Jack Mathews

You don't have to be a Muslim, or a humorless person of any persuasion, to find Brooks' performance excruciating.

We never really learn what Lee thinks of this man, other than that he is worth every second of a 130-minute documentary.

Dispiriting, unsubtle and unpleasant.

It takes chutzpah to title this movie Déjà Vu; every scene in it rings a bell. Certainly, I had just seen the same affable-righteous performance from Washington in Spike Lee's "Inside Man."

One long camp joke, with vamped scenes strung together.

Herzog, who deadpans his way through the high jinks, is the best thing about the movie, but even he gets wearisome before Nessie has sunk the boat.

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

This is a riveting story about a man who for years moonlighted as an anonymous hangman while holding a day job as a wholesale grocery delivery man.

You can guess how it all ends, but getting there is a repetitious parade of put-downs and smackdowns that suggest you can't go home again - not when your mom's sleeping with a monster from your past.

The new buddy comedy movie that assumes the names of the series' characters and features the same hot-to-trot, tomato-red and shocking-white 1974 Ford Gran Torino is more fun than a Heidi Fleiss open house.

In condensing Rusesabagina's story, George has undoubtedly overstated the specific dramatic moments; the movie has more cliff-hangers than the "Indiana Jones" series.

Isn't a movie as much as it is a feature-length screen test.

History as filtered through the faux-liberal prism of Hollywood's dream factory, and an insult, I believe, to the people who actually carried the fight and endured the pain for civil rights.

About the only plausible element in the entire movie is bratty Vanessa's loathing of "Aunt" Mona, whom she sees as a vacuous over-reacher.

One of the ugliest movies I've ever seen. Even though it occurs mostly in the dark, the open flesh wounds are both graphic and implausible.

Its characters are as entertainingly quirky as any he's given us before, and his familiar themes -- strangers in a strange land, lives reformed by chance encounters -- are played out with much higher stakes and with greater purpose.

It takes us about half the film to adjust to its quirkiness, and we leave the theater with both laughter cramps and the feeling that it should have been funnier a lot longer.

The naturalistic dialogue is a masterful bit of writing, credited to Linklater and his "Sunrise" co-writer Kim Krizan, as well as to the two stars.

One of the most skillful, mesmerizing, tense and satisfying time-warp thrillers ever made.

James Siegel's best-selling thriller Derailed is a perfect commuter book that has become the most imperfect of movies.

The script gets so silly, the Monty Python troupe would reject it.

Looks a lot like 1950s American gangster films -- particularly, John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle" -- but it's decidedly French in its sexual candor and moral laissez-faire.

Never graduates above the boneheaded.

The movie is dismally organized, his (Keys) interviews are shallow and uninformative, and the project has a whole lacks a strong point of view.

Mostly a lazy string of setups and sight gags, of tongue-in-cheek confrontations between the two stars that barely amount to sketches.

A bad Altman impression of the L.A. rock scene.

People unfamiliar with either man may think Altman is mocking Keillor and his 32-year-old radio program here. But, it is pure affection, and the movie is as much up-tempo, irresistible fun to watch as the show is to hear.

The incredibly moving post-9/11 drama Reign Over Me proves that behind the funny guy facades of former standup comedians Mike Binder and Adam Sandler are a pair of very serious talents.