Bill White

Katharina Otto-Bernstein's oral history of Wilson's life and work, narrated by Wilson, with a handful of sycophants joining in on the choruses, is monstrously one-sided. It does, however, offer insights into the director's methods and motivations.

Control is director Anton Corbijin's first feature, and he too frequently makes the mistake of falling back on his rock video skills.

With more sympathy for Johnston's suffering and less reveling in the fruits of his madness, The Devil and Daniel Johnston could have been a great film instead of a disturbing one.

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.

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.

The film's one original moment comes when Bluto has a conversation with a cow. The rest of it, from the distorting lens used randomly to suggest unreality, to the twist ending lifted verbatim from the superior "High Tension," is about as imaginative as a portobello steak with onions.

It is ironic that the core audience for Chop Shop is that very crowd that has recently taken steps to redevelop the Iron Triangle into something more Manhattan-friendly.

Director Brown has made a career of chronicling the history of American folk music, and Pete Seeger: The Power of Song is a worthy companion piece to his 1982 debut, "The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time?"

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.

Westfeldt's screenplay and Cary's direction combine to make it the best Manhattan love story since "When Harry Met Sally."

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

It is not giving away much to say that everything ends as expected, just not soon enough.

The Beautiful Country has an epic bearing, but a trite and troubled script makes it more a visual tirade than an engaging odyssey.

A disaster on all levels.

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.

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

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

While the animation is only so-so, Mamoru is a good storyteller with a firm grasp on both the story and characters.

The film comes to life when Cohen is on screen.

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.

Zhang is a master of detail and spectacle. There is also plenty of comedy, particularly in the scenes with linguistically challenged translators.

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

Even without the oral history, this trippy exploration of Cobain's earthy habitations would be worth seeing as a "Koyaanisqatsi" for the Puget Sound area.

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

Panayotopoulou casts a transcendent eye upon her downbeat subject matter, never dodging the unsentimental truth that growing up is about learning to live with the loss of those things we have loved.

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

John Sayles ventures into August Wilson territory with Honeydripper.

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

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

An allegory of our times, Shotgun Stories is a tragedy of biblical scale and an intimate family drama. Unlike the more lauded films of last year, which glorified a national preoccupation with bloody deeds, Shotgun Stories is a passionate cry to end the violence and a reminder that we, as free individuals, have the power to determine our own destinies.

The story is pure gobbledygook.

Although the film is entertaining, its cleverness is not enough to cover its shortcomings.

Offers compelling footage, but its revisionism can be distracting.

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

The inconsistencies and continuity errors are staggering.

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

Pleasant viewing, but the unbalanced script and amateur performances keep it from being much more than a walk in the park.

A slight but wise comedy about the loneliness that makes all men brothers.

So extreme in its sacrilege that it achieves a kind of sacredness, The Holy Mountain is a transcendental feast of the grotesque and the sublime.

As a sports documentary, Murderball is tame and uninvolving. It does however, offer a hard-edged and unsentimental portrait of strong-willed people.

In a genre that has been battered by the cheap grotesqueries of special effects, it is a pleasure to be unsettled by something as simple as an invasive beam of light in the shadows of a haunted house.

The most interesting moments in the film are the videotapes sent back and forth between the parents and students, as they communicate the sadness of children separated from their distant families.

Captures both the spirituality and humanity of monastic life.

Most disappointing is the ending, which, in projecting the possibility of a saner and more hopeful world, is a bit of a cop-out.

Failing to make a lick of rational sense, Silk grasps at poetic straws.

It works as a wistful coda to suggest that the song will go on long after the show is over.

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

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.

There is a point, however, at which the movie becomes simply sickening. Between the electric shocks and hot-iron branding, feats of grossness are accomplished that are so vile even the hardiest among the cast cannot suppress the upchuck.

Speaks in the raw mumble of the dirty South. A regional film in the truest sense, it does for Memphis what its producer, John Singleton, once did for South Central Los Angeles.

Ripe with characters and events reflecting the psychic travails of today's young adults.

Another worthy performance comes from Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.

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.

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

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

A top-flight example of cinematic storytelling, thanks in large part to the unusual narration, spoken in English by David Gulpilil.

Although set in England with a predominantly British cast, Death at a Funeral is no stiff-upper-lipped comedy, but a lean, mean, and often crude, farce.

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.

Despite the cultural and artistic differences among the contributors, the overall production design maintains a unified tone, helped in part by Laurent Perez's eerie soundtrack.

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.

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

A lesson in listening.

A hilariously spry effort from an equally unpromising premise.

Most of this is harmless enough, but Kasdan's Hollywood logic is simply too implausible.

Filmmaker Pray, who is building an impressive body of documentaries on American subcultures, including the Seattle grunge scene in "Hype," graffiti artists in "Infamy" and truckers in "Big Rig," does an admirable job of allowing his subjects to represent themselves.

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.

Were it not for its pat resolutions, Mister Foe might deserve a mention alongside such classic psycho-sexual thrillers as "Vertigo" and "Peeping Tom." Instead, Mackenzie has reined in the strangeness to deliver a conventional, if better than average, mystery.

The film doesn't shy away from the political side of hip-hop.

The stories of the other competitors are just as fascinating, particularly that of Bernard Moitessier who, after nearly a year at sea, could not bear to return to England, and turned sail for Tahiti.

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

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

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.

Genuinely funny and sweet, the film's "everybody wins" philosophy resonates beyond the feel-good surfaces.

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.

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.

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

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

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."

Had Araki chosen to illuminate, rather than exploit, the traumatic aftermath of child molestation, his wallow in the horrors of Mysterious Skin might have had a purpose. As it stands, his film is just another trashy look at America as the land of imbecilic perverts.

Although entertaining, Rize is a somewhat duplicitous undertaking.

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

A confused and improbable redemption song.

This unusual journey behind prison bars is not only a plea for the rehabilitation of incarcerated criminals, but a testament to the redemptive powers of art.

Despite its flaws, Walk on Water is a sometimes engaging story of emotional opposites who become mystifyingly attracted to each other.

Stanley Nelson's documentary shows how a religion becomes a cult, and how people are deceived by an ideal.

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

In trying for realism, Machado only achieves dramatic inertness.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Suffers from a simplistic reductionism that suggests buying from local organic farmers might help avert the possibility of a worldwide famine triggered by Monsanto's suicide gene. It is a noble and quaint solution to a situation that won't be easily swayed by consumer votes.

The embittered men make fascinating subjects.

A deviously delightful entertainment.

Not a moment rings true in this sentimental drama.

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.

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 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.

Margaret Brown's honest and non-judgmental film captures the artist's high and low points, from early appearances on regional television shows such as "Nashville Now" to the drunken and disorderly performances that defined his later years.

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.