Jami Bernard

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.

Not worth the rocket fuel.

It's a fanciful tale, but the message is sweet - that the higher arts speak a universal language that transcends politics and ignorance.

A daring feminist movie that, while straightforward to a fault, is a rare opportunity to sample a female point of view from Iran, where such a thing is usually a veiled subject.

It's not the best "Little Mermaid" movie - it's totally predictable and its trio of tweeners squeal at a pitch that could break glass. But it's also a bubbly confection about best friends, crushes on preening lifeguards, grrrl power and shades-of-blue fashion tips.

Linklater's ravishing new movie represents a bold leap into the possibilities of technology.

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

The movie creaks and groans, weighed down by clichés.

Screenwriters look to many sources for inspiration. In the case of Saving Silverman, they looked behind them, and liked what they saw.

The philosophy is even less plausible. But the action -- oh, the action! There's nothing else out there like it.

In this cross between film noir and melodrama, there's lust, need, camp and betrayal.

The acting and stories are uneven, but Erick Avari, as a man who wakes up to his humanitarian obligations, provides the movie's affecting center, and Peter Falk gives a harrowing performance as a hopeless drunk trying to manipulate his grown son.

An odd little movie with artistic aspirations and a bare touch of comedy that offers sights you never expected (nor hoped) you'd see - like Will Ferrell playing it straight (more or less) and Zooey Deschanel drowning an innocent kitten.

Rough around the edges, but effectively presents the quandary of women during the repressive religious regime.

It's not just a movie about an underdog who fights the odds, it's about following one's heart -- despite the obstacles.

Goes down easily only because Judd and Jackman are eye candy, and because Kinnear and Tomei provide solid comic support.

A strange, somewhat icky romantic comedy. [25 November 1998, p. 45]

Maintains a light, dainty tone despite the heavy-handed metaphor, but in crossing the Pacific to the U.S., it is bound to leave most viewers dry.

All this frenzy, all these "quotes" from other movies, and yet Vol. 2 is strangely static - a dulling experience that can safely be admired from afar without it ever engaging the senses.

An informative, amusing and unnerving overview of the history and consequences of corporations.

What keeps these mother-daughter tumbleweeds from drifting right out of consciousness is the unique rapport between the actresses.