I Think I Love My Wife, Chris Rock, 2007

Rock somehow manages to deflate the dreamy angst of Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon with his stale and lazy retelling, never finding the right balance between his trademark punchlines and the narrative's call for dramatic intensity, resulting in a patently average and unspectacular film.

Inside, Jeff Mahler, 2006

Mahler's supposed thriller reeks of amatuerism. Falling victim to classic student film pitfalls, the film is over-scored, overwritten, under-acted, and altogether sub-par.

Only Halfway Home, Jacob Hatley, 2007

A short film inspired by and featuring music from Levon Helm's GRAMMY Award winning album Dirt Farmer. Features "Calvary," "Poor Old Dirt Farmer," "False Hearted Lover Blues," and "Got Me a Woman."

Le Voyage du ballon rouge (Flight of the Red Balloon), Hsiao-hsien Hou, 2007

Hou's is a patient, near-magical film. The director's staid, elegant compositions, alongside a truly bravura performance from Juliette Binoche, contribute to an aching, unflinching naturalism that permeates every corner of the film.

Red Road, Andrea Arnold, 2006

Arnold's stylish, psycho-sexual thriller of surveillence and vigilante justice somehow falls flat, failing to tease the requisite depth and resonance from its decidedly substantial themes.

Blast of Silence, Allen Baron, 1961

Baron's film, recently resurrected by Criterion, is the kind of hard bop psycho-noir that likely made the critics at Cahiers du Cinema swoon upon its release in 1961. Further, the film's angst-ridden hitman protagonist surely inspired scores of neo-noir anti heroes, most acutely John Cusak's Martin Blank in George Armitage's Grosse Point Blank, a role that suddenly seems strikingly derivative.

Smart People, Noam Murro, 2008

Murro's film is of a piece with two similarly precious and unlikable films, Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale and Adam Rapp's Winter Passing, as a miserablist academic dramedy.

Southland Tales, Richard Kelly, 2006

Kelly's folly seemingly indulges the director's every ill-conceived whim in attempting to conflate dystopian satire, Lynchian abstraction, and the hazy cultural revisionism of his own, overly praised, Donnie Darko. It falls short even to say that Kelly fails miserably and completely on all fronts.

Sang Sattawat (Syndromes and a Century), Apichatpong Weerasethakul , 2006

In crafting duelling visions of the urban/rural, synthetic/organic conundrum, Apichatpong skillfully employs both the staid poetics of Ozu and the haunting angularity of Kubrick to lasting and devastating effect.

RIP - Charlton Heston (1923 - 2008)

Lucky You, Curtis Hanson, 2007

Hanson's father and son cardsharp yarn disappointingly traffics in stale genre cliches, fumbling the considerable talents of his cast and offering more than a few melodramatic, all-or-nothing poker hands.

My Blueberry Nights, Wong Kar Wai, 2007

Wong's film is exceedingly strange, its odd and sometimes clumsy rhythms dominating this muddled yet consistently compelling triptych of sorts. Wong and cinematographer Darius Khondji draw distinctly upon David Lynch in the film's most experimental (and most successful) flourishes, buoying some decidely weak stretches.

Once, John Carney, 2006

Carney's is a small, persistent film that, to the detriment of its too slight narrative, hangs its fortunes heavily on the viewer's appetite for the art of its artists.