Gregory Weinkauf

There's just no arguing with 12 centuries of flamenco, and, in this sensuous movie, no resisting it.

The most life-affirming film about death to come along in ages.

In tampering with history, these storytellers present to us a rare and wonderful case of enlightenment beyond the accepted truth.

While you think you're watching just another in a series of British gangster films, you may suddenly realize that you're watching what is, thus far, the year's best horror movie.

Once in a while a film comes along that is as sound, smart, sweet and significant as can be, and Whale Rider is such a film.

In this, Lee's most ambitious and successful work yet, his celebrated gift for psychological shading and complexity is on proud display.

The story sustains a strong, hypnotic appeal well deserving of its many awards.

Inventive and richly researched, it's worth admission just to see Der Führer bickering with Mick Fleetwood as a feisty Pablo Picasso.

Overall, Dillon has scored at the helm. Wholly engrossing his film is not, but a valiant first feature it is.

Brian's brilliant, saved itself by benefactor George Harrison, who ponied up the budget of 2 million pounds...simply because he loved the script when industry bigwigs turned characteristically chicken. Its overall irreverence proves a lasting balm for the ages. Thank you, Pythons, for setting such a high and enduring standard.

Philosophy imbues this inescapably self-reflexive movie with a rare compassion.

A happily self-aware body-count flick that's as brutally funny as it is plain-old brutal. A broad slash of scary, sci-fi fun, the project leapfrogs all the Scream and Last Summer junk to carve itself a new, high-tech niche.

The overall effect is scintillating and very engaging -- literally history in the making.

If Junge's first-hand recollections aren't always visually stimulating, they're still more illuminating than most cinematic re-creations of the era.

Astonishing, haunting and lyrical on its own terms.

While the movie is frequently sharp and funny and weirdly relatable, the material feels too much like reality.

Maybe Baby is Elton's stab at romantic comedy, and it's a strong feature debut, spiffy, quick-witted and more than a little shocking in its unflinching acknowledgement of English people having sex.

Writer-director-actor Cedric Klapisch simultaneously shows great moviemaking flair and reveals a very peculiar worldview.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) and editor Paul Seydor serve it up beautifully.

Sharp, smart and robustly engaging film.

Smart, wry and awesome, all at once.

The film successfully walks the thin line between slick commercialism and "serious" realism. It is sentimental, but it comes by its sentiment honestly, through well-observed performances by the leads and a keen insight into the quirks of the Japanese middle-class culture.

The movie's diplomatic breadth compromises its thematic depth -- it basically repeats that fun conquers all -- but few movies will so generously rawk a crowd this year.

As a film it's mostly top-notch work. Kiwi director Christine Jeffs has taken the poignant, thoughtful screenplay of erstwhile documentarian John Brownlow and rendered it a moving mood-piece of subtlety and ever-encroaching sorrow.

James Bond wants us to believe he's an Everyman. The lovely thing is, it works.

It's basically your above-average nice drug movie.

Manages to be both astoundingly derivative and reasonably entertaining at the same time.

Guaranteed to jolt viewers of a Norman Rockwell mentality well into the 21st century.

Delivers a thoughtful what-if for the heart as well as the mind.

As a document of rockin, youth rebellion, the film lodges perfectly between "American Graffiti" and "Trainspotting."

There's elegance and grace here, fostering an opportunity to reflect upon why men get so dutiful about being down. It's worth the hike.

We have a whole new reason to appreciate cinema's most creative chameleon (Depp) since Peter Sellers. The film itself is pretty and sweet but a tad soggy.

What's most impressive about this is that, if one didn't know better, the naturalism of the performances could be taken for that of a documentary.

A solo "Thelma and Louise" crossed with a gender-reversed "The Fugitive" with a dry twist of "Fletch."

What isn't hard to say is that Noé really isn't a very talented filmmaker.

Any story's a good story if it's told well, and this one is, with chuckles to spare.

The design is gorgeous, the dialogue delicious, and even the supporting characters prove resonant.

A pensive, reflective movie, more or less equal in tone to Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm," yet, because of its temporal breadth and tight emotional focus, it packs a more intimate punch.

The extra-short length is puzzling -- about half an hour has been lopped off the length of the original Canadian release -- but what remains feels whole and wholly satisfying, a rare, successful merging of the obvious and the haunting.

This thing's all in fun. It's just a perfect movie for people who like to shout at the screen, so have at it.

The nuances of the performances -- in dialogue and dance -- and the rich, organic feel of the locations mark Amari as a director of significant promise.

Brando wanders through the movie as if he's tolerating an annoying guest, sweetly charming one minute, detached and obnoxious the next.

Hero keeps its characters stiffly archetypal, like chess pieces sent whizzing through outrageous maneuvers. Unfortunately, this apparent choice of spectacle over intimacy put me at a slight remove.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Heavy-handed, saccharine message somehow goes down good.

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

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

A nifty little war movie that defies convenient categorization.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Gentle and gorgeous, honoring atmosphere over attitude.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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).

It's inspiring and consistently exciting to the eye, mind and heart, as the plentiful formations -- global, but most of these English -- stimulate the imagination with their incredible beauty and complexity. Marvelous work all round.

Immediately disarming for its candor, verve, and sheer nerve.

It's possible that Gloomy Sunday is more "significant" than it is compelling.

Hovers curiously short of its full potential for mirth and mayhem. Still, the movie is more fair than foul, and it succeeds well enough as a freakish experiment and mockery of all concerned.

This lavish and captivating production by veteran Thai director Chatri Chalerm Yukol (Salween) transports us to another world where even the film stock seems imbued with a timeless, classic quality.

Sometimes the laughs here seem unintentional, but most giggles are properly earned, and the movie's fun and exciting if you can accept its inherent camp factor.

As Rikki, Seda is a model of foul duplicity, and the movie itself is a relative rarity: an intelligent showcase of senseless machismo.

This is a sensitive, thinking person's movie with a lot on its mind.

The lavish drama spans England, France, and Spain (shot mostly in Montreal), and Duigan elegantly paints a moving romance of errors amid torture, bloodshed, and terrible tragedy.

In the end, after the super-modified shovel racing, wild half-pipe action and integral employment of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," there's a poignancy to the piece.

Smith has fashioned a complex, contemporary Bible epic on his own terms. By turns crafty and clunky, pious and profane, it's clearly a labor of love.

Fight Club is to intelligent men what Catherine Breillat's "Romance" is to intelligent women -- an insult.

A piquant entertainment and zeitgeist reflector designed to embolden little thrashettes.

You'll laugh a lot, but not without a sense of animal desperation.

Grand entertainment in the old-fashioned sense.

A small but grand expression of the beauty of the feminine, which brings everyone together with revised and deepened appreciation.

Rarely does an established filmmaker so ardently waste viewers' time with a gobbler like this -- it's pretty shocking that this thing isn't even artsy. Barring a few brief moments of instantaneously fizzling inspiration, it's merely fartsy.

It's beautiful and obvious, a dubious combination that may nonetheless ensure its success.

"Homespun" is the first word that leaps in while contemplating Young's charming and moving treatise on provincial America and its deceptively simple denizens.

It's a noble work, an elegant work, a compassionate work -- and a somewhat tedious and glaringly self-important work.

This project is not the last word on Fellini, nor does it replace the director's bizarre self-portraits in Intervista or the TV special A Director's Notebook. It even irritates a bit, as none of the speakers is identified until the end.

Argento knows how to work her stuff, and the result is by turns saucy and grody, a fat lasagna of yesterday's "extreme" behavior dripping with Euro cheesiness.

As a thriller, The Butterfly Effect is iffy and uneven, but as a portrait of a people, it's effective and intriguing.

For three jerks bitching in a box, Tape makes the most of its minimalism. At its best, it's Betrayal for the Breakfast Club set.

A mess, but it's a rousing mess, with ample humor and action to satisfy the discerning dullard within.

The stately pacing and meandering plot often reduce this potential classic to generous eye candy.

Like its namesake, this Simon Mágus is wise and elemental, sure to leave you pensive afterward.

Quills is bound to titillate some, but for most it's likely to summon little more than a few Oscars and appreciative yawns.

Director Mick Jackson (L.A. Story) delivers playful and charming teens-turned-30 moxie.

Hasty pacing makes for a rich and exciting movie, but not an especially spooky or spellbinding one.