Ernest Hardy

A good, though unremarkable, film.

[Ritchie] cranks up the laughs and tension with equal aplomb, throwing wrenches in the plot so that the audience has no idea what to expect next -- and that's part of the film's thrill.

Disappointingly dumb.

You root for the kids, who are utterly captivating, but Green is another story. His shtick -- a combo of insufferable stage-parent and unbearable rock geek -- is exhausting.

This film puts a pained human face on the cost of the corporate status quo.

Well-meaning but mediocre.

Corsini's insight into the psyche of this contemporary woman doesn't have much of a point because it tells us nothing new.

Dark, wickedly funny tale.

One marvel of the film is how it conveys so much information so quickly, and with such accessibility.

It's provocative and very moving, filled with some of the strongest performances of the year.

Fly Away could have been stronger if its antiseptic visual style, which anchors it in old-fashioned TV movie mode, had been more adventurous in shouldering some of the weight of depicting the emotional and psychic anguish of the story.

Cloudy is smart, insightful on a host of relationship dynamics, and filled with fast-paced action.

When she unabashedly puts herself in the same category as Richard Pryor (the master of identity politics and cultural reportage), it's not just presumptuous posturing on her part. She's earned her place there.

This time around, writer-director Robert Rodriguez has stumbled badly, creating a clunky, gadget-happy film full of characters -- even returning ones -- about whom it is hard to care.

Despite the fact that you can see every plot twist a mile off, director Tim Story keeps the script by Mark Brown, Don D. Scott and Marshall Todd rollicking with a jazzy spontaneity.

Bessed with a gleamingly polished, very funny script.

As the film works toward its negative Eden ending, having illustrated just how little a life is worth, one of its most potent points is how brutally destabilizing hope can be when despair has become the norm.

As Future untangles the many ways in which our food supply has been co-opted and tainted in pursuit of a booming bottom line, you realize that beneath its tasteful façade, Garcia's documentary is actually nothing short of a pure horror film.

Volumes are said about class, assimilation, and the ways the assimilated sometimes shame and scar those who haven't shorn themselves of ethnic or racial signifiers. There is pungency in this shorthand, in these sketches that are richly evocative without saying too much or giving too little. You can't help but wish the movie had more of it.

What distinguishes this doc from much of the tedious critical prose Romero has inspired is the fan-boy and fan-girl ardor that fuels its smarts--both behind and in front of the camera.

This illuminating, often rousing film fits snugly alongside the various anti-Bush/corporate/globalization documentaries that continue to pack the art houses.

Elevated by fantastic performance footage of Sa and his young protégés singing, dancing and rhythmically banging on cans, plastic bottles or anything else that can be fashioned into a drum -- and a cultural revolution.

It's the mind-blowing performance footage (and there's lots of it) that makes this a must-see film.

Despite its weighty material and some moving scenes (much of the Sudanese cast are survivors of the war), this aggressive crowd-pleaser is slighter than its subject matter deserves.

It's fair to assume that most viewers likely to see the film, whose title is the very definition of truth in advertising, already own the knowledge being sold.

A smart, quietly moving film.

It's a guy's film that doesn't just revel in testosterone, though -- it has a more purposeful agenda.

Writer-director Todd Haynes (Safe, Poison) still makes movies like a first-time filmmaker afraid he won't get another chance; he crams every idea, every image ever dreamed, onscreen.

Where the young writer-director impresses is in the unforced sketching of era details (gas lines, the tacky energy of roller-skating rinks), in the sharp psychological insight into his lead characters, and in the performances he pulls from his actors.

While all the pieces don't quite add up in the end, as memory, fantasy and delusion collide, the film succeeds again and again at pulling you to the edge of your seat and keeping you there.

By the time Leila's brow furrows in concern for the father, the film has absolutely earned its tug at your heart.

What Venus and Serena does extraordinarily well is capture the work ethic and undersung smarts of the sisters while taking viewers deep into their enviably close relationship.

By turns amusing, touching and horrifying, A Room For Romeo Brass is a film that defies expectation at every turn.

What makes The Cell worth viewing at all is the carefully sculpted imagery.

Leaves you reeling from the force of the humanity it captures and -- in its own gut-wrenching way -- honors.

Buff gels into a surprisingly moving look at the machinations of the heart.

Director Darnell Martin (I Like it Like That) races through the script's bullet points with a brisk superficiality that leaves crucial plot points underdeveloped and unresolved, and refuses to engage the dark side of Leonard Chess’ paternalism.

As exasperating as it is insightful. The film ultimately falters, though, because it's so resolutely old-fashioned.

Even though it delivers on frights and special effects, and is well-acted and gorgeous to look at, never really surprises us.

One part stand-up comedy concert film (think Kings of Comedy) to two parts social outreach activism, documentary The Muslims Are Coming! works somewhat better as the latter than the former.

At its core is a feminine realm (the beauty parlor) through which modern issues of alienation and casual-sex-as-a-drug are coupled with timeless questions about the natures of love and desire.

Writer-director Noah Buschel's script is peppered with both offbeat humor and philosophical debates that circle back to what is, at heart, a class critique that skewers everything from the art world to the bougie dreams of the common man.

Devotees of Motorhead frontman/certifiable rock icon Lemmy Kilmister will be in heaven watching this gushing love letter to the man who straddles rock subgenres, but anyone who's not already a fan will cry for mercy long before the nearly two-hour film ends.

The drama is unintentionally humorous, the humor incredibly labored and the acting rarely better than one might find in a Chi Chi LaRue XXX production.

A very odd cinematic creature.

Slow and depressing, but ultimately haunting film.

Director Paolo Virzi (who co-wrote the script with Francesco Bruni) errs badly by creating totems and types in lieu of characters.

As he explains the male-male relationships and the absence of stigma or judgment, the film soars.

Those who are already in her (Breillat) camp will find much to feed on in this at once intellectualized and accessible, documentary-style peek inside the head of a passionately driven woman and artist.

It all collapses under an atrocious performance by Pacino, whose laughably bad accent and scene-chewing delivery serve up thick slabs of that rarest of delicacies: Jewish ham. There may be grounds here for a class-action lawsuit.

For all its shock-driven, laugh-out-loud moments, what makes Jesus so entertaining is that it puts you in the presence of a dementedly sharp mind -- one that understands that leftist subversion doesn't have to coddle or breast-feed the choir.

Albaladejo turns his film into a banal, mildly entertaining trifle of affirmation, eliciting a shrug more than any real emotion.

So riddled with unanswered questions that it requires gargantuan leaps of faith just to watch it plod along, while McCann's overly broad strokes miss crucial details as he tries to mount an attack on both the power of the media and an indifferent medical profession.

Isn't a must-see, but it's definitely worthwhile.

Loud, chaotic and largely unfunny (veteran actors John Witherspoon and Anna Maria Horsford seem at best indifferent to the material), Friday After Next is the graceless sodomizing of a cult classic.

Its considered use of ice and snow-covered vistas against the expanse of blue sky offers great beauty while capturing something of what pulls the adventurous to try to reach the world's second highest peak.

A very cynical exploitation of the current Hollywood vogue for things queer. Still, the film is a must-see.

Smith has crammed the film with enough genuinely funny moments and insightful bits to make it well worth seeing.

Entertaining as it often is, Outside Providence feels as if it were a collection of installments from an unusually raunchy television series.

Tender, smart, soulful.

Coy, cutesy, sentimental, and shamelessly manipulative.

Blanchett projects a wounded dignity that anchors her character even when the film slips into silly hokum; she's never less than fantastic, and as such manages to keep the film on course.

Exchanges overheard in bars, crisp dialogue between characters and a wistful tone underscore both modern isolation and the age-old need for connection.

The film offers an impressive melding of quietly radical images and ideas with, yes, an old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing holiday tearjerker.

The film itself is solidly and conventionally crafted. Newsreels and stock footage alternate with fresh interviews with friends and scholars, steadfast supporters and unabashed detractors. The political life it maps out fascinates.

A sleeper that's well worth hunting down. Its rewards sneak up on you, but then linger long afterwards.

Negroponte's visuals are Doc 101-he simply points and shoots. But that doesn't matter; the life stories told (particularly Dimitri's) and the experiences of coming clean sell themselves.

The appeal of Lunch might be limited to Hollywood-nostalgia buffs, but they will be enthralled not only by the stories told, but also how they're told. These guys are still some of the sharpest wits in town.

A small gem of a film, Breakfast is a lovely tapestry of subtlety, full of sly, smart humor and unforced insights into human nature.

The film gets an "A" for effort, but doesn't have the courage to really get as bloody, messy and dirty as its subject matter inherently is.

It takes a minute for the film to move beyond a kind of gilded stasis, but once it does, it - and Plummer - are riveting.

Mildly amusing, both charming and diverting, it plays like a La La Land home movie.

Yudin pulls lovely philosophical grace notes from his subjects as they illuminate some universal truths from their very specific world.

Wendy J.N. Lee's Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey powerfully connects the dots between the enormity of global warming as a phenomenon and the havoc it wreaks in ordinary lives.

Though the psychological layering and thematic ambition of the screenplay do not quite result in the depth intended, Hideaway's unsentimental performances will hook you.