Bill White

Where other documentarians look for a charismatic personality to enliven their films, Berlin and Fab focus on the community as a whole.

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

Gets entertaining when Liu kicks in.

Takes a humorously gentle approach to the culture clash between the primitive and the modern. With wonderfully natural performances by the children, this is a family movie that crosses cultural boundaries in a celebration of the magical possibilities inherent in everyday objects.

A deviously delightful entertainment.

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

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.

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.

The film is imaginative but ugly, with bodily functions an unending source for grotesque and revolting imagery.

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.

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.