Jack Mathews

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.