Bill White

Deepened by the socioeconomic undercurrent that suggests the lengths to which workers are forced to prostitute themselves to survive corporate downsizing.

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

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

There is a lot of history to be learned here, but the teaching is so slow paced that the most alert student may fall into a stupor by the end of class.

Unlike the worthless torture porn that is destroying the genre, Stuck is a horror movie with a reason for being.

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.

Despite the scenic appeal of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, the film may prove too nerve-racking for casual viewers. It is a racing movie for the inside track.

Life on the freeway is hell, but what comes next for these workers might be worse.

In trying for realism, Machado only achieves dramatic inertness.

The movie is funny without disrespecting its characters. But there is a sadness at its heart, because, although the possibilities for romantic happiness diminish after the age of 65, the dynamics of sexual attraction and coupling never change.

Captures the open-air rock festival experience more completely than any previous film of its kind.

A gruelingly dull slog through basic horror-movie conventions, should be dumped in the Seine.

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.

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.

The story is pure gobbledygook.

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.

Jimmy Carter documentary is a smug, self-righteous monologue.

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.

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 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."

There is potential for laughs in a satire of rich people spending big money on religious galas, but that is not even the real subject of the picture.

For its intention to promulgate the compatibility of Christianity with homosexuality, Save Me deserves a footnote in the political battle between these traditionally adversarial groups. As a movie, it doesn't amount to much more than an after school-special with sex and profanity.

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

The Groomsmen, while as corny as a Staten Island marriage proposal, rings true on many levels.

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

An exceptional Italian film becomes an average American one in this bland remake of Gabriele Muccino's "L' Ultimo Bacio."

It is a pretentious and incoherent blend of ghost story and frontier adventure that becomes more preposterous and idiotic with each passing scene.

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.

Throughout the film, music is used to define character and place. Two metal bands, Moral Decay and South Central Riot Squad, dominate the soundtrack whenever the gang is on the move.

Fukada captures the stubborn individualism of a girl who embraces an unpopular lifestyle.

From the floating particles of dirt that open the film to the final image of a man and woman on a beach, Yes insists that we live with our mistakes since there is no escaping them.

Movies about gurus generally fail to capture the charisma of their subjects. French director Jan Kounen's documentary on Amma, India's hugging saint, who allegedly has given restorative embraces to more than 45 million supplicants, is no exception.

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.

Director Takashi Miike's dish of sukiyaki spaghetti ala Sergio Corbucci is badly seasoned with scraps of reservoir dogs.

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.

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

Yu has a good time making fun of white people, in particular a pair of rival ping-pong teachers who seem inspired by the gay villains in the Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever."

Not a moment rings true in this sentimental drama.

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.

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

The concerts themselves are only exciting when Young is at center stage. Although a balding millionaire in his 60s, he retains the ragged energy of a rock 'n' roll road warrior. Not so with the other members, particularly Stills.

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

The combined efforts of three novice screenwriters fail to give shape to a life that was, although devoted to a noble cause, unexceptional.

An eye-opener for those unfamiliar with the tribulations many immigrants endure on their road to American citizenship. And yes, it is also a fairy tale, but not all fairy tales are for children.

Not simply a coming-out story but a journey into the conflicted androgyny of early adolescence.

Before the movie reaches its climax, it has created a mess that requires divine intervention.

Amounts to little more than high-class soap opera.

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.

At its best, The Promotion offers a sympathetic view of ordinary people caught on the hamster wheel of corporate politics.

As sketch comedy, The Ten often is imaginative and sometimes hilarious...Still, like precursors from "The Groove Tube" to "Jackass," it doesn't make for much of a movie.

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

The cast is perfect, but the script is like a low ceiling, keeping a lid on what should have been a confluence of riotous misadventures.

In what essentially is a two-character play, Kirk and Nicholson behave more like acting partners than real people. Their lack of appetite for each other is particularly awkward in the frequent scenes requiring casual nudity and sexual activity.

Although set 10 years after high school graduation, Just Friends is a dumb teen comedy.

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

A disaster on all levels.

Meirelles adds another perspective, that the epidemic might be a good thing if, by being thrown into the darkness together, we may once again recognize the human family to which we all belong.

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

This shambling mess -- offers nothing but a lesson in how not to make a movie.

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.

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

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

Three movies gasp for life inside the clumsily titled Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School.

Mostly unfabulous.

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 comedy too often blunders into meaningless slapstick, with bombs and bloodshed replacing pratfalls and pies in the face.

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

The result is an initially hilarious picture that grows perplexingly trite as screenwriter Peter Straughan transforms Young's sly observations into assembly-line pap.

For those whose idea of hilarity is an adult and a kid throwing fireworks at each other, then getting stoned and playing piggyback in the mall, this movie should be a refreshing tonic.

Garity, son of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, gives the kind of performance rarely seen in today's movies.

Undiscovered promotes one of the stupidest visions of the entertainment industry since "American Idol" opened the celebrity gateway to the dregs of the karaoke generation.

What finally sinks the film is that the more it tries to dazzle us, the more uninterested we become.

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.

When the little girl tells her decapititated doll, "It's not just a bad dream," she is right. It's just a bad movie.

The inconsistencies and continuity errors are staggering.

The life of a prison guard is dull, no matter who is in the cell. Director Bille August makes what he can of this material, always holding our interest but never fulfilling the promise of a close encounter with one of the 20th century's most controversial leaders.