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.

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.

Whether we've reached the critical mass of "misplaced power" is the gist of the current national debate, and Why We Fight is a useful tool in that argument.

The question is not whether the movie exactly duplicates the experience of the book, but whether the movie stands on its own. Angela's Ashes clearly does.

Compston, with Loach's uncanny guidance, gives a performance of such natural power you'd think you were watching a drama-class prodigy like James Dean rather than a moonlighting high-schooler.

Redford has rarely done this kind of intimate drama, effectively a two-character play on the mountain, and he's very convincing. As is Dafoe.

One of the curmudgeonly director's sweetest films, and features one of Richard Gere's most affecting performances.

Laced with flashbacks and stylistic tics, but it never loses its forward momentum, and to the last shot, it avoids predictability.

The documentary fascinates not only because of its subject matter but because the three people - whose backgrounds are individually developed - are so likable.

Spellbinding.

Director Emmanuelle Bercot's film offers a fascinating account of how a vulnerable star might mistake fan worship for something real.

Doesn't so much crackle as pop. It has enough double entendres to fill a D-cup, but it has a premise that would have burned a hole in the screen in 1962, when its story is set.

Offering often-hysterical testimony to Vilanch's talent.

Heights is stage-bound throughout, and the secrets it would like to keep are very predictable. But its heart is in the right place, and the performances are first-rate.

This is an entertaining Western with some earnest ideas about forgiveness, redemption and the loss of innocents.

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.

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.

As an answer to the spreading cultural virus of evangelical conformity, Brian Dannelly's teen farce Saved! is about three teeth short of a full bite. But it leaves an indelible impression.

There are some clunky, juvenile jokes and an excess of shots to that special place on men that make us double over and weep. But there are some very funny, very hip jokes as well.

Slither is neither repetitive nor reverent. It is a dark and hilarious spoof of those movies, one in which both the characters and the audience seem to be in on the jokes.

"Ghost World" director Terry Zwigoff, working with a depraved script by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, has fashioned the sickest -- and funniest -- black comedy in years.

A couple of the stories don't quite accomplish what Rodrigo intends, but most are poignant, disturbing, and superbly acted.

Meticulously researched documentary.

The film's standout performance belongs to Ed Harris, who plays a Boston detective with decades of experience and an equal amount of built-up resentment toward people who would harm children.

Hellboy may be a big, noisy goof of a comic-book action film, but love is in the dank, dark, subterranean air as the bulky red-hued palooka tries to win the heart of the pyrokinetic beauty Liz Sherman.

Fuqua's passion for the music comes through in the clear, unobtrusive style of the film, which mixes generous footage of the event's performances with interviews and archival footage, all adding up to a luscious historical snapshot of one America's original art forms.

One of the more uplifting films of the season.

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

Despite the movie's dramatic weaknesses, I was spellbound by the images.

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

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.

These are people who are just waking up to life again. It may appear to be the ultimate non-action ­movie, but in the context of these lives, it is the highest kind of ­drama.

But the film has a poetic pulse, its ups and downs accompanied by some smartly chosen pop songs, a seductive original score and McKidd's husky voice-over narration.

The movie, shot digitally, begins as a not very compelling or particularly convincing road movie, and turns into a riveting prison drama.

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.

The new cast is no match for the star-clustered original, but Lucas, who looks much like a young Paul Newman (you may think you're watching "The Towering Inferno"), has a strong, matinee-idol presence, and Russell is a reliable old hand at this sort of thing.

A veteran who was in the Allied force trying to drive Germans out of a landmark Italian monastery asks, "What is more important, a great piece of art or a human life?" That it has taken more than 60 years to get this incredible story told answers the question.

I love this series; it's possibly the most exciting use of the documentary medium ever.

You may have to go back to 1973's "Paper Moon" and the father/daughter work of Ryan O'Neal and 10-year-old Tatum for equal excellence in nepotism.

It's got a hot premise, some cool sets, attractive stars and action that lets up only when it thinks you're about to surrender.

Though Civic Duty seems to be a study in paranoid psychosis, it has just enough ambiguity to make you wonder if it isn't something else. You'll still be wondering when it's all over.

Cuarón relies on his ample visual style, and he has indeed created a film you cannot tear your eyes away from.

A fascinating movie that, if you are able to make the leap it asks of you at about the three-quarter mark, will give you something to think and talk about for days. One thing is certain: It isn't predictable.

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.

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.

Dahl found the right actors for every part - Bill Pullman as the cynical Realtor hired to look after Frank, Luke Wilson as the gay AA member assigned as Frank's sponsor, and the always amusing Dennis Farina as Irish mobster Edward O'Leary.

Kassell has serious talent. The movie is beautifully shot, and the performances are all spot-on. But like many young screenwriters today, she has overwritten her script to the point where everything is simply too tidy for the messy psychological material.

It will make you laugh, and feel like crying.

Savvy, unflinching, often bloody documentary.

Michael Wranovics' documentary replays this sorry chapter in all-American greed in glorious detail.

Haroun is deft at handling the joys and pain of childhood. He neither condescends nor ­­over-sentimentalizes. It is a story of separation anxiety (for Amine) and coming of age (for Tahir) and it's universal.

Danny Deckchair may be a trifle, but it offers a breezy lift for the dog days of summer.

As sensitive to its subject as it is stark in its rendering.

Belvaux says his tryptich...are stand-alone movies that can be enjoyed in any order. I disagree. None is a complete experience and "An Amazing Couple" can be easily skipped. But the first and third add up to something very poignant and satisfying.

There's nothing here for commercial reality-TV shows, just history caught on the run, offering a raw and timeless reminder of the day we had our eyes opened to the power of blind hatred.

A small gem in the postholiday depression.

A fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Rarely does an animated character merge as perfectly with the persona of the actor providing his voice as the star of Monsters, Inc. does with John Goodman.

The jokes come in endless flurries, and if they're working - even at a ratio of 1 in 4 - you're laughing more than you're not. The Zucker-Proft team simply has a higher batting average than the Wayans.

The scourge of the 20th century has become a sage and hero to a new generation of haters.

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

The movie falls apart toward the end as it enters "Eyes Wide Shut" territory, but until then, it's fun to see bookworms cast in the James Bond mode.

A long sit for those unfamiliar with Proust's literary quest and output, but the view is sensational.

Blood Diamond is, in the vernacular of Old Hollywood, a rip-roaring adventure, the kind made in the '30s with Clark Gable and the handiest leading lady on contract at MGM.

Depp may not be a trained singer, but his voice is more than passable, and his presence - his Sweeney is Edward Scissorhands gone bad - is perfect. Bonham Carter sings well, too, and young Ed Sanders, as the pie shop's Dickensian apprentice, is a delight.

A personal eulogy, from one artist to another, and an indictment of all systems of government that deny people the right to free expression and the full realization of their talent.

Refreshingly nondogmatic.

It is a sign of the times that audiences will watch these equally selfish lovers and find one infinitely more sensible than the other.

The monster's mashing of Tokyo looks as Ed Wood-like as ever, but the film's humanity gives it depth.

Bale gives a near-great performance as a man with all the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and the film weaves an ingenious psychological web.

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.

The screenplay is laced with wit and sharp dialogue, and the supporting cast more than makes up for Johnson's inexperience and occasional stiffness.

It's an intricate, at times incoherent, but often funny and consistently fascinating trio of stories with the same actors in different but related roles.

Watching Kevin Costner and William Hurt share grim laughs during Bruce Evans' Mr. Brooks is one of the pleasures of this totally absurd and equally entertaining psychological thriller.

Fascinating and often very funny behind-the-scenes look at the tedium and hard work that go into making strangers laugh.

The favorable three-star rating I'm giving the animated Pokémon: The First Movie is based at least partly on the fact that I expected to dislike it and didn't.

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

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

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.

There are some problems with the pacing, but this topical thriller about CIA-sanctioned torture is one of the most important "message" movies of the year.

Surely among the darkest-themed movies ever made.

Jonathan Berman's documentary about California's famous Black Bear Ranch is a trip.

It's almost a surprise that the sequel is actually better - much better - than the original.

Kids are going to adore looking at this movie, living in it, flying through and above its brilliant landscape. It's an animated joyride over a relief map of Manhattan. I just wish the script was as good as the paint.

Roberts carries the film in the best sense, by taking us on a human journey of genuine discovery and growth.

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.

The movie doesn't remind me so much of the movies of Minnelli or Sirk as it does a lavish parody of "Upstairs, Downstairs," with musical interludes (the divas sing, whether they can or not) that are often as painful to watch as they are audaciously performed.

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.

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.

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.

This is first-rate stuff.

A small movie that plays like a Western epic.

It's hard not to like a movie so determined to make you feel the love of a family, to make you feel that every dream can become a reality and that every mortgage - no matter how close to foreclosure - can be rescued by the sudden death of a family member and his inheritance.

Though we had just heard the name Lee Harvey Oswald, I believed he had done it alone. I still do, even more so after watching Robert Stone's meticulously researched, seemingly unbiased summary of the killing and the major conspiracy theories.

The film's greatest strength is its inadvertent timeliness. Parallels between LBJ's Vietnam policy and George W. Bush's Iraq policy go off in your head like flares.

Showing the movie would be a great way to open a debate. I would love to hear its charges answered as clearly as they're stated.

Though there is enough haute couture on display for a season of "Sex and the City" envy, it has definite off-the-rack appeal to regular moviegoers. In fact, it may be the one film this year where you'll see Manolo Blahniks and Doc Martens on women sitting in the same row.

Bittersweet, funny, sad and invariably romantic.

The unlikely cowboys play off each other's strengths like the best doubles team in tennis. The exquisiteness of this match is that Chan and Wilson are both reactive comedy actors.

There's nothing new here, but Frank provides a genial reminder that politics doesn't always have to take the low road.

A reverse male-bonding tale unlike anything you've ever seen. And it's not the easiest good movie to sit through.

A quirky comedy-drama that gets the bulk of its humor from the well-placed non sequitur. It never seems to be going where you think it is, and that includes its oddly endearing dialogue.

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.

This kind of parody is hard to sustain for an hour and a half, and "Walk Hard" does gets wearying at times. But the humor is so outrageous, the original music so much fun and Reilly so good - both while hamming it up in the role and in singing the songs - that it's irresistible.

In this documentary, I learn there are people who can solve a Monday New York Times puzzle in less than three minutes - without looking words up! I don't necessarily want to know these people, but they put on a good show at the annual crossword championship in Stamford, Ct., which is the centerpiece of this affectionate, smartly-done promo for puzzling.

Its story, characters, dialogue, humor and voice performances are first-rate.

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.

Thornton, directing his first film since the minimalist "Sling Blade" (1996), has a much better grip on the material when he's focused on the scruffy desert landscape and the adventures of the two Texans.

I'm not sure the filmmakers - one, Harry Thomason, is a long-time Friend of Bill - have connected enough dots to prove a "vast" conspiracy. But that many people devoted much of their lives and resources to destroying Clinton is indisputable.

With more than a passing nod to the Hollywood mob movie, Pavel Lounguine ("Luna Park") crafts this superb post-Soviet "Godfather" movie loosely based on the exploits of bad boy billionaire Boris Berezovsky.

Smith turns it on with co-star Eva Mendes in a manner that will have George Clooney taking notes.

That's what Bond is all about -- dazzle, some really bad puns and the kind of sexy fun that satisfies high-school urges while masquerading in tux and tails.

What "Capote" fails to reveal to the audience is the sense of a homoerotic attraction between the author and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.). It is more than implied that one exists, but there isn't a scene between them that supports it or even makes it believable.

Too long by about 20 minutes, and takes itself too seriously near the end. But if you're looking for a movie for a boys' night out, it's a winner.

A reasonable facsimile of a perversely funny book whose odd characters are given life by a terrific cast.

If you can overcome the graphic nature of its casual violence, it is a lot of fun. The banter among the brothers is well-written and has a genuine fraternal feel to it. And the chases and shootouts have a fresh malevolence to them.

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.

Cage is a wonderful light comedian; were someone to remake "It's a Wonderful Life," he'd be on the short list for the role of George Bailey. And Leoni is Donna Reed, reborn.

The tension and intrigue between the pretender and his would-be associates is as dense as the woods surrounding their hiding place.

It's no small trick to blend fantasy, slapstick and genuine emotion, but Ellis pulls it off with whimsy to spare.

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.

There are many ways to say that war is hell, but few filmmakers have said it with as much imagination, humor, intrigue and humanity as Jean-Pierre Jeunet in A Very Long Engagement.

A raunchy, irreverent, generally hilarious sendup of ritual and papal decree.

It's impossible not to be moved by its nearly nonstop visual assault.

The story is fascinating for its simplicity and its inherent truths about the downside of progress.

It is certainly the feel-good movie of the season.

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

The voice performances are terrific, particularly those of Belushi and Garofalo, as the amorous squirrel and the giraffe he would like to have as his wife.

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.

The action in this fast-paced, hysterically overproduced and surprisingly entertaining film is as realistic as a Road Runner cartoon.

I don't know if that makes Infamous a better movie, but it's certainly as good and a lot more fun. British actor Toby Jones is so physically right in the role, you'll think Capote is playing himself.

Fresh and often very funny, and it makes its point that when our native urges conflict with social norms, the former shall give in to the latter, or else.

It is not easy to watch, yet beyond the traps that society and the urban culture have set up for Drey and the other kids, and the traps that Dan is falling into on his own, this is ultimately a hopeful story of common humanity.

The first must-see adult film of the young fall.

Greenwald has created a crisp historical document that is worth your time, even if the information in it was not worth the President's.

The Bridesmaid is fairly familiar Chabrol country, an exploration of the psychological undercurrent of the bourgeoisie, with heavy helpings of black comedy.

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.

Blunt, alternately prurient, funny and depressing.

A solid delight, the sort of cinematic concoction you might expect from a time-warp collaboration between Preston Sturges and Jim Jarmusch.

While "Cars" may have the most elaborate CGI effects of the season, and "Monster House?" the most original character (the house), The Ant Bully can lay claim to the most entertaining story and most rewarding ending.

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.

Krabbe attempts to stuff too many themes and subplots into the story.

As a premise, this is thinner than a strand of cotton candy, but fairy tales have been hung from less, and what keeps this one together is the surprisingly easy chemistry between Grant and Barrymore.

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.

A very clever update of the 16-year-old heroine, managing to make her seem both as square as the Bobbsey Twins and as contemporary as MySpace.

Newark Mayor Sharpe James is the kind of politician that Tony Soprano would be happy to own.

Lurie has made an impressive contribution to the bulging library of political film, and he has showcased some performances sure to get Oscar consideration.

A fairly nifty piece of suspense filmmaking, with a strong if relatively undemanding performance from Douglas.

I say bring 'em on, if the stories can be told as well, as convincingly and as inspirationally as Richard LaGravenese's Freedom Writers, an educational fantasy that happens to be mostly true.

When Carrey is doing his thing as the Almighty, histrionically whipping up one miracle after another and relishing the power, "Bruce" has you spring-cleaning your lungs with laughter. But you are made to pay for it with a third-act sap-rising that's as thick as the final reels of "Patch Adams."

Piddington does a beautiful balancing act, creating a movie that works both on the level of suspense and as a detailed factual chronicle.

Private, Italian director Saverio Costanzo's stunning human drama, would seem like something out of Kafka if it weren't based on real events and a relatively common fact of contemporary Palestinian life.

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.

The movie is filled with sweetly funny moments, but its exposure of class, income and cultural differences makes it an uneasy charmer right up to its violent denouement.

When it's funny, Best is hilarious.

This is Murray's subtlest performance, and one of his best.

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.

In this candid, fascinating film, Cadigan has the will - and the family support - to defeat his demons. It's clear that for him, the ending is only the beginning, but it's filled with hope.

This might have come off as both self-indulgent and preachy if McElwee weren't so persuasively earnest. "Bright Leaves" becomes both a mystery and memoir in progress and though the filmmaker does not find the truth he is looking for, it was clearly a quest worth undertaking.

The movie fascinates not so much because of Strummer, whose brooding temperament and flash-and-burn career arc seems pretty routine by rock standards, but because of the way Temple organized and edited the film.

The film should have the edgy wit of "Election" here, but instead is played so straight it's hard to make the shift when things start getting really crazy. But stick with it and you'll be rewarded with a new kind of superhero and a couple of the ghastliest, most outrageous penis jokes ever imagined.

A solidly crafted, entertaining melodrama.

Keane is a movie you might see on a dare, and though I think it is brilliantly conceived, I wouldn't dare to dare you.

Sin City snaps, crackles and pops like no graphic novel ever brought to the screen. Mixing live-action with computer-generated images, it looks like the novels, talks and bleeds like the novels, is as muscular and voluptuous as the novels - and it leaves you breathless as only a movie can.

If, unlike his friends, you don't take anything Andre says seriously, there is a wicked sense of fun about it, and you may even see a little of yourself in one of the characters.

The upside and downside of surveillance cameras are explored in ways both funny and sad in writer-director Adam Rifkin's imaginative, ultimately disturbing ode to high-tech voyeurism.

While there is nothing particularly new in the film, it is a stirring celebration of a man of enormous talent, humor and humanity, laid waste by an assassin in New York in 1980.

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

If there's anybody left who believes in free discourse, the students were clear winners.

Has the schematic feel of a disease-of-the-week TV movie, but the connections made between jazz and the minds that produce it turns the film into something much more intimate and compelling.

Shortland's script takes some unnecessary turns, mostly with Joe's drinking and sexual insecurities. But as long as it's focused on Heidi's predicament, it is riveting drama.

Ultimately, Eyes Wide Shut doesn't rank among Kubrick's best work.

Perhaps the most evocative movie of the new year, Campbell Scott's Off the Map, moves at the pace of a Southwestern sunset and ends before you're quite ready to let it go.

The performances are first-rate, with the always inventive Macy a standout as the hopeful, tormented Chappy, and Zahn a scream as the lovably imbecilic Wayne.

Passionate, enlightening and unabashedly one-sided, Abby Epstein's documentary is not for everyone. But at the very least, it should be seen by every pregnant woman in America.

Super Size Me produces more laughs than a man's gastrointestinal distress should.

The star of this overachieving trifle is not Kidman, it's Paul Rudnick. The New York playwright and screenwriter ("In & Out") has taken a pair of dated watermarks from the '70s - Ira Levin's horror novel and its faithful 1975 movie adaptation - and turned them into a broad, feverishly fey parody.

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.

Compelling and highly informative.

Director Margarethe von Trotta nearly buries the drama of the protest itself within the awkwardly sentimental framework of a contemporary New Yorker's quest to learn the truth of her widowed German mother's grief and history. But while the film concentrates on Lena, eloquently portrayed by Katja Riemann, the movie earns your empathy.

The greatest strength of this modest production is Jones. ZigZag's autism is mild, meaning his symptoms are subtle, and the 19-year-old novice is completely convincing.

One of Rohmer's more engaging slices of life. The acting is impeccable.

Given the physical limitations of their characters, Polley and Robbins give remarkably compelling performances, and though the resolution of their slowly evolving relationship is a bit too pat, it is one you won't soon forget.

I didn't feel the love between the flowering idealist and the ruthless killer. If I did, I would have given the movie four stars. Everything else is wonderful.

It comes off as a fairly straightforward assault on the kind of political corruption that has crossed party lines in movies since the dawn of the medium, and in books before that. The pleasure here is in the dialogue, the characters and the cast.

There is no great story being told here. Mostly, it is a conventional road movie - a buddy comedy even - about the quests of two likable guys. The memoirs exist only because of Guevara's subsequent fame as a revolutionary leader in Cuba, Congo and Bolivia.

There's a lot of flashy acting going, notably by Travolta, who has not been more engaging on-screen in a decade, and by newcomer Barrett, a willowy Aussie who, as a woman living with the specter of death, gives the film's most complete performance.

Gaudi Afternoon, adapted from Barbara Wilson's novel, is a setup for a smart ensemble comedy, and the cast delivers in hilarious deadpan style.

Carrey's performance is a tour de force of physical mime.

Shot in Morocco with hand-held cameras, the movie has the urgency of a heart attack. Clearly tilted against the war, and heavy on explanatory dialogue, it paints a bleak picture of a desperate country that is being exploited by extremists at the expense of the despairing citizens. The situation is dire.

Sometimes painful, often joyous, and altogether illuminating.

A relatively straightforward portrait of Holmes, using interviews with family members, friends, wives, X-film producers and his former co-stars.

Mendes -- wants to have it both ways, to get close to mob life, but be no part of it. And he keeps us at a dime-novel distance, too. He has made a dreamy, poetic impression of a world that exists only on film and in comic strips, and that has no resonance for most of us.

Good, indecent fun starring two of the most amiable comedy actors around.

Morton's as good an actress as any working today and in Control, she overcomes an age gap to give one of the year's most heartbreaking and honest performances.

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.

Good music stands alone, and the documentary is jaunty fun.

It is an amazing story, filled with quiet moments of profundity and more surprises than you could imagine.

Working with a doll can't be easy, but Gosling actually makes it feel emotionally real. A scene where he shares an imaginary dance with Bianca, with his eyes closed and a beatific smile on his face, is by itself worth the price of admission.

From the moment we meet Abby, whimsically soothing her callers, we're turned into lap dogs, ready to follow her -- ready to follow Garofalo -- anywhere.

A combination homage, living obituary and darkly moody piece of cinematic poetry.

For those who go along with it, it's a crafty piece of work nonetheless, ending with a pair of marvelous twists. [16 Jan 1998, p.F1]

Mighty Joe Young may be the season's most appealing family bet. Certainly, it has an appealing cast.

The idea of Bean fitting into this situation, even disastrously, requires more than suspension of disbelief. It requires a full blackout of reasoning. But for the converted, and for people with a low threshold for visual comedy, Bean amounts to a hill of laughs.

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]

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

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.

Oddest-of-the-year romantic comedy.

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

The standout in the cast is James Todd Smith, whose acting talent may soon persuade him to shed his adolescent stage name of LL Cool J and concentrate on mainstream film roles.

It's no Runaway success, but Gere and Roberts still glow.

In Crazy Love, friends of Burt and Linda express as much confusion over their relationship as we feel, and the Pugaches themselves make an unconvincing case for theirs being a love that conquered all. On the contrary, love doesn't seem to have had anything to do with them. She married him out of desperation, and he pursued her out of a sense of entitlement.

Far from the smart historical epic some might have expected, is just another feisty summer shoot-'em-up.

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

Asylum is as dark as Dracula's mood on a moonless night, and people suffering from depression should think twice before opening the coffin. This thing would put off Mary Poppins.

As movie fiction, I guess it is entertaining enough.

The time-warp romantic fantasy The Lake House is a puzzle that is maddeningly obtuse, emotionally overstretched, and virtually absent a sense of interior logic.

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.

So much is so good about The Recruit that you'll wish the ending were better. It's like opening the last lid in a Chinese box and having a clown figure pop out on a spring.

Written to skewer the upper class of its time, the script is now just a broad joke-fest, clever lines batted back and forth like badminton shuttlecocks.

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

Most of the film is way too goofy for all but the most thumbstruck Hitchhiker.

I watched A Good Woman with a fixed smile frequently interrupted by giggles, but I didn't believe a second of it.

There isn't a flicker of chemistry between these old pros in Andre Techine's peculiar melodrama.

Just as surely as the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, this domestic comedy follows a direct path through every crisis, every resolution and every sentimental heartbeat laid out in the script.

The dialogue between the captive and the captors gets a little didactic, and the ending is as contrived as it is cynical. Weingartner obviously has more in common with the rich man than the kids.

That's a lot just to justify a cute title, but cuteness is the engine driving the slight, obvious but occasionally very funny film.

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 Spanish writers-directors often overreach for humor, and really overreach for a happy ending. But there's a strong heart beating beneath the foolishness and one wonderful performance from Leonor Watling.

If you're game for something different, it's worth a few giggles.

Like previous films by the literary-minded auteur John Sayles, Honeydripper takes forever to develop its characters, its period and its location. But once it's done all that, the payoffs are rich.

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

Minghella has certainly mounted a gorgeous movie and the battle scenes are brutally spectacular. But overall, "Cold Mountain" is like a fine piece of hand-crafted leather, where the stitching shows its quality. That looks good on a handbag, not so good on the big screen.

Meandering, overlong digital soap opera.

The actress' [Julianne Moore's] goodwill, alone, holds this schizophrenic story together - if just barely.

Humorist and liberal radio talk-show host Al Franken is a funny guy, and most of the people he attacks - Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney - are not. But the joke was on him when George Bush won re-election in 2004.

I'm no psychologist, but it took about half this film's overlong running time to figure out that Metallica's problem is that Ulrich is a major pain in the butt.

As a story, Burton's Planet of the Apes is more of a comic-book creation than either of his "Batman" movies.

For each joke that is fresh, there are at least three that fall thuddingly flat. Rock suffers a problem common to comedians moving from sketches to features; he hasn't quite been able to get his performance level above caricature. To his credit, he's made more of this than you'd expect from the lame premise.