Ernest Hardy

Daydream is decently acted, overwritten, slickly shot, decked out with the requisite indie soundtrack, and propped up with angst-ridden poses and pouting lips. It's also another film in which on-screen teens, especially the nubile femme fatale at the center, are but vessels to showcase the screenwriter's irony-drenched, self-satisfied intellect.

A substandard romantic comedy gussied up in Indian drag.

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.

Circo is filled with beautiful images and haunting moments, especially in the third act, when the family unravels as the film culminates in a final triumphant, haunting image.

The supporting cast is uniformly fine, but the film rests on the delicate shoulders of Bonnaire, who carries it with a soulful, magnetic presence.

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.

The entire cast is in fine form (Omari Hardwick, as Maye's maybe-suitor, pushes the sexual heat through the roof), but White's blistering performance sears the screen.

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

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.

Characters make choices that are incredibly stupid, even wildly offensive, but also recognizably human, and as the night spirals out of control Cannon demonstrates a strong hand in controlling the mayhem. He also sets himself up as a filmmaker to watch.

Less forgivable is the fact that this is a film in which characters are flung out of character solely for cheap laughs and rarely actually listen or talk to one another.

David John Swajeski, who directed, produced, and edited this documentary on the fledgling fashionista, snags his film on clichés, poor pacing, and an unwillingness or inability to push his subject beyond talk-show pop-psych babble when the topic is interior life and wounds.

When Boote gets out of the way, the film is illuminating and infuriating.

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.

In her tale of a brusque, prickly young Dutch woman who inexplicably cuts herself off from the world, except for a heavily circumscribed relationship with a man whose isolation is less voluntary, writer-director Urszula Antoniak hits a lot of expected notes.

The film lacks a pulse. There's sound and fury, but the result is more drizzle than tempest.

Undertow, is sublime. Set in a small, picturesque Peruvian fishing village, it's less a coming-out tale than a magic realism–infused coming-of-consciousness love story.

The film powerfully hits the note of universalism that is its goal; haven't many of us fallen for someone that we, they, and the world deem out of our league?

Though the film, based on Dallaire's memoir, can veer toward deification of the general, it's hugely effective.

The film, whose clumsy editing and dearth of establishing shots keep the viewer in an unintended state of confusion, is a corpse in its own right: It’s filled with the rotting ideas of far better movies.

While moderately entertaining, the film also captures another old dynamic: The “ew” factor dissolves into the yawn factor with surprising quickness.

Too self-consciously dark, too aware of its long, murky, art-designed descent into the underbelly of America's addictive personality.

The list of ills is endless, well-researched, and cross-referenced repeatedly for emphasis. That makes the film a bit of a slog at times, but the fury and grief of the folks interviewed propel it forward.

That crack in Vitale's storytelling foundation would be forgivable if the writing, acting and character epiphanies . . . well, existed. As it is, not even Scotti's formidable lips can blow life into this stillborn flick.

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.

Although Mansfield Park is an enjoyable film, you can't help but wish that it were as brave, feisty and unconventional as it keeps telling us its heroine is.

Orlando Jones, buff and commanding, steals the film as Soul Train, a lawyer-biker, while Lisa Bonet, a sexy, enigmatic earth mother, is stranded in a movie that has no idea what to do with her.

Director Raja Gosnell apparently doesn't even try to pump life into this wan film version of the beloved Saturday-morning cartoon.