Jack Mathews

If it weren't based on a true story, you might suspect Sydney McCartney's A Love Divided was created by a panel of militant Irish Protestants.

The Specialist allows Eichmann to convict himself, not of complicity in the Holocaust -- to that he pleads guilty, by reason of nationalism -- but as a man unfazed by his own inhumanity.

At times, the giddy tone makes it feel like a musical set on the eve of Pearl Harbor, but the acting is uniformly good and it's an absolutely gorgeous film to watch.

More than the sum of its parts.

Josh Hamilton gives a marvelously engaging performance in this fish-out-of-water comedy.

Manhattan has always been a fat target for apocalypse filmmakers, but with its 9/11-inspired imagery, Matt Reeves' breathlessly fast-paced Cloverfield is going to resonate with New York audiences in a way no other horror film has.

Joy Ride is plenty spooky but there's also plenty of comic relief -- mostly from the perennially goofy Zahn.

The story feels as urgent as the latest bad news out of the Middle East.

A grim, poetic, heart-wrenchingly fine ode to the lost children of Glasgow's forgotten class.

Japanese Story could have been a two-character play staged in front of a desert mural. It wouldn't have been as pretty, but it's that tight.

Not wildly imaginative, and it has a tepid mix of movie references. But the physical environment and characters make it irresistible.

A fascinating story.

What is lacking in suspense is more than made up for in passion and in sports cinematography virtuosity.

The documentary plays it down the middle, neither condemning nor romanticizing the political outlaws, but making sense of who they were and what they did.

A flawed but highly entertaining B Western blown up to John Ford scale.

It has a nifty premise and outstanding performances from Ferrell, as the protagonist-in-progress, and Emma Thompson, as his blocked creator.

This is a crazy, gorgeous, disturbing, darkly comic horror story about an early-18th-century Frenchman born in a Paris fish market without any odor of his own but with a sense of smell that would make a pack of bloodhounds wail with envy.

A slog to get through, but Jeanie Drynan's nuanced performance as the enduring matriarch makes it all worthwhile.

Fujimori comes off as amiable and in full denial, recalling the positive headlines of his presidency - and there were many - while laying the scandals off on Montesinos.

Does something no other Jesse James movie has done: It tells the truth.

Bernstein blunts the inherent tension by zipping everything along at the pace of a snail with a sore foot. Still, Montenegro does wonders in her long silences, and makes her love scene with the eager 72-year-old Cortez look like a hookup at Club Med.

Reilly can play nuts, too, and in a lower gear that reins Ferrell in. They're a great team.

If you've got the patience, this is still one of the all-time exercises in cinematic cool.

Images wash over you like wind-blown rain, fierce and beautiful at the same time, largely shaped into themes by the haunting music of Philip Glass, who is here joined by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

It is remarkably, unsentimentally dramatized by Fred Schepisi, courtesy of the pitch-perfect performances of its ensemble British cast.

Energetic, provocative.

Plumbs the issue of sibling love and family responsibility in quietly powerful ways, and the performances of the two stars surpass convincing to reach a level of biographical realism.

Whether he'll achieve his goal of setting the world land-speed record for motorcycles is never in doubt, of course, but getting to a film's climactic scene has rarely been more fun.