Jack Mathews

I'm not sure how tolerable this would be without Palmer's charm, because this is a formulated script where everything is tied up in perfect bows, just like life isn't.

Johnson combines the elements of classic 1940s film noir and "Rebel Without a Cause"-style teen angst in a movie that is as phony as it is ambitious. It's an A+ film school exercise with zero emotional or social impact.

It's a slice of life, with all the trimmings, and one of the strongest films of the year.

The course of Martha's relationships with Lina and Mario holds no surprises, but the performances of Gedeck and Castellitto, like the work of a great chef, make something special out of something very ordinary.

What it lacks in irony and suspense, Gilbert Adler's Tales From the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood makes up for in whimsy and cheeky self-assurance. The second feature to emerge from the long-running HBO horror show is a bawdy romp into vampire mythology, an empty-headed joyride into a crypt that resembles a costume party orgy. This is the version of "Dracula" that Bram Stoker would have written with the collaboration of Mel Brooks and the Marquis de Sade over drinks at Hooters. [16 Aug 1996, p.F10]

What Walk the Line does well, it does really well. Mangold was ­wisely gen­erous with the amount of musical performance he included in the film, and the later scenes - showing Cash and Carter as partners - are so well shot and edited, they defy you to sit still.

The movie is as unpleasant as its hero, and the film audience gets no more for its money than the customers at the Laughing Stock. Still, watching Whaley take Jimmy down his tortured path has some morbid appeal -- like a train wreck in progress.

Any opportunity to see Pete Seeger perform, even at age 85, is worth taking - and Seeger is front, center and full-throated in Jim Brown's concert film.

Spellbinding.

The joke is that the salesmen believe they're actually trying to discover talent and - like the people they're encouraging - are victims.

At the stunning conclusion, you feel as if the weight of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come down on your head.

Sometimes painful, often joyous, and altogether illuminating.

The best comedy of 2004. In fact, it's so far the best movie of the year.

With echoes of "Dave," in which Kevin Kline takes over for the comatose U.S. President he resembles, Kristoffer begins to feel the power given to him and to make his own decisions, leading to some hilarious situations and an unpredictable ending.

This is a midnight stoner movie if there ever was one.

Left-wing flame-thrower Robert Greenwald (Uncovered: The War on Iraq) gets after the global giant anyway, and he may have you thinking twice before entering another Wal-Mart parking lot.

That (cinéma-vérité) feel is absolutely convincing, as are the performances.

Have Marc's friends tricked him with a conspiracy of silence, or was that mustache a growth only in his mind? The filmmaker has said there is no intended meaning to any of this, so search for it for your own amusement.

A great family movie, with a terrifically empathetic young hero, strong messages about the powers of familial love and friendship, buried treasure and enough action to keep the little ones from getting bored.

This brilliant documentary, which shows not only how Belgian King Leopold II made the huge and resource-rich central African Congo his own private reserve, but how his legacy of exploiting the land and brutalizing its people continues in modern times.

It's more fun than a turkey shoot. It's also one of the most entertaining riffs on American culture in years.

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 Intolerable Cruelty isn't a convincing love story, it's a hugely entertaining one, with comic relief -- in the form of Cedric the Entertainer as a voyeuristic private eye and Tom Aldredge as a decaying law-firm boss issuing directives while hooked up to life-support -- piled on top of the comedy.

On the surface, Le Petit Lieutenant is propelled by the search for two Russians somehow responsible for a pair of murders along the Seine. And though that's a pretty mundane setup for an urban drama, it serves nicely in allowing us to get to know the haunted Caroline and the impetuous Antoine.

It's never a good thing to notice that the actors in a movie are having a better time than you are. It's so unfair. They're paid to work, you're paying for fun.

Jack Nicholson in a performance that ranks among his best, yet leaves you feeling unfulfilled as never before.

Given the tragic events that actually happen, "Nickleby" ends not knowing what it was supposed to be. But those first two acts are nearly worth the price of admission.

The filmmaker's ego and ethics aside, there's no denying the power of Wuornos' behavior here.