David Stratton

Hard-boiled entertainment in the Tarantino mold is leavened with a distinctively Aussie sense of humor in The Hard Word.

An entrancing ensemble piece, directed with calm assurance, acted by a fine ensemble, and structured and scripted with wit and precision.

This depiction of the trials and tribulations of a working-class Catholic family during the Depression is a far more intimate viewing experience than the similarly themed "Angela's Ashes."

Eternity and a Day finds Angelopoulos refining his themes and style. Just as other great filmmakers have in the past explored similar themes time and again, so Angelopoulos has evolved and come up with one of his most lucid and emotional journeys thus far.

Develops into a powerfully emotional experience thanks to a career-best performance by Toni Collette.

Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing.

This poignant film about an Israeli family rendered dysfunctional by the sudden death of the husband and father is a strongly emotional experience despite its tendency toward cryptic dramatics.

Melds an insightful observational style with some rather clunky satire and the resulting mix is uneven at best.

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.

Might spark controversy in mainland China, not only because it deals with a homosexual relationship between a member of the Chinese establishment and a peasant, but also because it touches on events such as the 1989 massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. However, pic is unlikely to raise eyebrows anywhere else.

Powered by two eye-catching performances.

Made with deft evenhandedness, Paul Devlin's accomplished film plays almost like a fictional drama, containing suspense, comedy and some colorful characters.

Delicately handled and superbly textured, this fine adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker Prize-winning novel deals with all the really big subjects: love, friendship, death, life.

Too often goes off on a tangent with unessential anecdotes and then fails to deliver in more important areas.

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.

A little gem that takes a potentially grim subject and mines it for maximum humor and insight.

Distinguished by generally good performances and smart camerawork.

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

A funny and original film set in a future when communications are even more refined than they are now.

Guediguian's seemingly sprawling but in fact quite precise picture takes a while to establish itself, but is eventually rewarding viewing.

The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.

A terrifically entertaining romantic comedy, Better Than Chocolate tackles the age-old theme of the universal need for love with exuberance and gusto.

A visually lush and very Westernized vision of life in a remote Chinese village in the early 1970s.

Isn't only an outstanding documentary -- it's also a powerful personal drama.

Though Pieck is to be admired for the rigorousness in telling this chilling story (on what looks like a near zero budget), the film itself remains resolutely unlikable.

A deliciously sexy and hedonistic comedy of morals and manners, filmed amid some of Australia's most spectacular scenery. The blend of eroticism and humor, plus the formidable presence of supermodel Elle Macpherson, who is seen regularly in the buff in her featured role as an artist's model, will ensure wide interest in this engaging yarn from writer/director John Duigan.

Technically, this is Jackson's best to date, with state of the art creature and gore effects by Richard Taylor and prosthetics design by Bob McCarron. There's any amount of dismemberment, disembowelling, beheading, and the like, all of it handled with bloody conviction.

Bruce Willis’ one-note performance and the monotonous plotting doom this New Line venture, despite the director’s typically virile staging of the numerous gun battles.

It succeeds emotionally in the cause of what seems to be its primary aim, to advance an attitudinal change in Australians not normally sympathetic to the aboriginal cause.

Evil is not, as the title would suggest, a horror film, at least not a conventional one. Based on the autobiographical novel by Jan Guillou and set in the mid-1950s, the film relates the experiences of a troubled young man who's enrolled into a hidebound private school.

Fails on a number of counts, mostly because the individual stories aren't very gripping.

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

Fails on almost every level…the film only succeeds in trivializing this shameful era.

Despite fine performances and the care lavished on the production, Amen. is never as emotionally powerful as it should be.

Visually the film impresses, with Eduardo Serra's widescreen camerawork evocatively capturing the streets and interiors of London and a rain-swept Venice. Pacing is crisp, with little time wasted on inessentials. Dialogue is often caustically witty, and the relations clearly delineated.

A film with a terrifically engaging concept that overstays its welcome by quite a stretch.

Charismatic leads and a promising screwball-comedy premise are sadly frittered away by a weak second half in Antony J. Bowman's third feature, Paperback Hero.

It is at first daunting but ultimately awesomely impressive and beautiful.

Pic deserves nurturing, because it’s one of the best to emerge from New Zealand in quite a while. Tamahori, working from Riwia Brown’s intelligent script, has done a marvelous job in depicting the day-to-day horror of the Heke family, which is held together only by its women, the sorely tried Beth and her eldest daughter, 16-year-old Grace.

The pic is made up of small events and incidents, well observed and naturalistically performed.

Not exactly a police corruption thriller, the film is more a study of innocence betrayed, though its insights into Argentine law enforcement are pretty scary.

This visually lush but sometimes ponderously slowfilm is a poetic saga of love and loss.

Although writer-director Khientse Norbu breaks no ground in unfolding two parallel stories about young men seeking fresh horizons, he creates believable characters -- and has the great benefit of living in a country that provides seldom-seen locations at the top of the world.

A gentle, sad and at times funny film in the best French tradition of high-quality cinema.

This intelligent, engaging indie sets out to find a few answers and in the process introduces a clutch of interesting, very human characters.

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.

Think of an Anthony Mann Western made by an experimental film director and you get an indication of the challenging components of The Tracker, the story of a manhunt that is politically sensitive because of its depiction of atrocities perpetrated on aboriginals by a fanatical white cop.

Fluid camerawork, a resonant music score and tightly wound editing combine to produce a superior suspense film with a conclusion that is somewhat reminiscent of the final acts of Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" and of Joseph Losey's "The Criminal."

Thanks to amiable lead performances from Miranda Otto and Rhys Ifans, this not very original Aussie comedy about a man making a fresh start in life is a pleasant enough time-waster.

Haroun's film is both touching and, ultimately, almost perversely optimistic.

A tremendous, stellar cast is mostly confined to minor roles, but all shine under Allen's assured direction.

While the symbolism of the eel itself is a bit obvious, Imamura has created a rich tapestry of characters and situations, all of it vividly brought to life with pristine visuals and a generous emotional warmth.

Amiable rather than genuinely funny.

An intelligent and extremely well-made romantic drama that tells an intriguing story with economy and insight.

A cheerfully vulgar and bitchy, but essentially warmhearted, road movie with a difference, which boasts an amazing star turn by Terence Stamp as a transsexual, Stephan Elliott's second feature is a lot of fun.

A throughly researched and extremely informative survey of the life and work of one of the great figures of world cinema, Richard Schickel's Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin is a must for lovers of cinema.

Atkinson, who is in almost every scene, boasts a full-on comic personality that on the cinema screen is a bit daunting at times, and it's an open question as to whether the Carrey crowd will go for this seriously eccentric Brit.

An arthouse film par excellence, a consummately made study of loneliness and frustration.

For about the first half hour, Davies and his superb creative team weave a potent spell. But, starting with a poorly staged revival meeting sequence, things start to go wrong; Davies's grip slackens, and the artifice overwhelms the perilously slim storyline.

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.

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.

Distinguished by some unusually fine performances, but the lack of a satisfactory third act diminishes overall result.

The punishment seems out of all proportion to the "crimes" committed, so that the film becomes no simplistic pro-feminist tract but is, on the contrary, more complex and disturbing.

Will connect with anyone who ever had a bad experience with a bank or finance company, and provides a satisfyingly loathsome character in Anthony LaPaglia's engaging protrayal of a corporate shark.

Brimming with almost too many ideas for its 99-minute running time, Duncan's film boasts a strong cast of top actors who flesh out a group of bizarre yet recognizable characters involved in the political scene from the '50s to the present day.

A taut, suspenseful, linear approach, and a trio of excellent performances.

Watson is a major find as Bess. Graced with delicate, expressive features, she gives an extraordinary performance.

A mellow, stately, contemplative study of a stoic, brave man, but it doesn't deliver in the action department.

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 billed as a documentary, The Five Obstructions doesn't easily fall into any category. Perhaps it's best described as a game, in which a pair of Danish film directors from different generations spar with one another in a highly civilized, and surprisingly entertaining, fashion.

Looks and sounds wonderful, and while more information about these giants of African-Latin music might have been welcome, the music's the thing.

Though long-winded and discursive, the professionally assembled material is of immense interest and importance in reminding the viewer of the threat to world peace posed by the continuing posturing on the subcontinent.

This is unquestionably Cronenberg Lite, but there is plenty of fun to be had from the absurdities and convoluted plotting, and a solid cast lends stature to the far-fetched fantasies.

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

A piecemeal collection of barely connected scenes and characters, stitched together with videotaped comments from a cross-section of Brooklyn residents.

Utterly fascinating, playfully probing mystery story.

This well researched, detailed examination of the life and work of the legendary avant-garde filmmaker, writer and dancer, Maya Deren, should provoke renewed interest in her -- she emerges as a beautiful, willful, wayward talent with an exceptional vision and a great love for life and for the avant-garde world.