Jack Mathews

It provides the first genuine laughs I've had at the movies in this young year.

The fourth documentary screed this summer to have grown out of the left's frustration with the nation's turn to the right. Keep 'em coming, I say.

In Aniston's previous film roles, the "Friends" star has made little impression, but under the direction of the gifted young Arteta, she's certainly grown to fill the big screen here, and looks ready to leap from TV to film.

If you want an hour or so of terror, put your faith in Them.

The film serves him well, replaying a few surviving recordings that make clear what a beautifully melodious voice he had and what a talent went wasted.

A raucous gospel comedy that's as broad as co-star Beyonce Knowles' vowels and chockablock with foot-stomping, up-with-the-choir music that will have even atheists praising the Lord.

That there was no squirming among the kids at my screening may be the best recommendation of all.

Whether the movie leaves you confused or angry, you will be stimulated to long discussion afterward. How often does that happen these days?

Whoever wanders into the theater should leave a winner.

Though The Lookout is eventually a genre film, with a tense, bang-up ending, it is also a thoughtful study of a young man trying to make sense of a world that he is having to learn all over again.

For those who didn't get enough violence from Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York," welcome to City of God.

Lucky Number Slevin would be too clever for its own good if it weren't so ... darn clever. This violent flick is not in the same league as "The Sting," which has my vote for the cleverest winding road toward a happy ending in screenwriting history, but it contains nearly as deft a con job as that 1973 film.

A well-crafted indictment of the dark side of the modern work ethic.

Winslet and Keitel are brilliant as cult member & deprogrammer.

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

The result is a feast for the senses.

This fine documentary mixes archival footage, interviews with the sailor's family and sponsors, and - most amazingly - excerpts from the film and audiotape diary kept by Crowhurst.

Offers nothing new to the long tradition of boxing films. But Hill's reverence for the classic form and the stone-cold performances of Rhames and Snipes propel the whole thing forward with a prefight buildup that's more fun -- and probably more honest -- than the awkward attempts at macho showmanship we get from real fighters these days.

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

Offers a chillingly effective look at the ease with which a suicide bomber could wreak havoc on U.S. soil - specifically in Times Square.

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.

LaBeouf ("Holes") has a scrubbed, ego-free innocence that is perfect for his working-class hero.

It captures the animal attraction we call lust and carefully tracks its evolution to true love. For all its faults, this beautifully shot, sexually graphic film is a gem.

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.

Its sprawling canvas is mere backdrop for the most intimate of character studies -- a portrait of a man who chose material wealth and found emotional ruin.

A gritty thriller on the theme of the con man conned. It works as well as it does thanks to a captivating lead performance by Emmanuelle Devos and the superb direction of Jacques Audiard.

As pulp entertainment, Confidence is great fun and Foley's first good movie since the very different "Glengarry Glen Ross."

Though the sitcom humor of this is much broader and funnier than in May's film, it is also the part most faithful in spirit to the original.