Chris Kaltenbach

Come Undone would have benefited immensely from less constricted performances from Elkaim and Rideau, both of whom go through the film determined not to crack a smile.

The movie may be too precious for mass consumption, but its filmmakers' willingness to assume the best of their audience, combined with its Everyman origins, suggest a movie that deserves a chance.

A terrifically engrossing war film in which not a single shot is fired, a movie about shaping events rather than being shaped by them.

Tightly scripted and intricately plotted, the buddy film manages the neat two-step of being simultaneously profane and engaging.

Russian Dolls never resorts to sitcom moments as it explores the transformation of friendship into love. All the characters here are believably appealing and refreshingly three-dimensional, and the situations they find themselves in have the ring of truth. You leave this film wanting to know these people, wanting the best for them.

Bolt proves a refreshing throwback to the animated classics of yore.

When it sticks to the subject, the movie is sad and affecting.

If nothing else, it may make one appreciate the cartoon even more.

Garden State is filled with characters you long to know more about, in situations to which almost anyone can relate. And that's as near a can't-miss movie formula as one can get.

The film stays true to its characters and keeps the laughs coming in what may be the closest thing in spirit to the old Warner Bros. Looney Tunes to hit the screen in years. And when it comes to animation designed primarily for laughs, praise doesn't come any higher than that.

An enjoyably complex sci-fi suspense thriller.

A twisted little comic gem.

Has its heart in the right place, and could have been an insightful rumination on corporate shortsightedness and mid-life obsolescence. Instead, it's another one of those Hollywood films whose feel for the workingman's life seems to come exclusively from other movies.

What's surprising is that the film has genuine laughs and smart-aleck asides that will keep even nonfans happy (although it helps if you at least like the genre).

Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton are so good in Something's Gotta Give, it's a shame writer-director Nancy Meyers couldn't rein herself in a little more.

With Diary of the Dead, Romero goes back to the beginning, only this time the amateurish look is calculated and the resulting film far less effective - if only because a handful of filmmakers have beaten him to the punch.

Manages to pretty much ignore all the strengths of the earlier film while exacerbating all its faults.

In this day of overstuffed action flicks and dumbed-down "comedies," (Snow Day) is kinda refreshing.

Charming has devolved into almost a pejorative these days, but Tuck Everlasting is the sort of film that could change that.

It's deliciously warped, deceptively smart and undeniably funny. Isn't that enough?

Steadily, stealthily, The Eye works its way into your psyche, playing with your mind and always keeping a surprise or two up its sleeve.

A joyful celebration of spirit and endurance.

In the end, there's enough movie magic in The Prestige to keep you guessing, even after the film's over.

There's no character to root for in this movie, no potential triumphs or resounding failures, just the sense of people going through the motions because they can't bother to think of anything better to do. And that's not a lot to hang your moviegoing hat on.

There are moments, heaven forgive me, that left me chuckling. Not to mention eternally grateful that it's these guys doing this stuff, and not me.

Not everyone is going to appreciate the politics of Barbershop, but you've got to admire it for having a political view at all.

Elf tries so hard to be a holiday classic, to be a sweet-natured, charming little piece of holiday gloss, it's tempting to declare it so and simply go with it.

Sometimes sly and witty, sometimes dull and forced, Coffee and Cigarettes is Jim Jarmusch's testimony to the difficulties and delights of communication.

Great book, great cast, average film: Les Miserables is all pedigree, no passion.

Rocky and Bullwinkle have not only returned, but they've been placed in the hands of filmmakers who know what they're doing.

The Cell is eye candy - but it could give your brain a bad case of indigestion.

With all its cloying, tone-deaf attempts at genuine emotional warmth, all it really deserves is to be avoided.

An insightful, clear-headed look at relations within a Chinese-American family.

About as clunky as a movie gets. It lurches from scene to scene with no sense of narrative grace, gives its roster of prominent actors nothing to work with and screeches to a halt with all the grace of a sprinter whose shoelaces have been tied together.

Yes, the characters in Clerks II hardly qualify as role models, but they can be blisteringly funny in an in-your-face, to-heck-with-taste way.

At times, Sex and Lucia is too precious for its own good; a movie that demands its own flow chart isn't always a good thing. And events turn on one coincidence too many. But Medem's exquisite craftsmanship and full-throttle eroticism make his film a morass worth the attempt to unravel.

This would be an excellent movie from a first-time filmmaker, but from one of America's premiere directors, it's a disappointment.

Gloriously retro, unashamedly celebratory of the joy of moviemaking and the love of old-fashioned heroism.

The Beautiful Country is not a happy film by any means, but it does offer a fragile hope, that beauty exists at the end of every journey, if only one has the strength to finish the trip.

Laura's histrionics sometimes seem forced, and Hines has to struggle to be the heel the screenplay sometimes asks him to be.

Still, it's hard not to long for the Pooh stories of old, those endearingly anarchic little tales that captured the wonder of a child's world without ever once condescending to it.

Romanek does such a nice job of calibrating his film's squirm factor, it's possible to overlook some flaws that would sink a lesser film.

The best moments in Paper Clips - and there are plenty - come when it doesn't resort to mundane cliches or calculated emotions to make its point.

The determinedly cynical needn't bother, but just about everyone else should love Eight Below.

Director Daniele Thompson gets the point across so airily and pleasantly, in a film cast to perfection, that it's no problem accepting the message with a shrug, while profoundly enjoying the messenger.

There's a dignity to Mondays in the Sun that manages to keep the film buoyant, helping to keep all the despair at bay.

The movie finally comes to life when Liu turns up.

A withering condemnation of a culture where greed is a virtue, a culture that you don't have to feel guilty for laughing at.

The film mixes the psychological with the supernatural, the profane with the ridiculous, the self-indulgent with the understated, and dares you to assume anything. It's all great fun.

Proves that marionettes can be as foul-mouthed and profane as their cartoon counterparts, but not nearly as clever.

Long on style and technique, short on substance and plot.

Best of all is Jeff Bridges as the voice of Geek, a laid-back philosopher-penguin who becomes Cody's low-key guru, mentoring him in the ways of the wave.

When Inside Deep Throat is over, it's tough to say which tragic moment lingers longer.

Has an unerring capacity for going soft whenever a hard edge is called for.

This is Ferrell's movie, and one's tolerance for it will most likely be in direct proportion to one's tolerance for its star's vanity-free fearlessness.

Nothing is as it seems in State of Play, a crackerjack political thriller in which no individual, profession or institution gets away clean.

Painstakingly painful.

There are times when his message threatens to overwhelm his story line, and the last 15 minutes or so of Blood Diamond demonstrate what happens when sentimentality wins out over style and grit.

It fails to dig beneath that surface picture and offer up anything in the way of explanation or motivation.

It does offer that most pleasant and valuable of viewing experiences: A message movie in which story and character come first.

Replete with so many wisecracks, puns, double entendres and visual jokes that you almost need a flow chart to keep up with them all. But try; the effort is definitely worthwhile, and the results are hilarious.

Shortbus is nothing if not over-the-top, replete with consummated sex acts, both gay and straight.

Fast Food Nation offers no easy answers, but plenty of food for thought.

A film of so much daring, a film that takes so many chances, it's impossible not to be impressed.

As good as Willis is, he's no match for Mos Def.

A remarkable film about a remarkable man who's lived the kind of life usually reserved for adventure novels and pulp fiction.

Sarah Silverman says things you wouldn't expect a nice, attractive Jewish girl to say. But that's only half her appeal.

For anyone who has ever had to balance what the heart yearns for against what the head insists must be, this film should hit home.

There's tremendous energy in How She Move, so much that the audience can't help but be swept up.

The result is a film that plays like a creaking melodrama, with good guys and bad guys and precious little in between.

A first-rate sail into Adventureland.

Short on details and long on extreme, unflattering close-ups.

The movie contains few surprises but has plenty of heart.

If you do insist on seeing this film, don't arrive late: the clever, animated opening credits are a stitch, suggesting a sprightliness of touch and winsome wickedness of tone that's missing from the rest of the movie.

Unlike so many movies directed at teens, ATL is not interested in exploiting its audience.

A film not nearly as intriguing as it should have been, centering on a death that isn't nearly as intricately fascinating as the filmmakers think. Exacerbating the problem is a cast of actors who seem too self-consciously playacting.