question: In spite of a promising concept and a charmingly brazen performance from Cameron Diaz, Bad Teacher is never as funny as it should be.

numbered reviews: 1. Diaz's game charms are semi-squandered on a script that's two-thirds filler. Not quite detention, but on thin ice.
2. It's brisk, puerile fun with added charm thanks to the game cast. A bit like watching your teachers make twits of themselves.
3. Where the screenplay mostly falters is populating the school with unproductive supporting characters.
4. Screenwriters Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg fare better here than with their first film, "Year One." But like I said in my review of that film, if these guys are truly penning "Ghostbusters III," they have a lot to learn.
5. Diaz has a girlish charm that means she gets away with a series of cynical pranks, even though she's not quite as big and clever as she thinks she is.
6. Cameron Diaz eats the screen in Bad Teacher and the screen says "thank you".
7. Kasdan bundles together a mishmash of high-school movie clichés and off-colour toilet humour, with the flimsy plot and faltering pace providing far too few laughs.
8. Broader than Bad Santa and less consistently funny, it's still gleefully rude, crude and often a lot of fun.
9. "Bad Teacher" immediately brings "Bad Santa" to mind and suffers by the comparison.
10. Bad Teacher is more like a rebellious teen acting out against her parents than a truly rotten to the core degenerate kid. I guess you could say it's Kim Kardashian instead of being Lindsay Lohan.


question: Marc Singer's documentary about a group of homeless people living beneath the streets of New York City is haunting and uplifting in equal measure.

numbered reviews: 1. It's distinguished by remarkable intimacy, with none of the arty distance or aesthetic pretension a veteran filmmaker might have imposed. Singer's subjects feel more like collaborators, an ensemble cast.
2. As superficial as Dark Days was, the subject is singular enough for the film to be memorable.
3. I would love to see a kind of 14-Up sequel: what's happened to these people in the interim? A tough, compassionate movie.
4. A black-and-white hymn to the energy of the dispossessed, made in the late 1990s, but still horribly relevant.
5. The movie, as heroic as it may have been to produce, is more noteworthy for its intentions than its execution.
6. Complemented by its black-and-white photography and a moody DJ Shadow score, this is a gritty yet often tender look at society's margins.
7. The ending stumbles, but not enough to tarnish this study of life lived under society's radar.
8. A work at once intimate, irreverent and respectful, from which unforgettable characters emerge, beautifully shot in black and white and with a soundtrack by DJ Shadow.
9. A deeply humanistic documentary about NYC's "lower depths".
10. Shot in stylized black-and-white, this docu about the homeless was the winner of multiple awards at the Sundance Film Fest.


question: It's undeniably difficult to watch at times, but What Maisie Knew ultimately rises on the strength of its solidly sourced script, powerful performances, and empathetic direction.

numbered reviews: 1. What Maisie Knew gives the audience a ground-eye view of its mesmerizing title character, a plucky, charismatic New Yorker who navigates downtown bars and building lobbies with the street savvy of a pro.
2. The result is a film that deeply engages us on multiple levels. Not only do we wonder what Maisie knows and how she knows it, we want to get this seedling to a place where she won't have to be transplanted every day.
3. On the surface, this indie does sound like standard-issue material, but its dynamics are far more complex than its simple exterior.
4. A movie that's much easier to admire than to actually enjoy, no matter how well done or acted.
5. It's an intimate, well-acted and nuanced film that provides a fresh angle on an all-too-familiar struggle.
6. Onata Aprile is never showy and always authentic, a rare find in a child actor. In fact, she is one of the most self-possessed actors I've seen of any age.
7. The film is touching, filled with taste and care, but not enough to avoid being coy and sentimental.
8. A wonderful modernized re-telling of the 1897 Henry James short story.
9. It's far from the first story of a child dealing with the consequences of parental break-up -- but it may be one of the best.
10. The worthwhile subject matter becomes trivialized.


question: A raucous, fast-paced celebration of the Ozploitation films that came out of Australia in the 1970s and 1980s.

numbered reviews:
1. Mark Hartley's candid, funny and thoroughly entertaining documentary is not only a social document, but totally captures the essence of the time when life seemed less serious and cleavage was not smut but cheek with dimples.
2. Cheerfully celebrates the energy and creativity of this subculture, and wants to rescue it from the toffee-nosed pundits who looked down on the genre.
3. Aussie genre pics of the 1970s and '80s get a rip-roaring salute in Not Quite Hollywood.
4. this lost treasure trove of cringe-making softcore, outrageous horror and balls-to-the-wall action... celebrates a nation humping, slicing and hammering out its modern identity through popular cultural forms.
5. If the thought of a new Brian Trenchard-Smith movie is more exhilarating than a new Bryan Singer movie... then Mark Hartley's "Not Quite Hollywood" is the film for you.
6. A survey of the week wouldn't be complete without a left-handed salute -- not to be confused with a backhanded compliment -- to the gleeful rubbish of Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
7. Even as a documentary, this is one of the most audacious and energetic films of the year
8. There are clips from more than 80 movies crammed into 100 consistently hilarious and jaw-dropping minutes, from soft- and hard-core porn to cheesy , gory horror movies to biker and car chase movies that make The Fast and the Furious look positively tame.
9. A sensationally entertaining, well-researched documentary filled with insight and outrageously funny clips.
10. Oddball horror flicks, sexploitation romps, car-chase extravaganzas - the clips burn throughout this film with a tone as giddy as its subject.