Jack Mathews

The banter between these unlikely partners seems inspired by Quentin Tarantino's ingeniously insipid dialogue, delivered with indelible deadpan sincerity by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction." Neither the dialogue nor the characters are as interesting here.

Meandering, overlong digital soap opera.

That Williams occasionally comes close to the author's layered spirit is a tribute to his passion. But the film fails on a number of levels. First, it is what it is: the prologue to a story that covers four(!) decades.

If you have a serious interest in wine and the ­patience for this kind of rangy, undisciplined filmmaking, you'll learn something. But you'll have more fun at a winetasting.

Of all the Middle East-theme movies this season, Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War is the least political and most entertaining. That doesn't mean it's great, just that it's unimportant.

Delpy wrote the dialogue that gives the film its forward thrust, and "2 Days" is a wonderful first feature.

Whether you lived through the period and will have fond memories jostled, or are scouting for future DVD pleasures, the surest way to see a good movie in a theater this week is to see one about them.

A claustrophobic psychodrama.

Earnest but ambling drama.

This, the 10th and worst-written entry in the series, would have been better if it had followed Dreyfuss instead of Clouseau, or if Kline had been cast as Clouseau instead of Martin.

A flawed but highly entertaining B Western blown up to John Ford scale.

a despairing movie that you can't look away from, though you'll wish you could.

Polley, the paraplegic incest victim in Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter," gives a mesmerizing central performance.

The framing sequences with Downey and the climactic scenes between father and son are a mess. Downey, at 41, is too old to be playing a character who can be no more than 31 or 32, and 50-year-old Eric Roberts is an even greater distraction as Montiel's imprisoned friend Antonio.

It is both inside-baseball and self-parody, exposing a world that is just as ruthless and shallow as we've been shown it is in films like "The Player" and "Permanent Midnight."

This is a very tender portrayal of young people caught up in a blisteringly fast and cynical world, and though their music is hideous, they are a compelling act.

It takes a while for Frank Oz's ensemble black comedy Death at a Funeral to hit its deliriously nutty stride. But when it does, the laughs don't stop until the movie, like the subject of its family get-together, has taken its last breath.

It has a nifty premise and outstanding performances from Ferrell, as the protagonist-in-progress, and Emma Thompson, as his blocked creator.

There is a hint of sentimentality among the pals at the end, but not enough to offset the film's harmless combination of camaraderie and wished-for - oh, how they wish for it - debauchery.

The very thought of humanizing Hitler makes me queasy. If he had a good side, I don't want to know about it.

The computer-animation is terrific, most of the slapstick gags are fun, and Wanda Sykes' voice performance as feisty Stella the Skunk is one that will be remembered - and not because it stinks.

Tough, unsentimental British film.

One of the most skillful, mesmerizing, tense and satisfying time-warp thrillers ever made.

Director and co-writer Denis Dercourt infuses Melanie's calculating seduction of the family with a sense of genuine menace. You will not be bored.

Once in a Lifetime performs a belated autopsy on the Cosmos and the North American Soccer League and basically concludes that they died of impatience.

Mostly, it's a story of violence, and it's superbly told.

It's as harrowing as moviegoing gets.

Their ultimate success is a classic victory for the little guy.

Barely qualifies as a documentary. It's the personal journey of a man hoping to claim a million-dollar literary prize by proving that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare.

The effects in "T3" are spectacular, and the action sequences -- particularly the fights between the good and bad terminators -- are exhilarating.

A movie-movie about the movies.

The film's overriding messages are of personal responsibility and redemption. If that is Villeneuve's objective, it's done as an insidious polemic. If not, it's guilty of an even greater sin: It's boring.

Deuces Wild is the worst thing to have happened to Brooklyn since the Ice Age severed it from the mainland.

While there is a great deal of laughter among the quartet, there's scarcely a giggle in it for the audience.

Chevy Chase looks tired, Pam Grier looks embarrassed, and pop star Iggy Pop gives a performance that -- if you can believe it -- is even sillier than his name.

If it's not one of the five best of 1999, it's a personal best for Weaver, and that's pretty good.

Typical of road comedies, it's a pastiche of sketches.

What separates Diggers from its kin - notably the Ed Burns movies - is the testosterone balance of its masculine script and Dieckmann's sensitive direction. Maybe we need more buddy movies by women.

The latest - and really last-minute - documentary hoping to affect the presidential election is a deceptively partisan view of the Iraq War.

By describing the structure of a great trick in a movie about a great trick, The Prestige makes a promise it can't keep. Its third act is about as convincing as a photo of a cow jumping over the moon.

The movie is full of freshman mistakes, but Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance in the title role is the gutsiest thing she's done since her breakout in "Secretary," and she succeeds despite serious contradictions in the writing of her character.

While it won't rival the Harry Potter movies as a cultural milestone, the luminous, irresistible Stardust is no less industrious at scavenging myths and legends and making something altogether new from the familiar pickings.

Reilly can play nuts, too, and in a lower gear that reins Ferrell in. They're a great team.

It may be that Gronkjaer couldn't get the nun to open up to her. But not knowing much about her creates an awkward imbalance that Vig, fascinating as he is, can't overcome.

Not to be cruel, but the aspirations of the movie and its principals are so far beyond their reach" not to mention budget"that it arrives in theaters dependent on the kindness of strangers.

For Kidman, it is a one-note performance dictated by the script. Leigh had more dimension to work with and gives the film's most honest performance. Meanwhile, Black, whose job is mostly to deliver comic relief, is completely lost - that is to say, not funny - in the material.

The script gets so silly, the Monty Python troupe would reject it.

An audacious, snappy visual and emotional feast of dishes both familiar and fresh. It's the first really good movie of 2001.

Miami Vice is the last of the predicted summer blockbusters, and it delivers a reasonable amount of popcorn excitement. But if nostalgia for the TV show is the source of your interest, expect some disappointment.

Bittersweet, funny, sad and invariably romantic.

The song for which Piaf is best-known - "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" ("No Regrets") - leads to a killer finale with Cotillard perfectly lip-synching Piaf's recording of it. Trust me; you'll want to own it.

Enjoy Christmas in Paris, if you don't have enough problems of your own, with this slice of family life from French director Daniele Thompson.

The stories are sharply written and well composed. Some are high tech on a low-tech budget, but where they find their strength -- in the emotions of their characters -- money is no object.

The Manhattan movie of the year, Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend, offers a stunning glimpse into how the city - as we know it today - might look in 2012 if it were abandoned in 2009.

The lone gem of the anthology takes place in the loft of a trendy L.A. restaurant where a snooty Steve Coogan learns from starstruck Alfred Molina that the actors are cousins...This is the longest of the shorts, and has a payoff ending that nearly makes the whole thing worthwhile.

George Bush supporters may think this dissection of the President's narrow and decisive 2004 election victory in Ohio is better than sex. But Democrats and Bush voters who have come to rue the day are more likely to compare it to losing the World Series on a seventh-game walkoff home run.

By the end, you may not know whether you've seen a ghost story or a story of delusional obsession, but you'll have had a great time.

The homoerotic relationship between Friedrich and Albrecht is stopped short by tragedy, but the point is made - to Friedrich and the audience - that fascism has no room for humanity.

Made for $1 million, its production values are raw and Nicholas makes at least one too many obvious choices himself. But its very rawness adds to its creepiness and keeps us in suspense in ways most studio movies don't.

The Specialist allows Eichmann to convict himself, not of complicity in the Holocaust -- to that he pleads guilty, by reason of nationalism -- but as a man unfazed by his own inhumanity.

Toback is a smart guy with kinky tastes who has nothing left but to tempt actors into performing in his sex fantasies.

Despite four very strong performances, Closer is hard emotional work to sit through. It's impossible to empathize with either the viciously insecure Larry or the unscrupulous, childlike Dan.

What Haggis obviously wants to explore is what the war in Iraq is doing to the humanity of our soldiers there. By approaching it indirectly, he simplifies it to a degree that I expect will anger many Iraq veterans.

Mildly entertaining trifle.

The three young actors are good, but the movie is held together from beginning to end by another riveting performance from Washington. Few actors can dominate a film with their diction as well as Washington, and the role of the erudite, passionate Mel Tolson gives him plenty of opportunity.

Bernstein blunts the inherent tension by zipping everything along at the pace of a snail with a sore foot. Still, Montenegro does wonders in her long silences, and makes her love scene with the eager 72-year-old Cortez look like a hookup at Club Med.

Dublin-born Byrne and native New Yorker Linney...are both exceptional at depicting characters about to burst from inner turmoil, and Linney, in particular, is heartbreaking.

Sigourney Weaver is a riot in the cynical Faye Dunaway network boss role.

Darker than the shadow of death.

There are some effective group scenes with Darius and Nina and their friends, but Witcher's dialogue and direction more often show the craft than the naturalism he's after. [14 Mar 1997, p.F1]

Most of its features work fine, and it will dazzle you with its tricks and illusions. But it is not what it claims to be on the package.

the director works way too hard to cover his tracks, and the resolution is a disappointment - if you get it at all.

Compelling and highly informative.

Meadows is very good with the boys' relationship, and achieves his and Fraser's central goal of showing how childhood bonds can be simultaneously fragile and strong.

Though the film is dark and the ideas run deep, it's perversely fun to think about.

It is no small compliment to Pierce Brosnan to say that his performance in writer-director Richard Shephard's goofy black comedy The Matador could only be rivaled by Christopher Walken.

Dunst and Williams...turn ditsiness into a frenetic comic duet.

Frenzied, gothic nonsense.

Is the story being told worth a movie on its own merits? No way. Time Code exists as an esthetic event -- either a trick or a treat, depending on your expectations.

Superb, ultimately exhilarating account of Coney Island basketball phenom Sebastian Telfair's senior year at Lincoln High.

It was against all odds that Michael Mann ("The Insider") would make a boring movie focusing on the most eventful decade in the life of the most dynamic athlete in history. But that's what he has achieved with Ali.

A movie with better parts than a whole. But where it's right, it's really right.

Despite a relatively paltry $40 million budget, Stormbreaker has the sheen and special effects of a Bond movie, and the ambition as well.

A metaphysical shaggy-dog story, whose unpredictable punchline is its only redeeming feature.

Surely, Vinterberg was high on some inert gas when he embarked on it.

Some of the banter is fun, like Randal's debate with Elias over the relative merits of "Star Wars" vs. "The Lord of the Rings." But most is just trash-talk as shoptalk.

It's no wonder Sidney Lumet's Find Me Guilty had trouble finding a distributor. Its target audience is behind bars.

A feast of imagery.