Jack Mathews

A fragmented, episodic feel and a conclusion that seems both remote and remote-controlled.

I wanted more. I expected more. The filmmakers said it was going to be smart - really smart - like all of Lee's movies. Instead, it's big, dumb and fun.

The Brighton Beach crowds come off more like tourists, and the Odessans in Israel can't seem to decide which is their real homeland. And it's all very confusing.

The whole movie is something of a country-music clich, and it takes all of your imagination to be as enthusiastic about the characters' singing as they are. But The Thing Called Love is worth a look on the big screen. [16 July 1999]

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

"Songs" is a delight. It's a visual feast and often hilarious.

The movie has an ironic and unpredictable ending, but it doesn't wash away the sour taste of Brad's behavior.

Whether this reserved, hypercautious widower can deal with the arousal she creates in him - let alone be physically able to act on it - is one of the many layers of tension that drive this unusual and absolutely riveting dance.

French director Mathieu Kassovitz Frenches this flimsy tale to death. No scene goes underplayed, no performance (save one, from Robert Downey Jr.) lacks volume, no horror cliche is forgotten.

It might have been a marketing nightmare, but if Lopez and Tyler had switched roles, it would have been a better movie.

The laugh ratio in this run-on of skits is pretty low, at least to the unaltered mind of one who's seen enough of these films and eaten enough White Castle burgers to last a lifetime.

The movie feels like a rush job and at times its tactics are as suspect as those attributed to its subject. But when it comes to political strategy trumping policy in the Bush White House, it makes its case.

It's just a setup for another bad sight gag that ends up where the script itself belongs, in the trash.

Underdeveloped and badly diluted by overlong -- and overly stylized -- forays into the drug use, street hustling and cultural alienation that mostly affects the boys' friends.

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.

A little Disney Christmas release that comes wrapped in used toilet paper.

Doesn't play on the screen. P.S. Your Cat is Dead is a stage-locked, two-character play on a static set, and though Guttenberg takes it outside for a couple of scenes, it remains that on film.

Paltrow does this role exceptionally well, but it is underwritten.

An unusually shallow and facile work for Brooks, but the writing and the performances - other than Leoni's - keep us at least halfway involved.

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

Surges forward with barely a respite. It's like watching a propane factory burn, waiting for the tanks inside to explode, and when they do, we're right in the middle of it.

What Haggis obviously wants to explore is what the war in Iraq is doing to the humanity of our soldiers there. By approaching it indirectly, he simplifies it to a degree that I expect will anger many Iraq veterans.

Meadows is very good with the boys' relationship, and achieves his and Fraser's central goal of showing how childhood bonds can be simultaneously fragile and strong.

The good news here is that Woolley and his writers have taken the mystery surrounding Jones' tragic 1969 death as their main interest, and have adopted as fact the long-cherished rumor that the blond rocker's drowning was a case of murder. It may be speculative history, but at least it's a story.

Whether the movie will make you believe a shocking-orange stock car has a future with a lavender Carrera, it's more fun to follow than a televised freeway chase.

Though it is not nearly as funny as last summer's "Wedding Crashers," directing brothers Joe and Anthony Russo's You, Me and Dupree has plenty of chuckles and another sparkling, post-adolescent surfer-dude performance from Owen Wilson.

A light-footed comedy that suggests that for even the most desperate, love is just around the corner.

More than awful, more than dreadful, and easily the worst beach movie ever made.

The movie is over in a breezy 112 minutes, but it may be another half-hour before your sides quit aching.

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.

A meticulous, elaborate stunt, a movie two degrees of separation from its source, and maybe another degree from viewers' hearts.

Like Wong's past films, 2046 is lovely to behold, elegantly moody and rich in atmospherics. And the women caught in Chow's web are extraordinary beauties.

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.

Best of this trio is Bruno's 50-minute Sacrifice, a series of vivid and heartbreaking interviews with girls and young women who have been sold or drafted out of rural Burma into sexual bondage at Thai brothels.

What stands out, not surprisingly, is the work and passion that goes into the shows. But seeing all this from the inside creates an extraordinary level of empathy for those involved.

Cruise isn't horribly miscast, a la Tony Curtis in "The Son of Ali Baba" or John Wayne as Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror," but he doesn't miss by far.

Though his latest, Sunshine State, shows Sayles usual literary care, it's a very slight work compared with such cinematic tomes as "Lone Star," "Matewan" and "Eight Men Out."

Funny and masterfully inventive.

The homoerotic relationship between Friedrich and Albrecht is stopped short by tragedy, but the point is made - to Friedrich and the audience - that fascism has no room for humanity.

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

In what is more a cry of regret than a coherent story, Shepard's character mopes his way through meetings with an old girlfriend (Jessica Lange) and the grown children he sired, the only apparent lesson being that bad behavior has a way of circling back on you.

The result is a charming, inventive, ambitious, surreal mess.

There are too many characters undergoing life changes in the story for each to be properly developed in an 82-minute movie. But for the most part, the actors get the work done.

It's described as a black comedy, but you can forget the comedy part. There wasn't so much as a snicker at the screening I attended, though I may have heard a snore or two.

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

[Boyle] shrugs off any intellectual pretense to rollick in a dead-on scare fest. On that level, 28 Days Later is indeed a frightfully good time.

One of those bright ideas for a TV sketch that convinces someone it's too good to waste on the small screen. It's not.

Danes' smart, fun, radiant and very attractive Mirabelle actually undermines the premise of the book

The Bundy portrayed here doesn't have even the veneer of charm; he's a raving psycho, and watching him work, whatever the filmmakers' intent, is revolting exploitation.

Nothing in the movie rings true, least of all its depiction of gambling, both in casinos and in the bookie world that ultimately drives the story.

Most of the incidents are harmlessly derivative, but the movie has a mean streak that undermines our empathy for the characters, particularly Tom.

The play within the movie is much more entertaining.

Pretty much a road to nowhere.

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.

Has all the appeal of a video game without the joystick. All you can do is watch. It's noisy and moves fast, but if you can't play, why pay?