Jami Bernard

Gloriously inventive, delightfully nutty comic treasure is unlike anything you've ever seen. It's lunatic.

Michael Jackson is an alien? Tell me something I don't know.

No other mainstream movie has so openly tackled the subject of female sexual experience.

A comedy that successfully plays with stereotypes, both racial and personal.

The movie is set in a gloriously creepy and crumbling Venice. It's the off-season, and every deserted canal and alleyway reeks of bad vibes. Roeg plays masterfully with this menacing atmosphere, jangling the nerves with quick cuts and quixotic possibilities. [16 Oct 1998, p.72]

High spirits and colorful hissy fits go a long way toward masking the inexperience of this cast of mostly nonprofessionals. It's a charmer.

An impressive portrait of the migraine of teenage girlhood, and also works on the more modest level of teen romance.

Like all blond jokes, Legally Blonde is basically meanspirited, and that's when it's funniest.

A fascinating whirl of politics and palace intrigue.

Spielberg's direction and Melissa Mathison's script never lose sight of the realistic, low center of gravity world of childhood, in which such marvelous adventures happen every day that an alien knocking around the garage is not really such an unusual occurrence. [2002 re-release]

The result is a bit of a mess: sometimes delightful, sometimes tedious, always creative.

The results are impressive. Maybe, as the U.S. falls abysmally behind other nations in the sciences, it will get kids interested in that field again.

Some of the simplest shots give you the full picture of the price these guys paid for their dreams.

The movie's pleasures are spare, and will appeal mostly to die-hard Rivette fans and viewers with slow pulses.

Has a great deal of empathy for that excruciating limbo that is female adolescence.

A charmer with an attractive cast and an excellent soundtrack.

A caustic, funny, low-budget treat, shot on digital video.

The vitality of the hip-hop scene serves as both backdrop and metaphor in a romantic comedy as sweet as its title.

This languorous art movie is somewhat like "Memento," with its narrative fragments and memory mixups. It never explains itself, which means that the audience, like the protagonists, must take a leap of faith.

Yet another film from Iran that has the leisurely pace, sly humor and incontrovertible wisdom of a Sufi parable.

The movie pulls off the trick of blurring the distinctions between romantic and platonic attractions across the generations.

With one exception (hint: Faye Dunaway), the actors seem remarkably at home in their milieu.

Writer-director Danis Tanovic, a Bosnian who spent years documenting his homeland's turmoil, makes a bold feature-film debut with this funny, sobering message movie.

The movie exaggerates a common dynamic between men and women.

Handsome, passionate and fun. It's everything we go to the movies for.

A welcome departure from typical movies about teens, wherein their problems are external (the prom, status). Mean Creek is an adult movie that just happens to star young actors.

A surprisingly genial and affecting comedy about the trials and tribulations of teenage rebellion during the Reagan '80s.

A delicately upbeat, even humorous celebration of love and sacrifice.

Refreshingly offbeat documentary.

This extraordinary film refracts truth through the prism of memory, until what you get is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, full of sacrifice and betrayal.

Viard plays one of the most intriguing female characters in recent film from either side of the Atlantic.

Works on several playful levels. Most obviously, it is a horror movie in which life imitates art on a movie set.

Borderline brilliant. Tackles the war on drugs from a kaleidoscope of perspectives.

This is not for the Merchant-Ivory crowd, but action fans will feel their pulses quicken.

Many of the right elements -- the '40s look, the melodrama, the love that transcends reason.

A magnificent looking and occasionally very silly Chinese Western.

The screen smokes with sexual heat. But what's really erotic is how much fun the actors seem to be having.

Simple, joyful and downright innocent movie.

Not since Cary Grant offered Joan Fontaine a gleaming glass of milk has a bedtime toddy looked as suspicious as it does in Claude Chabrol's wittily enigmatic Merci pour le chocolat.

A simple story that resonates deeply, largely thanks to the actors' ability to invest it with inner life.

Shrek 2 delivers more fun than there is slime in a green ogre's swamp. Much of that is thanks to Antonio ­Banderas, who runs away with Shrek 2 on little cat feet.

Who knew a drama about numbers could be so thrilling?

If there's a soft spot in your heart for the sword-&-sandal epic -- and from the star rating above, I think you can guess where I stand -- then you'll swoon with giddy delight over Gladiator.

This is another brilliant performance by Crowe, who is to body language what Meryl Streep is to accents.

Whatever substance there is of Ocean's Twelve fades faster than invisible ink. But it's not the kind of movie you watch for plot details. It's really about spending two hours on that Lake Como speedboat, relaxing with pals.

Graham is lots of fun to watch, but it's hard to reconcile the split halves of her character.

The movie is so nervous about offending anyone that it's hardly any fun. Hanks delivers a few solemn speeches meant to deflect criticism. Meanwhile, he and Tautou barely hit it off. At least Mr. and Mrs. Smith got hot while doing their jobs.

A deeply felt celebration of the life force, as embodied in Girard's fierce performance as a man who may not have done all he could, but had an enviably great time on the way.

The story is predictable, even bland, but the stellar cast, detailed set design and abundance of good humor elevate it from the typical feel-good movie. It makes for intelligent counterprogramming against some of the season's harder-edged fare.

Apparently Louis Kahn was not much of a father, raconteur or businessman. But he was a genius, and he left his mark on all the people whose lives he touched.

Dispels myths about the "gangsta" aura that clings to rap and shows this poetry of the streets in all its different forms: social protest, entertainment and aggression.

An amazingly self-assured movie, it percolates with themes and ideas, all held together by the gift of the bull's parts.

Silly, perfect fun.

The sunny, funny, toe-tapping Lagaan is the answer to those who ask why they don't make movies like they used to: They do, but in India.

The girl's blindness may have been meant to symbolize a trusting populace, but she's the one character who clearly sees what's what and who is trustworthy.

A non-sappy and genuinely adorable confection. It wiped away the Scrooge in me for 90 enchanting minutes.

Visually, Robots is fun and imaginative. The wow factor is enhanced in the IMAX version, also opening today.

It's a triumph of the human spirit that so many people in deadly jobs are able, nevertheless, to marry and have a few happy moments despite lives of hellish labor. Glawogger's intrepid camera finds both the shame and the grace in it.

As junky as the movie is, you've gotta love its immersion in the preposterous and its naive hope that street credibility and attitude, along with a need for speed, are all that's really necessary in this big, bad world.

Bai Ling plays a resourceful prostitute from a Malaysian refugee camp who grows harder and more alienated by the day. Nick Nolte, Tim Roth and Temuera Morrison offer strong supporting performances.

A natural successor to "The Blair Witch Project" in terms of its small suggestions of horror past and future.

The movie does have one very perplexing major flaw. It throws in some minor-character narration toward the end, as if test audiences had lost their ability to concentrate, and this was the filmmaker's only solution for getting us back on track.

Violent, cool and street-smart, Shaft supplies everything you want in a summer movie.

The sepia-tinted palette of Ask the Dust drips, reeks and creaks of the seamy side of a city that takes more often than it gives.

The script provides an excellent payoff, although action fans may not agree, because that payoff is the equivalent of a Cheshire cat's grin.

An unexpected delight.

The direction is still slick, but Matchstick Men gets most of its thrills from the unknowable in human interaction. This could be the biggest "scam" Scott himself has pulled off.

A pleasure, chock full of creatively choreographed fight scenes.

Could easily serve as an instructional video for repressive regimes who have not yet learned you can get more with honey than with vinegar.

Brilliant. [24 December 1997, p. 24]

With his haggard good looks and bearish presence, Nolte is the main event in this colorful three-ring circus of a heist picture.

Written, acted and directed so intelligently that it stands out from the pack, and is guaranteed to give you the warm glow of holiday movies past -- the kind that celebrated faith in human potential and the value of hard work.

The power of the arts to transcend cultural differences is presumably what moves the German to spare Szpilman, and, perhaps, is the key to Polanski's salvation as well.

Amazing... There are only a finite number of filmmakers with the devotion, patience and ability to tease out these stories.

Sven Wollter and Viveka Seldahl give superb performances as the couple, a once-vigorous conductor and his orchestra's concertmistress. But soon ... well, you know the drill.

It's a virtual clip reel of grandly comic moments that remind us what a good actress can do when parts are scarce.

Has that same air of silly innocence, a rarity in today's movies.

Accomplishes two great things on what was undoubtedly a minuscule budget. It breathes life into a small story that has larger ramifications. It also shows that America, as represented by Jackson Heights, is still the promised land for people about whom movies are rarely made.

The actors are unknowns, but Ryan does a lot with her little downturned mouth. There are as many shades of anxiety as there are shades of blue in the sea, and Ryan manages to find them all.

This genteel confection skews toward older audiences - those who go for "Calendar Girls," "Ladies in Lavender" and "Mrs. Brown."

This is a sophisticated and unsettling documentary marred only by a voice-over taken from the writings of Jamaica Kincaid.

The movie is an actors' paradise, and absolutely no one disappoints.

Pacino is masterful as the sharp-witted, seen-it-all detective.

A crowd pleaser, even if it is unremarkable.

That it all seems improvised on the spot (it was not) is testament to the power of a film that trusts its characters, its actors and its ultimate goal.

Delicious, intelligent thriller.

Billy Bob Thornton wrote, directed and stars in this compassionate, occasionally funny, character-driven movie about a mentally unstable man who takes the best interests of children very seriously.

With its agile, clever script and winning characters, Toy Story 2 is that rare thing -- an excellent children's movie with no upper age limit.

Unleashed serves two masters, each one disappointingly: It's a brutal series of over-amped fights, and it's a touching story of human nature at war with itself.

One of the reasons the move is so funny is that it is only a few degrees away from real life.

It's a compassionate story about what makes people tick and what really matters.

Omar Sharif certainly doesn't disappoint in Monsieur Ibrahim. The casting alone promises something extraordinary.

Delightful and moving - although fanciful.

Earthlings beware: The dialogue and characters have less weight than bodies freed from gravity's grip.

What Possession reminds us more than anything is that love is more exotic at the safe remove of history. The irony is that LaBute is more at home chronicling the present, yet that's where this movie falls apart.

It took the German restorers four years to ready this print using dupe negatives and old prints found in archives around the world. Their work speaks for itself. Each frame of this classic is drop-dead stunning, the more so now that the movie no longer hiccups its way across the screen.

Boorman doesn't shy from showing Cahill as a complicated man who, in one famous incident, nearly crucified one of his own men for a minor infraction. But the portrait is a loving one, full of empathy for an oddly principled man who, in another line of work, could have made a difference and lived to enjoy it. [18 Dec 1998, p.72]

A bouquet of snappy one-liners and disarming nuttiness.