Jami Bernard

Carrey gives an otherworldly, possessed performance as Kaufman.

There's a sensational, highly original performance by Swinton.

Crushingly realistic.

What makes it work so well is superb chemistry and a light touch. The spray-painted cat scene doesn't hurt, either.

The humor is simple but far from dumb. The dueling "walk-off" between rival male mannequins is inspired, as are the sly juxtapositions of the male model's faux physicality with such real-world demands as coal mining.

A richly inventive, slightly eerie animated movie from Japan.

The movie is fast and fun. Best of all are the actors, who likewise seem to know they've lucked into a rare good gig.

In keeping with the unrefined spirit of the '70s, the movie is deliberately haphazard and proudly retains all its mistakes, including narrator Sean Penn going up on his lines.

Armed with a witty script, Winick and the actors so confidently ply the Oedipal waters that the comedy seems sweetly chaste.

As pat as some of its conclusions may seem, this low-budget effort has charm, fine acting and one of the few realistic screen depictions of the awkward dynamics of a family trying to circle its wagons.

In addition to the strong script, the ensemble performances are topnotch, with no one hogging the limelight.

The best performance is by Rampling. (The) camera hangs on her, knowing that nothing escapes those wise, sad-lidded eyes.

Best of all, and worth the price of admission, is Cedric the Entertainer.

Slick entertainment.

In a hilarious bit of actorly sleight-of-hand, Holm (who is not new to the role of Napoleon, having it played it twice before) slips effortlessly from emperor to impostor.

The daring, funny and quirkily erotic Secretary examines power exchanges between consenting adults in a way that other movies have not managed without turning off swaths of the squeamish.

Unflinching in its depiction of racism, anti-Semitism, violence and jailhouse politics.

Of them all, only McCartney looks out of place, perhaps mistaking the venue for Vegas. There in a nutshell could be the answer to why the Beatles broke up.

What could have been a run-of-the- mill story becomes a superb policier in the hands of writerdirector Joe Carnahan.

Like most Iranian films, it's a shaggy-dog story that builds so slowly you don't see the quietly shattering climax coming.

Forget the awful trailer that makes the movie look like chalk screeching on a blackboard. The Banger Sisters is sheer fun, and a great showcase for Hawn.

This is a quieter, more psychologically dense movie, where the payoff is sometimes no payoff at all - for instance, Tim Roth plays a cut-rate divorce lawyer whose own weirdness (he seems to live out of his car) is never explained.

The triumph here is the natural, fluid way the characters interact, many of them displaying real-life, quirky senses of humor you don't often find in screenplays.

Pai is resourceful and in harmony with the natural world in a way that will charm and enthrall young viewers.

This movie is not as intricately rewarding as Zhang's others. But because it is so Westernized, it could do even better at the box office. [21 Dec 1995, p.60]

Soldier's Daughter is at its best when alluding to the quasi- romantic attachments and undefined crushes that develop in small groups and keep the engines whirring. The inchoate longings go round and round, as subtly as befits the movie's rather smallish canvas. [18 Sep 1998, Pg.57]

Without excusing Stevie's behavior, the film makes a compelling case for how a child molester can grow from the bitter seeds of neglect and abuse.

A delightful comedic twist on Martin Scorsese's "King of Comedy."