Jami Bernard

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

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.

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

Apt to scare kids. [18 December 1998, p.72]

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.

The movie isn't a day in the park, but it manages to close on an existentially uplifting note.

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.

It's a diary, collage, meditation, elegy. But, unless you're going for a Ph.D. in code-breaking, it's also a bore.

The dogs are fantastic. The humans need more work with their trainers.

Here’s a British spin on the familiar struggle of the couch potato who plans any minute now to get off his duff.

Director Samira Makhmalbaf made this raw and effective parable with the recognizable help of her father, legendary director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

A smart, old-fashioned spy thriller in which the weapon of choice is brainpower.

Best of all is newcomer Justine Clarke playing a dour illustrator. Clarke's fascinating features register emotions at war, but always governed by a sense of self-deprecating humor.

Scary, all right, but not for the reasons the Dallas church had in mind.

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

The real highlight is when Bateman and his co-workers compare custom business cards in a grueling, ego-shattering game of one-upmanship that is so linked to their sense of self it might as well be Russian roulette.

It turns out that puppets can tell us more about who we are as a nation than the most meticulous documentary. In Team America: World Police, the potty-mouthed, crazily brilliant musical from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the result is hilarious, shocking and bound to offend nearly everyone.

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.

Well-acted but otherwise lackluster drama.

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

This is a wickedly funny skewering of a prewar London society gone mad with frivolity.

A satisfying chick flick that follows all the usual rules of the modern romantic comedy except one - it's not stupid.

Who knew a drama about numbers could be so thrilling?

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

There is a very sharp, funny critique of ambition and self-made gurus in The Mystic Masseur, but it is obscured by a softening bloat.

What is meant to be an innovative, cutting-edge musical melodrama is so jumbled, irrational and amateurish that it makes dinner theater look like the Old Vic.

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

The movie doesn't stoop to cheap psychoanalysis and must be commended for a bravely ambiguous ending. But most of the credit goes to Lane, who is simply extraordinary as a woman whose body is at war with her conscience.