Director Bart Layton produced and directed several episodes of the T.V. series “Locked Up Abroad,” an experience which prepared him, in all likelihood, for the filming of “The Imposter,” a new documentary full of mistaken identity plots and international intrigue. Nothing could have nevertheless prepared him—or us—for the powerfully bizarre tale he recounted, through interviews and expertly deployed reenactments, of a man who successfully

We’ve been struck by an invasion of Zoes. Of owl-eyed ingénues with perky, quirky, life-embracing formulas for living. Whose sole purpose is to brighten the lives of pasty young men who could use sunshine in both body and soul. The Zoe in question in "Ruby Sparks" is Zoe Kazan, not only the star, but the writer of the script. In a strange round of metafictional Twister, she has written a story about a writer who writes a novel

Faced with the unenviable task of coming on the heels of the biggest movie opening of all time as well as being a reminder of recent and tragic events (the Trayvon Martin shooting) “The Watch” was basically going to rest on the likable charisma of its lead actors. This is the type of R-rated comedy you want to see from Stiller, Vaughn, and Hill and yet the comedy struck me as largely innocuous. Evan (Ben Stiller) manages a Costco in Glenview

If “Inception“ found Christopher Nolan debating whether to surrender, Tarkovsky-like, the real world for the deepest levels of imagination, “The Dark Knight” Rises finds him already having taken the plunge. Where would you rather be as a musclebound cross between Darth Vader and Lord Humongous, Warrior of the Wasteland sinks Gotham into a nuclear-tipped French Revolution? When peasant kangaroo courts manned by maniacs

Woody Allen continues his European wandering, this time taking on four stories centered around love, infidelity and fame and set in beautiful Rome, la bella città. Only the narrative is so slight and the comedy so unfunny that "To Rome with love" quickly grows tiresome. This is the first time that Allen has gone in front of the camera in a while and it helps because he gives himself all the jokes that actually hit the mark. In "To Rome" he plays

Beware, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” has the power to burst in your mind and bury itself in your heart for weeks to come. A well-deserving winner at both the Cannes (it won the Camera D’Or, a prize exclusively attributed to first-time efforts) and Sundance Film festivals, this triumph of a movie from debuting director Benh Zeitlin is as fierce and moving a film as I can remember seeing in years. And at its center is a performance of sheer deter-

Have you heard of “People like Us”? It's by the same studio--Dreamworks--which had released “The Help.” "People" barely even meets that previous mediocre effort, however, and lacks the two name actresses who made "The Help" the film that it was. That "People" was written by the same scribes (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman; they also directed it) who were behind the “Transformers” screenplay is no surprise: this is about as

You’ll never look at your child’s teddy bear the same way again. From the mind of “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane comes his debut film about a stuffed teddy come-to-life who enjoys the finer pleasures like strippers, smoking weed, cursing, and dirty sexual innuendi. This miraculous thing happened years ago when a young boy named John made a wish, transforming Ted into a flash-in-the-pan celebrity and turning them into inse-

Hellooo abs! Pulling together all the muscle-bound actors not already in the new “Expendables” movie, director Steven Soderbergh and Channing Tatum (the later working from his own life experience) pay tribute to men in uniform, who then strip those uniforms off. Mike (Tatum) is a roofer by day, stripper by night, taking ne’er-do-well drifter Adam (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing, showing him the ropes of the dance club and, upon a twist of fate

Despite the latter half of its title, Seeking puts the charm back in "charming." The film accomplishes this by doing the impossible on two levels...firstly, by making a serious subject something to laugh at without falling into the always too familiar traps of over-the-top parody, satire or spoof. Secondly, the film takes the genre of romantic comedy and gives it edge without too much violence, shock or sadness. This thread-the-needle bal-