question: At times a tense and provocative thriller, Civic Duty struggles to move beyond its one-note premise.

numbered reviews: 1. laughable and immature
2. The film's anti-Islamic tone, intended to show Terry's frame of mind, detracts from whatever helpful message the filmmakers may have hoped to impart.
3. A sharp 9/11 twist on Rear Window paranoia, Civic Duty is all the more effective for its chilling plausibility.
4. An all-around disappointment.
5. Once the story's events reach a climactic pitch, the film stagnates in place for too long and loses momentum.
6. This little paranoid thriller...does a superb job exploring how middle class feelings of entitlement to the American Dream are reflected in post 9/11 racial stereotyping.
7. It's an ineptly put-together concoction that, despite its political musings, offers nothing new to the viewer.
8. Dig deep down into some bad movies and you occasionally find a good idea at the center. Civic Duty isn't one of those movies.
9. Canadian director Jeff Renfroe builds only off-the-shelf suspense as Terry's suspicions increase.
10. Echoes of Rear Window abound, but any audience sympathy for the self-appointed detective is thwarted by Krause's typically sulky performance.


question: Sam Raimi returns to top form with Drag Me to Hell, a frightening, hilarious, delightfully campy thrill ride.

numbered reviews: 1. Drag Me To Hell really is an unmissable experience, the sort of film that those with nerves of steel will want to see again and again. Scary, electrifying and very, very funny, you won't know whether to laugh or barf.
2. A diabolically funny, creepy and thrilling crowd-pleaser, as long as you're willing to check your brain at the door and suspend your disbelief. It's the ultimate midnight-movie experience that should to be watched with a large movie theater crowd.
3. The looseness Raimi allows himself here results in an especially joyous kind of filmmaking, the sort where the filmmaker's delight in scaring us (and making us laugh) becomes part of the movie's fabric.
4. A funhouse freak show that's more interested in delivering old-fashioned chills than in wallowing in misogyny, masochism and mutilation.
5. Raimi as a filmmaker is clearly having more fun than he's had in years. So will his fans.
6. Drag Me to Hell is pure cheese. Goat cheese.
7. Drag Me to Hell shows him (director Sam Raimi) back confidently where he belongs, displaying his trademark brio and invention.
8. Welcome back, Sam Raimi.
9. Raimi's Drag Me to Hell does everything we want a horror film to do: It is fearsomely scary, wickedly funny and diabolically gross, three stomach-churning states that argue for taking a pass on the $10 box of popcorn.
10. The biggest howls involve the delicate heroine helplessly ingesting or inhaling bugs, worms, and bile--physical equivalents of her destructive emotions--and Raimi ends the story with the sort of black punch line that's become his signature.


question: Neil LaBute's pitch-black comedy is a masterful exploration of male insecurity, and it's elevated by a breakout performance by Aaron Eckhart as a businessman who likes to play psychological games.

numbered reviews: 1. There is absolutely nothing extraneous in LaBute's movie -- one of those lovely confluences of artistic vision and budgetary restrictions.
2. It's a creepy piece of work that gets under your skin, ruffles your sensibilities and just won't leave you alone.
3. The three leads inhabit their roles in the way only unknown actors can. They really seem to become the characters they're playing.
4. Interesting, original premise starts off with a slow burn, but eventually challenges you into watching the screen without a cringe.
5. A powerful moviegoing experience. Take my advice, and watch it with someone you love.
6. It's an impressive film, and all the more so for being a debut feature. If this LaBute guy can keep his edge on a bigger budget, he's one to watch.
7. One of those rarest of rare breeds -- a movie that doesn't just ignore Hollywood conventions, but openly flouts them.
8. The strength of LaBute's conception every step of the way is in forcing the issue of where we belong in this picture -- with Chad, with Howard, or with Christine.
9. The strength of this uncomfortable yet irresistable film lies in its writing, with the performances a close second.
10. Has been both exalted as a brilliant satire and scorned as a shallow burp of white male indigestion posing as satire. It's probably a little of both.


question: Ambitious, complicated, intellectual, and demanding of its audience, Syriana is both a gripping geopolitical thriller and wake-up call to the complacent.

numbered reviews:
1. An earnest flop
2. Rich, complex, multilayered and by turns maddening and depressing, Syriana emerges as one of the best films of the year.
3. All you need to know is everyone is a bad guy in one way or another, they all want money and/or power, and they'll do anything to get it.
4. Rips its motivations from the front pages of our daily newspapers, blurring the line between reality and fiction with credible subplots and believable twists.
5. ...not always easy to follow. Luckily, the execution is good enough to hold attention even when confusing.
6. A film about going home and being good to your kids.
7. If you're looking for a feel-good move to get you into the holiday spirit%u2026 This isn't it.
8. It has a lot on its mind, and is not afraid to speak. So much so, in fact, that it should serve as a good crash-course in international energy affairs for those unfamiliar with the subject.
9. One of the year's more compelling and better films.
10. The stories are all densely packed with detail and convincingly told.