It's still a mixed bag with a lot of cutesy awfulness to wade through, but the acerbic ending is enough of a punchline to suggest that Westfeldt understands what a joke this kind of film can be.

By experiencing Block's films, we aren't merely witnessing his neurosis, we're abetting and validating it.

Brick Lane comes far too late to be groundbreaking, and tries to do too much to be fully coherent, but its talent for avoiding obvious choices on all fronts, narratively and stylistically, make it worth a look.

Real love is often as complicated and painful as Middle Eastern politics, and Fox might have been better off acknowledging that, rather than making his characters such vague, sweet, safe ciphers.

The result feels cluttered, overcooked, and underfelt.

It's important to go in knowing the central secret of the movie: Nothing exciting is going to happen. Ever. Armed with that knowledge, viewers should be able to settle down and enjoy the extremely low-key, melancholy character study that plays out between a handful of excellent actors.

When it comes to time-wasting memory games, crossword puzzles are more fun than this movie.

Blackthorn could use more depth and less of a sense of weary inevitability, but it never lacks for the arid, vista-prone beauty of a classic Western, or for a sense of lived-in wear and tear that remains convincing even though it's more stylized than realistic.

Part of it is cheap thrills, of course; this is a capable, experienced cast with extensive acting chops, and it's trashy fun watching them descend to the level of the material.

Géla Babluani is unmistakably a first-timer, and his debut project is raw and rough-edged. But he aces the way simple images can make the most of a simple story.

The ambition is laudable, but the execution is wanting, and the attempt itself may indicate that Watanabe and company have forgotten what made Cowboy Bebop so much fun.

Turns the franchise into a terrible '80s comedy.

The stories Pérez-Rey's subjects tell are shocking, even moving. But they're also narrow, limited, and staid, and so is the film that contains them.

Sometimes too pat and sometimes ragged with omissions and confusions, but it's still a fascinating look outside of that familiar world and into a harsher one.

It's rarely tedious, but it's also rarely insightful or propulsive, and since there's nothing new to discover about the characters or their world, much of the film feels like a protracted, contrived pause, as everyone waits for Rapace to finally get back into the game.

Narratively, Trance is questionable, but Boyle and Hodges whisk past all the unlikely developments with enough verve and style to keep audiences from thinking too hard until after they’ve left the theater.

It’s a perfectly functional, fairly scary kids’ film, with plenty of craft and creativity to keep adults occupied. But with a story as sophisticated as its visuals, it could have been much more.

What the film lacks in specificity and interest in taking sides, it makes up for in style, authentic emotion, and terrific performances.

As with so many Merchant-Ivory films, The White Countess glides along on restrained, skillful performances and tapestry-rich cinematography, but its beating heart lies deep below the surface, where only determined viewers will find it.

It acknowledges grief, horror, and loss, but never lets it get in the way of a big, bright laugh.

The whole exercise feels hopelessly shallow and artificial. In Her Shoes is basically a double-date romantic comedy, in which not one but two women find themselves and learn to live and love again, etc. etc., and while it's well-acted on most counts, it's also as plodding as it is obvious.

While The Beaver starts with Gibson in "What Women Want" slapstick mode, it eventually goes to such exaggerated, extreme places that it becomes as much of a must-watch train-wreck as Gibson's own real-life situation.

A harmless feel-good movie that tries to tell audiences what it's like to be a victimized immigrant, and mostly winds up telling them what it's like to have their heartstrings yanked, gratuitiously and often.

Ten years from now, Beowulf may look like the groundbreaking project that helped kill live-action movies, but for the moment, its uncomfortable jokes and fakey rendering of life leave it wedged firmly in the uncanny valley. (Insert your own joke about Jolie's astonishing animated anatomy here.)

Raw but riveting front-line journalism. Like any good reporter, Davis knows a fascinating story when he sees one, and he goes to impressive lengths to put himself in the middle of it, taking his viewers along for the bumpy ride.

While the content is colorful and the actors seem up for the task, a flawed script and Oristrell's unemphatic direction let all the impact dribble away.

Veers in and out of conventionality, and ultimately sinks into it at the end. But first, it deals with old types in new ways, raising issues as it raises hackles.

There's nothing cute, cloying, or playful about the lovers in Sergio Castellitto's opaque romantic drama Don't Move, but in their way, they're as incomprehensible as the stars of any gimmicky comic love film.