David Stratton

On just about every level -- as a thriller, as a romance and as a character study of a complicated man nearing the end of his professional life -- the film fails, and the meandering, sub-Cassavetes approach is likely to be a turnoff for all but the most indulgent viewers.

Visually inventive and refreshingly witty, pic provides an insider's look at the contempo Sydney music scene and showcases a smart young cast.

Colorful characters, richly evoked settings, epic story of friendship, crime and punishment, and a strong dose of good old-fashioned star power.

A sober, unsensationalized enactment of a Holocaust incident. Von Trotta keeps sentimentality at bay and, as a result, the film isn't as emotionally wrenching as it might have been.

Though Hotel has brilliant moments, and an energetic first half, it falls away badly in the later stages.

Filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky needs nothing more than the cold facts surrounding this awesome weapon to get across a message about the importance of peace.

An exceedingly sleek and handsome thriller, this ambitious European co-production, like the novel on which it's quite faithfully based, starts intriguingly but fails to stay the distance.

The younger casting brings a freshness to the material and, with Allen as the weird mentor, there are plenty of laughs, even if the pacing's slow and the running time over-extended.

It's too arty to cut it as a violent action pic and too gore-spattered to appeal to the arthouse crowd.

Shot on location in subdued colors, Twist offers much less hope for its troubled characters than Dickens did. Its very downbeat vision may turn off auds, which is a pity because the film has a great many qualities, not least the admirable performances of Stahl, Close and Pelletier.

This dank, gloomy essay into the supernatural tries hard to create an intriguing mood in which fate guides the lives of its wounded protagonists, but few will be interested in the outcome.

Amiable rather than genuinely funny.

Precociously inventive horror pic that combines brain-eating zombies with outer space aliens.

Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing.