Chris Kaltenbach

It forces you to fill in the blanks, then refuses to judge whether you're right or wrong. It's almost like the audience writes its own script, and everybody appreciates his or her own work.

The heartbreak comes not from watching her fail, but from realizing how easy it would be for her to succeed. If only she knew better how to try.

Dawn of the Dead may depict the end of the world as we know it, but rarely has watching doom proved such a kick.

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

In a cinematic landscape where truly original ideas are rarer than floating food, recklessness like this deserves to be appreciated. Not understood, but appreciated.

Moves along with great speed and verve, and it's got just enough of a sci-fi sheen to make things interesting, if not provocative. Philosophers and true believers may be disappointed, but for movie fans, I, Robot mostly delivers the goods.

Prime serves as yet another showcase for Streep; to prove how expertly she plays a Jewish mother with a Ph.D. in psychology, just imagine Barbra Streisand in the role -- you'd have a farce only a step above slapstick. With Streep, you get a smartly observant comedy that never overplays its hand.

Electric as Elektra, Jennifer Garner does a high-powered, blade-thrusting star turn as Marvel Comics' ninja-inspired superheroine, bringing such unbridled energy and sexuality to her performance, one barely notices the movie itself.

There's pleasure to be had in a film that suggests teen life can be hard without necessarily being tragic.

The result is a passionate, enthralling film that isn't afraid to take chances - even if it sometimes should be.

The people are just a little too calculatedly quirky in Off the Map, an otherwise engaging comedy.

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

Reaches the highest comic heights when the show itself starts.

Don't go expecting a good time to be had. But by all means, go to revel in a movie that, for about two-thirds of its length, is Mamet at the top of his game -- intelligent, tightly crafted, densely layered.

Wilson, who has never made the film in which he convincingly played sincere, turns out to be a wise choice to play John Grogan.

The weirdly exhilarating thing about Wicker Park is the reckless abandon with which it embraces the convenience of coincidence, and then the extreme measures it takes to reassure the audience that it's not a movie about coincidence at all.

Celebrates heroes without turning them into saints.

It's impossible not to be exhilarated by the energy and determination that infuses every frame.

It's plenty thrilling, and it appeals to the flag-waving patriot in all of us.

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.

Wedding Crashers is unashamedly profane and, for its first two acts, very funny, a classic guilty pleasure that revels in its basest elements.

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

The result is a charmer that boldly marches where lesser movies - at least since the heyday of John Hughes - fear to tread.

While the film is obviously meant as a call to arms, the very single-mindedness of the approach could work against it.

There's an honesty to the film that elevates it a cut above standard slasher fare.

It rarely strikes the right tone and ultimately falls short of what one would expect from a collaboration between director Wim Wenders and writer Sam Shepard.

The film is the work of a visual genius who may have overextended his storytelling ability, but with fascinating results.

It's like a Harlequin romance trying to pass itself off as something deeper and more profound.

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

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.

Alpha Dog may well go down as the most dispiriting film of 2007.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated performs a great service, though not especially well.

White throws in a dog-in-peril shot to ensure the audience's sympathies. The ploy works, perhaps too well, turning Year of the Dog less into the askew character study it wants to be than a showcase of lovable-dog shots.

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

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

Refreshingly, the movie never wavers in the importance it places on friendship over just about anything else.

There's more than a trace of James Dean in Gosling, except that he's a rebel with a cause.

Engaging though flimsy, lively though occasionally tone-deaf, it's a movie that thrives on the strength of its affable co-stars and a sense of adventure that provides just enough brio to get audiences through some energy-sapping rough spots.

It may not advance the art form, but it's a movie with pleasures for the whole family, and nowadays that's saying something.

Comes across as more willfully clever than profound, leaving us to applaud the message while pondering why the messenger had to strain so hard to get it across.

As great as the film looks, the story, adapted from a novel by P.D. James, never quite comes into focus.

The film may not be art, but it's got a beat and you can definitely dance to it.

Things may work out predictably, but The Ultimate Gift does not yank on the heartstrings so much as pluck them gently.

Anna Faris, her deadpan comic timing still a joy to watch, returns as Cindy Campbell, one of two main holdovers from the first three movies.

What it does have is the laughs.

Blethyn's performance belongs in another movie, not this bipolar comedy-drama.

It's a thrill ride not to be missed.

What makes RV work are some genuinely funny bits (one of which is not an overlong sequence in which Bob has trouble emptying the R.V.'s toilet) that should ring especially true to any parent forced to cajole a recalcitrant child into having a good time.

A derivative little tale with enough good intentions to recommend it, but not enough substance to embrace it.

If the movie were as funny as it is well-meaning, this would be one for the ages.

The emotions seem genuine enough, even if Sandler is not a talented-enough actor to always pull them all off.

Bland, inoffensive, formulaic and occasionally amusing - just like the animated kids' show that inspired it.

The real strength of Return to Me is Hunt, who knows just when to retreat from the film's overriding sweetness and inject a cynical moment or two.

The one thing most sorely missing is movie magic.

Novocaine is neither funny enough to be a comedy, nor dark enough to be a true film noir. Like the drug of the title, it just kind of leaves you numb and anxious to taste the good stuff once again.

Tear-inducing feel-gooder that only a curmudgeon could find fault with.

It's a real shame the film gets mushy at the end. The result is an all too conventional ending on a film that should have been much better.

If only it had a plot mere humans could follow.

A cautionary tale, a warning not to gather all of your neurotic friends in one room - or better yet, not to have so many neurotic friends.

Gets the hell of war right and struggles to depict the unyielding passion of love. But the two sides make for an uneasy mix, one that not even the actors seem comfortable with.

Caan is so good as a man who watches helplessly as everything he's worked for crumbles around him, that he steals the picture from both Wahlberg and Phoenix, the ostensible stars.

A pleasantly lightweight confection.

Shark Tale is "Finding Nemo" with bigger-name stars, far less heart and, the guess here is, about one-third the staying power.

There's a ton of joy in The Legend of 1900 -- but it's laid on so thick that one ends up more numbed than stirred, overcome by one too many Hallmark moments.

Retro in a refreshing sort of way, a return to those sci-fi films of the 1950s, filled with cheesy special effects and over-the-top acting, but with a gem of an idea at its core, and all done with just enough wit and inventiveness to keep audiences in the cheap seats happy.

Until the last 15 minutes, What Lies Beneath is a well-paced maze that earns every gasp from its audience.

Should make comic modern-day fanboys happy, what with its dark undertones, its beat-it-to-a-pulp action and its sly winks at comic greats past and present. Everyone else, including fans of Will Eisner's original Spirit, may find themselves wondering what all the fuss is about.

Stuck On You is proof that sweet and funny don't always make for the best mix.

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

Truth is, one can probably tell as much about Jackson Pollock the man by looking at his paintings than by watching this movie.

It's a shame his (Foxx) performance isn't surrounded by a better film.

Abandon tags Katie Holmes as a talented actor with surprising range and vast, untapped potential - so much, in fact, that watching her, one can almost overlook the film's many flaws. Almost.

For a documentary about a music festival, Soul Power doesn't include nearly enough music.

Sort of feel-good lesson kids will enjoy and parents should welcome.

With an all-star cast maintaining an amiable tone throughout, the result is a movie in which everyone should see themselves for at least a few minutes (and wish they were that young, that beautiful and that well-off).

Best advice: Just sit back and watch Freeman anyway. The man's a cinematic treasure.

While Bresson's insistence on juxtaposing brute force with sublime grace isn't subtle, it is effective.

Anyone who isn't charmed by the idea of a Beetle crossing the finish line first is either chronically churlish or isn't trying.

Star Maps is the work of a talented group of young actors and filmmakers anxious to try as much as they can and see what works. Not all of it does.

Isn't perfect, but it's fun, and Tim Allen shines

In the end, viewers are left with a nagging feeling that this was a long way to go for the incongruous pleasure of watching 20th-century method acting on a 17th-century stage.

There's a subtlety to Crimson Gold that deserves applause.

Best when DeVito plays off the supporting cast surrounding him.

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

Huckabees boasts an impressive cast, and every one of them is fun to watch. But there's a strong sense that no one really knows what's going on here.

Turns into an amusing showcase for two of Hollywood's most appealing young actors.

New York Minute isn't High Art, but it is highly entertaining, especially if you're a member of its target audience.

The best thing about 13 Going on 30 is that an ever-game Jennifer Garner is cheerfully convincing as a 13-year-old in a 30-year-old body. The worst thing is the feeling we've seen this movie before, done better.

The New Guy doesn't have a new idea in its head, but it trods over the old ground with such wit and heart that its lack of originality can be overlooked, if not entirely forgiven.

Undeniably charming -- a dog movie that's more lovable mutt than stately pedigree.

Simply twiddling with the fine-tuning on the central character is not enough to warrant remaking a film. Both Glover and Willard deserve better.

A film as clever and embracingly ribald as this shouldn't have to resort to cliche in the end; director Nigel Cole should have kept his girls in Britain and kept the mood light.

Heaven is so determined to be poetic and beautiful, it comes across as forced and didactic, a lesson in relative morality whose storyline doesn't so much flow as lurch from one stretch to another.

Partially financed by the liberal Move On.org, speaks most eloquently when it lets Fox News do the talking.

Paid In Full's performances - especially by the always-engaging Phifer -- are strong, its message worthwhile and its sincerity doubtless.

The action is thrilling enough.

Lighthearted fluff, not piercing drama. Still, a little shot of reality -- or at least an acknowledgement of same -- could have done this film wonders.

Although some clever touches are clearly directed at adults -- much of the film's humor is quite likely to go under your head. [20 Nov 1998]