Allison Benedikt

The scenery is pretty and the locals endearing, but Schorr never gets past charming.

It's not exactly a good time at the movies, and even as pure education, it's a rather dull film with very little dialogue, but Glawogger does succeed in capturing the images, sounds and even imagined scents (oh, those burning goats) of contemporary hard labor, work that has become nearly invisible to us cubicle jockeys.

Hilarious, inspired, frenzied.

Grace and Quaid imbue what could have been caricatures--with heart, intelligence and great comic timing.

It's a stunningly creepy specimen of Asian horror.

Works remarkably well as a stylish and unconventional buddy flick--cruising along with wit and wisdom.

Equally fascinating and frustrating.

Jacobson, whose earlier film is a docudrama about Jeffrey Dahmer, is clearly fascinated with men who would be monsters. It's a ripe and infinite topic to explore, but without Norton, theme alone could not have sustained Down in the Valley.

It's a joy to see so many cheerful and contented characters on screen, especially on a screen that looks this good.

There's something both moving and crass in how directors Elliot Berlin and Joe Fab film these tiny paper fasteners.

It's formulaic and frequently over the top, 30 minutes too long and altogether too slow, but oh when those gorgeous, graceful pups tilt their heads just so … love.

Full of groovy music and comic characters--many with a priceless reaction to Lovelace's oral party trick--but it hardly manages to say anything new or thoughtful.

Willis never develops a rapport with Def, and in the end it's not the predictable action but this lack of chemistry and camaraderie that sinks 16 Blocks.

The "comedy" part of Sex is Comedy comes intentionally from cast-crew interaction.

Pairing monumental insensitivity with a bright-eyed delivery, Silverman is the current valedictorian of the nothing-is-sacred school of comedy, a modern-day Lenny Bruce spared her forefather's legal woes by time, breasts and porcelain skin.

Its gorgeous black-and-white photography, dirty and matte, will almost convince you that anything this slow, small and bereft of dialogue must be important.

If "Roll Bounce" and "Boyz n the Hood" fell in love and had a PG-13 baby, it would be ATL.

The Ice Harvest is not "Bad Santa" redux. It has comic moments - primarily from Oliver Platt, in fine drunken stupor - but Ramis' tiptoe into film noir isn't really a comedy.

As visually stunning as it is, "DR9" is also more than two hours and contains, at best, 10 lines of dialogue, an ear-piercing Bjork score and no discernible plot.

The world of his films may be violent, but Hill's vision is a delicate, subtle one-of individuals packing away the tiny bit of meaning and emotion life has granted them, and fighting to protect it at all costs. It's not a sentiment that can survive in cartoons; that it emerges at all in Red Heat is a tribute to Hill's still great talent. [17 Jun 1988, p.A]

In the end, Protocols of Zion is all context--a bit here about Father Coughlin, a minute there about the Holocaust, a stint with "The Passion" and a brief shot of Levin watching the beheading of Daniel Pearl--no soul.

All three men turn in superb and understated performances.

McAvoy does his best with this subpar, heart-tugging material. At times his mix of easy charm and inner demon pulls Rory out from under the tired script, but those pesky dramatic forces keep pushing him back in for every predictable plot development.

These are not people me and you and everyone we know know--these are "short version" people, characters who comfort each other by quoting Shakespeare.

Inner dialogue is a hard sell on screen.

Unleashed is like an old dog: No new tricks.

With husband and wife starring, you can't help but wonder which details here are autobiographical. No matter: This is obviously a deeply personal work for Attal, whose comic timing and passion can only serve him well both on screen and off.

And although Schreiber's hip, intelligent eye is a nice match for Foer's hip, intelligent pen, his movie strays from its own history, creating instead a world, as Alex would say, that is "once-removed."