Bob Graham

Part of the appeal of Topsy-Turvy is its generosity about human folly and shortcomings. Its wistfulness is very touching.

Digs up both laughs and chills from timeworn material.

Delivers a sucker punch to the audience and then pulls the rug out from under it. It is sensational. It is also grimly funny.

A steady undertow of sex gives this French thriller a scintillating surface.

This is a transcendent film, deeply committed and beautifully wrought. It will make anyone who sees it look at the world with new eyes.

This thriller is so expertly -- and perversely -- poised that audience members may find themselves secretly rooting for the duplicitous Ripley.

Welles goes for broke in his performance and direction, and the only trick he misses is a tracking shot around his own bulging waistline. [Director's Cut]

Anybody with a soft spot for fakers, who either identifies with them or just admires their chutzpah, is going to get a kick out of Happy, Texas.

Haunting music, the seriousness of the allegations and riveting interviews with Alexander Haig, Christopher Hitchens (whose book inspired the film) and others give "Kissinger" extra drama and urgency.

Leigh is perfectly cast as the game-pod goddess.

Neither a "gay" movie nor a straight one; it is simply a funny one.

In the person of Cameron Diaz, Mary is an island of sanity, good-natured humanity and genuine sweetness in an ocean of anarchy. Without her presence, There's Something About Mary would be merely sophomoric and tasteless.

Maybe it's no mystery how they did it, considering the aggregate comic talent, but this bunch achieves peaks of sublime nuttiness.

Delivers plenty of laughs and succeeds on a level that recent ``SNL'' movies (``It's Pat!'' and ``A Night at the Roxbury'') didn't.

The audience, too, will be sorry to see this fleeting, beautifully made French film end.

Has a saccharine quality but also offers a memorable performance by famed Spanish actor Fernando Fernan Gomez.

Totally absorbing even when it, too, strays.

It is so propulsive so much of the time, it almost looks as if it's going to go the distance. If Washington & Co. don't quite manage to bring it home, the getting there sure is something.

Goes Hitchcock one better by imagining what it would be like if the master had the advantage of digital technology.

What makes it interesting is the story that the viewer must put together, of a model who lives her entire life -- or at least what we see of it -- in front of the camera.

The stuff of high romance, brought off with considerable wit, too. People are going to love it.

This warm, celebratory and very public film is punctuated by sudden and luminous private visualizations.

This movie can be recommended only to dyed-in-the-wool fans of the genre. Anyone who goes into one of Miike's films must be prepared to be put through the wringer.

I Stand Alone ("Seul contre tous" in French) is a portrait of a pathetic soul, but it is also a cautionary tale. The butcher cannot be dismissed as a monster, nor is this a creep show. Something like the butcher's story can be found almost every day in newspaper crime reports.

At times, Anderson may be too brilliant for his own good, and there is a risk that viewers will tire of the director's relentlessly prowling camera.

It is described as about a guy who came back to life, and clearly one of Dumont's aims in The Life of Jesus is to express a spirit of charity for flawed humanity amid the rhythms of ordinary life.

Perfect Blue manages, through animation, to take the thriller, media fascination, psychological insight and pop culture and stand them all on their heads.

It's got unpredictable plot twists and unexpected laughs coming out of dark corners. The sharp-edged film also looks terrific.