Carrie Rickey

Hate, love, bigotry, empathy and chance are the uninvited guests at Monster's Ball.

A perfectly lovely, if uninspired, movie that suffers from following on the trotters of "Babe," the one about the piglet advocate of barnyard brotherhood.

By turns rowdy and rueful, The Switch is a comedy with serious ramifications, not least of which is the question, what makes a family?

Wondrously emotional film, one that sneakily dismantles your defenses and purges grief you didn't realize you had.

While Last Days succeeds as a nature documentary, Van Sant fails to penetrate human nature. The result is a portrait without a face.

All of the elements that made The Matrix a mass-cult phenom -- breathtaking physical gymnastics wedded to the brain-cramping mental and spiritual kind -- resurface in Reloaded.

At its best, Nanny McPhee Returns has the playful surrealism of "Babe," if "Babe" had been directed by Terry Gilliam.

Nothing wrong about a movie that says, Stop and smell the roses. Now, if only director Rob Reiner hadn't rubbed our noses in a bouquet of plastic blooms.

The story hooks us because stars Helen Mirren and Julie Walters look as fetching in woolens and Wellingtons as they do in the altogether. But it reels us in because it is about people who for so long have paid lip service to making a difference that they are profoundly altered when they actually do.

All Muppet capers, whether they involve low comedy or high seas, require the romantic conflict of Kermit and Piggy. Fortunately, the frog and the pig are worth waiting for. And like all great thespians, they leave you wanting more. [16 Feb 1996, p.3]

Brilliant, blistering account of the many ways fame deforms a star, his family and his fans.

Like Kevin's lucky fortune cookie, Lottery Ticket is a sweet treat with a substantive message.

It is not to everyone's taste. But if you like the lush film operas of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Douglas Sirk, or Luchino Visconti, this one's for you.

A gut-punch of a movie, a potent, mesmerizing drama.

The script by Andrea Berloff is stunning in its simplicity and aching details.

A jubilee for McDormand and jolly good fun for most everyone else.

The film is plush and passionate and graced with elegant performances. Best is that of Emma Thompson as Brideshead's matriarch, Lady Marchmain, who resembles a cross between Helen Mirren's Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict.

For this dynamic to work, the actors need to be of complementary temperament and equal power. This is not the case.

Cholodenko takes us inside a bohemian hive where everyone buzzes around the Queen Bee. McDormand is superb. Likewise Bale and Nivola.

A gagfest that makes viewers gag at least twice as often as they giggle, American Wedding -- third in the American Pie trilogy -- whipsaws the audience between gross-out and guffaw.

This furry family comedy about a boy and his border terrier is irresistible, if not exactly in the league of "Babe."

Not a great movie, but it's affectionate. It reveals the cuddly side of Mac.

Despite its title, The Exploding Girl is an oddly tranquil experience.

Although Schrader is an otherwise accomplished director and screenwriter, Touch's two moods combat rather than complement each other. [14 Feb 1997, p.04]

Ranging in age from 30 to 96, the Berlevag men clearly enjoy being on camera and are unusually candid about their various pasts as Casanovas and hashish addicts.

A gorgeous, gory epic, is a blow-your-mind masterpiece about the emperor who ruled more than 2,000 years ago.

At its best it is one of the most dynamic movies from a most dynamic filmmaker, now 76.

Maybe it's just the subtitles, but it would seem that Fontaine has a keener eye for the elements that made Chanel's style than she has an ear for dialogue. But she gets a splendid performance from Tautou.

An accomplished feature debut with stunning cinematography (by Elliot Davis), a jambalaya story line and yet another heart-stopping performance by Scarlett Johansson.

A pink-collar "Sex and the City" made urgent by the performance of Nathalie Baye.

Irreverent, provocative and provoking.

Handsomely photographed by Eric Schmidt and nicely underplayed by the actors, the film relies too much on its jukebox soundtrack to convey mood.

By the halfway mark, Rogen's performance, like his voice, is less cuddly than grating, and the carbonated giggle that is Elizabeth Banks grows flat. This one's for the Smith cultists.

This unassuming and unexpectedly moving picture set in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood is a sugarplum-and-sofrito affair centering on the Rodriguez household.

Handles the strained daddy/daughter bond with sufficient lightness and laughs so that fathers won't mind accompanying their spawn.

Compulsively entertaining documentary.

A movie of absurdist humor, brutal realism and dementia.

Graced with unusually expressive and seamless voice work by Drew Barrymore and George Lopez, the best of its kind since "Babe."

If the shrill Italian melodrama Remember Me, My Love were a television soap opera, it would be called The Not-So-Young and the Restless.

Tonally, the film from director Anurag Basu has more personalities than Sybil. Basu strictly observes the B-movie convention of giving the audience an embrace, explosion, or chase sequence at regular intervals. If you don't like the genre, wait three minutes.

Bravo to Brooks for conceiving Mother and for giving Reynolds a role that required her to do something more than merely effervesce. Here Reynolds bubbles, she boils, she exhibits a complex geology of human emotions. Her Mrs. Henderson is the mother of all mothers, and Mother is the mother lode of all comedies. [10 Jan 1997, p.05]

As directed by the stupendously talented and aggressively eccentric George Miller (creator of Mad Max and producer of the first Babe), Pig in the City is far busier and faster than the original, which was directed by Chris Noonan. This has some benefits. [25 Nov 1998, p.D1]

While I much liked The Duchess, this portrait feels unfinished.

Best of all is Hoffman, who hasn't had this much obvious fun since he played Hollywood producer Stanley Motss in "Wag the Dog."

Either Campion is the most inspirational director of performers or Winslet the most carnal.

A triumph for Cheadle and Sandler, whose performances strew the seeds of regeneration.

This is more than a movie: It's Almodovar's design for living.

You go to a Daniels movie not to be entertained, but edified. While not everyone goes to the movies for self-improvement, you will leave this one having witnessed phenomenal acting.

A gut-punch of a drama.

An upbeat-if-shapeless Canadian comedy about two adorable young women, an artist and an aspiring writer, who fall in love at first sight. [26 Jul 1999, p.C06]

Chris Columbus' relatively faithful and intermittently affecting adaptation boasts the boisterous vitality of its performers, particularly Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia as lovers Tom and Angel.

No doubt conceived as an underwater version of "National Treasure," Andy Tennant's film plays like a Three Stooges movie with scuba gear.

I don't think 50 First Dates is a great movie, or a particularly funny one, but I admired its romanticism and its gentle plea for the acceptance of difference. Of how many romantic comedies can you say they are sweet and disturbing?

A one-of-a-kind experience that boasts a twice-in-a-lifetime performance from Nicolas Cage. The actor has not gone this deep into the abyss since "Vampire's Kiss" (1989).

Great as Whitaker is in this juicy slab of Oscar bait, Macdonald's movie doesn't have much to offer beyond a pair of stunning performances, propulsive editing, fantastic scenery and the heartbeat rhythms of African music.

The American public likes nothing better than a tragedy with a happy ending, William Dean Howells observed. But Marshall so cautiously downplays the tragic elements of his plot that the sweetness and light left a sour taste in my mouth.

Feels less like an epic drama about power and the power of love than an episode of a Masterpiece Theatre mini-series.

A twisty, turny and ultimately silly thriller from "Inside Man's" Russell Gewirtz.

A spare document featuring one talking head. But what a talking head and what a story!

Though I liked Love's unhurried pace and oddball digressions, its obligatory romantic-comedy resolution seemed too schematic for what had preceded it.

What I most appreciated about the film directed by Matthew O'Callaghan is that it doesn't go for amped-up effects. No bells, whistles, or nudge-nudge, wink-winks to the adults in the audience.

As a western, American Outlaws is an utter failure. As the basis of a "Mad TV" parody, it is an unintentional hoot.

A creepy, oozy, dopey remake of the stylish 1998 Japanese thriller, "Ringu."

The plot is preposterous. Particularly the part about a kid who has never before played an instrument, but can pick up a guitar and play like Eric Clapton and belly up to a church organ and perform like Mozart.

It's got one of the best kisses in movie history: Spidey, hanging upside down, delivers an open-mouth smooch to Mary Jane, a lip-lock for the ages.

Her (Chadha) film tastily demonstrates that variety is the spice of not only American life, but of American cuisine.

As a director, Cassavetes is a keen observer of character and social interaction but not yet much of a visual stylist (which might also describe the improvisational dramas made by her actor/director father, John).

This psycho-thriller, a Golden Globe winner and presumptive favorite for the foreign-film Oscar, itself is revelatory.