Andy Klein

There are lots of elements that make no sense whatever.

Scrappy, sappy, and appealing.

Both Fellini and Woody Allen have remarked that casting is 90 percent of directing--and Citizen Ruth bears witness to that notion. While this is primarily Dern's show, the casting is perfect all around.

While there's nothing original in Rush Hour, it runs through its well-worn paces with both wit and excitement.

It's pretty good fun, once it gets going, but still makes some of the same mistakes that have plagued other Hollywood films that interpolate the concepts of Hong Kong action.

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.

If you don't view it too analytically, Men of Honor provides almost more uplift than a body can handle.

The result is by no means the embarrassment that many such offerings from unjustifiably vain actor-auteurs have been, but nor does it present much of anything new or compelling to demand one's attention.

It's perfectly effective, though only rarely inspired.

Makes good use of its actors.

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.

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.

After a few very funny early sequences, tricked up with grotesque, surreal editing and camerawork, the movie gets bogged down a bit during the first third.

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

Kay doesn't seem to know the meaning of moderation.

The film is reasonably entertaining, though it begins to drag two-thirds through, when the melodramatic aspects start to overtake the comedy.

Schnitzler's film has a great hook, some clever bits and well-drawn, if standard issue, characters, but is still only partly satisfying. The problem may very well be one of cultural translation.

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

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

Belongs somewhere in the low middle of Altman's output -- not up to "Cookie's Fortune," but way better than, say, "Beyond Therapy," which remains his worst film by some margin.

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.

Will probably please hard-core action fans who have become inured to plot idiocies, but it remains a terrible waste of talent.

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

It's a fast, entertaining ride.

It's always risky to characterize a new film as "unique," but Tuvalu, the debut feature from German director Veit Helmer, has as good a shot as any at claiming that label.

It is a moving and solidly entertaining comedy/drama that should bolster director and co-writer Juan José Campanella's reputation in the United States.

Wong weaves a spell that no other director could create.

It's hard not to warm to a film that features William Shatner (playing himself) looking at De Niro's character and complaining about what a lousy actor he is.