Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

The story's charming, the set pieces are wildly inventive, and even the throwaway one-liners, about everything from movie-animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen to the old Oscar Meyer jingle, are hilarious.

The music, it goes without saying, is great.

It makes a convincing argument that Dowd's personal history is a kind of history of the 20th century itself, encompassing the era's art, science, commerce and politics.

Startlingly affecting -- What emerges is a picture of an illness that causes enormous suffering but whose origins and treatment continue to elude even those doctors who pay attention to it.

Dunne is committed, thank good-ness, unapologetic for even the most fluttery sentiment or spookiest chill, enjoying the swellness of the very idea almost as much as any fanciful girl.

Both visually and emotionally, a panoramic picture; Mehta wields a master's hand as she weaves together vistas of urban and pastoral India with thoughts on the nature of man as it keeps cycling out in the specifics of history.

That nothing more monumental than an everyday life has occurred to any of the subjects is perhaps the film's most compelling aspect.

Heartwarming here relies less on forced air than on Petter Næss’ delicate, clever direction -- and a wonderful, imaginative script by Axel Hellstenius.

Trueba reveals his subject organically, letting the music speak for itself.

Perhaps because this is director Yoji Yamada's 77th movie, every aspect of his filmmaking is placidly assured and meaningful.

Not only relates the astounding story of the expedition and its unimaginable hardships, it presents a thoughtful study of a time when there were adventurers who might actually respond to an advertisement reading "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold . . ."

(Linney and Ruffalo) are just beautiful enough, in fact, to be in the movies and still remain convincing as authentic folk, and their performances are tremendously moving.

Freshened immensely by pitch-perfect song parodies, a batch of hilarious faux album covers, nimble improv from the ever-marvelous cast, and a palpable love for the subject matter.

A kind of folktale, rooted in poignant personal experience.

On the strength of such skillful pacing, and the pair's beautifully modulated performances (Leary's never been so warm or vulnerable), the film builds almost imperceptibly to a climax that's as moving as it is startling.

Lovely ensemble piece.

The Sex Pistols themselves were bloody magnificent.

Enlightenment Guaranteed is a parable of alienation and rediscovery told with such affection, insight and visual elegance, it could never be taken as preachy or stern.

To see the film in this meticulously restored and remixed version is like watching it for the first time, so clear is the sound, so vivid the sights.

It's Wilson who's the score here. Quick, scruffy and completely at ease, he takes on Jack's let-it-ride charms and foibles as if he were tossing a Frisbee with friends, and it's impossible to watch him without wanting in on the game.

The film may be rife with emotional declarations, but rather than the studied sentiments of news anchors and politicians, these ruminations have the quotidian ring of real people struggling with a standard vocabulary to describe something unthinkably new.

It's (Stuart's) utter believability that lets us follow him into the ecstasy of absurdity that is the rest of the film.

The film's best and scariest moments come when Miles is confronted with scenes that he translates into proof of the Wendigo's power.

Well-acted, briskly paced and prettily photographed, the film is a mild-mannered family story with a caring heart, and that's ultimately enough to make its 104 minutes worthwhile.

Demme (Monument Ave.) brings a sure hand with pace and structure to the soft-at-heart script by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone, allowing Murphy, Lawrence and company to sit back and focus on the job at hand -- making us laugh.

To watch Joplin, Rick Danko, Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart, all massively wasted, giggling and jamming, is a delight tempered by the knowledge that Joplin would be dead just months later, with the rest but one following after.

Signals the real end of the party, charting a denouement that arcs from blissful ignorance to violence and its ever-present threat to a final retreat.

It becomes clear that all this man-child craves is to be loved and, thus, saved.

Dean Parisot's direction of the funny, affectionately satirical script by David Howard and Robert Gordon is crisp and assured.

The result is a sui generis, love-it-or-hate-it exercise in homegrown American surrealism.

The result is a carefully wrought, historically grounded and thoroughly absorbing look at a quintessential American experience.

Miraculous photography.

Film is a ghostly and gorgeous tale of a court magician, the legendary Abe no Seimei.

The proceedings are leavened also with a carefree sense of humor -- including some clever, jokey camera work -- and given depth by a cache of marvelous performances.

If Sayles had maneuvered these stories and performances into even a shade more sentimentality or gravitas, the weight would have collapsed them like a house of cards. As it is, they breathe easily, delicately into each other.

Juvenile, sloppy and frequently, idiotically hilarious.

The genuinely fascinating story is one of revolutionary intention and unrelenting grit, but while Mario is a competent enough filmmaker, he has neither the urgency nor, frankly, the chops to make his own movie fire up.

A funny summer frolic.

Breaks in the film's otherwise smooth continuum, however, are bridged by Hutchins' soulful performance, and by Chaiken's excellent feel for the grace notes and steady tempo of native New York life, the sacredness of female friendship, and the precarious balance between love for oneself and for others.

This ode to wrestling one's way out of youth's shell holds up surprisingly well.

Maglietta, whose soulful countenance and offhand grace are soothing to behold, and Ganz, who says more with a shrug and sigh than most poets do with a sonnet.

Poignant portrait.

By the time a Bollywood production number segues into the finale from "Grease," the transition not only makes perfect sense, it sparkles.

It's the filmmakers' post-camp comprehension of what made old-time B movies good-bad that makes Eight Legged Freaks a perfectly entertaining summer diversion.

While the filmmakers are not above corset-drama bed-hopping and back-stabbing, it's delicious when the beds and backs belong to Uma Thurman, Tim Roth and Julian Sands.

There's no doubting that Williamson is a man who knows and loves his genre, and all the scary, screaming, sniggering fun continues here.

Paula Gray wrote the script (it was her UCLA senior thesis), and if there are gooey spots, there's also nicely turned, lived-in dialogue and a gentle affection for all her characters.

Like a good punk tune, the filmmaker's focused energy distracts from compositional flaws, all the better to enjoy visceral pleasures such as a spot-on Zoë Pouledouris as preening singer Fauna.

The result is a fast-paced, brilliantly edited indictment that's as hard to turn away from as it is infuriating to watch. The irony, of course, is that Greenwald deploys the tricks of the trade every bit as knowingly as the evil geniuses at Fox.

Tavernier's documentary about the famed Paris Opera Ballet is itself a graceful thing, a fleet-footed yet substantial examination of what it means to devote one's life to the art of dance.

A modest pleasure, driven by a jumble of Old West signifiers and goofball modern flourishes.

The film quickly becomes a vortex of father-son bonding and rivalry, and what could have been a mere travelogue becomes a bumpy exploration of male identity and communication.

Still, the big-show musical payoff is good fun, and Black and his little doppelgangers have it all over "Daddy Day Care."

Even if Signs suffers a little from uneven pacing and mismatched tones of reverent homage (to "The Birds" and "War of the Worlds"), soul-searching and silly comedy, the jokes are clever, the tension continual and expertly calibrated, and the performances -- are both deep and moving.

An easygoing work of unforced humor built on gags that should be stupid, but are ultimately too ridiculous to resist.

It's a setup so easy it borders on facile, but keeping the film from cheap-shot mediocrity is its crack cast.

On its own, the story is tepid, and less than original. What draws us in is the way in which Gatlif sets it against a rich Andalusian backdrop.

May be scant on character and plot development, but it’s rich with affection for daydream believers

It requires nothing more of a viewer than quiet complaisance, which is rewarded in turn by pleasant scenery, a few mild laughs, and the dependably involving presence of Weaver and, especially, Neuwirth.

The performances are revelatory.

As always, conversation is the constant threading together Rohmer's stately pace and episodic structure, the thing he uses to show us who his characters are and what their friendship entails.

By cinematic standards, not exactly scintillating stuff: The mix of archival materials, talking heads and dramatic readings is strictly PBS 101. Filmmaker Peter Gilbert's great achievement lies in his integration of disparate historical threads and voices into one steadily paced, riveting tale.

For the most part, the action, shot entirely on Hawaii's famed North Shore without blue screens or tanks, is awesome, all swirling turquoise tubes, thundering foam hammers and sleek, graceful riders.

If director Scott Elliott falters, it's only in the spots where he tries to comment on her (Alice's) persecution without being complicit in it.

Ultimately a wiser and truer film than its crass and cartoony beginnings would have us believe.

The good news is that this off-the-wall ensemble comedy may just be the summer's happiest surprise.

Rozema seems determined to defrill the Austen trend and charge it with a fiercer sort of femininity.

It's Boyar who’s the find here, though, a gently magnetic presence who's all the more impressive for being thoroughly riveting despite spending most of the movie face-down on a counter.

It's the spark and surprise of good sketch comedy that makes this film really work--the laugh-out-loud moments are worth the wait.

If there's anyone to credit for The Butterfly's eventual triumph over the inherent fatuousness of the material, it's the great Serrault and his tiny leading lady, who matches her elder nearly line for line and look for look.

The problem with Rush Hour is that the film isn’t a partnership, it’s a Chris Tucker movie with Chan as straight man.

Me Without You is at its truest and most affecting when it steps back from the gig gling, bitching and nail biting to reveal how the compulsion to control and appropriate can be born of simple love and admiration.

Director Stephen Hopkins (Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child) and writer Akiva Goldsman (Batman and Robin) layer a ridiculous time-travel tale with the story of a dysfunctional family Robinson, impressive special effects, and IKEA does Star Wars production design.

The movie is not without charm or humor, but it leaves little for Lane to do besides chuckle at setbacks as if they were naughty children.

Does have its charms.

Aside from isolated flares of unchecked emotion ...Bouquet's Lucie is too far removed from our ken of romance and overriding purpose, or from Berri's for that matter, to be embraced entirely.

A wonderful movie. For every misstep there are the sublime expressions of agony and ecstasy of which Herzog is a master.

While the film strives to prove its cool, it's also built on the insufferably antique idea that some flattery and a good fuck are all any woman needs.

Strictly for budding young ladies, though it does offer those who've already bloomed the grown-up pleasures of Firth, a great actor who graciously invites you to join him in the slow-burn romantic corner into which he's rapidly painting himself.

The director is Garry Marshall, but The Princess Diaries is no where near as nauseating a fairy tale as Marshall's "Pretty Woman."

Nettelbeck's storytelling grace, however, only highlights her clumsy script, which drags the viewer through an all-too-predictable menu of catharsis and romance that can overpower the film’s subtler, more complex flavors.

The film is nothing if not benign, but its merits are moot for those above 7 or so.

This bleak debut feature from writer-directors Alex and Andrew Smith would be all but impossible to sit through if it weren’t for Ryan Gosling and Clea Duvall.

The film is exhaustive -- and ultimately exhausting.

In Fitzgerald's hands, freestyling is an all-good means of personal expression and communal identification. The dark side of rap he treats only superficially, shortchanging a well-rounded discussion in favor of wholehearted celebration.

Ultimately, however, a too-earnest script that pins the future of this community on a school-district singing contest, undercuts the film's natural performances and its sedate, contemplative pacing.

The best thing about Committed, though, is Krueger, a filmmaker who's not only willing to lead us into the well-traveled terrain of romantic comedy, but able to show us something new there.

If Novocaine fulfilled the promise of its premise and cast, it could be great. As it is, the film is sabotaged by writer-director David Atkins' failure to set a consistent tone and follow through.

Yu’s filmography includes dozens of pictures between 1965 and 1994, but with its nonstop flurry of fighting, ersatz bloodletting and incidental hilarity, this remains his signature work.

German filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky sticks to the formula that made his 2000 thriller “Anatomie” a German hit, offering up a who’s who of young German stars and plunging them into hot-and-cold color schemes, freewheeling camera work and diabolical master-race conspiracies. If Ruzowitzky were as good a storyteller as he is a stylist, he’d have something.

(Ferrer's) performance as the sensitive private dick borders on beatific as he stumbles about a nighttime Hollywood Boulevard waxing lyrical about "love, sex and betrayal."

For a film hinged on one of the more passionate art forms, it's all a little bloodless.

Despite some grace- ful performances, especially from Ruehl and Kazan, the result is a tepid repast at best.

Where Káel stumbles is in having his stars lip-synch, sometimes poorly, to a recording. It's a devil's bargain that allows for more natural staging, but that fails to convey that an opera's power lies less in cinematic shadings of character than in raw emotions refined by the spectacular art of a rigorously trained human voice.

Rather exciting, rendered in a bright sunset palette and a mixture of expressive, boldly drawn traditional animation and fluid computer-generated imagery.

Even though he refuses to excise about 15 to 20 minutes of unnecessary material, Pappas is nonetheless a steady editor who, less intrepid than dogged, pieces together a sustainably intriguing, suitably distressing exposé.

Like so many movies that depend on effects for effect, plot comes in a poor second to spectacle. That leaves the Fraser, funny and sexy as hell, left with little chance to prove it.

Fox does have a sharp sense of the absurd that comes out in silly subplots.