Directorially, the film takes a few too many trips into prosaic slow motion.

This rags-to-sequins tale may be schmaltzy in its sincerity, but 'tis the season. Glitter is optional, but certainly encouraged.

A visually rough retreading of Superbad territory with a slightly more treacherous journey, The Virginity Hit has a surprisingly softer ethical edge than you'd expect.

A small film about enormous fears.

The feature directorial debut of Martin Zandvliet, Applause has moments of flourish and moments that reach towards something as pared down as Thea's play.

It's a wonderfully moving meditation on the capacity of animals to inspire our imaginations and something applicable to educational markets as well as regular documentary audiences.

The film is a twisty and playful primer that suggests the best thing to do when beset with ugly forces is to publicly laugh them off. What happens in private is your business.

You'll be happier with the film if you don't expect fidelity to source material, but that doesn't mean you'll hate it if you loved Niels Arden Oplev's movie.

Formally, everything's in order-it's an attractive film with some ingenious action sequences-but the problems overwhelm the pleasures, leading to the conclusion that this film's trouble is under the hood.

Far more charming, quick-witted and high spirited than anyone could have expected...for a film that didn't screen for press. It's gimmicky up the wazoo (not just 3D, but scratch-and-sniff "Aroma-Scope" cards handed out at screenings) and it's all the better for it.

Michael Fassbender (Fishtank, Inglourious Basterds) is reliably great, severely outclassing costar Knightley's grating performance.

Surprisingly, George Clooney's direction is somewhat underwhelming with crucial conversations oddly lacking in tension.

With an incredible performance by young Natasha Calls and surprisingly effect direction by Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch) you'll be surprised how this horror gets you just when you think you're safe.

The pace is solid and engaging without putting you on the edge of your seat-you won't be looking at your watch, which means it's at least worth the time spent.

A dating fantasy for girls and an action bromance for guys, This Means War wins the Valentine date crowd in swoops and strokes, but does it lead to swoons? Not really.

Repression is one thing, but discontent generally breeds self-knowledge and rich interior lives, two things that are eerily absent here. Regardless, the film features some really intriguing conflicts and solid performances throughout.

Panettiere's performance has the straightforwardness of a jumbo crayon.

The mix of groin injury and over-explanation could totally reach 9-year-olds and a greying Atkinson is still relentlessly lovable.

Premium Rush has a rewarding relentlessness and a payoff that suggests that whirring city that surrounds us in is full of supporters who see past the system.

Italian audiences are bound to like it and the broadness of plot and appeal suggests casual fans of foreign film should, too.

Clichés and thin thrillers are what we can expect from January releases and while Man on a Ledge has predictability to spare, it also has something that makes your time spent worthwhile: legitimate suspense.

A traditional southern gothic, Septien delivers oddities from the perverse to the parochial with a straight face, and in the process restores the oddball genre to what might be called authenticity.

Such a story is made to be colored in jumbo crayon, and at first you might long for a more nuanced approach, but this film was produced in the 1940's serial style that's made Lucas Films enormous.

Contrary to all of my bitter nudging, I found both sweet and charming. It's just me: I hate precocious children.

Though the film is a fairly plastic British period piece with all the intimacy of a Hitachi Wand, the script captures some delicate and intelligent facets of a tensely conflicted era.

It's a trenchant modern western and fans of the genre should embrace it for more reasons than just the presence of the epic Sam Shepard who, by the way, owns this Butch Cassidy.

Upbeat, bitter, sweet and always gripping, Shut Up! Little Man gives remix culture the ucky origin story it likely won't heed, but could sorely use nonetheless.

So Watching TV is less a story loosely bound by cause and effect than a kind of scrapbook of memories, all of which convey the concerns of being super smart and mostly confused in a culturally mixed Manhattan, circa 1980. The affection is sweet and precise, if even the terms we use to define them aren't.