Bill Gallo

Ryan never quite convinces us she's seen the inside of a fight gym, much less that she's worthy to be Rocky in a miniskirt. On the other hand, her director here was not Campion but actor Charles S. Dutton, whose behind-the-camera skills, developed via cable TV, tend toward the cartoonish.

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

This badly muddled adaptation of a complex novel chases after Guterson's many skeins and themes with no unifying principle in mind.

You'd better be in the mood for a blitz of bumper-sticker philosophy, a major machismo transfusion and 94 minutes' worth of mind-numbing repetition, complete with a musical score seemingly lifted from reality TV.

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.

Anyone who expects a little drama with their screen sex will have to go elsewhere.

There is more anxiety than loving humor in the proceedings, and a noticeable lack of charm.

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.

An occasionally amusing but wrongheaded remake that arrives more than four decades after the original blazed across the screen.

Indeed, in this era of muckraking left-wing documentaries, The Inheritance offers a more fascinating fictionalized look at what cut-throat capitalism can do to conscience.

For Caan's shtick alone, The Yards is worthwhile, but we may also be witnessing the emergence, in Gray, of a young filmmaker who's just starting to find the range.

An unabashed flag-waver and one of the best feel-good sports movies ever, this authentic charmer does for its young hockey players what John Wayne used to do for the U.S. Marines, and it lifts us, too, onto the boys' cloud of belief.

It's vastly enjoyable in a low-down, scandal-mongering way.

The movie is more a loose collection of skits than a coherent whole. But then, it's never coherence we're looking for when Atkinson's exhausting imagination is cut loose from its fetters. The weird bonus here is John Malkovich's over-the-top performance.

Picture the dopes from "Dumb and Dumber" getting mixed up in organized crime -- but without benefit of Jim Carrey's rubberized pratfalls or his go-to-hell anarchism.

If, having seen "Jackass" half a dozen times, you now yearn to watch a pair of identical twins from Texas Tech cavort in the wet T-shirt contest or hear mobs of drunken undergraduates screaming for more margaritas, here's your flick.

Moviegoers might have preferred a little more care with the characters. As it is, Alma comes off not as a courageous trailblazer but as an indiscriminate adventuress.

In his observant, swiftly paced Stardom, Arcand does it all with relentless wit, high style, and a suggestion of tragedy.

The cast has plenty of room to emote, but their task feels a bit empty and thankless. For the most part, they're carrying the director's water.

The flashy sensationalism of The Sixth Sense -- maybe the best thing about it -- is at war with its desire for contemplation.

A thoroughly unremarkable police action movie starring the magnetic Samuel L. Jackson.

Here's a knowing look at female friendship, spiked with raw urban humor.

In short, Just Say Yes.

Atkins has trouble keeping the tension high and the jokes rolling. Halfway through he begins tripping over the noir genre's dark rules, and in the end he veers off into a haze of romantic redemption that Billy Wilder and Nicholas Ray would have scoffed at.

Arcand loyalists are bound to miss Rémy, but at least he goes out in style. Even the antagonists will have to admit that.

The whole thing has a dour resolve that undermines its attempts at humor.

In Mary Katherine Gallagher's dogged perseverance, it's easy to find not only cheap laughs but real soul. In her way, she's a saint.

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.

As is common in a Frankenheimer picture, the plot lines get a bit tangled in Ronin, but the atmosphere is tense, the style impeccable.

There's so much EFFORT here to convince us of the switcheroo (already one of Hollywood's oldest ploys) that we soon weary of it.

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.

So, if you want to see this loud but rather ordinary epic, don't expect its tricked-up cultural and theological messages to carry much water. For entertainment value, it's hard to beat the climactic siege of Jerusalem, a Ridley Scott-perfect half-hour that matches anything in "Troy" or "Gladiator" for sheer, bloody, helmet-bashing mayhem.

Generous in spirit and fearlessly observant, this tale of an outcast Vietnamese man's journey to freedom deserves a place of honor among the great films portraying emigrant tenacity.

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.

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.

Not just great fun but high art.

Disturbing, beautifully acted movie.

A psychotic we can't help falling for, Edward Norton's beautifully drawn and richly nuanced dreamer could, in time, prove to be one of the most memorable movie characters of recent years.

This pitch-perfect, richly detailed portrait of raw greed works very well.

There's little evidence to suggest Schneebaum was one of the great explorers of the 20th century, or even that he was particularly curious.

Its substance and high ambitions, salted with humor, make for a rewarding two hours in the dark.

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.

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

Happily, North Country is not all social-realist grit or straight sermonizing. Not only is Theron achingly real, the fine supporting performances here lend even more dramatic reach and human scale.

Mrs. Henderson hits all its marks, well-worn though they be, and Dench fans will once more find themselves glorying in her reckless spirit.

A former yeshiva student himself, Gorlin turns this tale of political intrigue and the search for divinity into an act of liberation -- if not outright defiance.

Runs two hours and 20 minutes and plays like 10 days in the county jail.

The World's Fastest Indian is not likely to be regarded as some kind of masterpiece--far from it--but Hopkins once more keeps our ears open and our eyes fixed on the screen.

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

Parents wishing to protect their beloved daughters from cliché overload might do well to withhold the old allowance money for a couple of weeks -- until the inevitable bout of Mandymoviemania subsides.

It's difficult to imagine a more eloquent tribute.

More well-meant than well-made, the movie is ethnically accurate (sometimes, you smother in the marinara), but its forced sensitivity can get abrasive, and the drama is full of false notes.

Happily, the director and writer Andrea Gibb treat little Frankie with as much dramatic respect as the grown-up characters, and he saves the movie from killing sweetness.

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

Homer would be hard-pressed to find any remaining shred of "The Iliad" in this over-the-top entertainment. It has a lot of loud passion but not much poetry, and that's appropriate for a movie that could well be subtitled My Big Fat Greek Bloodletting.

Little Ralph comes off like "Billy Elliot" on steroids. Still, this an energetic movie that can be truly hilarious in spots, and it captures perfectly the oppressive atmosphere of a Catholic boys' school in the ’50s.

In this beautifully devious, exceptionally well-made entertainment, Mr. John Frankenheimer does it all, and more, with the assurance of an old master.

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.

In the end, the filmmakers strike a bad bargain between action and myth: In their obvious attempt to shoo everyone into the tent--romantic and roughneck alike--they don't serve either end of the spectrum very well.

Hopkins' beautifully detailed, deeply felt acting remains a joy to watch...But an even greater pleasure, at least for my money, is Kidman's dark turn as Faunia Farley.

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.

Villain? Great. Verdict? Average.

Every situation, every bit of dialogue, comes straight out of the Big Book of Movie Clichés.

Sugar Town's tunes are terrific, and the writing is sharp. But the typecasting is a work of genius.

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

With malice for all, Drop Dead Gorgeous isn't likely to win any popularity contests.

A thoroughly likable, if familiar, Woody Allen comedy -- not the most original or revealing tintype in the director's gallery, perhaps, but blessedly free of the self-conscious hand-wringing and tortured navel-gazing that impede the former Mr. Konigsberg's more sluggish efforts.

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

Full of intellectual stimulation as well as low, dark pleasures--"Carnal Knowledge" redux!

A fascinating, highly literate film.

This is low-rent summer fun, exuberantly mounted, so leave your IQ in the glove compartment.

This lovely movie, simply and beautifully shot in Brazil's northeastern countryside by cinematographer Breno Silveira, is satisfying from start to finish.

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.

Stacy Peralta may think otherwise, but this 101-minute homage to the heroes of surfing is nothing if not a monument to their self-absorption--and to his own. That's probably inevitable.

The film is amateurish in places, but fascinating: Bring your eager hypothalamus and your tuned-up frontal lobes with you. They'll get a workout.

Alternately fascinating and distracting.

The plot's a trifle, but so what. Director Lynn (My Cousin Vinny) stages a series of seamless, ebullient show-stoppers that encompass every musical style from gospel and soul to contemporary R&B and hip-hop, and the choreography ranks with anything you'll find on Broadway.

The cornerstone of this fascinating film is a peculiar but absolutely solid love story. In terms of intellectual and emotional stimulation, who could ask for more?

Get out your hankies and weep for the heart-tugging disaster Message in a Bottle.

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

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.

Unfortunately, Bullock and Affleck don't strike many sparks or produce many yuks…they're not exactly built for comedy.

Merely labeling National Lampoon's Van Wilder "sophomoric" or "vulgar" doesn't do justice to the perpetrators' dedication.

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.

Overloaded with oddities but a bit short on horse sense, this is one of those stubbornly defiant, attitude-driven movies that's so busy scrambling genres, breaking rules, and dashing expectations on the road to becoming art that it slips off into the ditch.

The pseudo-mystical nonsense in Brian Helgeland's supernatural thriller far outweighs its scare factor.

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.

Can be as howlingly funny as it is touching.

Despite his natty wardrobe and calculated sangfroid, Penn doesn't summon up quite the right image.

You might feel constrained when it comes to a standing ovation, but there's certainly enough substance and yuk here to go along for the ride.

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.

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.

There are many winning moments here, but director Nigel Cole (Saving Grace) sometimes imparts to the thing a terrible case of the cutes and an overeagerness to please.

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.

Like hundreds of doomed movie protagonists before him, the hero of Life as a House doesn't have long to live. By the second reel, you may find yourself wishing his time on the planet was even shorter.

The film splits the difference between the brutal reality of the cable-TV prison series "Oz" and the romanticized fantasy of "The Shawshank Redemption" and provides a vivid, well-rounded gallery of inmate portraits.

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.

Yet another version of the conscience-stricken white soldier Kevin Costner played in "Dances With Wolves" and the Indian killer-turned-noble warrior Tom Cruise gave us in "The Last Samurai."

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.

Cox, bespectacled and deglamorized here, shows some acting ability, but by the time you get through this 78-minute bag of tricks, you could be suffering from a case of perceptual overload.

The cumulative effect of the movie's many Kodak moments and stretches of greeting-card sentiment is that they kill us with kindness.

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.

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

Vertical Limit represents another kind of propaganda--namely the current Hollywood notion that the bigger and louder and longer a movie is, the more people will want to see it, even if that means getting numbed before your popcorn's cold.

This highly sanitized, heavily costumed, dramatically inert nonsense makes last year's dreadful golf biopic "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" look like a masterpiece.

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

The low-wattage thrills, lukewarm jokes and unconvincing caricatures we encounter in The Big Bounce simply don't generate that kind of excitement.

Damon looks like a kid lost in the wrong neighborhood, and his acting manners underscore that impression--everything is a bit too fine, too neat...An intermittently interesting, intermittently foolish film.

This special-effects-crammed action blockbuster is not rocket science. It's more like rocket fun.

Witless, terminally irritating remake.

The moviemakers have eliminated the finer points of the novel in favor of broad strokes. Very broad strokes.

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

Suffice it to say that Cruise never seems right in this part--never as treacherous as he should be, nor as mysteriously tortured. Foxx has his moments, but there's no room for his trademark humor, and we can never quite get our minds around the idea that the hit man has beguiled the cabbie.

As witch movies go -- even lighthearted, supposedly comic witch movies -- Practical Magic is conspicuously lacking in supernatural phenomena.

Muhammad Ali's spirit, his life force, is not quite present here, despite Smith's astonishing mimicry and Mann's considerable perspiration.

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

In the little war between charm and belligerence that is the real centerpiece of Lost and Found, romantic comedy takes a beating.

Carrey's brand of exhausting physical comedy is a far cry from Segal's useful bewilderment, so this ride is both rougher and loonier.

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.

The witless inanity of After the Sunset is so numbing that the sole reason for any living creature to sit through it--man, woman or household pet--is to marvel at the speed and variety of actress Salma Hayek's costume changes.

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.

Most obvious crime is first-degree dullness, giving us a thriller without thrills and a mystery devoid of urgent questions.

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

The result is a kind of quirky, high-toned soap opera.

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.

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

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

Not just another lawyer movie, but rather one of the most striking dramas of the year.

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.

By the time Sprecher's skeins, set forth in 13 related episodes, come together, we've got as clear a view of the big picture as we got assembling the elements of "Nashville," "Lantana" or "Magnolia".

Beautifully observed, miraculously unsentimental comedy-drama.

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.

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.

Emperor gives off a distinctly musty odor -- not least because Kline's character.

Even in Las Vegas, which is possibly the most irrational place on earth, drama demands a bit of dramatic logic. Romantic fairy tales just don't play well on The Strip, despite its fake Eiffel Towers, bogus Italian palazzos and strike-it-rich fantasies.

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

What a shame to squander the dramatic riches of Jones's life on third-rate caricature and paint-by-numbers storytelling.

For Jordan, this is a return to top form.

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.

Shades of "House of Sand and Fog," without the compelling drama.

Its loose-limbed sweetness and gruff irreverence are just right.

This sweet-tempered retelling of "Romeo and Juliet," which substitutes uplift for tragedy, gives off enough energy and light that the audience wants to believe in it even if society's impacted prejudices continue to say otherwise.

A fascinating, frequently hilarious meditation on delusion, self-loathing and personal salesmanship

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

Analyze This won't win any Oscars, and its comedy is pretty tortured in places, but the pleasures of watching DeNiro onscreen never diminish--not even when he's putting the glories of his criminal past at risk.

As another exposé of stubbornness, petty opportunism, and greed, there's some residual value in the story of two unappealing characters.

Thanks to Spielberg's vivid storytelling and Hanks' matchless gift for bringing the common man to life, this is a relentlessly charming movie.

Eight Below splits into two movies--the compelling tale of the dogs' struggle to pull together and survive and the much less interesting one about Jerry Shepard's emotional trauma and his search for redemption.

Connie and Carla doesn't just do violence to the memory of Wilder's brilliant sex farce (Some Like It Hot); it's so clumsy, it might give cross-dressing itself a bad name.

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.

En route, we also get a chance to examine the nature of the self and the responsibilities of science. Das Experiment has all this and more, excitingly packaged as a prison movie featuring superb performances and high emotional tension.

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

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.

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.

Constantly touching, surprisingly funny, semi-surrealist exploration of the creative act.

An authentic and thrilling glimpse into Inuit culture and tradition.

The bittersweet charm of this extraordinary film is trumped only by its wisdom. Without resorting to schmaltz or sticky pathos, director Vladimír Michálek (a child of 49) fashions an allegory about aging, friendship and love that equals (and often surpasses) the best American movies on those tricky subjects, from "Cocoon" to "On Golden Pond."

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

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

Comes straight out of the Forrest Gump School of Interpersonal Magic, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

This valentine to Trekkiedom (produced by, who else, Paramount) doesn't go in very deep--probably doesn't intend to--but it's also not quite the promotional piece the studio may have envisioned.

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

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.

As a musical feast, Groove works well. As a celebration of tribal ritual, it's even better.

Here's a fervent, G-rated version of contemporary life in which the divine overcomes the earthly and miracles are commonplace. It's aimed squarely at the emerging Christian market.

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 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.

A teen-anxiety movie that leaves no doubt where it stands on "family values" and moral absolutes: It approves. The shock troops of the Cinema Without Limits army are unlikely to buy many tickets, but those who do will probably see the thing as sanctimonious pabulum -- even for its target audience of adolescents.

Connoisseurs of horror are bound to play favorites here (this amateur votes for Box), but there's one more thing that connects these three films--the brilliant cinematography of Christopher Doyle.

A thoroughly professional, frequently spectacular piece of muckraking.

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

The dumbed-down movie version of Frances Mayes' best-selling travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun is a virtual case study of Hollywood's irrepressible urge to lower the bar in the hopes of upping the take.

By all accounts, Marsh has absorbed classic crazy-killer thrillers like "Psycho," "The Night of the Hunter" and "Badlands," but The King isn't likely to join such esteemed company.

The movie's not great, but Mom might like it.

Jack's odyssey, despite some clunky writing and predictable first-movie missteps, gives off a flavor and a flair that stick with you.

In the end, it demonstrates all over again the virtual impossibility of doing Nabokov justice on film, because his work is so resolutely and brilliantly made of words.

This plodding mediocrity displays none of the flair or the compelling trickery that enlivened its 2002 prototype.

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.

These wonderfully adept actresses take so much pleasure in playing long-faded Southern belles, in mixing the genteel and the bawdy as they conduct their extended therapy session, that it will be difficult for even the most hardened Yankee curmudgeon to resist them.

Consistently fails to deliver the charm it presumes to have.

This romantic tragedy has the measured gentility of the M.I. classics, but its sheen of crass melodrama is startling, and its many metaphors run amok in a tangle.

Whatever Dark Blue World lacks in pyrotechnics it makes up for with richly drawn characters, high drama and pointed historical ironies.

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

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.

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

Touching, frequently hilarious.

Director Thomas Carter (no relation to Ken) relies on processed emotion and stock characters, and not even the inevitable Big Game excites us very much.

Combining the tragic and the comic, this drama is amateurish in places, but it's a triumph of atmosphere (the makers are both North Carolinians) and the acting is first-rate.

The movies' time-honored old-man-and-boy theme has rarely been used to such great advantage.

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

It's a workmanlike adventure yarn, intermittently reverent to the canon but not very inspired, and it must be said that Banderas is starting to show signs of wear.

A perfect marriage of author and director.

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.

If there's any justice in moviedom, this summer's feel-good hit will be an unassuming Dutch comedy called Everybody's Famous!

Mangold gets stuck in the gooey sweet spots of his tale a little more often than he breaks loose with a bracing jolt of perversity.

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.

Loquacious and dreary piece of business.

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.

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

Along with his tedious array of tricks and twists, Parkhill stuffs the film with enough dizzying flashbacks, camera jitters and rock-and-roll editing techniques to drive a 14-year-old MTV addict nuts.

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

This unstinting look at growing up in the 1990s never pulls its punches. Bridging the angst of Generation X and the uncertainties of Generation Y, Chick reveals the romantic traumas, career screwups and self-absorbed fantasies of a group of eastern college grads.

This is a deeply disturbing (if not very satisfying) view of what happened at Columbine and in other school shootings.

Impeccably acted by a fine ensemble cast, it's a sheer pleasure to behold.

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

Marsh's flat-footed recitation of Believe It or Not crimes grows tedious, and his condescension to present-day citizens of the town (implying they're as grotesque and doomed as ever) rings false.

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

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.

Flecked with delicious malice, and the kids, especially newcomer Coughlin, performs with verve and high energy.

This vivid exploration of the human animal creates a romantic alchemy that's raw, unsettling, and touching.

There are a couple of technical rough spots, but this daring film challenges most widely held notions about religious conviction while providing a complex portrait of an identity crisis that's run amok and a good mind that's jumped the tracks.

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.

Shot in the mean streets of a great and compelling city, here's a fascinating vision of societal upheaval that would likely awe De Sica himself.

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

Quick-witted, spicy Irish comedy.

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.

This first generation of Native American movie directors has already managed to make great strides: While prodding the collective conscience of the U.S. mainstream with their disturbing views of the reservation, they have also opened the door to a vibrant spirit world unknown to all but a few.

Instead of slick heroism, the saving grace of The Matador (which was obviously made on something less than a blockbuster budget) lies in the comic interplay between Brosnan's ignoble Mr. Noble and the hapless square he picks to serve his purposes.

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.

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.

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.

Bruce Nolan is one deeply disgruntled barrel of laughs--the emotional kin of Bill Murray's cynical weatherman in "Groundhog Day."

Carrey and the Farrellys are equal-opportunity offenders.

This resolutely old-fashioned movie is less a drama of the streets than a kind of recruiting film.

If the Navy is looking for splashy recruiting tools, it could do worse than Stealth, a zillion-dollar action movie stuffed with futuristic jet fighters, glamorous carrier pilots and an overload of explosive, mostly digital derring-do.

Surprisingly tender and resolutely unpostmodern.

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

Hamburg's smartypants banter is a bit spotty, but the bathroom humor, of all things, hits the mark, and Stiller's trademark wide-eyed bafflement wins the day again.

Competently if unremarkably directed by Englishwoman Clare Kilner, should prove compelling enough to Moore's huge legion of fans.

D is for Dreadful. And Duchovny.

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

Some Marvel fans and die-hard devotees of Lou Ferrigno, the bodybuilder who played The Hulk on television (and who does a brief walk-on here), may find Ang Lee's whole enterprise grandiose and, given its not-always-successful attempt to fuse brains and brawn, a little bit silly.

This is a Tom Cruise vehicle, pure and simple, and that means it's destined to be the biggest chunk of guilty white-boy wish fulfillment since Kevin Costner got down with the Sioux in "Dances With Wolves." In fact, the parallels are all but plagiaristic.

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

Moviegoers bewailing the absence of literacy and shallowness of character they usually get for their seven bucks need look no further than this fluent and satisfying triptych for a source of hope.

The political, social, and linguistic adjustments Parker makes to this hugely entertaining Husband give it fresh relevance without betraying the original.

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.

Billed as a comedy, this low-wattage sitcom is both ill-tempered and mean-spirited.

Hardball is not as bad as it sounds, and at its best it's charming.

Not a film for everyone, but if you're in the mood for a little sensory overload, some spirited intellectual gymnastics and an introduction to the most intriguing new actress Europe has produced in years, get in line with the rest of the thrill-seekers.

Too much attention to art-deco detail, a meandering story that hesitates whenever it wants to touch an emotional chord, then squanders the opportunity with an eccentric line-reading or an extravagant camera angle.

An engaging preapocalyptic fantasy.

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

Here is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" inflated to lethal proportion, or "The War of the Roses" reimagined as World War III.

As American history, Glory Road is by turns inspirational and thrilling. But, in keeping with Hollywood's gift for exaggeration, a couple of things about it are completely bogus.

Exceptionally smart and charming.

This is not the easiest film in the world to untangle, but our attentions are soon rewarded.