David Stratton

With a glowing performance by Sarah Polley as the doomed woman, this Spanish-Canadian co-prod, filmed in English, is surprisingly adept at avoiding the worst cliches and most manipulative elements inherent in such a story.

The film is traditionally and effectively made; it also is superbly acted.

Music has always played a vital role in the films of Tony Gatlif, and in Vengo it finally threatens to take over, submerging the frail, familiar vendetta plotline.

Despite the disappointing conclusion, it's hard not to be affected by the film, because of the director's frank approach to her subject and the sheer skill with which she tells her story.

The briefest of the three pics, it's also the least successful, suggesting that this kind of character-driven comedy isn't the genre with which Belvaux is most comfortable. Still, there are delightful sequences and ideas and the film carries a great deal more substance and resonance when placed alongside the other two in the series.

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

Exquisitely made love story.

Grounded by a vigorous, physical performance from Choi Min-Sik, who brings both earthiness and grandeur to the central role, the film vividly evokes the world of an obsessive natural talent.

Liv Ullmann, directing her second Bergman screenplay (after 1997’s “Private Confessions”), extracts every nuance from the tantalizing material.

Cheekily diverting, decidedly feel-good, tremendously sexy entertainment.

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

Full of charm, entertaining enough as it unfolds, good looking, but not especially memorable in retrospect.

It certainly wraps the trilogy on a very powerful, emotionally draining note. It's refreshing to see the precision and audacity with which Belvaux and his excellent cast succeed in imbuing the increasingly familiar story with completely new angles, insights and nuances.

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

Though it moves more slowly than the tortoise prominently featured in one sequence, Clouds of May is the kind of film that creeps up on the patient viewer.

An impressively staged, dark-toned revisiting of the life and times of Australia's boldest and most charismatic outlaw.

The World of Jacques Demy is a major addition to films about filmmakers, and achieves its purpose in making the viewer immediately want to see the key films again.

Eye-grabbing performances from Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths, who portray celebrated British cellist Jacqueline Du Pre and her older sister, Hilary, distinguish this ambitious but flawed biography.

Pacing is on the button, and the film moves inexorably, without any flat moments, toward the suspenseful, if morally indefensible, finale.

An intriguing but only partly successful co-mingling of film noir and sci-fi.

A wonderfully acted, acutely observed psychological drama.

Overall the charm of the film works its spell, and director Kennedy shows confidence in juggling understated comedy and gently sentimental drama.

The director has managed the difficult feat of making a nonlinear film that contains a handful of almost unbearably suspenseful sequences, each one undercut by bizarre black humor.

Has nothing much to say.

Within the confines of this tried-and-true formula, Luhrmann has concocted a feel-good entertainment, which is lively, original (in an old-fashioned sort of way) and charming.

This potentially intriguing story winds up being dull and at times faintly silly.

The film belongs to Eden, who creates a winning personality out of a combination of vulnerability, resourcefulness, toughness and fragility. It's an outstanding juvenile performance.

Intriguing, provocative and very well acted.