Gregory Weinkauf

Whatever your orientation, these bosom buddies are bound to charm you, and perhaps by joining them, the very talented MacLachlan may continue to find work.

The movie will leave you smiling forgetfully on the way out, and Myers will have done his job.

The challenge faced here by writer-director Robert Guédiguian (Charge!) is to keep his cheap melodrama from curdling his insightful societal appraisal.

All manner of superstitions, religious conspiracies and insurrections are aired, resulting less in awe than bewilderment. However, taken as an exciting and expansive cultural bridge, the film is a roaring success.

Meandering but reasonably charming.

Not to be missed.

Director Christopher B. Stokes (House Party 4) shapes up the fabulous dance sequences with undeniable energy, and real-life brothers Houston and Grandberry are two of the most enjoyable musicians to appear onscreen since Sting played a bellboy.

Grind does evince a true love for skating, and both the street action and the actual competitions are brilliantly performed and slickly lensed. That it's also funny and excels beyond Youth Culture 101 is a nice bonus.

The resulting piece resonates upon the American condition, deliciously detailing the whimsy, violence, intolerance, and shallow fantasies that fuel this nation. Oh yeah, and it's funny.

The Dreamers is a real humdinger, at once an intimate romance, a glimpse into a rather unconventional friendship and a beautifully focused celebration of cinema itself.

This trifle is better approached as a suburban haunted-house attraction thrown by enthusiastically confused teenagers. It's a little bit eerie, completely disjointed and sporadically amusing--kind of like "Lost in Translation," but with wanton slaughter. Do not expect more.

There's too much self-congratulatory showbiz overkill, and one is forced to wonder exactly who is getting paid, and how much, for leading this parade in his honor. Otherwise, this project makes it easy for anyone to understand the sanctified, semi-crazed star and the elements that created and destroyed him.

This elegant vision of sexual roles is certain to make a lasting impression and is likely to provoke explosive dialogues in Denny's and sidewalk cafés from here to Monaco.

The delight of this awesome thriller is simply that Schwarzenegger--an old hand at this sort of running-around-shooting-henchmen thing--could easily sleepwalk through the movie...but he doesn't.

Arteta targets Middle American ennui with wit, compassion and no shortage of ornery malaise.

Ambitious in scope and humble in execution.

A dismaying dearth of romantic chemistry -- during their brief scenes together, the two (Pitt, Roberts) actually seem afraid to touch each other -- and we end up with a Frankenstein's monster of a movie: lots of interesting pieces cobbled together with all the stitches showing.

Wrenches paltry giggles and cheap warmth from a screenplay that makes "Son in Law" seem like Sam Shepard. But wretched Affleck is the real liability.

Bright, lively and liberating movie.

This beast is as subtle as a Red Bull enema, but it succeeds magnificently as compulsively watchable spectacle.

Akerlund and crew use their full arsenal of lenses and editing techniques in service of leaving you spun, but it's undeniable that this movie was produced by steady hands and thoughtful minds.

A visionary breakthrough for the young directors, a darkly alluring and largely successful attempt to crowd the territory of Roman Polanski and Dario Argento.

It's light fantasy, but lovely and astute.

If only director Walter Hill and his coscreenwriter David Giler had scribbled a punch line for all these punches, this rage-in-the-cage redux would be more than merely a limp showcase of machismo so passé as to embarrass your average Australopithecus.

At last Dreamworks has given us the stuff of nightmare.

We're in for a long, unpleasant, reactionary ride.

Heavy-handed, saccharine message somehow goes down good.

What makes this movie special is the meticulous attention placed on each of its characters, employing them not in the traditional "melting pot" manner that is so common, but as part of a grand mosaic that actually seems to be worth sharing.

A big gob of fun.

The effects are smashing, yet there's a heart behind them.

As detached and unfocused as a college pothead. And about as much fun.

With a movie like this, there's no risk of spoiling the ending, because the entire plot is merely a formality trudging toward a foregone conclusion. The viewer's biggest challenge is to survive fits of yawning so violent they could disrupt ornithic migratory patterns.

The new version by Harold Ramis trots out a load of bargain-rack gags, tarted up with pricey effects for the A.D.D. generation. Woe to those who cannot leave well enough alone.

Bellyflops into the increasingly complicated American high school experience with a healthy reservoir of wit.

Although Morrison's drama feels increasingly forced and manipulative as the movie rolls along, the movie is competent if painfully predictable.

An animated extravaganza of Gallic wit and soul that delivers more wild humanity than many of the year's live-action features. In a word: go.

Heartbreakers' implausible level of comedy just grows tedious, as it's neither smartly witty nor full-throttle absurd.

A beautiful and timeless achievement, Conrad Rooks' 1972 adaptation of Herman Hesse's appropriation of East Indian mythology still entrances.

Overall it's reasonably thrilling anyway. If you're hoping for a brilliant revisionist take on the franchise, forget it.

This film is a miracle, an extravaganza equal to its predecessors and in some ways more stunning. It is a profound testament to the extraordinary power of moving images and sound.

A nifty little war movie that defies convenient categorization.

This thing moves brilliantly, sparkling like nothing we've seen domestically since "The Wiz" or "Xanadu."

I love it, but much in the way I managed to love "The Phantom Menace" -- in spite of its bloat, swaggering self-importance and largely neutered characters.

While this production from Michael Douglas is being touted as a sexy romantic comedy, it's more precise to think of it as big loud fun for when you're feelin' dumb.

I Am David is by far the best after-school special to hit the big screen this season.

It's a likable enough smorgasbord, from its trendy Irish locations to Andy Summers turning in a Beatles cover to occasional giggles and gasps.

What we have here is an historical document of inestimable value, describing in no uncertain terms the terrible and beautiful times before AIDS.

Here's a popcorn movie with soul, welcoming the masses to consider how much can change in popular culture over 30 years, as the horrific becomes the familiar.

The creators of Alexander set out to make an epic, and they can't be faulted for the many elements that succeed on this scale; what's unfortunate is that they don't quite deliver a camp classic.

Bjork holds the movie together, her natural charisma and the overwhelming intensity of her emotions should blind a lot of viewers to the ludicrousness of the story and the intentionally rotten videography.

The confusing, demanding role finally brings the actor home, and us with him.

Since the narrative's destination is awkwardly obvious, and the tone occasionally melts into a sticky-sweet mess like cotton candy in the sun, the movie is most often saved by its generous helpings of clever dialogue.

The striking graininess of the film stock, the near-documentary style of the setups, and Michael Nyman's attentive score add up to a relatable and ultimately hopeful experience.

Ultimately, it's the hip cast that keeps things hopping.

What's in it for you? Mostly a bunch of astronauts and cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station, floating around filming each other.

Too bad it commits the crime of being so intensely average, because what could have been sensational turns out to be merely this week's heist movie.

This sensuous, exotic film is more like an issue of "National Geographic" come to life, rich with cultural detail and insight.

Pustules, puberty and pregnancy...seven stories tall! Mostly grand but occasionally grody

It's definitely an enchanting spectacular for Potter fans anxious to ride the Hogwarts Express toward a new year of magic and mischief.

A thrilling tale smartly told, with an abundance of wit and invention. It's a classic.

While it's marvelously refreshing to observe Mother Nature obliterating L.A. and New York along with caricatures of ghastly world leaders, almost everything good is in the trailer, save perhaps brief run-ins with malevolent wolves and Ian Holm.

Lars von Trier's latest thingamabob is a large, pretentious blob of coulda-been. As in, it coulda been deep and insightful. It coulda been sociologically challenging. It coulda been formalistically thrilling. But it isn't.

A loud and ghastly movie to sit through and not short on gratuitous hideousness, but Darabont has also done his best to baste it with humanity and sweetness.

What do you get when you cross a passé "swinger" (Will Stewart), an exhausted "lost in L.A." setting, a sloppy "screenplay" and dull "direction" (by Paul Duran)? This!

The movie is smart, funny, romantic, and rousing.

This is a powerhouse of a film, but not for the obvious reasons that it's about a female serial killer, scampering lesbians and whatever. The project's strength instead emerges from a sense of nobility and purpose in honoring its characters.

Visually it's wild fun, since fledgling feature director Len Wiseman started off in production design, and creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos's diverse credits span from "Godzilla" to "Stuart Little." Yet with Underworld's guilty pleasures come copious clinkers, from its nuts-and-bolts narrative foundation to Wiseman's inability to direct actors beyond cartoonish interaction.

Funny, sad, moving and, above all, astute, making I Capture the Castle a fabulous film. Even the cars are tasty.

A sharp and pungent distillation of the book. However, as far as the theme of childhood under duress goes, I found "My Life as a Dog" or the stridently Irish "Into the West" to be significantly more fulfilling.

Gentle and gorgeous, honoring atmosphere over attitude.

Equilibrium improves as it rolls along -- either that or, ironically, it wears down the senses until the viewer succumbs.

Offers considerable charm and an obvious desire to please.

The filmmakers' investment in their weird visions is wildly unorthodox, but the payoff is oddly satisfying.

This Trinity may be the least of the three--sound familiar, Matrix faithful?--but it's the closest in style and attitude to a pulpy comic book, an art form that doesn't need to be lofty, perfect or even sensible to tickle a dork's fancy.

In this bolder, longer new cut, characters are allowed to finish scenes previously left as DVD extras, effects are creepier, and the theories of "the Tangent Universe" are explored in greater depth. Friends and neighbors, this is a Great American Movie.

Technically, the movie occasionally rises to become awe-inspiring, and while sometimes you can smell the acting (especially from Matthes), the performances are often soulful.

There's a somber tone to Petroni's work here--enhanced by Roger Lanser's shadowy cinematography and handicapped a bit by a schmaltzy Hollywood-type score--and there's also plenty of episodic life stuff.

While the movie is indeed touching and very politically significant, there's something peculiar about never learning exactly what made ace reporter Guerin so intensely obsessive about this topic.

Standing on its own, it's comme ci, comme ça, self-serious when it should be adventurous, coy when it should be revelatory. One must afford it props, though, for its proud celebration of insanity. Now that is truly creepy.

For better or worse the movie is simply simple -- the project's quality and significance depend upon one's perspective: Is this a daring and impressive homespun yarn or just a very middling stab at soft-core?

What's wonderful about director Claude Miller's adaptation of Ruth Rendell's novel "The Tree of Hands" is its grand capacity for compassion and complexity.

What could have become a heinous TV movie instead delivers the moving and relatable experience of being an emotionally overburdened person stuck in a world that mostly sucks.

The urge to laugh is superceded by the urge to slap everybody and command them to stop embarrassing all of humanity.

Pits good taste against rousing intellectual provocation, and, happily, allows both to win.

For all its brilliantly brazen sequences and energetic supporting players (as the young lovers' mothers, Brenda Blethyn and Lisa Banes are terrific), Pumpkin's abrupt shifts of mood and needlessly complicated ending(s) render its latter third a bit of a chore.

The game is cool to watch, and the love story is assertive enough to hook even the stodgiest ESPN man.

The beasts are employed to splendid metaphorical effect, which may be lost on viewers perceiving nothing but an action romp.

As a whole it's vibrant, witty and richly detailed.

Not only is Undercover Brother the funniest spy-thriller since "The Nude Bomb" (oh, behave), it feels like the proper sequel to "The Blues Brothers," crossing all kinds of lines between cartoonish buffoonery and genuine compassion for its characters.

A bucket of crap, but at well under 90 minutes it's a small bucket, and half the crap is amusing.

Not scary enough for its own good, Beck's Ghost Ship ends up stuck, enjoyably enough, between the Scylla of schlock and the Charybdis of camp.

Doesn't swing, doesn't score, can't make it to first base, never even drags its sorry ass out of the dugout.

If you happen to be seeking a fairly cute film concerning occultism, torture, and murder, here ya go.

A breezy romantic comedy, boasting a shameless silly streak.

If you love the excitement of watching golf, this Damon-Smith bore is right up your fairway.

It may be his (Greenaway's) breeziest and kindest-hearted effort to date.

The resulting project matters much and should be seen, but how much it'll be FELT depends on your specific level of patience for a director who presumes audience comprehension to be at about a fourth-grade level (at least he's a shoo-in for Hollywood).

This would be 10 times the movie if it featured an actual debate between Moore and Bush. Nonetheless, the man makes a remarkably strong case, tastefully inserting himself into the Bush-baiting only when necessary--one such stroke of brilliance involves personally urging congressmen to send their own kids to Iraq.