This is no-holds-barred humor of the finest, grossest kind, centered around the theme of arrested development.

None of this is new to us, but Garfield and Webb make it feel convincingly fresh and exciting.

You have no idea what's coming next, except that it will be wildly creative and beautiful. These two know how to mix up a very unusual and successful cinematic recipe.

Gere is being talked about as an Oscar contender - he's never been nominated. January is a long time off yet, but his name is certainly worth putting on the long list.

A spirited, irreverent and hugely fun comedy.

A slam dunk in the genre, satisfying every period piece craving: torrid affair, mad king, bastard child, throngs at the palace gates and a history lesson that will be fresh to many.

When a mild-mannered peasant unsheathes the powers he has long kept hidden, the results can be spectacular. The same can be said for Peter Chan Ho-sun's Dragon, a martial-arts morality play as lithe as it is forceful.

Warm Bodies is the first movie worth paying to see in theaters this year. It’s an inventive charmer that visits all the typical movie scenarios of young love amid chaos and disaster, but with a new dimension: one of the romantic leads is a zombie.

Beyond the Hills may be the best movie no one will want to see in 2013.

Maybe they’re all right. Or wrong. It can’t be settled. What matters is that people are still crazy about the beauty of a beautiful movie about going crazy.

This is a big, often quite scary action movie, with tons of creepy computer-generated imagery that's right up there with Voldemort in terms of physical nastiness, although less powerful emotionally.

As for the yellow handkerchief of the title, I'd have dismissed it as a cheesy device if it weren't for the fact that I'm still cherishing the eloquence of Hurt's silent marvel when he finally sees it, fluttering across the gray Southern sky.

That Greenberg has merits is undeniable. Gerwig, a funny mix of Kate Winslet and the joyfully ditzy young Diane Keaton, should end up a star. Stiller dials back his own schtick and deserves to be taken seriously.

It's a lively, often astute piece of marital sociology wrapped up in an action frolic involving an extremely average New Jersey couple.

I'd take any woman in my life, ages 10 to 100, to Letters to Juliet and my guess is we'd both leave with a little Italian glow.

The movie unfolds with novelistic pacing for a leisurely but engaging two hours.

Yet he just kept going and going, and the slick, proficient Knight and Day is proof that you should never count Cruise out.

Certainly it's the lightest and brightest -- everyone is still chaste, but the movie is actually sexy in parts. It appears to have embraced its own sense of camp and is consistently funny in an intentional way. For the first time, I found myself curious to see what comes next.

A gentle, charming movie and really a parent's dream: a kid's movie that doesn't involve action sequences or explosions. Yet you wish the filmmakers had adhered to Mr. Quimby's no-nonsense point of view and found a way to make this family slightly less squeaky-clean.

Without Duvall's rich, supremely skilled performance, this slim period piece wouldn't amount to much.

Cotton is that rarity in the horror genre: a genuinely intriguing character.

Farrell's work as Syracuse is understated to the point that some may find it unremarkable -- but it's a beautifully confident performance, an irony given that he constructs his portrayal of Syracuse around the concept of humility.

It's worth considering precisely whom the movie is meant for. It's not labeled as such, but It's Kind of a Funny Story is squarely aimed at young adults.

What takes Conviction out of the "Erin Brockovich" inspirational orbit - and gives it fresh interest - is the fact that Betty Anne is never portrayed as a fish suddenly taking brilliantly to judicial waters. Instead of being a legal savant, she's a persistent lunatic tilting at windmills for the sake of a familial love no one else can quite understand.

The screenplay, credited to three writers, has that over-doctored feeling to it, and we're asked to take on a larger redemption tale that undermines the truth of Bale's wholly unsympathetic portrayal of a drug addict and a narcissist. The Fighter's desire to show us what that awful combination looks like is overwhelmed by its urge to show us a Hollywood-style triumph.

The results, while occasionally forced, are consistently amusing.

Engrossing and inspiring, despite being the kind of movie in which one of the first words you hear is cheeky.

The hardest movies to review are the ones you respect and admire but don't love and also - and this is the crucial part - aren't angered by. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful is just that sort of film.