Angie Errigo

If Fosse's film fails to capture the man or his art completely, it remains a damn good place to start.

This is brutal, gory, at times downright sickening stuff, and somewhat twisted types are likely to laugh like a drain.

Unfortunately, left alone on the big screen, distinctly thin characterisation and a plot that looks like a distended television episode, let the new crew down slightly but there are still enough classic moments to keep fans happy.

Lyne's efforts to be both passionate and artistic are generally successful, although a few sex scenes are disturbing and arguably close to salacious.

Cute, cute, cute. No bouquets for originality, but it pushes all the buttons of this mini-genre, and Heigl and Marsden ring dem bells.

The tennis itself is ridiculously far-fetched, and yet this may still be the best tennis movie ever made.

Wow! It may not be art or good taste, but throbbing melodrama doesn't come with more conviction. Even to those usually turned off by the tough Crawford, Mildred is compelling.

It's a mostly winning combination of sassy humour and sentiment, enlivened by some fun "newsreel" recreations that catch the period flavour of a sport adopting showbiz tactics - flirty-skirted uniforms, cheesecake stunts and skin-scraping do-or-die game plays - to attract the crowds.

Of sentiment there is too much and the final sequence when the white men inevitably rear their heads and raise their rifles so fraught with tears and peril as to be exhaustingly melodramatic.

It was Roman Polanski's genius, however, that made the film not merely an intelligent and intricate narrative but a great, disturbing vision.

Unnervingly, it is both hilariously funny and quite disturbing, with Allen's neuroses and fixations manifested in some shocking ugliness and intimately personal revelations we'd rather not have seen confirmed.

We expect oddball wit of a higher calibre from Guest and co., although their inherent, zany likeability means plenty of laughs.

A superior, haunting thriller of abduction, deception and ethical dilemma with a sobering ending - a moral quandary that demands strong debate outside the cinema.

Sleepwalkers, Steven King's first original screenplay, is horror filmmaking by numbers. It has monster fiends, a few swooshing tracking shots, many a touch lifted from every self-respecting vampire movie ever made, and several weak but intentional laughs to indicate that no one here is taking the thing too seriously.

The performances transform this otherwise orthodox cat-and-mouse movie into a gripping experience.

Those who find men in feathers inherently divine will have a high old time here, and there are enough hilarious cinematic moments for the gob-smacked rest.

It has grown a little thin with age, especially Gere’s yuppie baiting speeches, but there’s a hardness here, an aversion to the dumb action thrills of the genre, that keeps it respectably high up the scale.

Disappointingly dull given the explosive subject matter, this at least attempts to get a message into the mainstream. An extra star for effort rather than execution.

While the supporting actors are engaging, the turgid screenplay lets the whole thing down.

Adorable. Ad-or-able. It will melt even the coldest heart.

Could have been a little more darkly comic in places but the performances are superb.

The result never comes close to being hilarious, merely cute in the corniest way. That it is more of a pleasure than it deserves, is down to the light, bright leads. Cage and Fonda are both charming, though he’s particularly endearing in his uncharacteristic but welcome turn as a soft-hearted, irresistable darling. The slightness is a disappointment, but the concoction is still very sweet indeed.

The sum of the parts is a cautiously optimistic view of love's power to re-shape lives, propounded with considerable appeal.

Despite superb performances by Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh, a limp, almost TV movie trite, climax never comes near delivering the shocks it should. A shame, as what could have been superb, is merely average.

Another great, landmark American film of the '70s.

Not as divine as Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility," but engagingly comparable to the Gwyneth Paltrow-starring Emma and vastly superior to Mansfield Park.

William H. Macy is a scream as the composite radio announcer whose hyperbolic racetrack reports are not only hilarious, but illustrate the impact of radio in creating a mass culture and how it was instrumental in making sporting events a nationwide obsession.

A solid, child-friendly work which will keep little ones content, if not mesmerised.

Despite its hopeless predictability, this is one of those preposterous and sweet-natured family frolics that you find yourself enjoying in spite of yourself. Check your critical faculties in at the door and get stuck in.

Tedious Western, that's a disappointment given the talent involved.

Cringe-making fun for survivors of the '70s. For the younger majority: a familiar rise and fall of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll enlivened by the gender reversal and performances.

Its faults - sketchy narrative, overblown abstraction - are counterbalanced by its gripping engagement between man and machine, and its rhapsodic wonder at heaven and earth and the infinite beyond.

C'mon, it's Fred and Bing! Depending on your disposition, you can take that as a recommendation or a warning.

Swank’s moving performance, the period dressing and beautiful planes all appeal, but dramatically it doesn’t really soar.

Despite the schmaltz this reviewer lapped it up, not least for the engaging teens, including Alicia Witt, and the spectacle of Dreyfuss strutting his wily stuff to Louie, Louie.

While Landau, Aiello and a brief appearance by Christopher Walken do perk things up, it's a tediously indulgent, redundant work.

Crude, patronising and mawkish, but rescued by excellent performances, beautiful landscape photography, and hard-to-argue-with themes of natural justice, delivered with a punch.

This comedy holds few surprises, bar the realisation that Hal is Zora's father. After that it's dysfunctional family comedy all the way. But this proves to be no bad thing. Goldberg and Danson handle the material with their usual panache, while a young Smith gives a steady post-Fresh Prince supporting role.

Much more fun than its stuffy "Greatest Film Ever Made" tag suggests, with a literate script, stylish direction, a great song and cinema's most romantic couple in Bogie and Bergman.

A gripping modern morality tale with a credible cast and a compelling premise. The film is heavy on self examination and will make you think: what would you do?

As with Platoon, Stone captures the horrific essence of an environment and transfers it to us without the need for prior knowledge. Dazzling filmmaking.

Exciting in parts, Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon doing their best, but arc of suspense doesn't quite bring you to the edge of your seats.

Handsomely done and beautifully acted, just slightly wanting in a screenplay that leaves questions unanswered about what's behind these unhappy people. And it's ultra-depressing...

Still one of the most thrilling and thoroughly entertaining of all musicals.

Sound tricky? It is, and all a little too cutely so, the switches back and forth between realities ever more contrived and eventually tiresome, prompting giggles of relief as the storylines painfully draw towards a soap operatic convergence.

On such a limited level this delivers; if you take the kids, leave them to it.

Sadly, this will not go down as one of Brooks' classics.

Despite its admirable strengths and the fact of it being a true story, there is somehow a failure to completely connect with the fierce boy, giving his unhappy and alienating youth an unfortunate air of unreality.

This plays like a collection of translated, stylised scenes rather than a seamless narrative that arouses one's sympathy with Finn or forbearance for Estella. File under well-meaning failures.

A remarkable ensemble in an uneven patchwork of loss, longing and the urgent necessity of a societal rethink.

Trouble is, James Ivory just doesn't do sleaze. The tawdry milieu of taxi dancers, pleasure-seekers and spies rings hollow.

There is nothing reprehensible about Palmetto; it simply falls short of conviction because you're too aware you've seen it all a hundred times before.

Bigger, better and more polished than the first, with a quite satisfactory ratio of action set-pieces and a lot of juvenile japery squarely aimed at its PG and fanboy audience.

The chemical combustion just isn't there between Julia and Clive, and you can't help wondering if Gilroy wrote this with George Clooney in mind. Still, a glamorous, diverting escapade that over-30s in particular can enjoy.

This is a superbly crafted, landmark film which invested a much-derided and frequently ludicrous genre with a welcome degree of dignity and respectability.

A rounded portrayal that leaves an overwhelming sense of the miraculousness of life.

Flawed but staggering cinema, the unforgettable Apocalypse Now setpieces are extraordinary.

An effective look at women's lives in a decidedly non-Hollywood setting.

Surprisingly sentimental by turns, this emerges not as just another gangster initiation movie, but as a story of father and son love with enough guts to hold those anticipating the former, while also touching the heart.

Day-Lewis and Pfeifer are on top form with Ryder giving the performance of her career.

By the time everyone's done their darnedest to undermine this romance and the tirelessly selfless St. Danny has begun to contemplate cutting the apron strings, they've all nearly worn out their welcome. It's simple, sweet and uninspired.

Pretty as a picture, but emptyheaded as hell.

Sumptuous to look at, with some decent performances but Branagh's attempt at this gothic horror just doesn't hold together convincingly and fails to engage.

The mammoths aren’t all that is wild and woolly in this innocent, old-fashioned, amusingly self-important, entertainingly mad, rip-snorting throwback to vintage Saturday matinee fare, with all the swell set piece thrills state-of-the-art technology can throw at it.

Pitched awkwardly -- neither for children nor cool young adults -- it's very sweet, very nice and just the thing for a girlie matinée with mum and nan.

With a great set designed by an Oscar winner as well as a cast that includes Maggie Smith and of course, based on a children's favourite, it's hard to see where this could go wrong. It does entertain, but it manages to hold back on the sentimentality that you're left with nothing at all.

For all its weaker aspects, it is to be recommended as a denunciation of intolerence made with understanding, compassion, and some humour.

Despite some smart, brittle dialogue and the classy cast, this seldom rises above the routine and is basically a bittired and terribly 60's.