Bill Gallo

The whole thing is absolutely beautiful to look at, even when it has a bad case of the cutes.

In elevating bawdy teen farce to political metaphor without squeezing the fun out, Alfonso Cuarón has pulled off a nice little miracle.

Not just great fun but high art.

If, in its groundbreaking assault on the mythology of the American West, Brokeback Mountain gets a lot of people into a furious lather, so be it.

The unfettered comedy of life bubbling up from the Spanish unconscious continues to be proudly liberationist, gloriously extreme, and achingly human.

A beautifully acted, carefully written meditation on one woman's grief, the enigma of imagination, the persistence of desire and -- let's face it -- the power of denial.

Baby may not be quite as compelling as Mystic River or Unforgiven, but there's something so stirring, and disquieting, too, in his quest that we cannot help but pay close attention to him. In the middle of his long career's third act, he's still searching for the secrets in things with striking resolve. You certainly can't ask more than that of any 75-year-old ex-gunslinger.

There are no hearts and flowers in Loach's hard-edged world, no kindly interventions, no signs from heaven. Instead, he gives us the unvarnished facts about working-class exploitation and the failure of ambition in low places.

In this modest but brilliant little movie, we find ourselves immersed in life itself.

This full-tilt visual and aural bombardment is simply a lot of fun. It never lets up. Nor does it ever want to.

Touching, frequently hilarious.

Lawrence constructs a vivid pastiche of human foibles, nicely flavored with a touch of suspense and some well-timed jolts of humor. In the end it's a terrifically entertaining film, if not quite so profound as the makers might wish.

It gracefully defies the usual categories, gets under your skin in ways you cannot anticipate, then works its way straight toward the heart. It's far and away the bravest and best movie of the year.

Unsettling, morally complex and timely view of American power abroad. Many will find it courageous and some, no doubt, will absolutely revile it, but no one is likely to look away from the screen.

Has plenty of dark horror style, but it lacks the weird charm of the 1971 original starring Bruce Davison...It's a nice homage.

This is provocative stuff--and not just for its searing indictment of Brazilian society.

It takes an especially fine-tuned director and an inventive actor to cut as close to the bone as Spider does.

The horrors therein are vivid, even if the movie is a bit plodding.

Happily, this irreverent, sharply observant comedy sweeps us into the maelstrom too. Amid the glut of teen movies rolling out of the studios every week, Election deserves special attention.

A thoroughly professional, frequently spectacular piece of muckraking.

If you love Kawasakis, Hondas, and Yamahas, and don't mind tin-eared writing, get down to the multiplex.

This is a grim and sometimes guilt-ridden examination of the Third Reich in collapse. But it's also weirdly sympathetic, and not just to the peripheral figures in Hitler's twisted world.

One of Void's great strengths is that it doesn't say much about "voids." It simply shows us, in incredibly vivid detail, heart-stopping danger and the raw will to survive.

Money Can't Buy You Happiness. It hasn't been this vividly re-examined in decades, and we're the richer for it.

Exceptionally smart and charming.

Weaving many interconnected plot lines and more than a dozen lives together, this gifted writer-director has fashioned a bleak, brilliant comedy about loneliness, lovelessness, and alienation--a film that constantly upends our assumptions about what is heartbreaking, what is hilarious, and what is both.

The singing and dancing in this Chicago are uniformly splendid, right down to Gere's tap dancing. The high wit and dark eroticism Marshall brings to the famous "Cell Block Tango" number are matchless.

The result is a vivid anthropological document suffused with plenty of emotion and a touch of ancient magic.