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Rob Nelson, Variety

1. Cheerful Weather For The Wedding 2012 A costumer that's well named for being pleasant and conventional but little more. full review
2. The Girl from the Naked Eye 2012 Newcomer Jason Yee proves plenty adept at chopsocky, but his chops are nonexistent on the thesping side. full review
3. Goats 2012 Genial but gratingly irrelevant and none too witty. full review
4. Indie Game: The Movie 2012 The pic scores big points by drawing a sharp distinction between corporate vidgame programmers and indies. full review
5. The Invisible War 2012 An aptly infuriating expose of sexual abuse within the U.S. military. full review
6. Payback 2012 A rarefied conceptual docu that will appeal to a limited but highly appreciative audience. full review
7. Sleepless Night 2012 There's no mistaking Jardin's playful mastery of the Hollywood-style action aesthetic; his movie starts in high gear and accelerates steadily from there. full review
8. Another Happy Day 2011 [Mistakes] over-the-top dysfunctional family cruelty for comedy and drama. full review
9. Footloose 2011 Paramount's Footloose reboot never quite cuts loose enough to distinguish itself from the original. full review
10. Mysteries of Lisbon 2011 Raul Ruiz's head-spinning Mysteries of Lisbon is a period drama of contemporary import -- and of the highest order. full review
11. Sarah Palin: You Betcha! 2011 Sarah Palin -- You Betcha! shovels enough dirt on the Tea Party guru and self-described hockey mom to satisfy her haters, but lacks sufficient humor and insight to make it a must-see for anyone outside the Brit muckraker's fan base. full review
12. Amreeka 2009 A culture-clash dramedy whose background in Middle-East conflict is leavened with vibrant energy, balanced politics and droll humor by first-time feature director Cherien Dabis. full review
13. When You're Strange 2009 Primo footage of recording sessions, concert perfs and various backstage trips is ubiquitous--and sadly squandered--amid wall-to-wall voiceover narration that is punishingly banal when not factually sketchy or flat-out false. full review
14. Examined Life 2008 Taylor's stimulating film, enlivened by creative location shooting, will surely find an appreciative audience among highbrow cinephiles. full review
15. Jolene 2008 Though stretched to a two-hour run time, Doctorow's socially critical tale is reduced to queasy spectacle. full review
16. The Pleasure of Being Robbed 2008 Few ticketbuyers will take joy in The Pleasure of Being Robbed, Joshua Safdie's pranksterish New York indie portrait of a deeply unsympathetic young distaff hustler. full review
17. We Live in Public 2008 Like Timoner's DIG!, this astounding new docu burrows into the thin and darkly funny spaces between artistry and vanity, isolation and community, collaboration and exploitation, sanity and madness. full review