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.