Baby Face

A girl tries to get whatever she wants by using men, as much as she can in a 1930's movie. She has a lot in common with Heather Graham's character in "Bowfinger." No reason to see this (except if you want to see a young John Wayne -- not worth it, in my book).

My Bloody Valentine

Your usual miner-gone-crazy-and-kills-teenagers-annually flick. Except for some reason this is considered a cult classic, so classic enough it warranted a recent remake (which shall go unseen by this critic, knock on wood). The '80s horror film never really deviates from the formula of teens go off to make out, both are beheaded, others go looking for teens, get gutted, others make out, get burned, others go looking, get sliced. "Scream" really captures this well, and is more entertaining than the movies it used as its source material. Plus you get to see Deputy Dewey get the girl. Bonus.

Religulous

Bill Maher takes religion (mostly Christianity) head-on. His movie has all the edification and engagingness of listening to one of the Als (Gore or Franken). It gets to the point where you're like, yes, I agree with you, but do you have anything new to say? It has some amusing moments, I guess, but nothing revelatory.

The Wages of Fear

Four guys are paid well to drive hypersensitive nitroglycerine across rocky terrain in order to stop a fire at an oil rig. It's a fairly long film, but it doesn't seem like it because you're on proverbial pins and needles waiting to see whether anyone might blow up. The way the film builds tension and maintains it is very well done. I found myself at one point actually biting my nails. Not deliberately. I think it stems more from it being about four in the morning and not being entirely clear what was going on. But still, I guess that makes this film technically a nail-biter.

Role Models

Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd take some troubled youngsters under their wing in order to avoid jail. Along the way, everybody learns something about himself. And, for the most part, hilarity ensues. I probably think more highly of this movie than I should. I certainly wouldn't place it on the same level as some of the other adult comedies I've seen recently -- "Pineapple Express," "Hamlet 2," and parts of "Tropic Thunder."

But Rudd and Scott each give great performances. Scott especially. I like that guy. A lot of people probably thought he was done after playing Stifler in "American Pie." But he also played Stifler in "American Pie 2" and "American Wedding." And he's been in some great films: "Final Destination," "Dude, Where's My Car?", "Southland Tales," and, my favorite, "The Rundown," which is like a cross between Joseph Conrad's "Nostromo" and "Repo Man."

Fist of Fury

An early Bruce Lee movie chronicling the conflict between Chinese and Japanese martial arts schools. "Enter the Dragon" is better in just about every respect. However, "Fist of Fury" does have one of the best dubbed lines for a Hong Kong film: "Does the name Wu mean anything?"

Milk

The ending thanks the Oscar-winning documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk" for its contribution to the film. As well it should. If a biopic covers the same ground as a documentary, why make the biopic? Because that question goes unanswered, the film suffers from the same fatal flaw as "Ali," the last half hour of which is just a lesser version of "When We Were Kings." The overall effect is better than "Paranoid Park" and Gus Van Sant's other walking epics, but it's no "Good Will Hunting."

Van Sant does give us some great work, though, especially when he veers from the ground already covered and instead depicts the personal lives of gay men in the '70s. Sean Penn and James Franco are good together. I also recall a blue-hued wrestling match between Penn and his second boyfriend, a scene that recalls a certain blue-hued fight scene from "Double Impact." But the problem is that these moments are interspersed with the biopic-required rote scenes of political talk, marches, meetings, etc., and that doesn't do much for me.

Transporter 3

Stupid dialogue, gratuitous shirtless fight scenes, ridiculous car chases. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rachel Getting Married

A jittery, Greengrassian camera captures the drama that unfolds when Anne Hathaway, a recovering addict, attends her sister's wedding. The sister's name is Rachel. There are two kinds of scenes: everyday, seemingly improvised scenes that unfold like an exercise in a college drama class trying to mimic the beginning of "The Deer Hunter" (Do we need to see 10 minutes of toasts at a rehearsal dinner? Fans of this film: Yes. Me: No.); and intense melodrama of the "21 Grams" variety. It's too bad because the wildly vacillating content distracts from an otherwise finely acted film. Hathaway almost makes up for her work in "Havoc."

Let the Right One In

This Swedish vampire love story comes out of nowhere. It's an affecting but stoic film of two souls finding each other: one, Oskar, an exceedingly blond wuss, and the other, a pale 12-year-old vampire girl who often has blood on her face. It's steady and not driven by music or special effects, but every once in a while, she eats people with unexpected ferocity. I'm a fan of this one. It might serve as a nice double feature with "Twilight," except that this is one to watch after the 13-year-old girls (and occasional 30-something-year-old girls) go to sleep.

Duck Soup

This was my first -- and hopefully last -- experience with the Marx Brothers: Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo. The plot, not that it matters, follows Rufus T. Firefly, a punning wiseacre, who becomes the leader of the country of Freedonia and leads it into war. Most of the jokes are of the "That shirt looks very becoming on you" variety, except dumber. And the silent Chico, who honks horns and uses scissors to limited comedic effect, is almost as annoying as the star of "Happy-Go-Lucky." I suspect these guys were their generation's Rodney Dangerfield: inexplicably appreciated.

Dracula

A few times, I thought that Renfield, the dude that Dracula terrorizes, is similar to Gollum, especially when he says, "Yes, master," and "No, master," and freaks out when wolfsbane is brought close to him. Parts of this classic are also well played, such as when Val Helsing learns that Dracula doesn't appear in mirrors. It's certainly not scary, though.

Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is about what you'd expect. It's an odd tale of a director who writes and directs a play about his life, where the characters and actors interact with real people and the gets more and more absorbed in his play world. Anyone who has seen the Bjork video for "Bachelorette" will wonder why it wasn't credited with inspiring this movie. So much for the reputed originality of Mr. Kaufman's work.

Happy-Go-Lucky

An almost unwatchable British POS "comedy." It's like watching a bad Ricky Gervais imitator doing an impression of SNL's Bloder brothers (Jimmy Fallon and Chris Parnell). Here's typical dialogue. A frustrated driving instructor says, "Bear with me." The heroine, chuckling nervously, says, "Where is he?" The film follows this happy-go-lucky (hence the title) teacher as she goes about her life. She's the kind of teacher who will stare out the window at a kid during recess being beat up, and then she'll do something about it . . . the second time it happens. That's right. She watches the first time, then asks her angry driving instructor if he was beat up as a kid, and then the second time the kid is on the ground being hit in the face, she tries to stop it. A fine teacher.

Never watch this movie.

The Wizard of Oz

The whole premise of this film is absurd: from the beginning, we're supposed to not sympathize with someone who is upset that a dog bit her. What an evil woman, acting mad that Toto bit her. Instead, we're supposed to side with Lucille Ostero Sr., whose innocent dog did nothing but bite a woman on the leg. But anyway, then the Wicked Witch of the East is killed and Glinda, the Witch of the North, advises Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City. I always fell asleep before the ending, so I never knew the Emerald City has a shop of massage therapists, where the Cowardly Lion gets a perm. Then the Wicked Witch of the West, who looks an awful lot like Almira Gulch, melts due to water. The wizard says, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." And that's about it.

The reason to watch it a second time? The Lollipop Guild and the Lullaby League.

The Thief of Bagdad

This 140-minute silent film from the 1920's is one of those classics you can watch once and check off your list, and then ask why it was on your list. It's an Arabian Nights fantasy that begins and ends with the phrase "Happiness must be earned," spelled out in the stars. It of course reminds me of "Aladdin," which to the average filmgoer will be the more interesting film. I'm not into these movies (the silent type), and I don't know why I keep trying to watch them, but this one does seem to have it all: stunts, trick photography, impressive sets, monsters. It doesn't do much for me now, but it's obvious that back in the day this would have impressed.

The Maltese Falcon

Clearly inspired by "Brick."

Pan's Labyrinth

This really is a good film, but SPOILER ALERT I don't know how I feel about the scene where the bad guy doesn't see the faun. Why ruin it? Why explicitly show us that it's all in her head? Maybe a third time will change my mind.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ang Lee's films, at least this and "Brokeback Mountain," grow on me with each viewing. I remember the first time I saw this, I was tepid about it. It was a'ight. Now I've seen it at least five times, and I'm finally starting to see what all the hype was about when it originally came out. It also makes a nice companion film to "Brokeback," in its depiction of a relationship that should exist but can't because of the world around the lovers.

The Wolf Man

It takes a cheap old-timey attempt at a horror flick to make the special effects of "Teen Wolf" seem revelatory. This may have scared back in the day, but now not so much.

Dear Zachary

A documentary about the filmmaker's longtime friend, who was murdered by his crazy older girlfriend. (No one really explains why he was dating a crazy, older woman in the first place. Whatever, go with it.) The film features interviews with the friend's friends, so we see a picture of him as a person. It also details what ensues when the killer flees to Canada and announces she's pregnant with his baby. What happens next is better left unsaid, like the film "Million Dollar Baby." Suffice it to say, the film stands as a testament to what grandparents will do for their grandchildren.

I do have some quibbles, though. The subject matter is compelling; I cried at the end, several different times. Which makes the filmmaker's heavy-handed techniques criticizing Canada and the killer backfire. Simple narration would do; we don't need soapbox antics. Also, the film at times feels a bit too personal, almost like "Tarnation," to the point where it may be relevant and meaningful for those who knew him, but not for us.