Ann Hornaday

Depends on breezy attitude and effortless delivery for its success.

Make no mistake: The War Tapes is not an overtly political film. It appears to grind no partisan ax nor score either red or blue points. Whether viewers support the war or not -- or find themselves somewhere in the mushy middle -- this documentary won't fit comfortably into the pigeonholes of their preconceptions.

Binder has set a difficult bar -- to make a funny, sad, original movie about the healing power of not necessarily healing -- and he just manages to clear it.

Even though it's pretentious and overlong, A Christmas Tale is still maddeningly engaging, thanks in large part to its attractive and gifted cast.

An exhilarating, often mind-blowing history of surfing.

Sandra Bullock is a disheveled, grumpy, adorable mess in Premonition, a psychological thriller that was no doubt pitched as "Medium," only longer and brunette. Or maybe "The Eternal Sixth Sense of the Spotless Groundhog Day."

The Life of Reilly pays fitting homage to a man who deserves to be remembered for much more than just trading double-entendres with Brett Somers on "The Match Game."

Even as the derivative roots of Nim's Island are clearly visible, kids will no doubt vicariously enjoy Nim's adventures and Edenic existence. And how refreshing, for once, to see a girl embark on derring-do that, in Nim's own words, makes her the hero of her own story.

Burton finely balances excess and restraint to create an absorbing, visually rich world of his very own.

Quietly, with pathos and tinges of melancholy humor, Valentin pays homage to the heroism of creating your own world when the one that's on offer breaks your heart.

It winds up being tuneless, unfunny and, despite its strenuous efforts, not terribly sexy.

The movie is jampacked with jokes, sight gags and set pieces guaranteed to appeal to the audience's sense of the preposterous.

Proves to be a whiz-bang kick in the pants.

Baghead provides a diverting showcase for actors you may never have heard of but who deserve a shot at fame and fortune.

If you can survive the F-bombs and the near-constant ethnic invective, Gran Torino is not to be missed, if only as the gutsy, thoroughly unexpected valedictory of an icon fully willing to spend every bit of his considerable capital.

Bland, workmanlike and instantly forgettable.

Despite all of Van Sant's narrative feints and coy protestations, the audience is left with one searing memory after seeing Last Days, and that memory is of Cobain. Was he, as Gordon's character suggests at one point, simply a rock-and-roll cliche? Or was he a visionary genius, as the name of Pitt's character implies?

A murder caper that could have been written by Agatha Christie during a pub-crawl.

A bit hard on the posterior, it is definitely easy on the eyes.

Everyone is given their due and dignity in this funny, sexy, humanist film that, if it is a chick flick, gives the genre a good name.

The narrative is lean, the supporting performances are solid, and, perhaps most crucially, the emotional tone of the piece is spot-on.

The result is a soaring, touching, funny and altogether buoyant movie that lives up to its title in spirit and in form.

The Australian director John Hillcoat makes an audacious, unsettling American feature debut with The Proposition, a revisionist western that brings its own brand of sanguinary honesty to the genre.

With its pounding, bloody violence, foul-mouthed language and putrid worldview, Wanted isn't comic book-y on a par with "Iron Man" or "The Incredible Hulk." Rather it's an example of revenge of the nerds at its nastiest and most vulgar.

For filmgoers whose tastes run to pulp genre frissons, auteurist brio and Nicolas Cage at his most luridly over-the-top, Bad Lieutenant scores a kind of freaky-deaky home run.

If anything, it's worth watching as yet another example of Lynch's extraordinary collaboration with Dern. It may be overstating things to call her performance heroic, but it's nothing if not brave, as she dares to embody Lynch's most brutal impressions of Hollywood -- not as a dream factory, but as the place where dreams come to die.

Bringing a tough, astringent wit to a subject too often wrapped in the cozy blanket of sentimentality or cute humor, Tamara Jenkins takes a frank look at the indignities of aging in The Savages, a black comedy that invites viewers to laugh or at least smile ruefully at the dying of the light.

A amusing trifle that might fit somewhere between "The Big Lebowski" and "Intolerable Cruelty"; for those expecting "Fargo," it's no "Fargo."

The effect isn't just frenetic, unfunny and dull. It's kind of creepy.

That none of the protagonists earns the audience's sympathy is more likely a failure of the real-life characters rather than the actors, who deliver fine performances -- especially Rhys, who seems to be channeling Richard Burton channeling Dylan Thomas at his most manipulatively loutish.

Romance, intrigue and old-fashioned movie glamour make a dazzling return in Girl on the Bridge, Patrice Leconte's sumptuous love story with a razor-sharp edge.

Rather than taking viewers on a twisty, provocative journey through a mazelike meditation on appearance and reality, The Illusionist finally just sits there, looking like a very well-produced pilot for PBS's "Mystery!" series. It's a sophisticated snooze.

When viewers are ultimately released from The Hurt Locker's exhilarating vice grip, they'll find themselves shaken, energized and, more than likely, eager to see it again.

Anything that inspires that many whoops, gasps and groans with only two actors and a few choice words has earned its place at the summertime box office trough.

Almereyda has done a splendid job of rendering Hamlet as expressive visually as it is verbally.

As ugly, excessive and vulgar as "The Usual Suspects" was stylish, subtle and suave.

Arrives as a balm to seared adult psyches that have endured all manner of assaults at the multiplex this season.

United 93 unfolds with the terrible inevitability of a modern-day "Battle of Algiers," with Greengrass exerting superb control of tone, structure and pace...United 93 may be the best movie I ever hated.

Smart, absorbing movie.

Aquamarine is better than nothing for its woefully underserved audience.

(Penn)'s is a lovely, soulful performance in a movie that manages to imbue tragedy with just the right grace note of insouciance -- a movie worthy of Woody Allen himself.

Often seems less like a fully realized film than an illustrated story, its paragraphs reduced to neatly contrived set pieces.

It's like a ferret on crystal meth that belatedly discovers ecstasy, and it's a tiresome trip either way.

Filmgoers haven't seen a family this neurotically enmeshed since the last Diane Keaton movie.

It succeeds only fitfully. Toggling between Stark's impish goatee and Iron Man's full-metal body condom, and amid so many generic fireballs, kill shots and earsplitting thumps, bumps and crunches, the film finally collapses under its own weight.

All of the actors in Turtles Can Fly are nonprofessionals, and all bring electrifying authenticity and presence to their roles.

Offers jaw-dropping visuals, but its troubling images of violence may cause this revolutionary effort to miss the evolutionary boat.

A charming, if limited, romantic comedy that examines post-collegiate angst with easy, unself-conscious humor.

The Switch, to its credit, really is about a boy, who with the help of a sensitive, sad-eyed kid, stands a chance of becoming a man.

The history of filmmakers skewering Hollywood's darker excesses is a long and rich one, from Billy Wilder through Robert Altman. With Tropic Thunder, a rude, crude, over-the-top satire about rude, crude, over-the-top action movies, Ben Stiller makes an ambitious and surprisingly effective bid to join those vaunted ranks.

This refreshing alternative to the usual potted biopic provides an absorbing look at a singular, steely determination as it was forged and annealed, long before it made itself known to the world.

A smart, alert, supremely entertaining movie.

How fitting that Firth should carry A Single Man, a movie of quiet but potent emotional power, perfectly suited to his singular gifts.

Phoenix is an arresting presence on screen, but don't expect any "Departed"-esque fast talk from Wahlberg, who is oddly inert in a role that should crackle with brotherly ambivalence.

If "13 Going on 30" isn't exactly original, it's still reasonably cool.

A kinetically charged gridiron drama that is enormous fun to watch.

Jewison's focus on the Canadians' dogged do-gooderism might have actually prevented a good movie from being a great one.

The dour, downbeat story eventually spirals into grisly Grand Guignol and contrivance. Still, Gordon-Levitt is superb, and Jeff Daniels delivers a wry and wily performance as Pratt's blind roommate.

Even with all this talent and earnestness, though, Nowhere Boy still feels indulgent, slight and almost instantly forgettable.

A movie that longs for a return to a cinema that, rather than marketing, merchandise and corporate synergy, is about the mysteries that flicker to life after the lights go down.

Supremely idiotic.

Unlike "Wild Hogs" or last summer's "The Expendables," this adaptation of the "Red" graphic novel series gets into a cool, sophisticated swing.

Funny? Scary? Entirely logical? It all depends on your point of view, of course, and "What's the Matter With Kansas?" isn't likely to move viewers one way or another.

In a summer of surprisingly self-serious comic book movies" Lara Croft "stands out as being particularly humorless.

A lovely, amazing, wonderfully provocative film.

But for all its passion and topical currency, the movie plays too often like a college colloquium. And it ends on an unsatisfying note, with each character's choice, whether fateful or fatal, hanging in a confounding limbo of indeterminacy.

This lurid celebration of shock, schlock and the shamelessly perverse finds the 67-year-old grandfather of torture porn scraping the bottom of his admittedly limited creative barrel.

Okay, the concept for the movie is admittedly lame, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with watching a passel of adorable pooches wrinkle their brows and bark while human voices come out of their mouths.

Has its modest charms.

Qualifies as the most painful, poetic and improbably beautiful film of the year.

Eastwood's instinct for creating efficient, adult, mainstream entertainment is virtually unerring. He's still a class act, not to mention craggy, suave, laconic and very, very cool.

A nifty piece of work -- with, by the way, a fantastic musical score and soundtrack -- that, if there's any justice in the movie world, will eventually earn a mystique all its own.

Tells an important story about a story that might never have been told at all.

This audacious hybrid of cinematic styles is pure entertainment.

Almodovar has created an ecstatic homage to the women who have inspired him all his life.

In Babe: Pig in the City, the sunny mood of the Hoggett Farm has been supplanted by darker urban tones, suggesting the arrival of a new cinematic genre: Barnyard Noir.

The title represents size and power, speed and hubris -- the very things the ship has come to stand for and the things that Cameron has restored to the cinema with grand, generous style.

This is a movie guaranteed to please crowds, if only because it insists on their affection so strenuously.

Block, an experienced documentarian, does an outstanding job walking the knife-edge between personal and self-absorbed.

The cast is superb, especially the young actors who portray Vitus; Gheorghiu is a real-life piano prodigy, lending an extra frisson to the intoxicating music that plays throughout the film.

A vivid portrait of a society in the midst of wrenching change, but it transcends its immediate context to become a thoughtful, even unforgettable, chamber piece, performed with exquisite subtlety by two fine actresses.

Traffics in nearly every trite cliche of the "colorful" South one can think of, from its pseudo-Gothic aesthetic to its overripe dialogue.

The story of the triumphant underdog is irresistible, even when every single plot point comes marching down Main Street.

Aimless and unfocused.

If Broken English occasionally falls prey to a bit too much self-conscious lethargy, it's still a welcome chance to see Posey at her flighty, edgy best.

May not be great cinema, but it's a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

A perfect example of a really good not-great movie, the kind that would be classified as a guilty pleasure were it not executed with guilt-free honesty and good nature.

For real sparks keep a look out for Jared Harris in a supporting role that injects a mildly diverting note of corporate intrigue into an otherwise unsurprising procedural.

For a gripping, thoroughly involving account of a flawed but inspiring real-life hero, audiences need look no further.

Magnificent.

Owen Wilson phones it in with Drillbit Taylor, a by-the-numbers teen comedy.

Paints an often grave but sometimes hilarious picture of a hugely powerful network.

Manages to be a diverting and funny character study, at least most of the time.

Character-rich, but plot-poor.

If Tucker's road map often feels a little too confining and the screwball comedy too contrived, he can take credit for introducing viewers to a character they have almost certainly never met before.

An absorbing glimpse not only at the phenomenon of punk rock but also at British social history and the rock star mystique.

What it possesses in heart and goodwill, it sorely lacks in narrative skill and artistic depth.

An engaging yarn and a moving character study, but it's also a sweet, sad glimpse of everyone's future.

Cage is back in crackling good form in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

By the time it's ended, past and present have fused inextricably to create a movie that, in its own down-home way, is nothing less than epic.

A tame, fitfully amusing and generally inoffensive romantic comedy.

It Works.

What gradually comes into focus is a terrifying, appalling, infuriating cycle of exploitation and corruption.

McTeer delivers a messily cheerful performance as a woman who thinks nothing of brushing her teeth with beer.

The tale grows only more toxic with time.

Searing dramatization of a story of remarkable courage, stamina and spirit.

Mac manages to find some moments of comedy within a movie that often feels like it's going into extra innings

Surprisingly nimble and fun to watch, mostly thanks to the magnificent dogs Hoffman has found to portray his lead characters, and thanks to the actors he cast as the animals' voices.

If listing the cast of Love Actually is exhausting, it's even more tiring to watch it.

Lush, extravagant, sad and touching, Love in the Time of Cholera still feels weirdly insubstantial when all the febrile passion has abated. Like a fever it breaks, passes and is forgotten.

The films of Michel Gondry aren't for everyone, but viewers who vibe to his playful, cerebral, wildly imaginative sensibility might get a kick out of Be Kind Rewind.

A thinly written, hoarily cliched story that serves mostly as connective tissue between the movie's chief draw, its dazzling dance sequences.

Unfortunately, for all its good music and admirable vocal impersonations, Walk the Line slides -- very, very slowly -- downhill.

Indeed, I'd say Undiscovered belongs on the WB, but that would be gravely unfair to the channel, which looks like the BBC in comparison.

(Perry and Willis) are blown off the screen by Amanda Peet and Natasha Henstridge.

With a wistful look at the wages of ambition and the failure of promise, Wonder Boys finally celebrates self-awareness, ending on a muted, quietly moving note of triumph.

Purists will howl at the liberties Shainberg has taken with the facts, but there's a bravery to Fur, an uncompromising commitment to its narrow focus -- of one woman's creative birth -- that rhymes with Arbus's own artistic courage.

For those who crave mannerisms and shtick and like their jokes set up and knocked out with plenty of arrows and quote marks, Baby Mama may fall flat. But audiences alive to the modest charms of its take on female friendship will be rewarded with at least a few quiet chuckles.

A smart, marvelously drawn account of the bravery of homing pigeons during World War II.

Rarely has an actress exuded such blank nothingness as Simpson, a one-woman vapid delivery system who sucks the energy and joy out of every scene she's in, like some freakishly well-endowed black hole.

Van Sant is such an assured filmmaker that Paranoid Park is almost inescapably absorbing; he has found a particularly engaging leading man in Miller, whose expressive, even painterly face goes from blank to angelic in the blink of a long-lashed eye.

Has all the energy and spontaneity of a bowl of waxed fruit. If watching "Dogtown and Z-Boys" was tantamount to witnessing history itself, watching "Lords of Dogtown," which Peralta wrote, feels more like watching a stiff, meticulously choreographed reenactment.

So cheesy and cheap that it almost attains high camp.

It's tough to guess who will enjoy Secretariat more -- filmgoers who remember the extraordinary events of 1973, when the chestnut 3-year-old won the first Triple Crown in 25 years, or those for whom the story is brand-new.

Does it make it as a movie? Only in fits and starts.

Even if its most ironic humor will sail over the heads of very little ones, Enchanted is that rare comedy that will appeal to the whole family.

There's very little that's even kind of funny in It's Kind of a Funny Story, which can't accurately be described as a comedy but isn't a true drama, either.

Watching Thurman's character "triumph" in a context as joyless and self-referential as Tarantino's is a soul-deadening experience, one that over two hours takes on the same dreary monotone as the cheapest pornography.

Michael Caine delivers a stunning performance in Harry Brown, a rancid little revenge fantasy that probably doesn't deserve him.

Because it's by the Coens, The Big Lebowski is studded with visual and verbal jokes and flourishes, but ultimately they amount to pearls without a string. The Coens have thrown their considerable talents into making the world's smartest dumb movie, a dubious distinction that for their admirers will have to suffice, at least for now.

Content to be sparkly when it should be sharp-edged and shrewd; it has the potential to roar like a lion, but instead it lays lambs at our feet.

Genteel but ultimately unnecessary entertainment.

Outstanding entertainment for little ones but just as rewarding for their adult companions.

Not good enough to qualify as classic Gothic horror, not nearly fun enough to qualify as great B-movie camp.

The raunchy, guy-centric comedy Hot Tub Time Machine makes a vertiginously high-concept bid to be this year's version of "The Hangover" and darned if it doesn't succeed.

To watch Bad Education is to revel, along with Almodovar, in the power of cinema to take us on journeys of breathtaking mystery and dimension and beauty.

Rather than sparkle and dance, it plods.

Winterbottom ("Welcome to Sarajevo," "Go Now") has filmed Wonderland with a hand-held 16 millimeter camera, lending the production an air of scrappy immediacy that is often arrestingly at odds with Michael Nyman's overheated musical score.

The two main characters are so shallow and self-involved -- not to mention the friends, family members and sundry apparatchiks they lug around with them -- that the two hours of Flannel Pajamas begin to feel like real time.

A quirky and satisfying love story.

Possesses an undeniable heart. The bad news is that it will still be buried underneath layers of stale Sandlerisms tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

The performances are accomplished, but the real star of Hustle & Flow is Brewer, a playwright who has written and directed a few other movies but who is effectively making a breathtaking national debut here.

Fellowes has brought intelligence and control to the eternally vexing question of whether the right thing is always the good thing.

A toothless series of vignettes rather than an insider satire on par with, say, "Bowfinger."

A fascinating, vexing, indulgent, visionary, pretentious, mesmerizing pop culture curio.

The film leaves viewers with the sad, even tragic sense that his legacy would have been more profound had he gotten out of his own way.

It's lame, corny, Ed Woodishly amateurish -- all of which is as lovable as the big lug himself.

Like "Winter Soldier," Sir! No Sir! will surely reopen old wounds, as the Vietnam War -- like the Civil War 100 years before -- refuses to die. But hawks and doves alike should be grateful to Zeiger for preserving a fascinating piece of American cultural history.

Hard to take in its particulars.

It's in these vignettes that Away We Go begins to feel less like an authentic exploration of identity than a condemnation of the very community the couple pretends to crave. No one, it turns out, is good enough for Burt and Verona.

Jack Black and Kyle Gass bring characters they created for the HBO program "Mr. Show With Bob and David" to the big screen with mixed success, depending on the age, gender and degree of inebriation of the filmgoer.

Pirates of the Caribbean moves easily from sunny 18th-century seafaring adventure to creepy zombie flick and back again.

Full of heart-rending moments, in which people of good faith search for answers to what, in the end, remain painfully irreconcilable questions.

Some dazzling in-camera special effects, especially the ingenious idea of filming the story's ghost at a slow speed, six frames per second, giving the being a strange, otherworldly way of moving.

A film that, in attempting to ridicule the Bush administration, finally just settles for being ridiculous itself.

Even with its flaws should be cheered for preserving the later years of these towering musical talents.

Isn't a noble story, or even a cautionary one: It just feels pretty painfully real.

Katherine Heigl makes an official bid for America's Sweetheart in her sophomore effort, 27 Dresses, a romantic comedy that -- despite her undeniable, apple-cheeked appeal -- sags like a day-old bouquet.

Seems propelled by a doomed sense of inevitability and is all the more gripping for it.

An animated feature (showing in 3-D in select theaters), has a couple of clever tricks that make it worth wearing those dumb, uncomfortable glasses. But this would be as delightful and attractive a production without the gimcrackery.

Chomet's vision is singularly strange and somber, and one of enormous originality and promise.

What might have been a fascinating, intimate portrait turns into something much less compelling when Clark tries to impose a sex-and-action-packed narrative on the proceedings.

Fails to go into the one realm that would make it worthwhile, which is Ed Wood's brain.

Sets up a mood of tensile suspense from the beginning and never lets it go.

From its very first scene, Untraceable isn't the sophisticated, brainy thriller it so nearly could have been, but just another movie about a serial murderer.

An exhilarating ride.

The stars of First Descent aren't particularly memorable, or even likable. At their worst, they come off as cocky, self-absorbed Peter Pans; at their best, they're sweet but shallow.

Never quite breaks out of its talky inertia.

Could be filed under "wacky misfire."

See Food, Inc. after dinner, but see it.

A deceivingly simple film, one that grows in power in retrospect, as the cumulative impact of so many quiet moments makes itself felt.

Viewers who come to this delicate creation with expectations of just another quaint or sad story are in for a surprise.

A nasty, formulaic and unforgivably obvious procedural.

The ending is enormously satisfying and moving.

The French actor Alex Descas is mesmerizing in 35 Shots of Rum, where he plays a metro conductor.

Instead of a crackling good movie in which "The Longest Yard" meets, say, "The Bad News Bears," director Phil Joanou instead decided to make Gridiron Gang a lugubrious tutorial on the importance of being a winner.

A slick, earnest, ultimately inert adaptation of the eponymous book of the Bible.

Even Washington's welcome presence is not enough to save "Fallen," yet another spiritual allegory from Hollywood dealing with God, Satan and the presence of angels. [16 Jan 1998]

Jigh class briefly gives way to high camp, which then itself dissipates to an anticlimactic thud.

This overproduced romantic comedy doesn't even qualify as fluff; it's flat, featureless plastic.

The movie doesn't offer much new to anyone familiar with Carter.

One of the great strengths of CSNY is how skillfully it deflects criticism of "four balding hippie millionaires" taking to the stage to criticize American politics; the film is peppered with excerpts from some of the tour's earliest and nastiest critics.

The Social Network has understandably been compared to "Citizen Kane" in its depiction of a man who changes society through bending an emergent technology to his will.

The Express finesses a cinematic hat trick: It's entertaining, deeply moving and genuinely important.

Combines the derring-do of classic adventure tales with far more serious issues of moral agency. And it serves as a haunting reminder to seek joy and beauty, even in the depths of despair.

Its pedagogical tone perfectly suits it for viewing in classrooms.

Wilde is a worthy movie that, although helped considerably by Stephen Fry's bravura performance, never breaks out of its static, episodic structure. [05 Jun 1998]

May look good cavorting prettily on deck, but ultimately it deserves to walk the plank.

Thanks to the uncommonly shrewd judgment of screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos and director Patricia Riggen, both newcomers, the film never feels like rank exploitation, even as it steadily aims for the emotional jugular.

A movie marred by a flaccid script, listless pacing, a plethora of cutesy-poo gags and Ray Romano.

If Loggerheads sometimes feels too forced, it features some unforgettable performances, especially by Hunt, an accomplished comedienne who makes an impressive debut as a dramatic lead here.

This is an example of a writer and director working in perfect harness, with Reed smoothly ratcheting up the story's suspense and Greene speculating on his cardinal theme of moral ambiguity. They don't make movies like The Fallen Idol anymore, all the more reason to see it now while you can.

Turns out to be not just rude, crude and outrageously funny but a deceptively sophisticated meditation on moral agency -- with pot jokes!

A well-made, excruciating exercise in containment and sustained suspense. It's a breakout moment for Reynolds. Is it a fun hour and a half? No. But it succeeds within its own straitened contours. It's an intriguing squirm. Now, please get me outta here.

An endless, virtually laugh-free pastiche of Aaron Sorkin by way of Aaron Spelling, Chasing Liberty features Mandy Moore trying so strenuously to be the next America's Sweetheart that she almost pops a vein.

Predictable, lazy and as overprocessed as Kate Hudson's hair, this thoroughly joyless movie also possesses a deep nasty streak, making it loathsome when it might have been merely annoying.

A choppy and occasionally unsure film, one that doesn't achieve the superb tonal control of "The Ice Storm," but that certainly doesn't represent an unqualified disaster on a par with Lee's first attempt at the western, "Ride With the Devil."

The Princess and the Frog invite viewers to see the world as a lively, mixed-up, even confounding place, to recognize essential parts of ourselves in what we see, and to say: This is what we look like.

It leaves audiences in a limbo every bit as torturous as the one the protagonist is in.

As a full-on celebration of beauty in all its forms, this gem of a contemporary melodrama invites viewers to plunge into a world of unerring taste and luxury, where even tragedy comes softly when it inevitably arrives.

Lives up to Tarantino's imprimatur, both in its cheesy grind house aesthetic and its occasional forays into brilliant, bravura filmmaking.

A movie that will endure.

A wildly ambitious, luridly indulgent spectacle of romance, action, melodrama and historic revisionism, Australia is windy, overblown, utterly preposterous and insanely entertaining.

Isn't about history or war, or people and their problems, or anything of substance or meaning. It's a movie about other movies. For all its visual bravura and occasional bursts of antic inspiration, it feels trivial, the work of a kid who can't stop grabbing his favorite shiny plaything.

A stirring, emotionally galvanizing film, not only due to its shattering subject matter but thanks to Mullan's spot-on eye for casting and fluid, uncoercive style.

Things take a nasty turn in the film's bilious third act, suggesting that Guest's deepest gift -- his expansive humanism -- stops at the studio gates.

A riveting, amusing, enlightening and emotionally affecting movie by a guy you've never heard of, about -- wait for it -- the consumer debt crisis.

The best thing about all of this is Bettany.

A thoroughly unnecessary but nonetheless satisfying adaptation of the cheeseball 1980s TV series.

Fun With Dick and Jane has lived up to its title: It's fun, and that's fine.

If Quitting isn't worthy of affection exactly, it's worthy of respect.

Visually undistinguished, narratively inert, populated by a cast of charmless child actors, "Sharkboy and Lavagirl," with any luck will fade quickly from theaters, memories and Rodriguez's own Things to Do Today list.

If The Eyes of Tammy Faye is skimpy, it's still an important correction to the record about this fascinating and misunderstood woman, who turns out to be much more than just her makeup.

A retread of material already thoroughly plumbed by Martin Scorsese.

It's the moral journey of Nolte's character that is the real story in Clean, but Assayas instead focuses on the manipulative habits of an addict, resulting in a mannered study of narcissism and self-pity.

A bland also-ran in a post-"Sopranos" universe.

Bears the unmistakable stamp of authenticity, even at its most outrageous.

For all its contrivances, Breaking and Entering has its finger on the pulse of contemporary London life and possesses its share of fleeting delights, chief among them the sublime Robin Wright Penn as Law's live-in girlfriend.

Nightwatch is passable stuff for undiscriminating fans of the ickier-the-better genre; for the rest of us, it offers nothing new. [17 Apr 1998]

A big, fat old-fashioned gush of passion as drawn through a post-modernist prism that makes it less easily comprehensible but more beguiling.

This romantic melodrama ... doesn't even get to first base.

Although it's often difficult to discern amid a schematic plot and overheated, sanctimonious denouement, an undeniable reality underlies Cronicas.

Gromit's every facial move -- every grimace, scowl, eye-roll and glance askance -- is sublime.

Creepy, creepy, creepy -- and not in a good way.

With a slick visual style similar to "Monster House", Open Season trots out tropes that recent animated classics have done with more wit and smarts.

Depraved, worthless piece of filth.

A gorgeous and surprisingly profound meditation on a place and its people.

As with so many recent literary adaptations, it was the writing that was the art, not its infrastructure of plot and character.

The film looks great on the screen, and Hamer has commissioned a terrific musical score from Kristin Asbjornsen, who has set a few of Bukowski's poems to haunting, jazzy music.

The movie can't help but resonate with a ripped-from-the-headlines topicality.

Fanaro's script never really hones in on the concept's potential.

Smart, funny, well-acted and visually lively.

Smith shows the grasp of character and offbeat humor that really registered in "Clerks," and a subtler mastery of film fluidity and professionalism than anything in the cheesy, amateurish "Mallrats."

This uncommonly intelligent thriller evokes the great films of the 1970s ("All the President's Men," "Klute," "Three Days of the Condor") that managed to elicit gritty urban realism while maintaining a suave sense of style and moral complexity.

Although the new version, which stars Keanu Reeves, is likely to make audiences pine for the meta-irony of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," it's not a complete failure.

One of the unique virtues of the cinema is its ability to bring history to life with engrossing detail and gripping immediacy; East-West does this.

It's a remarkable, if appalling, spectacle of self-abasement. But of course, that's Sandler's specialty.

A startling portrayal of how the cycle of abuse plays itself out in the lives of its victims.

Designed to educate, outrage and finally spur viewers to action. That it does so with vibrant visual style and an engaging narrative makes it that rare consciousness-raising film that's not only good for you, but a joy to watch.

John Turturro's farce about life and theater that is by turns elegant and bawdy, but always transfixing.

Taymor conjures images that are as indelible as they are wordlessly articulate.

A yawn and most unforgivably features some appalling arrangements of the Beatles' best-loved songs.

Of Madonna's considerable talents, making the camera love her isn't one: The screen seems to go dead every time she's on it.

Smart, silly, splenetic and a bit smug, it's a movie that might put a viewer's teeth on edge were it not for its winning lead performances.

Will probably appeal most to hard-core fans of Japanese animation and its wide-eyed style, both visual and philosophical.

Spielberg's dark side may not be where everyone wants to live, but it's somehow encouraging to know that he has one.

Modestly amusing teen summer comedy.

If Kelly felt it necessary to add the new material, that's all to the good. It just means there's more to love.

Heights is nothing more than a second-rate version of several much better movies, all of which are available on DVD and video.

Takes both its characters and the audience to the depths, but it's a journey Kidd redeems with wit and fluency and, ultimately, a deeply persistent humanism.

A movie of technical skill and rare depth of intellect and feeling.

The skits that comprise Coffee and Cigarettes aren't fully realized short pieces as much as riffs or fragments; their appeal is mostly in their stars.

Will prove infectious to those audiences who find themselves sharing the director's frivolous frame of mind.

Mary McDonnell, as Nat's patient wife, provides too-brief clarity as Nat goes off the rails, finally taking the movie with him.

Thanks to Bauby's courageous and honest writing, and Schnabel's poetic interpretation, what could have been a portrait of impotence and suffering becomes a lively exploration of consciousness and a soaring ode to liberation.

The great joy of watching a Pixar production is how it rewards not only younger viewers but their older companions as well.

For movie fans who despair of the state of American cinema, the in-jokes are hilarious.

Save Me is a particularly flattering showcase for Gant, best known for his work on the TV show "Queer as Folk" and ready for a big-screen breakout.

Antichrist finally embodies the contradiction of von Trier: He's a gifted, even visionary, artist mired in his own pulp pretentiousness.