Ernest Hardy

It's Tobey Maguire, doing fine, subtle work, who holds it all together -- he puts a human touch to what is otherwise expertly wrought hokum.

At the center of the film is one of the year's best performances -- that of British actress Janet McTeer .

In many respects a stock item, filled with talking heads, archival film and photographs and vintage concert footage, but what gives the film newfound ache is the copious amount of time it spends on the streets with ordinary citizens (including fledgling young musicians) and the incidentals it captures.

A gorgeously burnished vintage post card come to life, Motorcycle Diaries has about as much depth and emotional currency as the cardboard that post card would be stamped on.

It's a must-see for anyone interested in art.

Because her tale is so fascinating, movie-making formula is all that's needed.

Striking the right balance between interior and exterior can mean the difference between compelling drama and accidental melodrama. Writer-director Ron Morales just misses equilibrium in the visually arresting Filipino thriller Graceland.

But what you ultimately take from the film is the awareness that this smart, self-aware, uncensored kid has been playing to a camera in his own head since well before Venditti came along.

Director Ryan White has crafted a deceptively simple film that should almost immediately win viewers over with its low-key charm.

The film is something of a paradox, simultaneously passionate and dispassionate, its ending tethered to both bruised triumph and a sense of things falling apart.

The film soars when the camera is trained on its young subjects in action.

Hopefully, the next time around, Chadha's imagination will be in the service of not just excellent casting and directing, but a script to match those other cinematic components.

Drags on far too long.

For those seeking even a little adventurousness in their filmgoing experiences, the movie will wear thin very quickly.

Where "American Beauty" was smug and obvious in its dissection of suburban life, Judy Berlin is hilarious, heartbreaking and -- in its graciousness -- unlike any American film we've seen in a long time.

Stars the cult celebrity Om Puri, widely considered by cinephiles to be one of the best actors in the world.

What saves the film—and grandly—is Nance’s wildly ambitious visual imagination. Teetering somewhere between film school precocity and impressively assured audaciousness...It’s almost hypnotic in its style and genre promiscuity.

It's all about having your intelligence -- emotional, spiritual, cerebral -- respected. Garcia does that; Place Vendôme does that.

Old Dog has the look and feel of a documentary, which adds senses of urgency and immediacy to a tale that moves at a languid, but never boring, pace.

Fascinating and often devastating.

Schwarz's juxtaposition of the human cost of the drug war alongside the glamorization of its henchmen and their brutality is sobering, even depressing.

Parker and Stone have created a movie that will doubtlessly infuriate and offend -- and amuse to no end.

That tragedy looms heavily in Behind the Sun only makes its life-affirming moments -- resonate more deeply and powerfully in a film that is one of the year's best.

Show Me Love has the pulse of teen life down-pat, shaming its many sleek and glossy American counterparts at every turn.

One of the most haunting, viciously honest coming-of-age films in recent memory.

It's charming, gently humorous, and beautifully attuned to the interior lives of children.

The film is very theatrical and admittedly "staged," but always purposefully.

Has moments that are haunting, and it stays with you long after the lights have come back up.