Talking with Aimee Mann is a little like listening to her music. In the rhythm of her speech, her pursuit for the right word or the answer to the question at hand, you can hear traces of her songs.

A challenging and potentially unsettling film could have been made here. But Hobo with a Shotgun is too concerned with giving gore-hungry splatter-heads a trashy good time to bother with actually having something to say.

I understand why Susanne Bier's In a Better World won the foreign-language Oscar -- but I believe this was the better film.

Black Death may not have anything groundbreaking to say, but it remains a creepy and occasionally disconcerting period piece, and it establishes Christopher Smith as a genuine talent.

William H. Macy has a voice that could sell needles to a porcupine. He can say the word "Golly" and have it be rife with unspoken meaning and depth.