Even with its mock-pretentious parallelism to The Odyssey...O Brother, Where Art Thou? refuses to take itself seriously, which is both its principal failing and its charm.

When it comes to swashbucklers, I'll take Wolpert's unmolested molestation of Dumas over Pirates of the Caribbean any day of the week.

Taymor tries a little too hard, neither breaking nor broken by the play, but ultimately losing the wrestling match.

Pretty much a non-starter...its squeaky-cleanliness will seem more at home in its inevitable cable afterlife on the Disney channel.

Though The Twilight Zone largely fell into tired repetitiveness in its final season, its crafty tales and spectrum of darkness to humor still stood apart from the television pack...

A superb, stylish piece of modern mythology.

Doesn't quite go far enough, instead settling for cheap gags and cheap thrills, but it tickles fairly well for a couple of hours of crashes and fireballs.

By the time Rath and Bain have it out in a ramshackle, condemned motel with floors that keep giving away under them, we realize this final setting is a metaphor for the film itself.

Everyone knows that kitties love homicidal mercenary explosives experts. But for those who don't, there's The Specialist, another Sylvester Stallone action picture that's as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Dated and unintentionally laughable, Cobra will always be best known for the catchphrase 'You're a disease and I'm the cure.' Ironically, any audience foolhardy enough to brave this ugly movie is liable to stagger out feeling mighty sick.

In its third year, Fringe continues to 'go there' with a groundbreaking season that gives pretty much equal time to 'our universe'...and the 'parallel universe'...

There’s absolutely no reason for The Final Destination to exist other than the only one Hollywood studios really care about: a cynical cash grab.

McCarthy does a fine job of juggling the domestic mystery, situational comedy, and inevitable drama, and his terrific cast is well-suited to the deadpan ethical satire.

Even in the show's seventh year, House continues to be an endlessly fascinating character, as brilliantly played by English actor Hugh Laurie...

A flashy but disposable exercise in style over substance...

The slow-boiling romance convinces thanks to Wasikowska and Fassbender's unwavering seriousness and commitment to selling the story.

Gibson again stares deeply into the abyss. The question is whether—after his public disgrace—anyone will want to go there with him.

It's the whole proud, embarrassing sociopolitical, cultural heap of American history—and the American Century in particular—in two fleet, funny hours.

Ultimately, the magic-and-monsters milieu isn’t enough when the jokes are half-baked.

A twisted revamp of Rankin-Bass by way of Edward Gorey.

Here we go again: big lies swell and then pop in a flick that’s one-hundred percent adherent to the shiny, colorful Warner Brothers rom-com style guide.

Season Five's twelve episodes unfortunately retrace some of the steps of earlier seasons when the show should be focused on breaking new ground, but Dexter remains entertaining in its complications...

Sweet but a bit dull...Overall, the picture is good-hearted and colorful, with an ending that carries a nice touch of ambiguity about the tussle of nature and nurture.

The whole fiasco turns out to be an excuse to let Seth Green play a (redubbed) little boy. Next time, maybe just cast a real boy, build some sets in an old barn, and have Mom make the costumes.

The comic targets and the central manchildren bromance all feel overly familiar...Still, Paul benefits from Pegg and Frost's British comedic slant and the full complement of comedic talent...

Marshall's sunny, sitcomedic comedies tend to be kinda bad but also compulsively watchable, and this one's no exception...

A reasonably fun double-episode of Burn Notice...Who doesn't love Bruce Campbell?

Faith-based...With its sports-movie structure and Hollywood production values, Soul Surfer is a creditable crossover picture; it just could've done with more nuance.

For labyrinth-lovers...a thoughtful and entertaining murder mystery predicated on intellectual debate.

Despite it all, just try to take your eyes off this movie: skillfully crafted by Levinson, Sleepers is eminently watchable, deeply emotional, and populated with top acting talent.

[Gives] Weaver equal billing with everyone's favorite Southern spitfire, Holly Hunter. Teaming up these heavyweights is the genius notion of Copycat, a solid serial-killer thriller elevated by phenomenal acting.

Full of...goofy ironies, and while it ain't Molière, it is a pretty great entry in the teen-comedy genre.

Fits neatly into Weerasethakul's cinema-shaking oeuvre of beautiful experimentation.

A typically horny-thorny Solondzian dramedy...Solondz's is a universe of limitless disappointment.

Forbidding images of forbidden people and places delineate the edges of an otherwise simplistic fable...in its languid romance, Beauty and the Beast is about the irrepressible, exciting rightness of the 'wrong.'

One of the all-time-great 'procedurals'...the devilish fun is in the details for Kurosawa.

Burger plunges into the material at such a headlong pace and with sufficient adrenalized style as to propel this essentially trashy thriller and distract from the abundant loose ends.

As loosely adapted from Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty sequel novel, the sequel movie Be Cool tastes like a watered-down drink.

Spielbergian touches...a good enough mainstream drama, but one can't help but feel it's a missed opportunity to give Terlouw a more textured treatment.

A surprisingly sympathetic elegy for the feudal class, or at least one of its sad representatives...the notion of lost legacy informs the film's distraught last word: 'blood.'

Leigh's extensive use of improvisation in rehearsal led to a razor-sharp final script, endlessly blooming with memorable dialogue that—while never less than credibly naturalistic—proves thematically fertile.

Since Source Code is philosophical science fiction and not just 'sci fi,' there's something to chew on here about consciousness: when it begins and ends, and that old chestnut of what constitutes reality.

Few war films are more potent than Das Boot...the ultimate submarine movie.

Figgis puts a desperate drunk front and center and demands we deal with him and the Jungian shadow he casts.

Though flawed, John Ford's The Horse Soldiers has a fair amount going for it: the well-oiled partnership of Ford and star John Wayne (and an assist from William Holden); Ford's vivid visual style; and large-scale action.

The screenplay plays like the result of a 'Write the Most Vile Line Ever' contest, which in itself will be a huge draw for cinematic dumpster divers.

Seemingly conceived on the fly as much as it's shot on the fly, Louie cultivates the unexpected.

More interested in melancholy wryness than belly laughs, and the low-key results have a pleasant fizz.

Jazzy and daring...takes Raymond Queneau's novel—the sort generally considered 'unfilmable' and makes a film so cinematic as to appear sui generis.

Though written and directed by a Pulitzer Prize winner, Original Sin is better known as the picture in which a naked Angelina Jolie (by then a certified Oscar winner) and Antonio Banderas do the horizontal mambo.