question: It might be hard for most viewers to identify with The Company Men's well-heeled protagonists, but writer/director John Wells uses their plight to make universally resonant points -- and gets the most out of his excellent cast.

numbered reviews: 1. Luckily, Bobby's brother-in-law Jack (Kevin Costner), a salt-of-the-earth construction worker, is on hand to remind everyone that it's better to dance with wolves than finagle with stockholders, or something like that.
2. It's the kind of movie that rich, disconnected Hollywood filmmakers make about the recession, thinking they're committing some altruistic act of empathy for a nation struggling to pay the mortgage on its second home in Nantucket.
3. This is a movie that actually tries to elicit sympathy for Ben Affleck by showing him get all misty-eyed when he has to sell his Porsche.
4. It feels like the pilot for a TV series that could be titled White Collar Blues.
5. "The Company Men" has its heart someplace worthy. But its head -- not so much.
6. Everything is pat, from the stereotyped characters (Kevin Costner plays the noble blue-collar worker) to the obvious plot turns.
7. Ben Affleck is a temporarily inconvenienced salesman forced to part with his Patriots tickets and his Porsche when he loses his six-figure salary. In a show of solidarity, his teenage son sells his Xbox. 'Precious,' this isn't.
8. Belongs more in the category of missed opportunity than the successful caustic social commentary it so desperately wants to be.
9. It turns out that people who are fired go through the same Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages that we experience in facing death, though not exactly in the same order.
10. It's not merely the premise of The Company Men that I object to, it's that such acting talent is wasted in such a humorless, stereotypical, moralizing film.


question: David Duchovny and Minnie Driver provide heart-warming romance and comedy in this solid debut by Director Bonnie Hunt.

numbered reviews: 1. Every shot is squarely predictable, and you'd never guess that cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs has done major work like Paper Moon.
2. This is a melodrama wrapped in a sitcom inside a Hallmark card.
3. Why does the film have to be two hours? Does no one hire an editor anymore?
4. Driver seems plagued with an onscreen self-consciousness that ruins her time in the limelight.
5. This film is energized by excellent performances.
6. Ultimately too bland and safe.
7. As if aware they are imprisoned in the subplot of a terrible movie, actors Carroll O'Connor, Robert Loggia, Eddie Jones, William Bronder and Marianne Muellerleile have a near mutiny on screen.
8. Not a horrible movie, but not a good one either.
9. Although quite realistic at first, all conflicts suffer from unrealistic resolutions and from the lack of subtlety.
10. The alluringly deadpan Duchovny can make no headway with Driver.


question: Depp is quirkily entertaining, but the movie runs out of steam by the end.

numbered reviews: 1. N'empęche une autre performance de qualité de Johnny Depp, Fenętre secrčte finit par s'effriter ŕ mesure que l'on avance vers sa résolution
2. Even Johnny Depp in quirk-overdrive can't save it, his slyly insincere performance eventually irritating as much as the sincerely stupid movie he's stuck in.
3. Anyone with a passing knowledge of King's jam-packed oeuvre and its spotty movie translations will be fidgeting in their seats from the get-go.
4. Good thing the people serving this utilitarian story have the wit to dress it up a little and make it dance.
5. Torna-se năo apenas um suspense eficiente, mas também um curioso estudo de personagens.
6. Mr. Depp demonstrates once again that he never disappoints as an actor, even in something as fraudulent as Secret Window.
7. A mystery whose secret is obvious from the beginning and a thriller without any genuine thrills.
8. At a loss for what to do while I was sitting there, I wondered why Depp would agree to play the role in a hairdo inspired by Carrot Top.
9. Writer-Director Koepp well understood the best qualities of the story and held back the almost demeaning payoff as long as he could.
10. Strange and a little awkward, "Secret Window" nonetheless is worth a look.


question: An eccentric, campy, technically impressive, and frightening picture, James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein has aged remarkably well.

numbered reviews:
1. My Big Fat Monster Wedding.
2. Classic - the pinnacle of Universal horror
3. Whale's most perfectly realised movie, a delight from start to finish.
4. Another astonishing chapter in the career of the Monster.
5. Among the best of what Hollywood has to offer.
6. Absolute classic horror, the best of the 'Frankensteins.'
7. One of those extraordinary films that transcends genre and period to provide fresh, untold pleasures year after year.
8. [The film impresses] with its painterly and dramatic lighting, beautiful dissolves and tracking shots, sophisticated effects, and unexpected eccentricities.
9. One of the best horror SEQUELS ever made.
10. A horror mega-classic.