Chuck Wilson

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.

When Frankie, an understudy in a small dance company, is given his chance to perform, he, and Test itself, come to life.

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

[A] hokey but effective adaptation.

Formulaic but infectiously happy comedy.

Athale has a flair for guy-pal banter; here, the talk is funny and profane, silly and profound, often in the same breath.

As director, Scott Marshall displays an unsurprising flair for selling a joke, but also a fine sense of dramatic pacing and, even better, a gift for brevity, neither of which, it could be argued, are innate skills of his famous filmmaking family.

Antibodies is fairly riveting, thanks to Alvart's command of craft and tone. He's a director to watch.

These young American members of an international group that uses the combative tactics of anti-abortionists to vilify those who’re doing business with a major products-testing company were recently labeled terrorists by the FBI and put on trial. That one can’t quite decide if these charming men are heroes or villains is a mark of Johnson’s calm.

While it isn't surprising that improv gods Short and fellow SNL vet Jan Hooks, as Glick's wife, Dixie, are brilliant, who knew that perennial onscreen good girl Elizabeth Perkins, playing here a has-been bitch-diva, could be so brittle and sexy?

Unsatisfying as crime drama but haunting as a meditation on marriage.

Although the film is a tad long, Mirkin ("Romy and Michele's High School Reunion") has managed to pull off a classy, gently funny movie in which no one throws up, a rare blessing these days.

Despite the rush to get everyone from place to place, director Frank Coraci (The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy) luxuriates in colorful visual detail and gives the locals their due.

This debut feature from writer-director Shonali Bose has a powerful finale, in which the filmmaker uses imaginative camera angles and a vibrant sound design to re-create the turmoil and terror of the riots.

Undeniably precious, it may make some viewers fidgety, but others will find that the reflective melancholy that overcomes both director and cast (all superb) is a sweet contagion.

Despite its sci-fi hook, Movement and Location turns out to be a surprisingly resonant film about how impossible it is for most people — no matter their cosmic time zone — to carve out a life that's emotionally honest.

First-time director Anahí Berneri, who wrote this involving, if slow-moving, film with Pablo Pérez (based on Pérez’s own diaries), doesn't shy away from the whippings, rope work and carefully calibrated humiliation that make up a good night of dungeon play. Yet A Year Without Love isn't a sex movie (so don’t expect one), but a studied examination of how one man folds jarring events into the everyday fabric of his life.

This is the first Broadway-sourced movie musical in umpteen years, and you should see it, because the score is gorgeous.

The British music-video director Peter Care (making his feature debut) and screenwriters Jeff Stockwell and Michael Petroni have retained much of the wry, teen-wise dialogue from the late Chris Fuhrman's cult-hit novel, while giving his story arc a fuller, more rounded shape.

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.

The jewel in this well-rounded collection of gay-themed shorts is Alan Brown's "O Beautiful."

There are some decent shootouts, but the movie's strongest assets are the soulful performances Danish director Kasper Barfoed, making his American debut, draws from Cusack and Akerman.

Thanks to Ashton's brilliant, career-defining performance, we're made to see that the only thing worse than doing evil deeds is being nice enough to feel guilty about them.

The film is being sold as a comedy, and it is amusing. Secretly, though, it's a romance, with Merchant's roving camera discerning the tempestuous love triangle at the heart of Naipaul's novel.

In this lovely film, writer-director Khientse Norbu (The Cup) shifts smoothly between a kind of Buddhist "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and depicting the bonds that form among Dondup and his companions.

A remake of the 2003 Korean horror film "A Tale of Two Sisters," The Uninvited is a Hand That Rocks the Cradle–type thriller that's been dressed up as a horror movie.

In this entertaining documentary, the coolest kids in town sing the praises of cartoonist Gahan Wilson, whose work is a brilliant fusion of the personal and the political.

As with most of Toback's films, there are Big Ideas being bandied about that never quite coalesce, a failing that, this time at least, mirrors his hero's own hyped-out search for meaning.