Jonathan Foreman

There are times when the urban dialect is so thick, you wish the film came with subtitles.

It's only when you're leaving the theater that her spell wears off and you realize just how bad the movie, directed by Andy Tennant, really is.

Self-righteous, economically illiterate and sometimes flatly dishonest.

As a horror movie, even one inspired by the kitschy Hammer horror films of the 1950s, it's disappointing.

A deep disappointment to fans of sci-fi and the once great John Carpenter.

A visually stunning film.

The whole film could use a jolt of caffeine, and a lugubrious woodwind score doesn't help.

Crimson Gold has been likened to an Iranian "Taxi Driver," but it's nothing of the sort, though it is powerful in a quiet, minimalist way.

A slack-paced, surprisingly bland affair, filled with jokes that sound like they should be funny but aren't.

Laughs are few and far between, and the film feels brutally long.

The thing that makes Haneke’s Code Unknown so enjoyable and effective is that that he says it in such a wonderfully restrained and light-handed yet suspenseful way.

Strong cast is defeated by a labored, screenplay in this overlong, clunky love story.

There's not a moment in it that feels fresh or authentic or inspired. But neither is it offensive.

Toomuch of the humor in Not Another Teen Movie is either lame (the school in the movie is called "John Hughes High") or lamely disgusting.

A witty, well-acted, visually gorgeous ensemble drama.

Indeed, for all its jokiness, this isn't the film for anyone who suffers from even the mildest fear of ugly, scuttling, jumping creatures with spindly, furry legs that have a habit of hiding in your shoes.

The result is a remarkably beguiling documentary, on a number of levels.

Sweet, often poignant little film.

Bedeviled by labored writing and slack direction.

Doesn't press all its obvious lessons, and there are actually a few surprises -- and even a couple of moving and interesting moments -- before an all too predictable resolution.

A predictable tearjerker whose main redeeming feature is that you don't actually see any of the angels in the title.

Culkin is superb - he makes you forget that Igby is a spoiled brat who actually deserves the beating he gets.

In the end, it is inadequate, juiceless storytelling that deprives Titan A.E. of any dramatic force.

A poignant, graceful little film.

Although Vatel is trying to say something about freedom and gilded cages, it feels more like a behind-the-scenes look at the high-end catering business.

No "Crouching Tiger." It lacks the richness of theme and performance that made Ang Lee's film so emotionally satisfying. In fact, watching Iron Monkey makes you realize just how Western and literary the sensibility of "Crouching Tiger" was.

So beautifully made (everything in it is understated except the gorgeous good looks of its stars) and turns out to have such real cumulative power that it is worth holding out to the end.

More tedious than affecting.

Magnificent if overlong and oddly structured surfing documentary.

Feels much more like a very, very long, music video, albeit one made for an audience that gets off on high-tech firepower rather than nearly-naked babes.

Structurally flawed, occasionally shlocky, but written with unusual intelligence and subtlety.

An engaging, bittersweet tale.

It's moody and atmospheric. But with the exception of a few cool moments that remind you of Ferrara at his best, it's dull and written with little attention paid to basic storytelling.

So minimalist in characterization and dialogue that the plot all but evaporates -- and so does any dramatic power.

Thereare moving moments in this over-hyped satire by the Israeli-Arab writer-director-actor Elia Suleiman, and it's fascinating to get a picture of daily life in prosperous Palestinian neighborhoods.

Slight but affecting triptych.

Agonizingly slow-moving and talky, it consists primarily of conversations between two men in a truck.

Its bawdy honesty eventually gives way to convention, sentimentality and a frustratingly silly ending.

An uplifting, crowd-pleasing film in the tradition of "The Full Monty" that could easily win Oscar nominations for both its 11-year-old star, Jamie Bell, and first-time director, Stephen Daldry.

An inferior factory product, cranked out with little care and less imagination, that seems all the dumber because it's pretending to be smart and topical.

What really wrecks Wolfgang Petersen's Troy is some of the worst casting in recent Hollywood history: The lackluster ensemble hired by the director is overwhelmed by the generally impressive sets and crowd scenes, by the task of playing epic heroes and by David Benioff's rambling, tone-deaf screenplay "inspired by Homer's 'Iliad.'"

The film is almost worth seeing just for the extraordinary scene in which a stark naked Mortimer has her movie star lover (Dermot Mulroney) deliver an exhaustive critique of her body's flaws.

Hardly a deep examination of gender relations or character, but in its unsentimental way it's a tender and charming story of friendship and tolerance.

But it is Thurman who stands out, with a marvelous, full-blooded performance, her best in some time, as tragic Charlotte.

A miracle of badness, a kind of art- house "Showgirls" -- which actually exceeds "Showgirls" in its self-indulgence, shallowness and sheer stupidity.

Embarrassingly bad - the kind of slapdash exercise that gives even Hollywood formula a bad name, while doing little justice to the sport.

One of those films that takes up a potentially fascinating subject only to fumble it.

Calling it pretentious doesn't do justice to the toxic faux-bohemianism and unearned self-regard that bubble and ooze out of every aspect of Chelsea Walls.

Intelligent, moving and often beautifully photographed, Aberdeen boasts superb performances.

Unoriginal but effective raunchy drag comedy.

As lifeless and unfunny as a corpse on a slab.

A sweet, lushly photographed but occasionally slow film.

It's a film pregnant with comic possibility that ought to be much funnier than it is.

Ed Radtke's film-fest favorite does at least boast some fine acting, excellent photography and an authentic feel for life on the highway.

Though Human Stain is sometimes too chaotic and sometimes too neat, it boasts some of the best acting of the year.

A lazy and uninspired knock-off of the hilarious 2002 movie "Road Trip."

Tendency to pretentiousness.

A real pleasure, a sweet, funny, ensemble comedy...utterly authentic.

The screenplay is packed with so many hilariously bad lines (it's hard to believe that writer-director Helgeland won an Oscar for co-writing "L.A. Confidential") that the movie would be perfect material for a resurrected version of the TV spoof "Mystery Science Theater."

It ranks among Robert Altman's best work ever, and that its many satisfactions derive in large part from a superbly written screenplay by Julian Fellowes that has no equal this year.

One of those exercises in romantic whimsy that misses its mark: It's alternately sappy and uncomfortably harsh.

Essential viewing for anyone who cares about American popular music and its roots.

Meanders along in a confused, confusing way for what feels like hours.

The documentary equivalent of a Southern Gothic novel.

A laughably bad B-thriller.

The first half-hour of Jeepers Creepers is so frightening that it's almost a relief when the movie subsequently collapses into silliness.

Its faults -- banal dialogue, ludicrous and uninspired plotting, dull but vicious fight scenes -- make you realize just how much the summer action movie has declined in the last few years.

It's an odd mixture of an unsentimental, darkly humorous take on mental illness with the usual Hollywood loony-bin cliches.

As the plot loses steam, director Mark Pellington (whose paranoid thriller "Arlington Road" was one of the worst movies of 1999) tends to rely on cheap tricks to maintain suspense, although the final catastrophe is very nicely done.

The filmmakers have an pleasurably accurate sense of the embarrassments that darken early adolescence and of the amazing cruelty of teenage girls.

Hard-core chick shlock, weakened by odd shifts in tone and a slack pace, but elevated by a luminous performance by Natalie Portman.

This is a lazy, careless film that feels strangely unfinished.

This oddly cheerful, decreasingly dark comedy actually works and can boast some of the most enjoyable performances of the year.

Its abundant laughs are heavily reliant on the chemistry of stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson - who show once again that they're as fine a comic team as Hollywood has ever produced.

Slight but entertaining and occasionally touching.

This bizarre, original and brilliantly crafted documentary about the Sex Pistols is funny and at times moving -- despite all the ugliness and stupidity it depicts.

Familiar and predictable enough, especially if you have seen Hollywood serial-killer thrillers like "Se7en."

Part of the problem is that the Finbar character is both underdeveloped and unattractive - you don't get a sense of why anyone would miss him, let alone go searching for him in the snow. [17 Mar 2000]

If you're starved for on-screen nudity and sex garnished with art-film trappings -- The price you'll pay is putting up with the director's relentless Euro-pretension, manifested in a tediously contrived plot crammed with absurd coincidences, clunky symbolism and soap-operatic melodrama.

Recycles the teen romantic comedies of the last few years...and it's easily the worst of the lot.

By far the best single performance in the film - and it is really, really terrific, utterly believable and moving - is by Emma Thompson. To the extent that there is genuine feeling in the movie that doesn't feel slickly manipulative, it's in the scenes involving her character.

About three-quarters of the way through, Havana Nights suddenly becomes laugh-out-loud awful, with dreadful, lame lines delivered painfully badly - as if a different screenwriter and director had taken over for the movie's final act.

Under the direction of Allan Moyle ("Pump up the Volume"), Nairn, McCarthy and Balaban give confident, believable performances but overacting plagues the rest of the cast.

The result is an intermittently instructive and amusing jumble that might have been seen as daring and "transgressive" in both form and content if it had been released, say, three decades ago.

Uneven but occasionally hilarious teen comedy.

Better Than Chocolate is well-filmed and for the most part well-acted. But its technical professionalism only serves to make the amateurishly crude patches of Maggie Thompson's script more obvious. [13 Aug 1999, p.062]

In general, it's a confusing, rather shapeless disappointment.

There are affecting scenes, and not all of Cacoyannis' additions to the Chekhov text detract from the effect of its moving brilliance.

Isn't Allen's finest work by a long shot, but an undeniable part of its fascination is trying to figure out what -- if anything, even unconsciously -- he's trying to say about how he treated Farrow.

It's fascinating and moving all the same, both in its depiction of Iranian daily life and in its powerful portrait of female oppression.

Partly a schmaltzy, by-the-numbers romantic comedy, partly a shallow rumination on the emptiness of success -- and entirely soulless.

Despite the high quality of the acting, Spring Forward is for the most part sleepy, long-winded stuff.

Never much more than hagiography that lets the context of its hero's death remain confused.

This inferior sequel is doomed by a lousy - and extremely vulgar - script.

Poetic but tedious and all but plotless.

Pretentious and trite.

An extraordinary experience: an original and brilliant combination of comedy, action and sophisticated political comment -- the best American movie of the year thus far.

It's a slow, exhaustive and exhausting process that takes a toll on the viewer, despite the intrinsic power of the underlying material.