Bill White

Mostly unfabulous.

And who would have guessed that, in this age of excess and one-upmanship, when bigger is always better, the year's most romantic screen kiss would last a mere two seconds.

Amounts to little more than high-class soap opera.

The pleasure of watching such well-crafted entertainment offsets the small disappointments.

Most of the film, however, goes down easily enough. The Queer Strokes, an all-gay rowing team, provide a humorous contrast to the less sexually confidant characters.

The script offers neither character revelations nor plot twists. It unfolds by the numbers, like the product of an amateur screenwriter's salon. Its second-hand ideas originate in movies ranging from 1960's "The Apartment" to 1997's "The Ice Storm."

A heartbreaking look at broken trust.

Peled's film, much of it shot clandestinely with smuggled cameras, is commendable in its fair depiction of the problems faced by the textile industry.

A miracle of a movie that is both fairy tale and slice of life.

While their stories are well worth telling, first-time director Ruskin fails to shape his material into the dynamic film it might have been.

Rampling is fascinating as Ellen, the aging romantic who hardens her vulnerability with a materialist philosophy regarding the buying and selling of sex. The other two actresses give more superficial performances, with Young totally unconvincing as a Southern neurotic.

This is a film about brave women who left home as teenagers and have been on their own ever since. Now, nearing the end of that road, they face their inevitable decline with a cheerful vivacity.

In its best moments, The Cats of Mirikitani captures both the tragedy and transcendence of his life, from the Sacramento-born, Hiroshima-raised youth who returned to the States in 1937 rather than join the Japanese Imperial Army, to the proudly self-sufficient man who struggled through New York's fierce winters until gaining recognition both as an artist and a human being.

This is standard fare on the subject of father and son relations.

If the Polish brothers haven't quite mastered the mechanics of mainstream filmmaking, they have succeeded in bringing an independent spirit to the studio film.

Never more than a dull and confused film about Bolivia's 2003 presidential election.

With adventurous forays into questionable neighborhoods and stimulating tours through street markets, "Crossing the Bridge" is about the city as much as its music.

Plays like a pilot for a situation comedy about a 40-year-old carpenter who decides to return to the boxing ring.

The dark, rotting interiors and sunless winter skies create a festering atmosphere of unexpiated guilt as Kremer ponders the question of how a decent man is to navigate the rivers of hell.

An inspiring story of pluck, but its politics fall flat.

For the most part, the film is a chaotic blur of disconnected movement that re-creates the feeling of an unforgettably bad concert experience.

Driving Lessons was written by director Jeremy Brock as a vehicle for Grint and Walters, who appeared together in the Harry Potter movies. They make a terrific screen couple. Walters is alternately zany and poignant, with Grint the perfect foil, a bemused, confused innocent who only wants to do good.

The meshing of Moliere and Tartuffe into one character creates so many complications and loose ends that it is a fool's errand to try to make sense of the story.

When the veterans of this war are finally allowed to tell their own stories, we will have something worth listening to. Body of War is just election year claptrap.

Writer/director Wayne Kramer's approach to storytelling is to withhold any information that might give away the plot.

A cross between David Bowie and Maria Callas, the German singer took androgyny to an unearthly level.

Free of the ghetto clichés that fill the movies made by people who have never lived in one, Killer of Sheep is a strongly individual portrait of black, working-class America.

Hardcore remains, in the words of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye, the voice of "kids who refuse to be slotted into generic kids roles," so fans of current groups such as Disturbed may feel shortchanged by allegations that it was all over by 1986.

The film may be like looking through a stranger's scrapbook. With sketchy and didactic scenes lacking narrative cohesion, it is a collection of often strong images that fail to come to life.

Exploitive while it pretends to be empathetic.

With Biggerstaff's breathless narration explaining every detail of the action, Cashback seems aimed at an audience that would rather be told a story than shown a movie.

Ripe with offbeat Americana, Beesley's rockumentary is also a portrait of growing up in a white-trash Okie ghetto.

The most dishonest thing about this ranting montage of a movie is its technique of panning between opposing viewpoints to simulate debate, when in fact each of the more than 35 celebrities was separately interviewed.

The rude naturalism of the opening scenes between Wilson and Jacob recalls the spirited vulgarity of "Clerks," with dialogue that would be hopelessly offensive were it not so funny and true to life.

There are shocking facts and supportive images, but the film lacks investigative spirit.

Cusack, who is beginning to look disturbingly like Dustin Hoffman, is not only the film's center, but its orbit as well.

While the significance of the imagery, including the slow disintegration of an immense piece of sculpted petroleum, is elusive, the strangeness of Barney's visual sense never fails to stimulate the senses.

Journeys into a new heart of darkness, the destination of which lies outside the frontiers of humanity.

Although this is director Mark Obenhaus' first ski movie, it is every bit as exciting as the popular Warren Miller pictures, and boasts an unobstrusive soundtrack in place of the heavy metal racket that fuels most sports documentaries.

Stunningly beautiful film.

A wide-ranging, disturbing look at our obsession with our looks.

The Life Before Her Eyes is like one of those puzzles. There is something wrong in each scene, and the viewer zeroes in on the elements that don't fit, wondering if there is a purpose behind them.

Its combination of maudlin sincerity, cruel slapstick, exotic romanticism and boogie-down dance sequences may befuddle more than it entertains.

Everlasting Moments both is a tribute to Larsson -- a relative of the director's wife, Jan (author of the original story) -- and a love letter to the art of photography.

A moving and touching documentary.

The script sounds like literal diary transcripts, the camerawork tests the limits of eyestrain, and the soundtrack bleats with mediocre pop songs by unknowns.

There is more comedy than outrage in this critique of sexual inequality in Iran.

Fierce People is no ordinary dud. This seedy soap opera is the most outlandish, campy romp through the mud since "Showgirls."

A thrilling and scary ride.

Machuca is a quiet film, moving sadly toward its inevitable climax, the final scenes a lesson in the methods by which the military restores order to a divided country.

A coming-of-age movie in which nobody comes of age.

Director Mitchell Lichtenstein finds new ground in the over-tilled suburbia of David Lynch and John Waters.

Not since Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" has such an irreverent carnival of African American stereotypes been so irreverently sent up.

An inspirational portrait of an unwanted kid who brought culture to a world that had known only violence.

Once the story moves up north to Indianapolis, things become pat and predictable. But for its first 80 minutes, Great World of Sound hits all the right notes.

Most films about illegal immigration are set on the Mexican border, and Frozen River is free of the stereotypical characters and situations of that familiar setting. It also offers a rare look at modern Native American life, exploring the ambiguity of what it means to say that the laws of the white man cannot be enforced on Indian territory.

Garbarski recovers from the melodrama with a final image that is so sweet, so simple and so understated that one is tempted to say it is perfect.

Perhaps, like Al Gore's lecture on global warming, the force of its argument will stir some of those who see it to further research the subject.

Low-production values, including glaring inconsistencies in the makeup department, add to the bargain-basement atmosphere of this kidsploitation quickie.

The actors, all unprofessional with the exception of Kim Chan as the Zen master, step on each other's clipped lines so regularly that it becomes a stylistic affectation, like Mamet directing Beckett.

Actors Laia Marull and Luis Tosar explore the intricate details of a relationship based on the laws of attraction and repulsion, in which the intellect is repeatedly devastated by primal passion.

The most ridiculous period film since rappers took on the Old West in "Posse."

Gets entertaining when Liu kicks in.

A special film, one that refuses to package a person's life into a comfortably familiar genre.

What is ultimately so special about this film is its handling of the relationship between Lennon and wife, Yoko Ono.

The movie has a soul, and its good-natured charm may well win over the most cynical heart.

Cunha and Silva, both featured in 2002's similarly themed "City of God," have been playing these roles since they were 13, and the rapport between them is electrifying. Much of the sweetness of the film comes from what they bring to their roles.

Contrary to its title, Virtual JFK is less a counter-history of the Vietnam years than a tribute to John F. Kennedy's stubborn resistance to a military that pressured him to go to war on six occasions during his short presidency.

Most political films involving children are vicious or sentimental. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, set in 1970 when Brazil was under the military dictatorship of General Emilio Medici, is neither.

Fascinating as these spiders and frogs must be to one another, a human being need not be put into such close proximity to their private dances.

So slight that it barely qualifies as a movie, 10 Items or Less squeaks by on the charm of its leads.

The script is undone by confusing romantic developments, a convoluted murder mystery and a facile and maudlin resolution.

While a fascinating subject, Bruce is a bit of a poseur, keenly aware of how he comes across on camera.

The concert footage, which is exceptionally well photographed and recorded, offers clips of varying lengths from a wealth of songs. The rest of the film glimpses the stress disorders that can develop when average people with problems become popular celebrities.

One of the strangest things about J.L. Aronson's often fascinating film is the presence of Sufjan Stevens, who recently has become a star in his own right, as Smith's bandmate and protégé. One can only wonder what Stevens, who possesses a pleasant voice and a solid grasp of song craft, found in such a mentor.

The soundtrack is a mess, with period music out of sync with the period, as when the 1967 song, "White Rabbit," underscores a 1965 acid trip.