Even by the sadistic standards of Lars von Trier ("Breaking the Waves," "Dogville"), "Antichrist" is a unique form of cruel and unusual punishment: an unrelenting orgy of graphic sex, violence and cynicism that also manages to be wildly pretentious.

Most films about alien invasion aren't about humans taking over another planet, but the scattershot "Planet 51" is just that. It has its moments, but it lacks focus.

It would be wonderful to say that director John Lee Hancock has fashioned an elegant bookend to his 2002 baseball movie, "The Rookie." No such luck.

Woody Harrelson vividly reminds us here that he's not just a drawling punch line, a handy hunk of comic relief or ace zombie killer. And Ben Foster of "3:10 to Yuma" is terrific.

Actor/director Tony Jaa and co-director Panna Rittikrai didn't come up with much of story to go with what might be one of the best martial-arts fight scenes ever.

"Gentlemen Broncos," from the maker of "Napoleon Dynamite," attempts to reach an audience that is in on the joke, but this time it's not much of a joke.

For all its warts, "The Boondock Saints" does have the hallmarks of a film made by an actual person - an increasingly rare sight in the corporate-made blockbusters of today's Hollywood.

Richard Curtis' latest is as jolly, jaunty and sappy as "Love Actually."

Few filmmakers destroy the planet with as much unabashed glee as Roland Emmerich. Now comes "2012," which can only be described as the "ne plus ultra" of Roland Emmerich disaster pictures.

Lee Daniels' direction is so acute and tender and the ensemble cast so shockingly good that "Precious" manages the near-impossible: It transcends its own miserableness.

Director Jonathan Parker and co-writer Catherine DiNapoli have made a film of such shrewdness and sophistication that they're bound to be punished for it.

Could someone please pull Robert Zemeckis away from his computer?

In the powerful and powerfully upsetting documentary "Crude," filmmaker Joe Berlinger tracks the devastating effects that, allege the 30,000 Ecuadoran plaintiffs in a class-action suit, have befallen them because of the environmental negligence of Chevron.

Featuring "The Messenger," "The Scenesters," "Serious Moonlight," "Spooner," "Tenure," "The Eclipse."

To say that truth can be stranger than fiction may be a cliché, but there are times when it is startlingly accurate.

"The Fourth Kind" is a fraud, but that wouldn't matter if it were scarier and better acted.

The good news about this year's Lone Star International Film Festival, which kicks off Wednesday with a screening of the indie comedy "The Scenesters," and continues through Nov. 15, is that it's built to last.

It is amusing to watch suave leading man George Clooney let his freak flag fly.

Set in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen during the final years of the war, "Flame" is a terrific, if sometimes monotonous, real-life thriller about two members of the Holger Danske resistance movement whose heroism earned them each a posthumous Medal of Honor.