Ernest Hardy

Go for the dazzling, if repetitive, human stunt work. Endure the appallingly simplistic politics.

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

For all the violence and breaking-up-to-make-up that go on, there's never really a sense of risk or exploration, and the film's pulse never rises above faint.

Wants to be many things, but ends up being not much of anything.

We don't really care about this everyman's moral dilemna and spiritual crisis because -- for all the poetic insights he offers in his philosophical voice-over -- he never transcends the details to become an engrossing character.

Has a warm and intimate feel that helps push it a little deeper than its cable movie-of-the-week blueprint.

Stripped of the pretension of the overrated "Trainspotting," but it's also void of the earlier film's ambition or glimmers of real cultural insight.

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

A curious mixture of banality and revelation.

Doesn't even come close to being a good movie, but it is a lot of fun.

The film offers no new insights into its people or into the dynamics of the Hollywood machine -- the whole affair, played for low-intensity laughs, is numbingly familiar.

Atrocious bit of by-the-numbers screen filler. And anyone who easily lapses into sugar comas is advised to stay far, far away.

Honeydripper is classic Sayles cinema: an insightful sketch of assorted common folk whose criss-crossing dreams and agendas unfold against larger, more powerful (and sometimes crushing) sociopolitical and cultural forces.

Danner, the film's sole strength, does what she can with the material, but it's not enough to offset writer-director Daniel Adams' cliché-ridden script and leaden direction, or the excruciating hamfest that is Richard Dreyfuss' lead performance.

Questions loom heavily over this entertaining but not-too-deep film, making it more a commercial than real exploration.

The film's deadly lulls outweigh its infrequent highs.

What leaves you breathless, though, is the knockout acting by the cast.

One of the best films of this year...unlike anything you've seen on the big screen.

Laced with brilliantly knotted ideas on race, masculinity and cults of violence.

A couple of unexpected revelations in the final act pack an emotional wallop that shifts the film (shot in clean, uncluttered takes) into the realm of old-fashioned tearjerker, but the tears are wholly earned.

The cutesy opening of writer-director David Moreton's Testosterone (co-written with Dennis Hensley) turns out to be a crippling miscalculation.

If only this movie were rich enough, strong enough to be worthy of this (Dafoe's) performance.

Working from a preachy, clumsy script that's full of gaping holes in logic, plot and character development, director Zak Tucker is also handicapped by a cast filled with actors who seem to be in their first year of acting school.

It’s the captured conversations about everyday lives and struggles that pin you to your seat.

One of the things that makes Traffic so very good is the wry humor that's laced throughout the film. It's a funny movie.

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

A very competent film, but it barely pulls you in.

Almost unbearable.