2 stars = Mediocre
Ratings explained

A movie about a clothes horse should, by rights, have an extra about the film fashions, especially when they're designed by Patricia Field of "Sex and the City" fame. But, like a shopper on a tight budget, "Confessions" is stingy with bonus features, offering four deleted scenes, two minutes of bloopers and a "Stuck With Each Other" music video.

It also has a digital copy and, through July 31, the chance to apply online for $10 in "fashion cash," which will come as a card in the mail within four to six weeks. (I applied just to see what it was but don't know if there are restrictions on where or how you can use it.)

"Confessions" was inspired by the Sophie Kinsella book of the same name about Rebecca Bloomwood, a wily shopaholic and excuse machine about why she cannot pay her credit card bills. The big-screen comedy, however, turns her into a ditsy clothes horse whose redemption seems straight out of a TV self-help segment about surviving in our trying economic times.

Isla Fisher plays Rebecca, a woman who never met a card she couldn't max out, and Hugh Dancy is her dreamy boss at her new and improbable job at a financial publication. She achieves international fame in a ridiculous amount of time and the movie falls back on cheap, easy gags for laughs, as when she is mistaken for a waitress or slides down a conference table in midmeeting

The clothes are wickedly wonderful and Fisher is sweetly engaging, but the movie too often feels off the rack. Still, its PG rating (for some mild language and thematic elements) make this suitable for tweens and above, especially if you want to teach them a lesson about living within their means.

And your credit card comfort zone.

-- Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette movie editor

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

Over beers in a Tel Aviv bar, a friend recounts a recurring dream of wartime. That night, Ari Folman, a 19-year-old soldier at the time of Israel's invasion of Lebanon, has his first flashback. Folman is the central character in this powerfully rendered, animated documentary about wartime memories and guilt. He is also the writer-director of this personal reckoning with Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the assassination of the Christian Phalangist President Bashir Gemayel and the subsequent massacres of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. It's worth noting Folman was the creator of the Israeli TV series about psychoanalysis, "In Treatment," which became the HBO series.

Animation turns out to be a surprisingly profound way to recover memories and discover fresh meanings. The deserved front-runner in the race for the Oscar for best foreign picture, the film is as vital an addition to our understanding of post-traumatic agonies as it is a vibrant contribution to the artistry of animation.

-- By Lisa Kennedy, The Denver Post