John Patterson

If you've never seen the original, you may have no idea what's going on.

One of the great movies about childhood innocence accidentally violated by adults...Reed, an often inconsistent filmmaker, handles the brutal mechanics of the plot superbly, with the marbled interiors of the embassy contrasting sharply with his almost neo-realist outdoor shots of postwar London.

Worth it, though, for the conviction and ramrod-erect bearing that pros Jackson and Jones bring to their roles.

Remarkably, it took four writers to concoct this tin-eared, slighter-than-slight farce.

One of the sturdier superhero movies of the last couple of years, with monsters and effects and diabolical baddies to spare, a heart as big as a house and a love story that actually gets its hooks in you.

Looks like no other recent release...certainly rich enough to warrant more than one viewing.

Whether Quitting will prove absorbing to American audiences is debatable: After all, it's not like we don't have enough rehab stories of our own, and Jia often comes across as a sullen, unreachable brat.

Despite its flaws, Arlington Road romps home as an absorbing, unpredictable thriller.

Although not quite as uproarious or as wickedly subversive as Pedro Almodóvar's more substantial body of work, Queens is content to scamper gaily in the wake of his achievements -- and to offer one more reason for old Franco to roll anew in his grave.

The movie has a rambunctious and likable energy that compensates for its unsteady, only intermittently amusing narrative.

Relentless, infantile and impossible to dislike.

Full of clever reversals, brief triumphs and bitter setbacks, Wolf Creek is consummately well-crafted, unapologetically vicious and leavened with moments of humor that merely intensify the horror.

One of those puppy-love movies that make you feel like you're slowly drowning.

Very much a fully realized cinematic experience. John Turturro, even if you have to act less, be sure to direct more, and often.

The inventive, often comically horrible fight set pieces will have you standing on your seat cheering like a Viking, and the result is a supremely kinetic and amusing guilty pleasure.

Sadly for dramatic purposes, Jones' achievements seemed effortless, and the movie could really use the odd Ty Cobb wig-out.

It all feels rather laddish and belabored, but it will eat up 90 minutes of your time without making you regret the loss.

A little bit "pi," a little bit "julien donkey-boy," a little bit "Eraserhead," Buddy Boy doesn't equal these, but offers bizarre pleasures of its own.

The characters are flat creatures of duty, and the film is more a tale of the collective will of a state than of the rugged individuals behind it.

It's dirty and delightful, if a tad on the slight side.

The interchangeable males all resemble Freddie Prinze Jr., and Anderson's direction is no less anemic, making one yearn for an Escape/Quit button that, sadly, doesn't exist in this medium.

Disfigured by flabby dialogue (“You can't put a number on my dreams!”), unfunny pratfalls and criminally slack pacing.

Intriguing for a while, then steadily more confusing and finally just incoherent.

Richer and cleverer than any Merchant Ivory movie in memory.

What's left is "Masterpiece Theatre," a very clean, straightforward adaptation of a beautifully constructed play, faithful to a dead man's classical virtues -- harmony, proportion, balance -- if not to the director's own, more iconoclastic ones.

The end result is like cold porridge with only the odd enjoyably chewy lump.

Somehow poor pacing and this lack of visual variety manage to make a great show seem boring.

At once over- and under-written, and peppered with tiresome coincidences and misunderstandings, Goldberg’s mechanical, joke-one, joke-two, joke-three approach to ensemble screenwriting soon betrays his TV-sitcom roots.