Jami Bernard

A gentle, soulful comedy about everyday dreams and what it takes to make them come true.

A solid action story with inventive battles (one on the Statue of Liberty) and satisfyingly gooey special effects.

With a cast of mostly non-actors, the film seems rough-hewn, like something you'd find rusted along a road. But it's actually a sophisticated blend of crime thriller, coming-of-age story and social realism.

Rock School celebrates music, family, hard work and, yes, Paul Green. Best of all, it shows the flexibility of children to learn and adapt -- even when their teacher is nuts.

This rousing story of the comeback colt comes close to a modern-day Frank Capra film without the pandering or mawkishness. Yes, it's a bit hokey, but if you fight the movie's gait you'll miss the excitement of the race.

A story about people learning to know themselves through relationships to others -- delivered with gentle, offbeat humor.

A pleasant romp through the land of Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction.

Has all the tense crackle of film noir and the molasses drip of irony that is the trademark of movie-making brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

A cat's cradle of creepy childhood memory oozing unreliably from the mind of an aging, desiccated, paranoid schizophrenic, played quite amazingly by a mumbling, stooped, shifty-eyed Ralph Fiennes.

It's the first mainstream gay movie that feels totally comfortable in its shoes.

Thrillers have become so gnawingly generic that The Bourne Identity wakes the senses without leaning on cliché and soundtrack.

Brisk pacing and a remarkable cast achieve the sleight-of-hand effect of making you forgive some implausible twists and a sanitized ending.

Does an uncommonly good job of summoning all that goes into a masterpiece - erotic tension, financial considerations, even the sensual, elaborate grinding and mixing of paint colors as per 17th-century requirements.

Excellent, troubling social commentary based on a true story.

Makes a fine date movie...thanks to its life-affirming view of friendship, love and honor.

Like a Hollywood buddy-cop movie gone through a multi-culti blender. It holds up a funhouse mirror to that familiar scenario in which a maverick cop breaks the rules.

Not without missteps and the occasional mouthful of sugar, but it grows on you.

You'd never guess this just-off-center movie was directed by indie hero Gus Van Sant. Maybe, like Will, he's casual about his gifts and feels no need to trot them out.

Hugo Weaving, weaving deftly beneath a fixed plastic grin and Prince Valiant wig as the mysterious avenger in V for Vendetta, both chills and amuses throughout this enjoyable - if occasionally irresponsible - comic-book thriller.

Unlike Patch Adams, Sy is not lovable. But you wind up feeling for him, much as you feel for Sy's pet hamster on that endless wheel.

Perhaps not since Truffaut's "The Story of Adele H" has thwarted love been rendered so compassionately on the screen, its psychology laid bare.

Has something to add about the toll Western society takes on spiritual values, and the ugliness of consumerism.

It's a smartly surreal little movie, and again shows why, whenever there's a role that calls for an actress who can speak volumes without much dialogue (as in "Minority Report" and "Sweet and Lowdown"), the call goes out to Morton.

An update with a jolt of sheer exuberance.

May actually appeal more to women than men because of the steely heroine, the pitting of love of family against love of filthy lucre -- and the mom-fights-back plot.

The filmmakers' decision to go with prosthetic enhancements rather than CGI gives the snouts, fangs and snapping jaws a refreshingly tactile look.

Basinger gives one of her best performances as a woman too young, poor and overwhelmed to handle motherhood. And the uncommonly self-assured Murphy proves again that she is a cut above other actresses of her tender years.

Implausible yet enjoyably diverting thriller.