Jami Bernard

This winning documentary about fifth-graders who learn ballroom dancing is one of those movies that make the world a brighter place.

Each man winds up owing the other -- and the enormity of the sacrifices they make on one another's behalf are quite moving and have not been duplicated in the movies since.

When an intensely emotional scene calls for the voice to break, call in Andy Garcia. He does the best voice-breaking, half-choked sob of anguish in the business, and he does it a lot in Lost City, his well-meaning directorial debut.

Moore brilliantly unmasks the inanity of the arguments used in the debate over gun control in America. He then undermines himself by leaping into the blame game without supporting his central thesis, that the media is what makes teens like the ones at Columbine turn around and shoot up their schools.

The film, written and directed with an intimate, hand-held camera by Assayas, is notable for the details how love that is ended sometimes flares up in little brush fires, only to be banked down again; how lovers awkwardly balance the push and pull of new relationships; how things neither start nor end with any punctuality or precision. [07 Jul 1999, p.38]

Career Girls reaches a little too often and unconvincingly for convenience... But Leigh remains one of the few film makers today to make movies that are solely character-driven, in which personal insight is its own reward. [8 Aug 1997, p.46]

It's brain-dead start to finish.

Kinetic, meaningless and fun.

If there is any justice in the world, Farnsworth will be remembered at Oscar time.

As in "The Edge," in which Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins were stranded in the wilds, you can earn a wildernesssurvival merit badge just from watching.

Horror fans will still find it worthwhile. The ending is also a nice twist on the slasher genre.

It won't cure the ills of the world, but it doesn't need to. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is adorable in its own spongy way.

Hey, kids! Skip the job fairs and go directly to a screening of Me & Isaac Newton.

The darkest, most thrilling entry yet in the movie franchise.

Too much chaos, not enough heart. Bad for the digestion.

Recycles the most obvious jokes from similar comedies that preceded it, such as "Tootsie," but with the most rudimentary characters.

Phenomenal acting, plus intelligent direction and themes, put The Ballad of Jack and Rose above other indie films about loss of innocence. At the same time, there is something garish about watching a father and daughter struggle with the snake of incest in their ill-advised Garden of Eden.

This audience-pleaser is smart and acerbic. Jaoui has an uncanny ear - as director, co-writer and part of the inspired ensemble cast - for human foibles, self-deception, celebrity worship and female body issues.

For sheer escapist fun, the proudly ridiculous Bandits fills the bill.

"Sixth Sense" fans will be intrigued at first, then disappointed.

This movie hyperventilates with pessimism to the point of perversity.

The movie covers only the early years of his (Joao Francisco dos Santos) rise to fame and apparently enduring legend, but the camera never pulls back to provide a social or historical context.

Concludes in a shower of ashes, which is fitting because this movie is a billowing bonfire of ugly human behavior. Rarely have there been so many characters in need of timeouts, cold showers or house arrests.

We Were Soldiers works. The action is well-staged and realistic. And Gibson is a commanding presence in a role that has more shadings and stature than his usual action heroes.

The title-character's redemption comes very slowly. But if you have patience, this is a stately, beautifully composed story.

Varda injects her sprightly personality into the film, a seasoning that sometimes overwhelms the stew.

Never gives us what it promised: a glorious, totally new sense of horror.

The movie adds nothing to the political dialogue, and the love story is mood-killingly sad. The lure of the exotic can be deceptive, it says. The moody, murky atmosphere leaves nothing clear except that mixed intentions will always yield mixed results.

There's no refuge in this uncomfortably realistic movie, and that is its strength.

Mismatch of tone and material.

Dysfunction seeps from every pore of this family, and the anger and ugliness of the characters overwhelm not just the story but the movie's stunning National Geographic location.

Despite a plethora of "naughty bits," it's a yawn.

Beautifully acted and exquisitely photographed, director Claude Miller's superb drama, from Philippe Grimbert's autobiographical novel, is awash with the ripples created by unlived lives.

The mordant humor and far-reaching observations of the book don't come across in Robert Benton's "Masterpiece Theatre"-style direction.

An uneven story undermines this horror franchise, despite high-quality performances by Naomi Watts and David Dorfman.

The actor's directorial debut is a lugubriously poetic homage to the famed Chelsea Hotel, which is to New York's artistic and beatnik past what Ellis Island is to the story of American immigration.

Satire works when it's sharp and funny. When it's not, you get New Suit, an unremarkable sour-grapes comedy about the obsequious players and inconsequential products of Hollywood.

A bit of a slog for anyone not thoroughly Olsenized.

A beautifully rich performance by Meryl Streep, [18 September 1998, p. 57]

Good acting and dull dialogue.

Unusual in that it spotlights a common but largely unsung variety of teenage female angst.

The acting runs the gamut, with Daly and Redgrave at the top and a few characters looking as if they wandered onto the wrong movie set.

Fresh and unexpected. It feels like a real window on the lives of disenfranchised youths - these are in South Atlanta - as they make their way in a society that doesn't cut them any breaks.

Certainly a dark spirit is hovering over this inane production. Something has sucked the life out of it.

This self-conscious movie by Katja von Garnier is shot like a music video, stocked with quick cuts, lip-synching and fantasy performances.

Belongs to an intellectually stimulating subgenre that examines the thin line between documentary maker and subject.

The book has been altered in mostly reasonable ways to suit the needs of the screen, but what it loses in the translation is invaluable in comprehending what led someone to pick up an ax and wipe out two-thirds of an island's population.

As strong on action as it is weak on the interpersonal stuff. If Bond can get a new car for each episode, how about some new pickup lines?

Director and co-writer Gurinder Chadha continues in the vein of her previous movies, "What's Cooking?" and "Bhaji on the Beach," exploring with humor and compassion how cultures adapt in foreign climes.

It's killer, dude! [17 October 1997, p. 52]

It is a mash note from first-time filmmaker Pola Rapaport to Aury, but its attempts to dramatize passages of the book are at odds with Aury's advice that "Story of O" was a piece of writing "not meant to be spoken."

Introduces American audiences to Luo Yan, a charismatic Chinese-born actress now living in Los Angeles. She single-handedly nurtured this project to fruition, serving as producer, co-writer and star.

About as many characters, dragons and force fields as "Pokémon" has pocket monsters, so it may be difficult for the uninitiated to keep track.

The story is tired, the comedy forced and the mother's larger-than-life quirks are an acquired taste.

Gives a white-knuckled, you-are-there account of a politician's dilemma, one whose repercussions are still felt in Africa.

Smart, psychologically complex film is an offbeat and effective tale.

The joy of Space Cowboys is in spending quality time with some favorite old actors who obviously enjoy working together.

Tomorrow Never Dies delivers the goods with tongue in cheek, if not Bond's tongue in someone else's cheek.

Makes hoops look like the sexiest game in town.

An unexpected pleasure, a buoyant comedy that will make you feel young again.

The sexy, psycho Mad Love is like a Spanish "The Story of Adele H.," in which a woman loves once and only once, to the point of self-destruction, in the days before Prozac.

You'd think it would be boring to stare at Thomas's computer screen so intently for 97 minutes, but the movie is eerily riveting.

The sensuous visuals, shot in high-definition video, complement the waking-dream quality of a sometimes confusing story.

The result is a funny, tender, satisfying blend of fiction and cinema vérité.

It's just like Paul McCartney's first solo album after the Beatles broke up; he played all the instruments himself -- because he could.

A waterlogged bagel, hardly the valentine to New York it imagines itself to be.

"Chocolat" was just a warmup for the stunning display of the male form against National Geographic settings in her new Beau Travail.

It's got style and charisma to spare, with all the characters acting from fiery reserves of self-interest, including Christopher Plummer as a bank president with a secret in his safe-deposit box.

The real revelation of Sound and Fury is how it introduces hearing people to a culture they insist on ignoring.

One of the small pleasures of the movie is likely to escape American audiences. The bank robber is played by Johnny Hallyday, a pop icon of great magnitude in France, and the old man is played by Jean Rochefort, an acting staple of that country's cinema. The mere juxtaposition of these two personalities forms a comic set of expectations.

A gore movie with no teeth.

Smart, fun and mildly subversive, but it rides the wave of its joke a little too long.

The film medium allows us to witness a most ravishing cherry orchard. But the grand cast is given to emoting as if they were playing to the peasants in the cheap seats.

A movie that shouldn't be allowed on the same campus as "Animal House."

A black comedy that features Renee Zellweger as the most adorable psychiatric-trauma victim ever.

Freewheeling and mindless.

The story has a definite ick factor that detracts from even the small pleasures the movie might offer its teen audience.

In its unleashing of relentless, cosmic retribution, The Operator is not unlike the recent "Joy Ride."

A collage without context.

Parts of the movie play like French farce, but ultimately Hrebejk uses very simple cadences to unveil, movingly, the big picture.

More chemistry between the leads would have helped. But Laws of Attraction still would have had a tough case making a jury believe these two unlikable characters belong together, except as a way to take them out of circulation.

Its shapelessness and the cultural differences in acting style will keep this version filed under "cult oddity."

Like a good horror movie, the images, jolts and artistically directed disorientation will keep your stomach clenched...Like a bad one, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Film makers Barak Goodman and Daniel Anker dig deep into the story and its ramifications, exposing how the twin evils of racism and anti-Semitism combined to foment institutional injustice, and led — if a silver lining could be found — to the triumphs of the civil-rights movement two and three decades later.

In the end, it's a sweeping, important film that overturns everything you learned in school about the birth of this nation.

Turns out to be less than the sum of its wonderfully silly and bizarre parts.

Letting any other actor run wild like this could have been a disaster, but Depp's peculiar buccaneer is an instant classic of actorly charisma.

Has some good music and hot dancing -- filmed choppily -- but it completely lacks the magic of its predecessor.

It's a poignant, realistic depiction of the ­elderly, far from the typical view of them as quaint and useless.

It's hard not to feel empowered by Nathalie Baye.

This drama offers a chuckle at every turn.

The inexplicably terrifying ending is good for a month's worth of nightmares -- no small thing for a movie in such a saturated field.

This amateurish drama about street-dance contests and busted friendship is about as real as Lil' Kim's chest.

Gives moviegoers a funny, observant, evanescent approach to the mysteries of human desire.

A charming runt of a movie. It's not all it could be, but it's the best the pound had to offer this week.

Turns out to be a thoughtful, beautifully acted story about feeling alive before it's too late to feel anything.

As gorgeous and contemplative as it is, Hero is a genre picture and needs to deliver the action goods. To that end, there are plenty of clever, lovingly choreographed sequences.

Bernie Mac gives surprising wisdom and heart - along with the laughs - to what could have been just another generic baseball comedy.