Gregory Weinkauf

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.

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

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

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

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

Bright, lively and liberating movie.

what we've got here is a little propaganda film. A mild one, certainly, but the cliché of DIY hopefuls (band) versus the Big Machine (music industry) foments the same tedious struggle of art versus commerce.

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.

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

The urge to laugh is superceded by the urge to slap everybody and command them to stop embarrassing all of humanity.

Happily, then, the first movie of the Harry Potter series casts a splendid spell, as screenwriter Steve Kloves has transcribed J.K. Rowling's novel nearly to a T, with precious little tweaked or trimmed.

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.

Satisfying in its setup and execution, and the Catholic guilt streaked through its dank, rainy atmosphere serves it well. Nonetheless, the story's subtleties in this version are often outweighed by melodrama, sometimes verging on sap.

It's the usual struggle of growing up and growing old, but Muccino's twists are plucky and revealing when he's not suffocating us with heavy-handed mortality and pathos.

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

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

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

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

It's pretty safe to say that claustrophobic, gay-themed murder mysteries haven't been this much fun since "Deathtrap."

Smart, sassy and much more fun than most political diatribes.

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.

Neither sensuously sizzling nor daftly off-beat, Better Than Sex occasionally rises to its own modest occasion by gently reversing our expectations.

Stupid camera shenanigans aside, theater veteran Crowley deftly directs his large, stellar cast, and playwright-cum-screenwriter Mark O'Rowe serves up a wild knot of character arcs pitched somewhere among the neighborhoods of Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Danny Boyle.

If Hallström has a problem with tone, it lies in his almost supernatural niceness. Thus, what arrives on-screen is purely a man's feminism, simple and trite and beautiful and vital.

Fry establishes himself as an inspired, world-class talent behind the camera and delivers my favorite film of the year thus far.

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

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.

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