Chuck Wilson

Papa Cronenberg must be proud, but be advised: If there's a blood test in your future, book it before seeing this movie.

The plotting as a whole feels fresh, as does the emphasis on women strong enough to defend themselves.

The Story of Luke is a charming little film in need of a bit more grit.

Lotus Eaters, which McGuinness co-wrote with Brendan Grant, is maddeningly shallow—maybe that's the point—but McGuinness does have talent.

First-time director Wayne Blair and screenwriters Keith Thompson and Tony Briggs, adapting Briggs’ stage play, don’t shy away from the era’s social complexities, but they keep their eye on the ball, which in this case is the sweet pull of soul tune harmony.

Built-to-shock anthology film.

In Griggs's eyes, they're all fools. Only old Ronnie, dearly departed though he may be, is worthy of reverence.

Despite crisp photography and the director's gift for building a scene, the film doesn't click until the third act, when Mos Def's performance as Dre's protégé appears to energize everyone around him.

In the end it doesn't lead to much beyond weepy melodrama. Still, McGuigan draws committed performances from a talented cast.

This very funny, very British movie -- directed by newcomer Garth Jennings -- has sci-fi effects that are impressive yet appropriately cheesy.

Visibly uninspired, Pacino gives a perfunctory performance -- though surely he must have looked over at Farrell and been reminded of himself 30 years ago, all jacked-up and beautiful, like a stallion at the gate.

When movie clichés are presented with rigor and feeling, they can pack a fresh punch.

A surprise hit in Thailand, the film is nonetheless a reductive mess.

Filled with the kind of frank, nonsensational sensuality that eludes American filmmakers, this movie proves again that the most interesting cinema about teenage life -- gay and otherwise -- is being made far from our provincial shores.

There's not a believable moment in all of it, but for a while the film chugs along on Ryan's innate charisma. Even so, no amount of movie-star twinkle could lighten screenwriter Cheryl Edwards' bizarre character arc, which finds Jackie turning, overnight, into a callous, possibly racist, ninny.

The killer in this nasty yet taut slice-and-dice 'em horror flick is a collector of eyeballs, which he removes from his screaming victims with an efficient single swooping motion of his talon-like index finger. If that image makes you grin not cringe, then this movie's for you.

Engrossing.

Intriguing yet muddled thriller.

Eventually it all starts to feel like an extended European perfume ad: pretty but eye-rollingly pretentious.

She is known as one of the great muses, yet director Bruce Beresford, Wynter and screenwriter Marilyn Levy are never clear if this is by design or chance.

Shawn is clearly meant to have deep feelings, yet the filmmakers have saddled her -- and Blair -- with a shallow angst that bums out the whole movie.

Returning director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King) and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) have done a fine job of updating White's dry wit to a new age, led in no small measure by Lane, who could probably make the IRS code book sound funny.

Grounded in the easy rhythms of daily life, this charming little film shows unexpected grit in sequences set in the white household where Lindiwe works, a place so oppressive that it suddenly seems way past time for South African movie characters - and their home audience - to experience a dose or two of Hollywood-style wish fulfillment.

Audiences are destined to debate the film's final scenes, where Hanley piles on plot twists, leading to a coda that turns a creepily ambiguous story about God and the terrifying power of paternal love into something closer to an X-File.

Surprisingly smart film.

Zippy, stylish fun.

Screenwriter Vincent Molina and director Fabrice Cazaneuve are wonderfully calm about the tumult of teen life.

Refreshingly quirky comedy.

Bass isn't a gifted actor, but he retains his dignity, mostly by keeping his head down and avoiding the eyes of the idiots around him.

The dialogue and voice-over narration (by Gordon) are homily-heavy, and the staging sometimes awkward. The prison extras in particular are often left to stare blankly at the gut-wrenching action before them, with many, including Sutherland, looking awfully fit for men who've been starving for years.

Director Roger Christian (Battlefield Earth -- yes, that Battlefield Earth) and screenwriters Scott Duncan and Ned Kerwin have been influenced more by James Bond than El Mariachi–style spaghetti Westerns.

Stuck with flat material and a star more adept at responding to humor than generating it, director Stephen Herek, in a vain attempt to generate laughs, enlists Cedric the Entertainer, as a convict-turned-preacher.

Gerber has a sharp cast at hand -- All work furiously, yet the director, with his fake backdrops and stately pacing, never settles on a consistent tone. Surely the novel had more bite.

Mercifully free of excess mania, sexual innuendo and fart jokes, this sweet-natured comedy, ably directed by John Whitesell (Malibu's Most Wanted), has some nice bits of business.

For these gifted directors and their fine ensemble, the notion that every life forms into a mosaic of intimate, largely unobserved details is the story most worth telling.

Silly and pretentious would-be romance.

One almost pities the unnervingly twitchy Murphy, whose shiny makeup is dreadful, and who doesn't stand a chance alongside the focused intensity of Fanning, who commands the screen with the precision of a 30-year veteran.

Sleek, not-quite-trashy-enough melodrama.

Reynolds, working in close harmony with cinematographer Andrew Dunn (Gosford Park), brings an infectious brio and an occasional sweeping grace to the classic trappings of Dumas.

This peculiar little comedy, shot on digital video, gets points for editorial pizzazz, but earns a big zero for content.

Peterson and her longtime writing partner, John Paragon, as well as director Sam Irvin, clearly worship the Poe-inspired Roger Corman/Vincent Price films of the 1960s, so of course there’s a pit and a pendulum in that dungeon, but who’d have expected it to be so beautifully designed?

As producer, writer and star of his first movie, Ray Jahangard gets points for confidence and nerve, but at the end of the day, it must be said that not everyone is meant to work in the movies.

Has no stylistic flair and little forward momentum, yet nearly every scene contains an amusing bit of business, much of it off to the side of the main action.

Aiming to elicit a last-minute shiver from the audience, Gaghan is likely to get instead a mood-destroying giggle.

Despite a midfilm lull of his own, Eisner stages a series of nifty action sequences, nearly all of which feature a moment of surprise, as well as gruesome wit.

There’s no point slamming this fart-and-burp teen flick, since the chortles of the 11-year-old boys -- and the men with an 11-year-old's disposition -- at a recent mall screening can't be denied.

Charming, animated retelling of stories from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books.

The only thing more boring than a vampire with moral issues about biting people in the neck is a werewolf who’d rather become fully human than howl at the moon once a month.

A debut film that's more well-intentioned than funny.

Proteus carries an air of forced-wit experimentation that never quite gets its anachronisms in order -- this 18th-century tale features a Jeep, a radio, and female court reporters with typewriters and bouffant hairdos.

What's fun is that the road to that climactic Capitol showdown is paved with one ridiculous and relentlessly edited set piece after another.

Drab and muddled romance.

The final meet felt eternal to me, but little girls may love it all, and even if they don't, they're almost sure to practice their handstands when they get home.

Unexpectedly gripping horror movie.

Bettauer means for Arthur and Joe's adventures to be a fable about empathy and hope, but her tone shifts awkwardly between silly and ponderous.

At only 84 minutes, Phone Booth's brevity turns out to be its only saving grace.

The director pulls back from the hotel, placing it against the skyline of our beautiful city, which appears to be waiting, patiently, for a more original exploration of its inhabitants.

Anemic.

The film takes on unexpected weight when Christian cops to his intense personal loneliness. That's not the stuff of high comedy, but it's brave and, in these days of rah-rah, everyone's-in-love gay media, rather refreshing.

Though engaging from beginning to end, be warned that this is also harrowing, utterly depressing stuff.

Throughout, Sullivan and Braun shine, making for a match so sexy and appealing that it's a shame Swain avoids their love life, an approach that doesn't exactly advance gay liberation -- or cinema.

Queen Latifah gets co-producer and scenarist credits for this anemic comedy, and also a supporting role that amounts to the worst performance of her career.

Clichéd though it may be, this movie was clearly made with love.

This time, Zombie doesn’t appear to have many deep thoughts, so Michael doesn’t just stab his victims, he slices and chomps them into gooey pulp — an overkill motif that actually feels false to the character and quickly becomes a depressing bore.

Inane uplift tale for teens.

Moving and vibrant Italian-language film.

Amiable but not especially funny film.

At its best, this uneven film by writer-director Dave Boyle suggests that going a bit nuts is a good thing for the rigid paterfamilias.

A film where everyone -- white, black, gay or otherwise -- is equally, lovably dumb.

Coury has made a technically polished first film, but her sense of comic timing and sexual politics is strictly borscht belt.

West delivers the emotional goods when tragedy strikes in the final reel. If 17-year-old pop star Moore isn't a skilled actress, she's at least unassuming.

The 1978 frat-house classic "Animal House," starring the late, great John Belushi, is the model for testosterone-mad comedies such as this, and while it hasn't that film's scope or finesse, Old School does have Ferrell, a man clearly in touch with his inner Belushi.

It's fine stuff, beautifully played, but there's no denying that viewers will have to be patient with this 80-minute chamber piece, the first third of which feels cold and false, only to suddenly shift into unexpectedly deep emotional territory.

Sometimes the predictability of a romantic comedy is reassuring, and sometimes it makes you want to scream, as with this witless wonder.

More problematic is "Inside Out," starring Jason Gould, who also wrote and directed, based on his own experiences as the son of Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould.

Posey and Rudd are the real deal, so it's almost sad when Priscilla and Jack are left hanging in the final act, their issues unresolved. It's as if the filmmakers lost their nerve when it came time to write the kind of intimate, revealing conversation that can make a sex toy unnecessary.

A surprisingly smart satire around the bubble-gum band that first found life in the pages of the Archie comic book series.

Stuck for years playing young women who are the idealized object of male desire (Portman and Johansson)-- flaw-free and, in Johansson's case, barely conscious -- they come alive in The Other Boleyn Girl, as if being bound up in costumer Sandy Powell's exquisite gowns has freed them from the tighter constraints of their own beauty.

Isn't art, but as date-night fright flicks go, it's effective.

The finale goes on and on, but the movie is nicely photographed (by John Bailey) and duly empowering, and should please the vast teen-girl audience for which it's intended.

While some may bail early, those who stay to the end are likely to dwell on Zahedi's unwavering (some would say unrelenting) belief in his own artistry, as well as the film's many funny, quotable lines.

If none of it is particularly original or insightful, it's nonetheless executed with skill and economy.

A horror movie that's not horrific enough, Soul Survivors plays like a "Twilight Zone" by way of "Touched by an Angel."

A smooth little comedy deserving of more studio support than it got.

A twisted black comedy -- The accomplished ensemble meshes nicely, but the actors all look pale and exhausted, an effect that may be a byproduct of the film’s photography, which is terrible.

Only Chris Klein, as the lovesick live-in boyfriend of Becky's sister, is given anything like an active emotional arc to play, and he runs with it so beautifully that he steals the movie.

There is nothing sadder, either in real life or on the movie screen, than an unlikable idiot, and what we have with this dreadful comedy -- the longest 90 minutes of the film year -- is the sight of not one but two charm-free fools.

More amiable than laugh-out-loud funny, the film pokes along, buoyed by the motel's bright Hawaiian color scheme, and a moonlit desert finale that's awfully pretty.

Rosman and Wendkos run dry of ideas in the film's inert, overextended finale, when the "Believe in yourself" speeches grow so thick that even the Duff-devoted may start rolling their eyes.

Despite the success of these action sequences, Annaud and his ultraserious cast are so determined (admirably) to keep war from seeming romantic that we are never quite pulled into the movie.

In this lively romantic comedy from Canada, actors Wendy Crewson and Joe Cobden give off sparks -- in bed and out.

You can be sure that his victims die shirtless, and are as dumb as the hetero dimwits who fell prey to Jason or Freddy, but what you might not expect is that this queer-slanted slasher flick is actually pretty good.

Even the easily weepy may grow impatient with the snail’s pace of this melancholy romance.

Formulaic but infectiously happy comedy.

By the end of this likely cult classic (only 80 minutes long), when Evie has an amphetamine-induced meltdown during her cable-access comeback show, these divas are as recognizably human as you and me, only sluttier, and with cattier one-liners.

Amusing, beautifully drawn one-hour film.

Moves slowly and deflates completely when the over-hyped family secret turns out to be a dramatic dud. Still, it's an awfully pretty movie. Let's all summer in Maine.

Mostly, Lafferty is all about expletives and sexual innuendo of the frankest kind, some of it so raunchy (and unfunny) as to make one wonder if the parents of the film's many child actors bothered to read the script.