Derek Elley

Chockfull of ideas and with an irreverence that irresistibly recalls late '60s American cinema, thesp John Turturro's third outing in the helmer's chair, Romance & Cigarettes, alternately shines and sputters.

A potentially gripping legal thriller about what happens when Western Europe attempts to solve Central European problems ends up as dull entertainment in Storm.

An often intriguing, sometimes hypnotic work, but one that quickly starts to unravel in the final hour as it becomes clear there’s not much beneath the emperor’s clothes.

The plucky music student who overcomes adversity is a staple subgenre of mainland cinema and, though Chen Kaige directs with greater slickness and more finesse and humor, there's still little to differentiate Together from any other state-studio pic.

A man whose name has become a byword for pure evil gets a disarming makeover in The Goebbels Experiment. Far from being the horror show expected from its title, Lutz Hachmeister's cool, almost anti-dramatic docu paints a portrait of an insecure manic-depressive solely through extracts from Joseph Goebbels' own voluminous diaries.

Scripters Robert Lee King and Lamar Damon leave no national cliche or double entendre unturned in this good-looking but relentlessly lowbrow outing which plays like "Clueless Does South Fork" with a side order of garlic.

Has some fine individual moments but fails to cohere into a grander, more substantial statement on the themes it aspires to tackle.

A no-holds-barred, thoroughly generic follow-up to the medical horror-chiller that wowed German wickets in 2000.

Kang remains a superb technician, but somewhere the movie forgot to pack any genuine emotion along with its ordnance and K rations.

Despite its merits, is neither an art movie nor an out-and-out, propulsive actioner like "Shiri."

The movie plays like a career summation in which the 68-year-old writer-director has simply run out new ideas.

Ultimately, this is a striking-looking film -- consciously recalling the paintings of Edward Hopper in its architectural use of space -- which, like its protag, is a little short on real feeling.

Like a passable bottle of champagne, Cheri fizzes and slides down quite easily but lacks real body and doesn't really hit the spot.

Admirably balanced production that pulls the curtain back slightly on a little-charted period of modern Chinese history.

Has all the classic faults of a picture not only directed by an actor but by an actor who is his own producer.

Despite the emotive subject matter, picture is often too sluggish dramatically, and never knits together its stock Western characters into a satisfying whole.

A haunted-house one-trick pony.

There’s almost none of the generous, involving humanity (and warm humor) of the previous film, nor any clear take on the personalities in the slackly structured script, largely improvised by the actors.

Though solidly crafted, with a host of well-etched performances, film is unable to establish a consistent, engaging tone.

A portrait of a contempo British family drifting apart because of generational differences, The Mother ends up an uneasy brew of too many competing tastes and themes.

Has almost zero plot but molto mood. It will appeal to the most faithful of the director's camp-followers and no one else.

Worthy intentions are drowned by schematic scripting and only OK direction in Silent Waters, an achingly PC drama on how Islamic fundamentalism wrecks families and oppresses women.

Wears out its welcome at 100 minutes, but could find an audience in the West as a latenight attraction at gay fests.

A neat idea that doesn't quite hit the bull's-eye.

Either a subtly subversive black comedy, a deeply spiritual portrait of physical rebirth or a whole lot of nothing in a self-consciously arty package, Lourdes isn't about to reveal its true colors anytime soon.

Mildly amusing result, with plenty of slack in its 100 minutes, should work OK with its target audience of female Brit tweenies, who won't notice the pic's shoddy technical package, sloppy direction and the way the original films' antiestablishment tone has morphed into a celebration of dumbed-down "yoof" culture.

Deeply felt but dramatically unconvincing "fictional documentary" -- inspired by the March 2006 rape and killings by U.S. troops in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad -- has almost nothing new to say about the Iraq situation and can't make up its mind about how to package its anger in an alternative cinematic form.

The lowdown on The Low Down: charm 8, content 2.