F. X. Feeney

Of the many excellent animated features Disney has produced over the past decade, this is the one that feels the freest, and sweetest.

Cox's own directorial style is innocent, in the sense of being original without ever straining for effect.

Mystery Men gives proof that satire isn't dead.

Christine Lahti, making her directorial debut, wrings good laughs and strong emotion throughout, largely through the performances.

It's a cheerfully deranged stunt, executed in a spirit of infectious lunacy that powers the resulting film to its strongest laughs, and weirdest depths.

This gets my vote as director Franco Zeffirelli’s finest film. Certainly, it’s his most personal.

Writer-director Gianni Amelio masterfully chronicles the ways two people can betray each other, and especially themselves, in the name of love.

This is such a dazzlingly self-assured directorial debut that it's hard to know what to praise first.

There isn't a moment in the film that isn't overhyped.

The fun is in getting there, and in the mechanics, charted by writer-director Francis Veber.

I've not stopped thinking about it -- weighing might-have-beens and alternative courses of action, as though remembering an actual event rather than a nimble, superbly-realized fantasy. That's a first-rate achievement.

The picture's deepest strength, however, is the fire Fernán-Gómez conjures from deep within himself, as if "honor" were an extinct volcano he could will into exploding, given enough anger and time.

Part poem, part jungle blossom, all brilliance.

Alas, for now we're at the mercy of a screenplay whose beats are too often as poorly calculated as the movie's title.

Fails to fulfill.

Writer-director David Jacobson has an excitingly clear-eyed, unsentimental feel for the intensity of adolescent passion.

Dizdar maintains a knife-edged balance in tone throughout the film

It's a fresh installment in what appears to be a self-perpetuating sitcom of British life.

The deeper strength of Smoke Signals rests on the sensitivity and truthfulness of Farmer’s performance as the ebullient, self-hating alcoholic father, and that of Irene Bedard as the young woman he knew in later life.

Catches the volatile beauty of what it was to be alive and politically aware in the early '70s with a rare accuracy and depth.

Writer-director Kasi Lemmons works fast, and the world she conjures is powerfully realized.

Thrillingly unpredictable.

It's great unruly fun.

Williams is a great clown, and Oedekirk and Shadyac give him room to really cut loose, and cure the movie. That’s as it should be.

The sense of loss aroused by the film is oceanic.

Cleverly structured, fast-paced, funny, even moving.

The barometer of the film's undoing is Burns' super-low-key performance, which starts out as a pokerfaced spoof on heroic cool, but takes a misstep more fatal than mere time travel can undo.

Director John Dahl ("Red Rock West," "The Last Seduction") has a pronounced knack for snap reversals and out-of-the-blue shocks.

No parent who's been roped into leading the troops to a matinee need fear being bored: gags are, Simpsons-like, conceived to tickle several generations at once.

It works its magic with such exuberance and passion that the film's length becomes a part of its fun.

The Messenger may be a caricature of theology, but then Besson is a cartoonist of genius.

You come away from Boiler Room eager to see what Younger will do next.

Seen in the bowl's metaphoric reflection, Nolte's Adam, with his patronizing wish to build a great art museum to "give something back" to the poor laborers who built his fortune, is a complex American monster.

The Japanese title means chaos, and that is what is let loose when a powerful king foolishly tries to release the reins of power, in the hopes of enjoying a peaceful old age.

A happy vulgarity still reigns.

A labor of love -- a swan song repaying a lifetime of happy debts to the theater, by grace of two terrific performances.

It's fitting, then, that Dinner Rush boasts Hawks-ian virtues: fiery energy, swift, character-driven chitchat and a tough, upbeat sense of how the world works.

Whaley successfully balances his scenes on a knife-edge of tenderness and anger that was Truffaut's trademark.

Above all, you've got Jennifer Grey, as a rich girl summering in the Catskills and falling for her working-class dance instructor, played by Patrick Swayze. The chemistry between them is red-hot, and they're wonderful dancers.

Has such perfect pitch in small matters that, as it builds, it proves no less capable in tackling bigger issues--and what begin as chuckles become deep belly laughs.

Zhang's work is always worth watching, but this is the first of his films in which the sorrows are so heart-rending, its many comic moments so laugh-out-loud human.

The Proposition is a very hard and harsh movie, but it also has a hypnotic, lyrical velocity. As Arthur, Huston exudes dead charisma.

A cleverly plotted, cleanly crafted matinee item -- pure entertainment on a romping continuum with Frankenheimer's "Ronin."

As an audience member, you end up feeling like a sucker for even having tolerated that sickly sweet notion about a father, a son, and their silly radio.

What Harris extracts from himself is nothing less than a psychological nude scene, sustained across two hours.

Among the pleasures the film evokes, as few films have, is the bliss of conversation.

The Godfather traces the arc of this doomed idealism with a beauty that is still fresh.

Writer-director Hans Petter Moland (The Last Lieutenant, Zero Kelvin) has a fine eye for landscapes, but an even surer touch with actors.

Less a movie about stepfamilies than a PSA about how cancer makes everyone behave themselves at Christmas.

This bright farce is spun from interlocking coincidences that only seem far-fetched.

Leonard Schrader adapted the screenplay from the novel by Manuel Puig, and his fearless willingness to explore every corner of human nature serves what is greatest and sweetest in the performances of William Hurt and Raul Julia.

The interactions between the realms of the magical and the everyday are carried off with an easygoing charm.

A smirky black comedy that, like its John Lurie score, is jazzy, dry, and light on its feet.

Funny and light, all the more potent for seeming so effortless.

Chilean-born actress Leonor Varela (TV's Cleopatra, a few seasons back) plays Chavo's mother, who, in her rage to see her children survive, powerfully embodies the film's moral center.

One of the best films of the year thus far.

A superb film by any measure, as deep and harsh as the sin Dillon committed to become great.

This lightweight thriller has an enjoyable premise.

Their discretion makes From Hell less a horror movie than a classical film noir.

It's a disturbing film in the best sense.

Everyone plays their role (and the roles within their roles) to perfection, and writer-director Mamet keeps us guessing what's what and who's who right up until the final minute.

To their great credit, writer Benjamin Brand and director Greg Harrison weave these contradictory variations into an effective puzzle, if one that doesn't quite transcend being a puzzle - it never becomes a mystery, like, say, "Mulholland Drive," or even "The Sixth Sense."

Well-tuned wisecracks and clever plot twists.

Above all, Oshima has fashioned a tale of men among men that feels familiar at first, then moves boldly into more enigmatic terrain.

The film's discretion short-circuits any impulse we might have to regard Glennie as a handicapped person who has “overcome.” Instead, we're led to experience her life as she does - as an adventure in which setbacks are not challenges, but illuminations of untracked paths.

Pellington's sharp, fastball compositions and nerve-splintering cutting style are of a piece with such intelligence, devilishly mixing shock with optimism.

This is the deepest of Jewison's three racially themed films, the other two being "In the Heat of the Night" and "A Soldier's Story."

Astonishingly deep and moving.

Overall, Whitely's debut film may just fill you with an unexpectedly deep elation.

Yet Waiting for Guffman is never mean-spirited. Its weird warmth is perfectly embodied by Guest himself, whose flamboyant, stagestruck choreographer, Corky St. Clair, could have (in less ingenious hands) been a cruel, gay-bashing caricature, but instead becomes a hallucinatory Everyman.

It's a film which aims to persuade us of its truth without props or signposts--and it does so with unforgettable beauty.

First-time writer-director Paul Morrison has a gift for evoking a time and place.

LaGravenese (writer of "The Fisher King," adapter of "The Bridges of Madison County," making his directorial debut) eschews distractions of style and molds our attention to the performances.

Writer-director Sebastian Cordero wrings nerve-racking suspense, and complex performances, from these dynamics.

What transpires is so rich that I've seen this movie three times. The joy of being involved with two wholly truthful (if colorfully fucked up) characters is that exhilarating.

Although this movie doesn't have an ounce of depth, it's so thoroughly amiable and upbeat that you'd have to be in a fighting mood to find fault with it.

An abbondanza of busy, situation comedy twists that snip one's suspended disbelief and send it crashing like a chandelier.

Even as the psychological interdependencies of the two boys take the foreground, the movie gets more and more crowded with fun-house surprises and cliffhanging set pieces.

The main body of the film earns comparison with the military parables of John Ford, particularly "The Long Gray Line" and "The Wings of Eagles."

Mamet's fixation on language is, nonetheless, more effective onstage than onscreen, where the technical and visual requirements distract from the sounds of the words -- the heart of Mamet's work.

May lack any transcendent point that would make it exceptional, but it is certainly a worthy start, and worth catching.

Some critics are badly selling the film short, when the story it tells, measured strictly in terms of emotional power and overall fun, is as moving and pleasurable as any matinee item by Ford, Hawks or Raoul Walsh.

Janssen proves herself an actress of delightful range.

It's a first-rate chamber piece for actors, but Julie Christie brings a particularly layered depth to what could have been a very flat role; a combination of bereaved mother and castaway wife. Her torment and her intermittent joys are so fully communicated that they anchor the film.

Surprisingly moving -- prompting lumps in the throat over what was, after all, a historic moment of the most luminous hope.

Lyrical and funny, Full Grown Men is a tough-minded film about the need to grow up.

The good news is that they've resurrected a franchise with wonderful potential and may eventually grow bored enough of recapping past triumphs to take it in more daring directions.

Taymor has done an inspired job of resurrecting one of Shakespeare's unruliest works, just in time for the new century.

We may not fully grasp what Nora saw in Joyce, but what he saw in her is made unmistakable, and worth seeing.

A fascinating tragedy, easy to underrate.

Inglis offers complicated characters and uniformly worthy performances without falsely manipulating us into sympathizing with anybody but tries too strenuously to fuse his warring polarities of character-driven intrigue and plot-driven treacheries into an allegory of redemption. In the end, that feels like one or two big things too many.

Demonstrating yet again that he knows few limits as an actor, Duvall not only nails the accent, he inhabits the man's flinty, grudge-bearing contrariness with such a furious commitment that it brings out the best in the actors around him.

Here, the volcanic villain behaves like a smart terrorist, taking over almost immediately and holding a collection of excellent actors (Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Don Cheadle) hostage for two hours of "real time."

By-the-numbers Oscar bait -- but Penn does manage, against such odds, to make us see Sam as a person, not a performance.

A reliably solid treat.

The alchemy of good acting under the pressure of sublime film sense makes for a miracle in the hearts of the audience.

Enigmas make Panic involving, and suspenseful.

First-time writer-director Mark Hanlon creates a solidly trippy atmosphere.

Writer Sam Catlin and director Danny Leiner have fashioned an alert, shrewdly observed portrait of a moment in time.

The two leads have a wonderful chemistry together.

Writer-director Carl Colpaert never loses his balance, despite the David Lynchian leap of faith he asks us to make midway, in a twist so bold as to be a backflip. If anything, this extra layer in the story effectively illuminates the moral choices Jesus must navigate.

Khouri manages, with terrific flair, to keep the extremes of screwball farce and blood-curdling family intensity on one continuum -- not only through the strength of the performances (including one from James Garner, who, as Sida's dad, gets the best one-liners) but in the ways they match across time.

We never seem to be looking at actors, but at people; never at scenes, but at life unrehearsed.

Writer-director Hernandez is comfortable with violent, perverse emotions, and can find humor in them -- a refreshing quality that keeps one watching long after her movie has jumped its own tracks and zoomed to a private world of obscurely motivated quarrels and uninvolving reconciliations.

Impeccably produced.

These bantering would-be heroes mostly live at the tops of their voices.

Remains the most popularly successful film ever to render the inner life of an artist.

Goei's sharp-eyed satiric sense evokes the diversity and energy of Singapore, and his good-humored nostalgia makes disco rise from the dead.

A sharp, upbeat, well-wrought meditation on love and race that kicks the new year in movies off to a terrific start.

As powerfully as the film lingers in the mind, one can't help wishing he were led just a bit more by his heart.

A superb, instructive portrait of an artist at work.

(Herzog's) tribute to Kinski doubles as a life-affirming monument to creation in all its variety.

A near miss overall, but enjoyable in its littler particulars.

There are ticklish moments, but no real laughs.

Though the film overall is as disposable as a hot dog, it is just as enjoyable.

A smart, romantic, heartbreaking pleasure.

Although the dialogue initially flakes with awkward exposition, writer Ruth Epstein and director Harvey Kahn have fashioned a riveting thriller full of good scares and learned, muckraking insight into the global labyrinth of oil and politics.

Excellent performances.

Has power not only as film scholarship, but as an inquiry into cinema's interplay with our collective memories and the nature of history itself.

The film works, cleanly, without any tiresome reliance on computer graphics.

By the last third, one is sick to death of seeing people tortured, no real catharsis is offered, and stupid is how one feels.

The Wayanses can be crude beyond crude, but they're so clever that their inventiveness takes the place of taste.

Bergman's collaboration with Ullmann began when he directed her in "Persona" (1966). Here, with the roles nearly reversed, she shows herself as great an interpreter behind the camera.

What makes Sunshine unique, what rewards a first viewing and lives in the mind long thereafter, is that Szabo has attempted to place Judaism and Christianity on a continuum that is both historically truthful and highly personal.

A witty, well-crafted comedy that combines primal slapstick with sharp satiric banter to keep children and parents laughing together.

A delirious fable about every creature's need for espace.

The humor stays on one low level throughout, and thus fades fast.

Moll ratchets his suspense with impressive mastery, wringing a maximum of excruciating terror out of the humblest everyday materials.

The Marat/Sade irony of setting these scenes in a madhouse helps, but Macfadyen's volcanic magnetism and spot-on mimicry of Hitler's body language and speech patterns make insight flesh.

It's a sweet chamber piece, beautifully played.

A refreshing breakaway from both idolatry and cynicism.

They make a believable trio of siblings, but not even their combined wit can lift this script above the maudlin.

We're afforded the illusion of an omniscience so complete as to mark a pioneering breakthrough in movie storytelling, one not to be missed.

Some of the performances are remarkably natural amid so much farce.

One's laughter builds on such a rising curve that memories of its flaws burn away.

It is one of the most beautifully staged American movies in a very long time.

Penn's own gifts as an actor seem, in turn, to bring out the best in Nicholson, as well as the rest of the cast.

Here is a ghost story so dynamic you could call it a ghost poem.

It's an exhilarating display of filmic artistry.

It is worthy of comparison to the lifelike, character-rich films we cherish from that era (1970s), and is certainly one of the finest films to come out this year.

Breakdown recalls so many good movies, in such unpredictable order, that by the end it simply stands on its own, a solid, logical, edge-of-the-seat sluiceway of escape and pursuit.

The story sinks, along with any deeper laughs, under boringly formulaic motivations and plot twists.

As with "The Blair Witch Project," one must swallow one's irritation at paying yet again for big-screen video -- but even so, the spectacle of an America falling apart is acutely and hilariously embodied by Dawn.

First-time director Baltasar Kormakur -- balances tones with a smooth, mature confidence.

The romance and sheer fun that Where the Money Is packs into its swift 89 minutes follow from the sweet surprise that neither is threatened by the other.

Not only one of the best films of the year, it's one of the best films of the decade.

Economy be damned, lack of originality is the silent killer.

eXistenZ gives us Cronenberg at his wittiest, and Leigh at her most vulnerable and fascinating.

Mike Myers wrote the abominable script, plays both leads and is miscast in each.

A film whose story movingly outfoxes any number of shopworn expectations on its way to a singular, heart-rending outcome.

Lurie manages, despite these obstacles, to inspire Redford to give one of the most layered and interesting performances of his career.

Celebrity is one of Woody Allen’s finest. This is a minority opinion….But I prefer Allen when he works in a minor key – “Broadway Danny Rose,” “Radio Days” --precisely because he’s not trying to be profound, only true to firsthand observation.

If only the rest of the movie were as good as its cast.

Director Alan Rudolph kills this promising film off with a combination of bad writing and wrong-headed direction.

At its best, there's a strong (albeit live-action) echo of Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" in Little Manhattan. The movie's hero, Gabe, is a world-weary 10-year-old who addresses us in eloquent voice-overs. Like Charlie Brown, he's in love with a red-headed beauty.

Byrne is a stand-up poet the way some actors are stand-up comics. His innate depth prompts The Usual Suspects to transcend its own cleverness--and this is the movie's smartest, least predictable surprise.

What is surprising, and what one takes away most deeply and happily from Triumph of Love, is a refreshed admiration for Mira Sorvino.

Overall, King of the Jungle never quite achieves a necessary, culminating insight about charity, or mercy -- though Leguizamo's performance puts one in reach.

Nearly three and a half hours in length, but owing to its freedom of movement, the film feels weightless.

A smoothly structured, earth-toned and well-drawn Japanese anime.

Silver, manages the deft balance of making Seagal seem both genuinely courageous and charmingly blockheaded.