Emanuel Levy

Darkly comic, vastly entertaining and utterly original.

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.

A sensitive, intimate, enormously touching drama.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Despite good acting from the entire cast, yarn is a bit dull and predictable, straining too hard to convey its spiritual message.

Despite recurrent narrative and dramatic problems, each of Bigelow's pics provides a visual treat, and this film is no exception.

Heartbreaking yet truly inspirational.

A vibrantly colorful, wildly nihilistic and lovingly perverse poem to America's beautiful, libidinous and doomed youth. Though not his best, Araki's sixth feature is without a doubt his most accessible, sensual and superficially entertaining movie to date.

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.

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

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.

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

Gilliam's work is long on sensibility, short on sense.

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.

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

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

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

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.

One has no problem praising the bravura acting of the entire ensemble.

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

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.

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.

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.

This small-scale, chamber piece, which boasts good acting from Moore, Skarsgard and Fichtner, has a strong built-in appeal for women but may experience harder times in going beyond the specialized arthouse circuits due to the narrowly-scoped, undernourished script.

Meant to be an offbeat, darkly comic tale of a triangle of losers desperately clinging to their versions of the American dream, pic comes across as a charmless high-concept indie.

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

The atmosphere is properly bizarre and in moments even scary, but there's no involving story or characters to sustain the feature-length narrative.

Achieves a poetic, quasi-religious tone.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Stuart Baird's new thriller is inferior to the Andrew Davis movie in every respect: script, acting, rhythm and even tech credits.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

A notch or two above the level of a TV sitcom, Slums of Beverly Hills, Tamara Jenkins' semi-autobiographical feature directorial debut, is a bawdy, extremely broad comedy.

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.

Despite the imaginative setup and the original sensibility, pic ultimately suffers from a slight, rather contrived narrative and a lack of secondary characters.

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

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

The material is slender, the characters not sufficiently engaging or eccentric for a feature-length movie.

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

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.

As writer and director, Schnabel should be commended for avoiding Hollywood's biopic cliches about artists, as Basquiat's meteoric rise to fame and tragic death at the age of 27 would have fit perfectly the timeworn formula.

A faithful adaptation that captures the haunting spirit and religious nature of the 1951 novel.

A pleasant but ephemeral spoof that may disappoint Waters' hard-core fans while not recruiting many new devotees.

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.

A slender story that's not particularly suspenseful or involving, resulting in a movie that's a feast to the eye but not much for the intellect.

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.

Lacking the moral indignation, outrage and militant politics that marked Lee's earlier work, this vibrantly colorful film is a tad too soft at the center, and arguably the director's most mainstream movie.

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

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.

A briskly vigorous, occasionally brilliant actioner.

Riveting, often haunting.

Begins extremely well as a saga of greed and conspicuous consumption, but gradually loses its bite.

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.

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.

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

A deliberately paced literary film that takes too long to build narrative momentum and explore its central dramatic conflicts.

Good musical numbers serve as welcome punctuation to a film that grows increasingly tedious.

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.

Whimsical, intermittently enjoyable but decidedly unmagical.

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

Writer John Cassavetes wants to show that there’s nothing like the purity of first love, but he doesn’t provide his triangle sufficient psychological motivation to ground their otherwise erratic behavior. The script feels incomplete, and is further marred by a missing third act and a lack of discernible point of view.

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

Sachs commits a major error by deciding to center on Lincoln’s character, for John is a far more interesting, complex and disturbing personality.

Norton directs with assurance.

Ultimately, the comedy comes across as a celebration of openness, alternative lifestyles and bonding, all life-affirming values that in the 1990s are beyond reproach — or real controversy.

With half a dozen roles to her credit, Portman is a natural performer who brings rough edges to any role she plays -- the movie is inconceivable without her.

The large, talented cast elevates the film above the trappings of its loquacious debates, particularly Allen.

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.

An idealized tribute to a charismatic teacher who has devoted his entire life to music appreciation, Mr. Holland’s Opus has the same old-fashioned texture as Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Older audiences will be moved by the story, but the crucial variable is to what extent younger viewers will embrace this schmaltzy, Capraesque saga that’s not only set mainly in the past but also feels as if it were made back when.

So fractured and so awkwardly staged that end result is an uninvolving film that’s dramatically inert and artistically shapeless.

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.

Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson render such startling performances in the romantic fable Benny & Joon that they almost overcome the trappings of an emotional tale that is not particularly well written or directed.

An extremely handsome production that meticulously evokes the 1920s, and a likable male-dominated cast, headed by Matthew McConaughey in his best screen performance to date, only partially compensate for a story that's too diffuse and lacks a discernible point of view that would make it dramatically engaging.

But Foster is unable to give the episodic, fragmented film a coherent feel; her prosaic, sometimes irritating picture proceeds scene by scene, with the requisite climaxes and anticlimaxes along the bumpy road.

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

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.

Nasty, profane and wickedly entertaining for the most part.

Her (Foster's) performance is contained in a schmaltzy, ultra-elaborate, overly long production.

Occasionally biting but excessively melodramatic.

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

Four gifted and attractive actresses struggle hard to lend a semblance of dramatic coherence to The Craft, a neatly crafted film that begins most promisingly as a black comedy a la Heathers, but gradually succumbs to its tricky machinery of special effects. Still, young audiences, particularly women, are likely to connect with this energetic high-school tale about the vengeful empowerment of rebellious misfits.

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

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.

A simplistic, highly contrived romantic comedy about the mysterious workings of fate.

Intermittently funny movie. Almost every scene recreates or alludes to a Hollywood or foreign classic.