Andy Klein

Maniacally funny. It remains neck and neck with "Young Frankenstein" as Brooks' best film.

What about Ronny Yu's 1992 masterpiece "The Bride With White Hair," of which Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a decent facsimile?

The plot may be nothing, but the film is something indeed.

The pacing is slow, but the film is entrancing and earns a permanent place in the viewer's mind.

What's particularly scary about Hollywood Ending, however, is that its flaws are exactly the sort of problems that often afflict aging directors, flaws that we've never seen in Allen before -- bad comic timing, slack pacing, an unsteady control of tone, a reliance on jokes that have long since become clichés.

If the performances are the prime reason the film is as engaging as it is, it must also be said that Majidi's visual style seems far more sophisticated than in "Children of Heaven."

It was Melville's second-to-last feature, and it shows him in top form, with a more generous dose of humor than usual.

Spinal Tap is still on the right side of the fine line between stupid and clever.

It's moving; but it's also endlessly engaging, uproariously funny at moments, informative, and eventually touching in ways one might not have expected.

For all its mystery and its stylistic finesse, there is something vaguely plodding about The Sweet Hereafter.

For most people, four hours pushes the outer comfort limits for theatrical viewing. My Voyage to Italy is well worth the time, but bringing along a thermos of espresso isn't a bad idea either.

Altman's technique also allows his huge cast to act up a storm, in the best sense. Gosford Park has roughly half the best actors in England in it.

Casting is perfect all down the line.

This film made Dietrich a star, and it's easy to see why: Slightly more voluptuous than in her later films, Dietrich is the embodiment of the pleasures of the flesh.

Allen produces a lovable, relaxed--although not uproarious--comedy.

The story is just as funny and touching. The only problem is the inevitable one: The freshness -- the novel delight -- is a little faded now.

Wong weaves a spell that no other director could create.

Indeed heartwarming, though not simplemindedly so.

It’s Del Toro who really gets to strut his stuff with a subtle, ambiguous, and riveting performance. In a field of top-notch actors, he’s the one whom you remember days later.

No one can blend melodrama and heightened emotion with laugh-out-loud wackiness the way Almodóvar does.

Varda, still pixieish in her early 70s, is having fun here.

Despite the generally likable characters and the abundance of clever ideas, Lustig mucks it all up with her "trick" editing.

There have been other films dealing with the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi occupation of Poland -- some very good -- but The Pianist, the latest feature from Roman Polanski, may be the best.

It's an amazing story, but, in addition to its intrinsic interest, the Shackleton expedition has another remarkable draw: Crewman Frank Hurley had brought along not only still cameras, but a movie camera as well, providing us with an extraordinary record of the ship's voyage.

There are lots of elements that make no sense whatever.

On one level, Together is a countercultural soap opera, though played more as bittersweet comedy than as drama.

Fuqua has done an admirable job staging the action scenes, but the script is little more than a thin framework to justify those scenes.

The film is a masterpiece of nuance and characterization, marred only by an inexplicable, utterly distracting blunder at the very end.

Hilarious--a terrific updating of ancient farce conventions for the '90s.

This is a dark, often funny walk through Ingmar Bergman turf.

The fractured structure, which moves from one species to another while following a generally chronological overall arc, can occasionally leave your mind to wandering, but for a film with no plot or characters to focus on it is remarkably gripping.

Shot in stylish black and white, with a memorably low-key performance from Duchesne, Bob le Flambeur is definitely worth checking out on the big screen in a fresh print.

Gilroy has brilliantly played to his strengths in Spring Forward. With a story that has no room for big, obviously "cinematic" effects, he concentrates on simple staging, unobtrusive (though often beautifully evocative) visuals, and sheer performance. It's a decision that pays off.

Eureka is, quite extraordinarily, never dull.

Unless you're deeply familiar with Korean culture, you've truly never seen anything like it.

One of the compulsively watchable films this year, second only to "Memento." It's a must-see, except for those with a sensitivity to on-screen mayhem.

Those with an interest in new or singular sorts of film experiences will find What Time Is It There? well worth the time.

It's funny, heroic, exaggerated and, most of all, energetic; the film speeds along as though afraid to lose the audience's attention for even a moment.

Toback has taken a distinctly '60s-ish personal experience and done his best to transplant it into the current, vastly different, cultural milieu. Harvard Man is a semi-throwback, a reminiscence without nostalgia or sentimentality.

The film could be subtitled "Six Characters in Search of an Ending:" When they find that ending, it is gently, delightfully uplifting.

Wisely, Run Lola Run lasts something under 80 minutes; any longer, and it would have been as exhausting and boring as a half-hour Donna Summer track.

What Nolan does accomplish here that we haven't seen from him before is staging a few horrifyingly effective suspense set pieces -- one of which, in particular, is likely to stay with you for a long time.

While Mononoke is often gorgeous to look at and has a far more sophisticated story than most Japanese animated features, it still feels overlong and dramatically unengaging.

An exciting, sharply realized melodramatic film noir, based on Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's novel "The Blank Wall."

Headey, Skarsgård and Rampling flesh these people out marvelously, bringing them fully to life. It's almost a pity: The more real they become, the less pleasant is the time we spend with them.

In the end, the performances and the basic strength of the premise make Shadow of the Vampire a relatively diverting ninety minutes. But there is the inescapable feeling that it is a shadow of the great film it might have been.

From the start, a comprehensible, if necessarily simplified, sense of an extremely complicated moment in history.

What Malick has fashioned here is less a conventional narrative than an impressionistic mosaic of our common, yet varied experience of life and death, as focused and clarified through the relentless lens of war.

One of the glories of the film is that Ramsay keeps us rigorously to Morvern's point of view without ever being explicit about what's going on in her head.

I found myself roaring at the grotesque way some of the characters talk to their pets, pausing only briefly when I realized that I do precisely the same thing.

Makes good use of its actors.

We become so absorbed in the ramifications of the techniques involved that a more challenging plot might have resulted in sensory overload.

While Imamura films generally have their droll moments, this is the most blatantly comic work he's done since the '80s -- richly entertaining and suggestive of any number of metaphorical readings.

Dramatically effective, thanks in large part to Montand's impassioned performance.

Dench is wholly extraordinary in a characterization that is frequently muted, literally and necessarily.

For those with a taste for epics that integrate the historical and the intimate.

Takes roughly a third of its length to really get going, but, once it does, it's a devilishly clever, engaging piece of work that milks every cent of value from its tiny budget.

The only genuine surprises on hand are the few moments when the film defies the expectations that have been programmed into our collective neurons by the past 25 years of horror movies.

Compellingly watchable.

Surprisingly manages never to grow boring -- which proves that Rohmer still has a sense of his audience.

In the end, Code Unknown is a puzzle with no obvious solution.

Zemeckis is more interested here in getting us thinking (and feeling) than in telling us what to think.

May well stand as his (Chan) final word on true martial arts cinema.

Unfocused. We feel cut adrift amid the various plot threads. This is exacerbated by some murky exposition. Characters, events, and the passage of time are not always clearly established.

While it's crucial to preserve and make available every bit of available footage of such an earth-shattering event, it must be said that Rosenbaum's film manages to become slack and uninvolving after a while.

The entire cast is right on the money, a special word must be said about Seth.

Zhang deftly and quickly draws a half-dozen supporting characters, and his pacing never flags.

Hilary Birmingham -- makes an impressive feature directorial debut with this rural drama. She gets first-rate performances.

Bigger, Longer & Uncut delivers: It's never less than funny, and at its best, it's truly hysterical.

More involving and intriguing than any by-the-numbers studio thriller. In large part, it holds our interest because of its stylistic boldness, not despite it.

Les Destinées has a leisurely, contemplative pace without ever growing boring. Still, at the end, we are left somehow empty. For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.

Eastwood provides more than an hour of easygoing fun, followed by 45 minutes of action and suspense.

It's hard to know just how much to trust Titanic Town.

It's a fast, entertaining ride.

The various talents on display aren't enough to overcome the sheer blandness of the material.

The film's demands may be too perplexing.

Two minor drawbacks: Onscreen IDs of speakers are sometimes omitted. And Kissinger's crimes seem almost paltry in comparison to current American policies.

Whatever its faults -- and it has more than a few -- it is unquestionably different. It at least takes a stab at interpolating cerebral ideas into the format of a thriller.

The repetitious structure begins to grow wearing about two-thirds through, but the conclusion has an emotional wallop that justifies the wait.

Silva is a polished and sophisticated director who brings a surprisingly light touch to much of this apparently fact-based story.

It's during the shift to seriousness that The Ice Storm makes its missteps. The intrusion of tragedy, while altogether believable, still seems like a device, a calculated tug at the heart strings. It is, in short, a once-effective ploy that now feels like a cliche. A near-miss might have been more effective.

It's funny and exciting on enough levels that adults are likely to enjoy it just as much as the rug rats.

It's a strange, entertaining little film that derives its weird tension from a blend of comic and serious tones.

Sad to say, the story is simply too slight to sustain the film.

O'Connor as Fanny is irresistibly appealing.

Washington creates an indelibly charming and terrifying character whose volatile blend of dedication and horrible expediency keeps us off balance.

Despite the few good performances, this Hamlet is not a keeper.

The movie is not always satisfying as a standard thriller, nor is it always clear; but it's never dull, either, and it displays a sensibility so weird as to be its own recommendation.

This sweet little movie is a mild comedy, a much calmer cousin to "Sister Act," with men in robes rather than women in habits.

It is engaging, touching, and frequently funny. Maybe because his hero is inarticulate and his heroine is mute, Allen relies far more than usual on physical comedy than on the verbal jokes that are his strongest comic suit.

Singleton may spend the rest of his career chasing the kind of critical and commercial success he won at an early age with "Boyz N the Hood". But even if Rosewood fails to meet that standard, it is a film that reaffirms that depth of his talents.

Pretty hysterical.

A warning is virtually mandated: No one who's even the least bit squeamish should even think about seeing Audition. But, if you have a taste for the disturbing, it's a trip that will stay with you for some time.

For fans of the franchise, Evil Dead Rises marks a welcome return to the seamless blend of humor and genuine scares and creepiness that Raimi created 42 years ago.

Worth watching.

It's unlikely that anyone will walk away unmoved.

Were it not for the gravity of the setting, the movie could just as easily be a comedy -- with everybody play-acting and doors opening and shutting and the repercussions of lies multiplying geometrically -- as a drama.

Dominik's stylistic choices are savvy, but what really makes the movie work is Bana's extraordinary performance as Chopper.