Amy Taubin

Pretty much a mess, but it also has a couple of long stretches that are extremely daring in that they reveal black family dynamics we've never seen on screen before.

Seems like a TV movie. A well-written, sympathetically acted TV movie, to be sure, but so timid and clumsy in its deployment of picture, sound, and editing that you have to wonder if executive producer Martin Scorsese bothered to give notes.

It's this strategy (however unconscious), and not simply a lack of directing talent, that makes Hedwig so relentlessly assaultive, heavy-handed, and emotionally monochromatic.

The General is a refined, traditional movie about a character who is never more traditional than when he imagines himself outside the law. It’s a great paradox, but it barely comes alive on the screen.

It may seem perverse to fault a movie for being too accurate, but when surface accuracy is coupled with tunnel vision about self and society the result is a wee bit irritating.

I suspect that Time Code was a lot more fun to make than it is to watch.

Acting is the strongest element in Stephen Frears's Liam.

Far too tepid.

The film belongs to Fleiss, and he makes Joe's inner life so transparent that it's heartbreaking to watch the boy dig himself into a hole.

An intelligent, perceptive film. It's good enough to make you wish Chen hadn't sacrificed emotional complexity for a last-minute surprise.

It's the prettiest movie of the year, maybe of Allen's career.

Little more than a cartoon, and not a funny one at that.

Except for Polley and Rea, the performances are heavy-handed.

Properly picturesque but lacks subtlety and substance in blending Chinese and Western history, ideas, and cinematic conventions.

Its awkward mix of polemic and melodramatics probably won't travel very well.

The three-act structure is too predictable, and at 90 minutes, feels both draggy and hacked to the bone.

Not nearly the mindfuck it wants to be.

A sympathetic but conventional disease-of-the-week movie.

Filled with people who cut Holmes more slack than he deserved.

Schneebaum is a great subject; the film doesn't quite make the most of him.

The most revelatory moment is provided not by the spectacle of the Roes clinging to each other on a bungee cord, but by Julian Lennon, who pops up on the beach in Monaco to give a terse evaluation of his father.

Director Eric Bross has a smooth nonstyle that serves him well until the screenplay turns melodramatic at the end.

A highly talented filmmaker, Radtke draws intense, focused performances from these two inexperienced young actors.

If Lloyd's performance is the film's near-fatal flaw, Unger's is its saving grace.

Its exploration of faith and love is skin deep.

Forster not only makes this unlikely story emotionally believable, he moves you to tears. Lakeboat isn't much of a film, but for Forster fans, it's indispensable.

The script for Session 9 is so underwritten that even such lively character actors as David Caruso, Peter Mullan, and Brendan Sexton III are left stranded.

Loathsome though Stepmom is, the eternally coltish Roberts is always a pleasure to watch and Sarandon's mordant wit occasionally comes to the fore.