Emanuel Levy

Though carefully rendered from a historical perspective, this powerful account of female friendship and bonding under the most cruel conditions lacks the narrative focus and dramatic shapeliness to generate emotional excitement.

Humor prevails throughout, but it doesn't deflate the disturbing elements of the tale, which miraculously manages to stay droll, heartfelt and poignant to the end.

Under Siege is an immensely slick, if also old-fashioned and formulaic, entertainment. Steven Seagal fans and action buffs should eat up this taut suspenser, which is set entirely on board a battleship.

Achieves a poetic, quasi-religious tone.

Provides a platform for Sean Connery to deliver a definitive, career-summation performance.

3 Ninjas Kick Back clearly was made with an eye on the international movie market. Set mostly in Japan and adding a female ninja to the three boys, this high-spirited adventure succeeds in conveying the positive and fun elements of both Japanese and American cultures.

A remarkably inventive and audacious film that almost overcomes its flaws.

A thriller that tries aggressively, but not entirely successfully, to deliver the goods of three genres -- suspense, supernatural and horror.

Ultimately Kundun emerges as a movie that's hypnotic without being truly compelling, sensuously stunning but not illuminating.

Anchored by a strong cast, including Samuel L. Jackson (also credited as a producer), Lynn Whitfield and Diahann Carroll, this talented debut by a black female writer-director is a well-made, if also old-fashioned, multi-generational drama.

Nasty, profane and wickedly entertaining for the most part.

A sensitive, intimate, enormously touching drama.

A briskly vigorous, occasionally brilliant actioner.

A top-notch production, exuberant period music and Hanks the actor in an important role cunningly disguise a rather slight and inconsequential narrative.

The pic is so well directed and lead performance by Sanaa Lathan so charismatic that audiences will overlook the script's flaws and root for the central duo.

A darkly intriguing drama that probes the very nature of love and the lasting effects of loss.

Reveals Soderbergh in peak form, as he endows Leonard’s postmodern yarn with a meticulously detailed mise en scene that helps each member of his terrific ensemble soar.

In what's easily his most zealous and fully realized performance since "Malcolm X," Washington elevates the earnest, occasionally simplistic narrative to the level of a genuinely touching moral expose.

The most amazing thing about Another Stakeout is that even though some of its skits are dopey and cloying and its plot recycled and derivative, the movie is still very amusing.

Still, this strikingly proficient production boasts genuinely scary thrills and first-rate visual and creature effects.

Riveting, often haunting.

Few actresses can convey the kind of honesty and humanity that Zellweger does here -- it's hard to imagine the film without her dominant, thoroughly credible performance.

Though often enjoyable, it’s an old-fashioned, feel-good movie whose significance is more sociological than cinematic.

Heartbreaking yet truly inspirational.

An emotionally powerful but extremely old-fashioned coming-of-age saga.

Blends in a most satisfying manner the conventions of several genres, resulting in a coherent picture that is at once a poignant inner-city drama, a rousing sports movie, an emotional family yarn and, above all, a sweet romance.

Massively inventive, Wonder Boys is spiked with fresh, perverse humor that flows naturally from the straight-faced playing.

Overall, this smooth, glossy, enjoyable film showcases an impressive new authorial voice.

Compassionate and deft as Cholodenko's helming is, pic's overall impact largely depends on its central triangle.

The whole film is laced with shards of humor and irony, which proves helpful, considering the basically downbeat nature of the material.

A solid and intelligent legal thriller that may be too complex in its issues, and too low-key and unexciting in its style, for today's market demands.

The teaming of Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, two of the most highly regarded actors around, in perfectly fitting roles that call for a battle of wits and wills, proves to be a shrewd piece of casting, and the best element of The Negotiator.

The third American bigscreen rendition of Victor Hugo's classic novel, Bille August's Les Miserables is without a doubt the most emotionally powerful and handsomely mounted production of the story yet.

Intellectually demanding and non-commercial film should be embraced in the festival and arthouse circuits by film students and viewers interested in postmodern, deconstructionist cinema.

Followers of Alan Rudolph's career will rejoice at his latest effort, Afterglow, an incredibly and incurably romantic comedy-drama that most perceptively dissects the delicate imbalances of two very modern but very different marriages.

The film shrewdly humanizes its protagonists to the point where the audience forgets their identity and roots for them to succeed - and survive.

This beautifully realized tale is always engaging and often quite touching.

Demonstrates the impossibility of separating the private from the public dimensions of politics, and the pain involved in trying to account for behavior that cannot withstand rational examination.

Like Mamet, LaBute's approach is precise, stylized and detached, and he also follows Mamet the director in positioning his characters close to the camera, as if they were addressing the audience directly, without much depth of field -- or air to breathe.

Docu glosses over important issues of Wilson’s life and career, but the observations it does make are so illuminating that they almost compensate for the omissions, resulting in a brilliant docu.

An intelligently proficient movie that works more effectively as a family drama than a legal thriller.

It's to the filmmakers' credit that, as an actioner, The Corruptor is a character-driven movie, with several plot twists and turns involving the interactions among the gangs, cops, FBI and Internal Affairs.

Undoubtedly the most wildly original and audacious documentary in this year's Sundance Film Festival, Kirby Dick's Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist is an uncompromising chronicle of the flamboyant poet and performance artist who died in 1996.

Though lacking the sensationalistic elements of a movie like "Kids", Dollhouse offers unflinching realism, meticulous attention to detail and deliciously wicked humor as it explores the growing pains of a misfit.

Naturally charming without being beautiful, Driver brings extraordinary intensity and tenderness to a role that easily could have become sappy.

Influenced by "Thelma & Louise" and "Waiting to Exhale," F. Gary Gray's "Set It Off" is a well-crafted girls-n-the-hood actioner, with an acute social conscience and plenty of soul. A tale of female bonding and empowerment, this relevant film boasts a terrific cast, headed by Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah in career-making performances.

Though there are a number of outdoor scenes and production values are handsome, ultimately it's the narrow focus and chamber nature of the material that lends the movie its resonance and emotional power.

Tombstone is a tough-talking but soft-hearted tale that is entertaining in a sprawling, old-fashioned manner.

The fervent performances by the central duo, real-life poets Williams and Sohn (who wrote their own material), are impeccable, clearly stemming from their deep moral commitment to their work.

It is so sharply written and entertaining that in its stage-to-screen transfer the material easily overcomes its theatrical sensibility and the static direction of Joe Mantello, who also staged the Broadway production.

Off-Broadway actor Tom Noonan, best known for his offbeat, crazy and villainous roles on stage and screen, emerges as a talented writer and director in What Happened Was, an intriguing, often mysterious drama about a date between two lonely misfits.

Massively inventive and spiked with perversely wicked humor.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams give such magnetic performances that they elevate the film way above its middlebrow sensibility and proclivity for neat resolutions.

The filmmakers give new saga a freer, looser form than is usual, allowing a superlative ensemble to develop rich characterizations.

Awash in romantic nostalgia for bygone childhood spent in summer camps, Indian Summer is a sentimental, TV sitcom-like, feel-good film. However, its humor and first-rate acting could ensure a strong opening and modest longterm B.O. life.

Shrewdly made with an eye for the global market, where the Belgian star is more of a draw than he is Stateside, pic features visually exciting set pieces in alluring tourist sites, putting the audience in a pleasantly mindless state of disbelief.

Unlike "Four Weddings," which ultimately was moralistic and conservative in its message --—About Adam is a frolic free of any judgments, and marked by Stembridge's sparkling wit.

Darkly comic, vastly entertaining and utterly original.

A tautly focused, well-executed drama. Demonstrates that it's still possible to make small, intimate and personal movies within the Hollywood studio system.

Gattaca, New Zealander helmer Andrew Niccol's impressive feature debut, is an intelligent and timely sci-fi thriller that, with the exception of some illogical plot contrivances, is emotionally engaging almost up to the end.

Boasting sublime imagery, but no characters to ground his reverie, the new pic heavily relies on an opaque narrative and elliptical editing.

Steve Zahn shines throughout Mark Illsley's feature debut, Happy, Texas, elevating this eccentric small-town comedy a notch or two above its level of writing.

The fun that Schlesinger and his first-rate ensemble must have had while working on this production is infectious, for there isn't one dull -- or quiet -- moment in the film.

Sporadically entertaining, though it lacks the kind of political urgency and emotional resonance so crucial to many similarly themed '70s movies.

Beautifully detailed and deftly structured, every scene in The Apostle logically leads to the next one, each elaborating on the central theme of religious redemption.

As always, Techine is excellent at exploring “tiny” personal flashes that assume larger meaning when placed against the broader historical context.

Mounted as an art film and is likely to divide both critics and the helmer's fans.

Greg Mottola's feature directorial debut, is an amusing farce about the delicate intricacies and imbalances of a modern marriage. A spirited cast, including old pros such as Anne Meara and younger talent such as Parker Posey, elevates the basically sitcom material into something fluffier and funnier than its nature suggests.

Meticulous, sumptuous production design, and striking visuals compensate for the lack of dramatic momentum in a film that arguably stretches narrative form to its limits.

Armstrong and Jones smoothly navigate the magical tale through numerous shocking twists and turns until they bring it to a most logical, emotionally satisfying conclusion.

The endlessly resourceful Nicolas Cage, as a celestial angel, and a terrifically engaging Meg Ryan, as a pragmatic surgeon, create such blissful chemistry that they elevate the drama to a poetic level seldom reached in a mainstream movie.

Aiming to instruct as well as entertain --- and often struggling to reconcile these two divergent goals.