Gregory Weinkauf

Grand entertainment in the old-fashioned sense.

A breezy romantic comedy, boasting a shameless silly streak.

Startlingly, this is not the trite beer commercial one might expect.

It's a feel-good movie for people tired of paying to feel bad. Bring it on.

This movie's just so-so, but at its heart lies a true leading lady.

When it's all over, one is less compelled to applaud than to give each "character" a sympathetic hug.

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

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

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.

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!

Sayles is rarely a bore, but occasionally he frustrates more than he delights, enlightens or challenges. Such is the case with Casa de los Babys.

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

There's way too much schmaltz in the mix. Even the musical score bombs: Throbbing, eerie techno simply does not suit a character trapped in the 1940s.

Emits the embarrassing aura of a filmmaker desperate to be considered cool, yet utterly inept at finding original ways to reach that status.

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.

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

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.

Offers considerable charm and an obvious desire to please.

The movie is beautiful to look at (lensed by Pierre Gill) as are the girls, but it takes its clunky message so seriously that it often verges on silliness.

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.

If you want to drift through emotional turmoil and a harrowing loss of security both personal and national, this project may provide some soggy satisfaction.

Moments of strained mirth indicate how false and fabricated the whole enterprise really is--just a couple of well-to-do superstars doing their darnedest to prove to us that they're regular folk. And failing.

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

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

Essentially this is a pale imitation of "My Life as a Dog" or "Cinema Paradiso." It means well, but it's only a "feel-good" experience if your concept of that term involves being jerked around and doused in sap.

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

Distinguishes itself by its subtlety and good taste. Even if we catch a hint of gypsy music on the soundtrack -- or glimpse a disturbing American neighbor lady -- Gardos steadfastly guards us from caricature. She wants to keep it real.

The fleeting moments of dry wit are too sparse to hold the movie together, so instead McAbee takes the kitchen-sink approach, hitting us with whatever he's got.

It's just that this clunky, inane vehicle sputters barely a few feet down its quaint English highway before you want to bid it "do zvidániya, dumb-ass!"

At its best (which isn't much), Le Divorce blusters along with the tolerable tedium of had-to-be-there home movies; at its worst (which is about 90 percent), it illustrates why the French went and invented the word merde.

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

What Lies Beneath is my head on the movie theater floor, snoozing through this film.

There's a modicum of charm to Timeline, since its eager, earnest tone harks back to Donner's work from the '80s, particularly "The Goonies" and "Ladyhawke."

Solondz's singular game plan is to dangle profoundly obnoxious caricatures before us, then punish them mercilessly for their stupidity, which is amusing enough if you're in the mood for that sort of thing.

Has a lot to offer as grand entertainment, from surprising battle sequences (plenty of terror, virtually no gore, brief and tasteful digital enhancement) to fine performances.

Any cassette of "Millennium" would serve up better thrills and chills.

This is a brilliant and unpretentious movie to raise the bar for contemporary popular entertainment, designed for the upper-tier thinkers at the multiplex.

All in all, this is every inch a TV movie.

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.

Despite the tighter rewrite and the slicker production, it's obvious that Shimizu is still searching for what scares him, and until he finds it, he doesn't stand--ahem--a ghost of a chance of frightening us.

The story's a trifle, but it's consistently edgy as the team stride straight into the middle of grisly violence so they can capture it on film.

These pandas, they're truly wondrous on the big screen, as no digital effect could ever recreate. Director Robert M. Young delivers a spry, richly detailed adventure for general audiences, truly a feat deserving acclaim.

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.

This tripe, however, isn't worth your time or our ink.

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

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.

It is unfortunate that von Trotta does not trust her audience enough to think for themselves -- her themes are carved on a sledgehammer en route to our skulls.

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 it stands, it's cute, occasionally poignant and outrageously implausible.

The movie remains engaging, with a couple of sequences verging on stunning.

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.

Ryan's performance burns with a rare and passionate veracity. The other half of the delight comes from director Jane Campion, whose sensualist eye and scabrous heart infuse In the Cut with guts and glory.

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

The result is visually slick, almost shockingly simpleminded, kinda redundant and only adequately satisfying. Alas, for their dramatic wrap-up the Wachowskis' storytelling now feels less intriguing than merely dutiful.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

A strong contender for Worst Picture of All Time.

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.

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.

Ambitious in scope and humble in execution.

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.

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