Jami Bernard

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

This long-awaited movie has been unwisely chopped into two pieces -- the second is due in February -- when it really needed to be one long, delirious ride.

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

Stoked supplies a unique perspective on the hazards of rock-star fame that went with the sport's explosion for a band of rebels who didn't see it coming -- or going.

Feels like any number of forgettable American teen comedies in which the nerd gets the girl and/or the money.

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

Even aside from the metaphorical aspect, this may be the first movie to give a precise sense of what drives people who self-mutilate.

A sobering documentary done in a whimsical style.

With its intriguing relationships and sacrificial acts, Alice is a good alternative to happily-ever-after fluff.

The love and attention Oshii poured into animating Batou's pet basset hound proves that the human instinct dominates even in a movie dependent on technology.

Director David Kane handles the sprawling cast with aplomb as his characters learn some new steps in this life-and love-affirming movie.

Wolfgang Becker's premise is absurdist and makes great sense as political satire.

Work was never funnier.

The feel-good movie of the summer. And the song this pimp works up, about how hard it is to manage a stable of ho's, is catchy and moving.

Kinetic, sexy and full of meaningful coincidences and intertwined fates.

Too bad Heaven creeps into town when it deserved more fanfare. Consider it buried treasure, a thriller for the art- house crowd.

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

Exquisitely moving story.

The four ladies of Friends With Money are people I wouldn't want to ride the bus with (not that some of them would be caught dead on public transportation). They're whiners with little self-knowledge. Perhaps that's what holds them together, but it's not pretty.

A substantial improvement over "X-Men," in many ways, especially in visual and specialeffects departments.

The overall result is a romantic comedy that indulges fantasies, calms insecurities (can an ordinary bloke stack up?), and breaks and mends hearts with surgical precision.

A magnificent looking and occasionally very silly Chinese Western.

And still the dialogue is astonishingly feeble, the acting unforgivably wooden. To paraphrase Yoda, the only creature with ­truly human dimensions ever since Harrison Ford's cowboy-mechanic Han Solo departed the galaxy: Bored I am.

A gripping thriller whose terror -- unfortunately -- comes from real life.

Don't see The Inheritance if you're already depressed. This airless downer from Danish director Per Fly is about an heir who makes one wrong decision from which even lousier decisions effortlessly flow.

This South Korean political satire might not have historical resonance for American audiences -- it's loosely based on the 1979 assassination of dictator Park Chunghee by his own people -- but it takes the same comically dim view of governmental power and procedure as "Dr. Strangelove."

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

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.