question: Paul Blart: Mall Cop has some laughs, but its plot is flimsy and lacking in any sustained comic momentum.

numbered reviews: 1. The shot of Blart quietly crawling into a hostage situation inside the mall's bank and walking through a roped line is a moment of absurd grace, only it's shot with the vulgarity of a Crash Test Dummies commercial.
2. James and Mays are engaging and a handful of moments do generate genuine laughs. Not enough to justify a paid night at the movies...
3. TV's King of Queens working stiff James relocates to Jersey in an even larger than life silly but good natured big screen laughathon, as the corpulent crimefighter who's more than a little obsessive about cornering anyone shopping around for trouble.
4. James makes a funny, likeable doofus, and the expansion of his girth since his hit sitcom The King of Queens is used to great comic effect.
5. There's no doubt that James is a fine comedic actor and the role of Paul Blart fits his big frame like a well worn glove. As writers, however, he and Bakay rely too heavily on slapstick...
6. The numerous making-of featurettes includes a treat for those of us in eastern Massachusetts with the Burlington Mall highlighted...
7. An unfunny comedy with a limited imagination and a steady diet of fat jokes.
8. About ten times funnier than the similarly-themed Observe & Report, though this silly, slapstick adventure is aimed more at kids than adults.
9. The title and premise alone sound like every stupid comedy you've avoided for decades. Something was different %u2013 something was done right. Three other friends shared my secret shame enjoying this amiable, broad %u2013 and subtle %u2013 romantic act
10. I found myself really quite enjoying this film, partly for its cheerful guying of mall culture. The heroine, Amy, works on a hair extension stand called Unbeweavable.


question: Southland Tales, while offering an intriguing vision of the future, remains frustratingly incoherent and unpolished.

numbered reviews: 1. Southland is ridiculous in much the same way the Austin Powers movies are, but it's played straight.
2. It's not hard to understand. It's just who would care about what this is about?
3. Unlike the world, Southland Tales starts with a bang but ends with a whimper. Richard Kelly's opus of a film is little more than sensory overload meant to look like a political statement on the state of privacy, the war, news and celebrities.
4. One of the most confusing, ridiculous, pretentious and disastrous cinematic train wrecks I've ever seen.
5. Richard Kelly's wildly ambitious and widely loathed Southland Tales now seems among the most believable works of film futurism ever made in this country.
6. An incomprehensible, self-indulgent mess of post-apocalyptic anxiety and political paranoia, a confusion of half-baked social critiques, pop-culture references, sci-fi whimsicalities, and anti-corporate satire straining for significance.
7. It's as though Kelly has taken all his obsessions and interests and tried to jam them into one narrative, no matter how admirably diverse and incompatible they are.
8. Southland Tales really is a guy movie, right down to all the sci-fi, comic book and porn references...
9. The actors barely comprehend their lines. The pop-culture references are lame. Nearly every moment falls flat. And it's boring.
10. By the time the movie rolls into its third hour, it's exhausted most of its comic energy, leaving you disoriented and unable to remember much of what you just saw.


question: Dark and bleak, the "kick-ass" performances, especially Nolte's "effective" portrayal of an abused soul, is the reason to see this film.

numbered reviews: 1. One wonders why Dafoe is even in the movie. But Nolte is, and that's what enriches Schrader's bleak drama.
2. A terrifying movie that faces the truth of cruelty and its everlasting results.
3. Despite some great performances, Affliction never really takes off.
4. The heart of Affliction is Nick Nolte's searing performance.
5. Nolte could have based his oddly sympathetic performance on the image of a sick animal scrounging for food and shelter along deserted country roads.
6. Schrader has skillfully turned Banks' novel into a compelling character study.
7. Well acted by Nolte and Coburn, Schrader's strongest film in years is a powerful reverie on family curse, how incontrollable anger, drinking, and violence almost inevitably pass on from one generation to the next.
8. Affliction is a shattering film, a dose of bracing naturalism based on Russell Banks' most lacerating novel.
9. Chilly, despite some remarkable components
10. Rarely has the dynamics of family violence been portrayed on the screen with such grim and palpable power.


question: Driven by Michael Moore's sincere humanism, Sicko is a devastating, convincing, and very entertaining documentary about the state of America's health care.

numbered reviews:
1. Having been chided in the past for getting his facts wrong, this time he just doesn't present very many, preferring anecdotal evidence instead. The healthcare system needs medicine; all Moore has provided is a placebo.
2. With less lampooning and satirical asides, Sicko may be less "entertaining" than Moore's previous films, but it's also more affecting and effective.
3. The film is an alternately depressing and uplifting experience, a documentary whose ironies -- taking sick Americans to Cuba for cheaper, better health care -- won't be lost on anybody.
4. Sicko, the professional provocateur's most accomplished and fervent film, is what the movie doc prescribes for temporary relief from the chronic headache that is the American health-care system.
5. While so many liberal documentaries are angry and dour, Moore's approach is refreshingly funny and playful.
6. Sicko is Moore's most satisfying and mature film, with few cheap shots or transparent publicity stunts.
7. This is essential viewing -- informative, corrosive, and even sometimes hilarious.
8. It may incite lawmakers in a position to help to trumpet their faux proletarian credentials.
9. A compelling, tear-jerking look at a vital piece of our infrastructure gone awry.
10. A better, more focused effort than Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine.