Bill Gallo

A vivid double portrait of the artistic sensibility in its many weathers -- expressed by two fine actors clearly engaged in a labor of love.

A mood-switching meditation on love and death that goes out of its way to yank our chains.

Can be as howlingly funny as it is touching.

This is not pleasant stuff, but it's important, and thoroughly heart-wrenching.

Wise and surprisingly witty, the film is a minor masterpiece and could serve as a fitting companion piece to America's "In the Bedroom," another superb film about the torments of bereavement.

For all its long shadows and ominous atmosphere, this is a very funny movie -- as funny as the Coens' masterful "Fargo."

Whatever else is weak or indulgent in this fledgling effort -- self-consciousness and a certain grim solemnity come to mind -- it has the jolt of truth about it, like a lot of thinly veiled fiction.

The young actors, all first-timers chosen in auditions in Puglia and Basilicata, are completely natural.

In the end, what Minghella has wrought is a nearly perfect drama of love and war (still the great subjects, after all), an epic that's fluent, frightening and beautiful all at once, that lifts the heart and dashes our dreams in about equal measure.

A perfect marriage of author and director.

Despite a little rough stuff here and there, this is one of the more insightful and affecting teen-trauma films of recent years.

We do glimpse the dynamic interplay between rising comedian Eddie Griffin's hilarious obsessions and the loving, screwed-up people who made him what he is.

By the end, you may be exhausted by the effort of trying to unravel the thing, but you may also be taken by the power of its spell. This is a movie that compels you to watch.

A fresh, intimate, gloriously unpolished performance film that measures up to the classics of the genre.

Paul Cox's admirers are sure to embrace this latest eruption of sincerity and sensitivity.

Scrupulously accurate, sometimes-tedious account of Stephen Glass' malfeasance.

For now, it might be best to acknowledge this as an impressive debut and wait for the grown-up stuff to come.

In the end, Stone Reader gives us an old-fashioned romantic's view of writers and their craft--complete with the hint of a happy ending.

Maugham's signature wit and tragic colorations are well served by director Istvan Szabo (Mephisto) and screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Dresser).

The problem here lies not in the abundance of blood--we've seen that before--but in the film's pounding insistence, which prevails for all two hours and 40 minutes, that we also absorb a rather thin and unreliable history lesson.

It's a paint-by-numbers job of the worst sort, stuffed with more tired old baseball baloney than Harry Caray and about as dramatic as shagging flies in St. Pete.

It's a bewildering but deeply satisfying paradox, this constant, nearly silent collision in Tran's films of the visible world and the turbulent, unseen world.

So thoughtful and provocative that we cannot help but become engrossed.

The result is a lovely piece of writing brought to life by a terrific cast, a vivid sense of place and, not incidentally, some perfectly chosen pop tunes by such as Bree Sharp, Leona Naess, Smog and Tin Star. As for Lauren Ambrose, her big-screen debut is a revelation.

Waking Ned Devine works up enough feel-good momentum that in the end it's irresistible.

Holes is a nicely made movie for kids, as entertaining as it is thought-provoking and--thanks to director Davis--a bit harder-edged than the usual Disney fare.

This uncommonly clever, surprisingly poignant fairy tale packs a social wallop that we're not quite prepared for.

A fluent, intelligent piece of work whose sex and violence are anything but gratuitous, and exactly the kind of highly personal, no-holds-barred vision of life on the ragged edge that independents always aspire to but rarely have the goods to achieve.