thing-leads-to-another plotting.

Authenticity is strangely lacking in Laurel Canyon, although Cholodenko’s exquisite eye for framing remains uncorrupted. Laurel Canyon is often visually captivating.

The script also takes the occasional dip into hokeyness, but even that is buoyed by its ballsy leading ladies.

The script is chockablock with al dente amusements – obvious targets still make for wickedly funny one-liners – and the German actor Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) is terrific as the only parent unburdened by decorum.

And yet, it works, so much so that after two and a quarter hours, I was startled – and not a little disappointed – when the closing credits kicked in.

Funny People – sensitive, shaggy, a little bit draggy – is as much about the maturation of Ira as a performer and George as a man as it is about Apatow’s maturation as an artist.

I suspect a second viewing would uncover more information embedded in the mise-en-scène; had Trance – tonally a jumble and disorienting to the point of distraction – rewarded the audience with the pure perfection of a Keyser Söze-like reveal, I’d be more inclined to make the return trip.

The Duplass brothers have an exceptional eye for microexpressions (yes, they're still zoom-happy), and there's something to be admired in this new interest in a macro lens on the universe's workings. If only it didn't take wading through so much drear to get to that divine.

In all his misguided enthusiasm, Parker has mustered enough bluster to fill up a zeppelin, blowing harder and harder, for something more and more fanciful. But with so much hot air, the bubble is bound to burst, and so it does in Parker's blundering adaptation.

Has a heart bursting with good intentions, something that goes a long way in dimming from memory its inherent routineness.

Three actors play Bobby at different ages, and none of them quite jibe with the other – 16-year-old Bobby seems far savvier than the twenty-something version (who is played by a defanged Colin Farrell).

To a one, they nail the humor, all right, but they also, quite crucially, humanize the high concept.

A clever idea that never stretches beyond just that -- a caterpillar that never blooms into a butterfly.

With "50/50," his last stint in the director's chair, Levine upended convention to make a feel-good cancer movie. He's still defying expectations: In animating the inner workings of the undead, he's made a movie that is both clever and heartfelt.

An admirable effort, but too many words, words, and more words, and not enough of the ache of that half-smile.

Somewhere in that chirpy half-pint frame dwell some meaty comic chops. Goldie Hawn may have found her successor.

It all boils down to trying too hard, when everybody knows a good grift is one that appears effortless.

If LaBute wants to plumb the depths of human unkindness, have at it -– only dig deeper next time.

LaBeouf plays Jacob as no naif – he can be as slippery and savage as the next suit – but there's also real tenderness in his scenes with Mulligan and Langella (in a small but significant role as Jacob's mentor).

Terrio's technically proficient film is mature, modern, and minus the all-important passion and risk.

There’s a surprising – and truthful – melancholic undercurrent to Definitely, Maybe – the one commonality between the three women is the heartbreak they induce – but Brooks undermines that truthfulness with a dogmatic insistence upon romantic mythologizing. No maybes about it: The reality is far darker, and more interesting.