question: A creepy thriller that poses more questions than it answers.

numbered reviews: 1. The movie's seams may show...but Pellington gives "Mothman" an irresistibly uncanny ambience that goes a long way toward keeping the picture compelling.
2. Feels more like a rejected X-Files episode than a credible account of a puzzling real-life happening.
3. Somewhat heavy-handed with stock 'boo!' tactics, Mothman's unnerving story nevertheless generates a legitimate creepy air that will have viewers peering over their shoulders apprehensively as they leave the theatre.
4. Stay clear of reminding yourself that it's a "true story" and you're likely to have one helluva time at the movies.
5. Little more than an adequate shard of winter-doldrums genre fare.
6. Once again, we have a well-directed, well-acted film with a negligent screenplay.
7. Watching the film is like getting hooked by a fearful angler who can't successfully reel you in.
8. A fairly well-made creepfest.
9. The Mothman Prophecies falters in part because it leaves too much, well, out there.
10. It's somewhat clumsy and too lethargically paced -- but its story about a mysterious creature with psychic abilities offers a solid build-up, a terrific climax, and some nice chills along the way.


question: A courtroom drama and a portrait of everyday Mali life, Bamako approaches both subjects with equal skill and success.

numbered reviews: 1. Rather miraculously, pic succeeds in painlessly educating its viewers about global politics and economics while it describes contemporary Africa with freshness and clarity.
2. That the G8's policies have been disastrous for Africa won't come as news to anyone who goes to see African art-house films.
3. while the film may be impaired as an oral treatise, Sissako's use of the trial is still vindicated. It provides rich symbolism in what is, on the whole, a stimulating work.
4. A thought-provoking film, told in a traditional African form and unique in the often fraught annals of African film-making.
5. You can't help thinking that the only people who'd sit through this movie are those already aware of the issues involved.
6. In the week of The Good Shepherd this stinging indictment of Western involvement in the Third World is timely - or would be, if anyone bothered to see it.
7. There are countless moments that are subtly transfixing. Even seemingly casual shots - of vendors peddling knock-off Gucci glasses, policemen flirting with local women, a man attached to a drip lying alone in a room - linger in the imagination.
8. Distinctive, with commanding moments.
9. Born of indignation, Bamako bears devastating witness to the iniquities of free trade and globalisation from a Malian perspective.
10. Yes, this is strong stuff, but spoken in an articulate, measured, passionate West African voice, it's impossible to ignore.


question: A good introduction to Lewis Carroll's classic, Alice in Wonderland boasts some of the Disney canon's most surreal and twisted images.

numbered reviews: 1. It might not come close to a 5-star Disney Classic, but the breezy animation and colorful characters salvage an annoyingly fractured narrative.
2. ...talented actors lend the film its greatest energy, and without them I might have fallen asleep rather than just feeling a bit listless.
3. a whirlwind ride... Disney's trippiest film
4. Alice's world is far loonier and mad - and has more teeth. It was a fine departure from the fairy tales of Cinderella and Snow White.
5. It's not among the studio's best, but it's certainly well worth watching.
6. Disney's frantic take on Lewis Carroll may lack much of the book's illogical charm, but it does contain one of the great proto-psychedelic sequences in cinema.
7. ...a watchable yet thoroughly forgettable piece of work...
8. Despite nice elements in this Oscar-nominated Disney feature, the movie was at the time a commercial flop, but deserves to be seen.
9. I'm not sure there's anyone alive that believes the 1951 film lives up to Lewis Carroll's deathless 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but the animated feature remains a perfectly decent slice of kid-friendly surrealism...[Blu-ray]
10. plays as a series of colorful, but uneven setpieces that lack an interesting or emotionally engaging heroine to tie them together


question: How Do You Know boasts a quartet of likeable leads -- and they deserve better than this glib, overlong misfire from writer/director James L. Brooks.

numbered reviews:
1. The movie is all surface and trades on fortune-cookie wisdom and sitcom scenarios.
2. A sometimes-amusing moron.
3. It feels less like a coherent narrative than a series of vignettes in which the characters say improbably witty things and act in ways that aren't tethered to rational behavior. We sense them performing for the camera.
4. we don't care about the things they are worrying about...we are lost in the intricacies of Rudd's relationship with his corrupt p---- of a father (Nicholson)...a career disaster for Reese Witherspoon, who needs a flop like a hole in the head.
5. The ''funny'' moments are whiffed, the dialogue is ''scene-y,'' and each reaction shot is held a second or ten too long, leaving the actors hanging.
6. How do you know when a film is horrible? When it's How Do You Know, it's pretty obvious.
7. There are a couple of scenes of pure, sentimental genius, as well as appealingly boggled turns by Rudd and Wilson.
8. I expected this movie to be better.
9. How Do You Know gets by on witty and realistic dialogue even when its story is sloppy.
10. Misguided, frighteningly comatose tale of love and neuroses; a maze of bad ideas that Brooks robotically assembles. He's surviving this picture, not directing it.