Desson Thomson

What's truly surprising about Happy Feet is not its giddily brilliant entertainment, its intimate knowledge of the culture or its toe-tapping music. It's how commonplace these qualities have become in computer-animated movies… Happy Feet may be just one of the crowd, but what a great crowd it is.

A small masterpiece of a documentary that takes us into the heart of a complex darkness.

One of the most thought-provoking documentaries of recent times.

You probably never dreamed a charming romantic movie could be staged against a backdrop of Scud attacks from Saddam Hussein.

The movie’s disappointingly straightforward, with no discernible flair.

I sat through "Courage" with interest, but I wasn't particularly moved or riveted with suspense.

It's more a collection of episodes that build to a complex, richly layered picture of these girls' lives. And the more time we spend with them, the more endearing they become.

It is a fascinating dance between style and substance.

Malkovich's lead performance digs in its heels, deadening the movie's speedy exhilaration. The result is a highly diverting but ultimately unsatisfying production that doesn't perform -- so much as paraphrase -- the script.

But this whore-and-the-innocent friendship, set in Shanghai during the 1930s, is too trite to pull us in. And the gangster scenario around it (Bi Feiyu wrote the script) is similarly unconvincing.

Dogme 95 at its best: open-ended and exciting, with a grand sense of experimentation.

This is about the rise of a pop star, plain and simple. The real deal –- and the movie's greatest fun –- is in the rap contests.

There's a documentary-like realism to the movie, thanks to its authentic Maori cast and Tamahori's semi-improvisational approach to direction. Tamahori also gives everyone a sympathetic, realistic dimension.

Notre Musique is really a poetic essay, masterfully intermixing the director's mournful-toned, philosophical narration with documentary and staged moments.

Has the glorious, gaudy benefit of much stock footage of Those Days, featuring all manner of drag queen, bearded lady and lactating hippie.

The most cinematic of the three films. It tells its story in stark, often wordless scenes.

This is definitely for people who 1) love the video game, 2) think Slater and Dorff are eminently watchable, no matter what bad flick they're in and 3) are wearing industrial-strength ear plugs.

Devil leads us into that dark, uncharted valley where evil, genius, divine inspiration, insanity -- and other unfathomable mysteries -- commingle. It also examines the hyperbolic industry of instant celebrity and ultimately shows us the complex algebraic equation that is Daniel Johnston's life.

The film becomes a modest delight.

Cruise is at the top of his form, and Gooding makes a brilliant opponent.

Want to see something strange, funny, twisted, brilliant and macabre? Sure you do.

It's a warm bath experience, soap-sudsed with sentimentality, improbability and other storytelling misdemeanors.

The story behind Hercules, Walt Disney’s insipid, lifeless, animated feature, is hardly the stuff of children’s entertainment.

Works best when it concentrates on O'Grady and the ever-rippling effect of his transgressions. Viewers may not remember the victims whose stories practically pierce the heart, but they're unlikely to forget O'Grady's deceptively innocent face.

Childishly simple, but extremely funny.

Robbins, who scripted and directed, creates more than enough on his own. Bob's un-hackneyed character is the prime case in point.

Realized beautifully by director Bille August, Intentions is a moving, profound requiem to all human relationships.

Fascinating facts and testimony.