Jack Mathews

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

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

You have never seen a concert film like U2 3D, and it may change your expectations for the rest of your rocking years.

The whole system was sadistic and indefensible, and the church, looking the other way as long as profits rolled in from the laundries, deserves the scorn that Mullan and his fine cast heap on it.

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

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.

The actors are solid at every position, but Broderick, who seems to get better with each performance, is especially good at playing the impulsively self-destructive yet sympathetic loser.

One of the most original and ultimately confounding mind games to reach the screen since "The Usual Suspects."

Peter O'Toole, looking frail beyond his 74 years, gives what may be his farewell performance as a leading movie actor in Roger Michell's Venus. It's one for the books - and maybe the Oscars, too.

A remarkable and moving account of a part of the French experience that needs more remembering and less forgetting.

A slick, fast-paced production with first-rate performances and an emotional punch you won't soon forget.

Beautifully shot, both in darkened homes and on the misty green Irish landscape by Loach's frequent cinematographer Barry Aykroyd, "Wind" has a you-are-there intensity and intimacy about it that make it nearly overwhelming. But for all its violence and subsequent sadness, it's a movie of extraordinary importance.

Breathtaking.

School of Rock may be to Black what "The Nutty Professor" was to Jerry Lewis, or "Groundhog Day" was to Bill Murray - that rare, perfectly tailored opportunity to play against one's broadest impulses. Not to neutralize them, necessarily, but to tame them and turn them into something very human and charming.

Tony Gilroy, co-author of the superb Jason Bourne film trilogy, makes a stunning directorial debut with Michael Clayton, an out-of-courtroom drama that helps solidify George Clooney's acting bona fides.

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

Until he was shot to death in 2000, Haitian radio journalist Jean Dominique was a lone voice for truth and freedom in his politically riven country.

Greenebaum's tedious, film-school level exercise in self-indulgence and exploitation.

Everything about this political thriller is ridiculous.

First-time feature director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's dark, complex allegory about luck, chance and fate is one of the year's most morbidly fascinating foreign films.

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.

The humor in de Heer's script is mostly anatomical, and the performances of the nonpro cast are stiffer than bark. But you've never seen anything like it.

It's just twice as much as we need to know about the Sex Pistols.

A guy flick, but I can't imagine many male viewers actually identifying with Elliot or his friends. The depression would be unbearable.

A popcorn movie with a protein center, satisfying neither taste.

In any case, this is the image of the marquis we would know had he been handled by a top publicity team.

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

I like the idea of a cybercrimes agent cracking cases through superior knowledge of the Internet. Marsh could be a great heroine for a continuing series. But Untraceable essentially forces its audience to identify with those who would be willing accomplices to torture and murder. To understate the point, that's not an audience-friendly approach.