Hank Sartin

The concert footage is generally quite good, and Joplin is astonishing, but with so many hours of footage you'd think there would be more unexpected moments.

The result is both thrilling and thoughtful.

The result is your basic Bruckheimer action spectacle plus lots of leather, shaggy haircuts, and Celtic tattoos.

The result is that virtual oxymoron, an intelligent family film.

At times Hirsch seems afraid to trust the material's inherent drama and becomes unnecessarily manipulative, staging performances in striking landscapes and playing the footage in slow motion.

Reasonably entertaining but predictable.

There are a few witty touches (POV shots given to the urn holding the mother's ashes) but the mood swings erratically and ineffectively from deadpan drollery to heartfelt romance.

Kidd has a great ear for dialogue, and he throws in a few unexpected twists. But the real fun is watching an established pro and a newcomer run with the script.

Everyone in the cast conveys that messy mix of teen self-consciousness and bravado, but Josh Peck is particularly nuanced as the bully.

The intense focus on this trio makes for good portraiture, but it left me hungry for more about the social context that shaped them.

Though the story drags for the first hour, this becomes a solid character study once the principals arrive at their hiding place.

The full-throttle approach of director Doug Liman (Swingers, Go) is impressive.

Uekrongtham handles the material with reasonable restraint, and you can't help but cheer on the hero.

This film by Julio Medem has dreamlike visuals, lush sensuality, a gorgeous cast, and a plot built on elaborate, self-conscious coincidences.

Director Frank Nissen strikes a nice balance between slapstick and sentiment, and I'll admit to getting a bit choked up at the appropriate moments.

It's a bad sign when you can't name or differentiate any of the Lost Boys.

"Friday" had moments of stoned charm and telling neighborhood detail; this second sequel never gets beyond the angry, cruel, and misogynist.

This is both melodramatic and overly tidy in its plotting, but its odd personal relationships are utterly believable.

Episodic but entertaining fantasy.

The women, many in their 70s and 80s, are still tough and proud--and nursing grudges that go back decades, something Leitman plays up by crosscutting between rivals' accounts.

The animation is remarkable, except for the stiff, marionettelike humans.

The action is exciting, but the rapid-fire narration jumps around too quickly, making it difficult to keep straight the personalities meant to hold the film together.

Desperately wants to be whimsical and charming. But whimsy isn't easy to carry off, and director Alan Taylor, who has directed mostly television dramas, has a heavy hand -- scenes meant to be comical are destroyed by leaden pacing and a puzzling mix of tones.

Jones's script leans too heavily on the familiar device of blurring illusion and reality, but his view of the urban landscape is beautiful and distinctive.

Cohen and a crew of script doctors have thrown in some of the oldest cliches in the book.

Fascinating group portrait of soul and R & B legends who are still touring 40 years after their original fame, enduring even after they've been relegated to the nostalgia circuit.

There's an uplifting message about heroism, dispensed in dialogue so familiar you can practically lip=synch it.

Borrowing heavily from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Shyamalan tries to lighten his trademark gloomy tone -- and almost kills the suspense he's working so hard to achieve.