Jack Mathews

Savvy, unflinching, often bloody documentary.

Locks in on its self-destructive subjects so precisely, it's almost unbearable to watch.

The whole movie is something of a joke, a feature-length prank that mixes stark violence and shock humor in the mold of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." Though it is a far less ambitious entertainment than Tarantino's masterpiece, it has its moments.

Hurt and Dancy are terrific in these roles, but the power of the movie is in the tension created by Caton-Jones on the same sites where this historical event unfolded.

After dazzling us with its undersea discoveries, "Aliens" turns downright silly at the end, with a fantasy sequence set in a presumed ocean on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

Ultimately, it's too much information coming too fast.

Like Stone in "Basic Instinct," van Houten has an audacity to match Verhoeven's. Hers is a role that Bette Davis would have killed Ingrid Bergman for, and she is so good in it that it seems only a matter of time before she'll star in a real Hollywood movie - as opposed to this pretender.

There's a reason filmmaking is considered a craft, and Hoge, a former teacher in a juvenile prison, cannot pull off what would be a tricky proposition for a skilled veteran.

This is one of the scariest movies featuring female heroines since the "Alien" series, and what makes it uniquely scary is where these women are -- in tunnels two miles under ground -- when they realize they are not alone.

The saga might have worked better as a novel, where we could cast the characters with our imaginations, and keep them straight.

Clintonistas may want to look away when Carville and his colleagues lay out their political philosophy for Lozada, or, as he's affectionately known, "Gani." It's pragmatic in a way that defies the needs of the impoverished majority of Bolivians.

The play within the movie is much more entertaining.

What you get out of Batman Begins depends on what you bring to it. It is the most faithful to the origins of the comic strip and it sets up a series very different from the four made by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher between 1989 and 1997.

The setting and circumstances of the war overwhelm the personal story and diminish the dilemma of the title character's love life.

The things you can look forward to, however, are the humor, intellectual musing, emotional tumult, superb acting and challenging adult questions.

Whether you're charmed or bored by the movie depends entirely on your feelings for Amelie, a young woman whose hyper-quirky personality both takes some getting used to and grows old fast.

I don't mean to demean it; it's smart, inventive and well-crafted. But as a feature film, it's a novelty item at best.

Could well end up on the coming Oscar ballot for best foreign language film.

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

Penn hasn't attempted much comedy since "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," but he's masterful here.

No masterpiece, but in a season dominated by films as heavy -- and about as time-consuming -- as brain surgery, a little brain candy is sweet.

Hoffman is a fine actor in a rut, working on a string of socially alienated characters who are variations on the same theme. That's too bad, because the story being told around his static presence is amazing.

The film makes you squirm as well as empathize, but it does need narration.

This epic tale of survival, love and adjustment covers a 59-year period - from 1910, when a band of urban émigrés arrives to start a settlement, to 1969, when only one of them remains.

Provides an intimate, nonpoliticized, uncensored and totally unappealing look at the lives of U.S. soldiers serving during a grim and uncertain period of insurgency.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou has made some of the most beautiful movies of the last 20 years, and with his latest, Curse of the Golden Flower, he has also made one of the most deliciously nutty.

The result is a charming, inventive, ambitious, surreal mess.

There is a little of all of us in their awkwardness, fears and neuroses, and we root for their success in the mundane as if they were ascending Everest. Elling is still in the running for 2002's most uplifting movie.