Bill Gallo

If you're shopping for neatly tied bundles of plot and the rigid arcs of "character development" common to mainstream movies, look elsewhere. Whether he's playing on the road or at home, Jarmusch always throws a lot of off-speed stuff, and that's his glory.

Means to be heavy in terms of psychology, provocation and the examination of emotion, but it sinks like a stone the minute it hits the surface.

This nicely acted study of a love that survived all manner of trauma is a must-see for Joyce fans, feminist historians great and small and admirers of the Emerald Isle.

This is anything but pleasant stuff, but it's a must-see for anyone interested in men and women, fathers and sons, and the kind of murder mystery in which the real casualty is the human soul.

Despite a couple of low-budget, rookie-director rough spots, this fascinating look at Israel in ferment feels as immediate as the latest news footage from Gaza and, because of its heightened, well-shaped dramas, twice as powerful.

Thoroughly entertaining Home Movie carries on a grand tradition of American documentary -- seeking out the eccentrics and contrarians among us.

Davies has nailed Wharton's bitter satire of the flights and follies of New York society in the Gilded Age, and leading lady Gillian Anderson shows dazzling range in her portrayal of the book's doomed heroine.

Like all good concert films, it's the next best thing to being there.

It's difficult to imagine a more eloquent tribute.

For better or worse, the filmmaker says nothing directly political about the cruel fate suffered by her people, but the dark poetry of her allusions is powerful.

As usual, Hollywood hitmeister Bay is more interested in blowing stuff up than in addressing deep questions like the morality of science and the false myths of civilization, and these explosions go on for over two hours.

In the end, Stevie is a relentlessly messy, sometimes trying picture of family dysfunction, official neglect and personal tragedy, a disturbing redneck soap opera about real people and real consequences in which the protagonist--like the filmmaker--often proves to be as unlikable as he is sympathetic.

A reasonably entertaining -- and occasionally very moving -- picture.

Here is the horror-action genre at its silliest and most uninspired.

In the end, leaves you feeling both violated and startlingly informed, as if a mugger had whacked you in a dark alley.

Say what you want about Hollywood losing its way in recent years, there's something beautiful about moviemakers who paint themselves into corners this tight.

We expect some depth and perspective from filmmakers, but even in talking about the movie Peralta sounds like an ex-high school quarterback who never got over the Big Game, or an old campus revolutionary who's never glimpsed the folly that went along with the fervor.

Arteta and White manage to bring off both the comedy and the tenderness in this tale of a jilted friend who sticks to his passions like chewing gum on a shoe.

Karen Moncrieff makes an extraordinary debut as a feature film writer and director with this observant drama about a budding teenage poet who, amid many traumas, finds the courage to become herself and set out as an artist.

A beautifully acted, graceful, and intelligent film that usefully dramatizes the gulf between Fortress Bush and the relativist politics of Western Europe.

This is probably the funniest Mamet piece to date (but not the weightiest), and it might be destined to take a seat alongside "The Player" and "Sunset Boulevard" in the front row of movieland satires.

Broken Wings' great strength is that it doesn't overreach. These characters undergo no enormous sea changes, no crazy upheavals. Instead, they find themselves trying to roll with the punches--trying to maintain and survive.

The most liberating thing about this funny, touching, heartfelt little movie is the way it defies the rules and, in the end, begins to set its heroines free. They've earned it.

An ideal film for movie buffs, who are bound to delight in each new misfortune even as they sympathize with the documentarians' sometimes inflated vision of a tortured genius at work.

One beautiful piece of work--as alert and aware a survey of interpersonal relations as you're likely to find at the movies this year.

This is a highly original film blessed with fetching complications all its own and some hair-raising turns of plot.

Rookie writer-director Dylan Kidd, late of NYU film school, knows how to get the best out of jittery, handheld camera shots, and he knows how to go for the jugular. Roger is the bleakest comic portrait of misogynist self-delusion we've seen in a long time.

If you're in the mood for a quiet, beautifully acted little drama, liberally spiked with comedy, about the universal desires of the human heart, this may be the obscure gem you're looking for.