Jonathan Rosenbaum

Franklin and Murray manages to live up to the demands of a thriller without sacrificing character to frenetic pacing, and the film exudes a kind of sweetness that never threatens to become either sticky or synthetic.

Eastwood essentially uses the Lady Chablis the same way he did a few extended Charlie Parker solos in Bird--as unbridled, inventive improvisations that challenge the well-rehearsed "head" arrangements of everyone else.

Broadly speaking, the popular literary biopic is a hopeless subgenre, but this account of the relationship between Sylvia Plath and husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes manages to test the rule thanks to its unusual seriousness and first-rate performances.

This is basically Hollywood nonsense with all the usual dishonesty, but it goes down easily.

Minor grisly fun, but don't expect the movie to linger when it's over.

The sensibility of this movie is so adolescent that it's hard to take it as seriously as the filmmakers intend us to.

Juliette Binoche won an Oscar for her role in Anthony Minghella's adaptation of "The English Patient", but in many ways I prefer her soulful performance here: portraying a Bosnian Muslim working as a tailor in London, she's reason enough to see Minghella's overcontrived though absorbing 2006 feature based on his original script.

This is basically sloppy, all-over-the-map filmmaking with few hints of self-criticism and few genuine laughs.

Watchable, if at times familiar.

The Coens' lack of interest in Mississippi is fortunately joined by a healthy appreciation of gospel music, while their smirking appreciation of stupidity extends to every character in the movie while including no one in the audience.

It has plenty of visual sweep, fine action sequences, and, thanks especially to Brad Pitt (as Achilles) and Peter O'Toole (as King Priam), a deeper sense of character than one might expect from a sword-and-sandal epic.

Rather wan in its anything-goes spirit of invention, the movie has a surprisingly low number of laughs; some of the initial premises are good, but there's very little energy in the follow-through, and this time Murray's listlessness seems more anemic than comic.

Ben Stiller directs Lou Holtz Jr.'s script with plenty of unsettling edge, and Carrey throws himself into his part as if it meant something.

The standard line on this actor-heavy, brain-light concoction by writer-director John Herzfeld (1996) is that it’s Short Cuts meets Pulp Fiction, but it isn’t a tenth as good as either.

Ridley Scott directed this 1989 feature, and while there's a lot of his characteristic atmospherics—smoke, fog, neon, yellow light, rain, and squalor—to fill all the dead spaces, he's still a long way from the splendors of Blade Runner. The script by Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis doesn't give him or Douglas very much to chew on, apart from a lot of unpleasant xenophobia about Japanese gangsters, and the plot never gets far beyond the formulaic and the forgettable, hammered into place by Hans Zimmer's pounding and numbing score.

This adaptation of Christina Crawford's memoir about her driven, abusive mother is arguably too good to qualify as camp, even if it begins (and fitfully proceeds) like a horror film. Director Frank Perry, who collaborated with three others (including producer Frank Yablans) on the script, gives it all a certain crazed conviction.

As for remakes, it stands to reason that if you try to redo a work of art without the original artist, you're bound to damage the artistry as well.

Part of what keeps this from working is that Modine's character is almost as obnoxious as Keaton's—Griffith proves to be the pluckiest member of the trio—and matters are not improved by a lot of gratuitous camera movement and an especially lousy dream sequence.

Pretty enjoyable as a piece of campy sleaze--especially for the first half hour, before the storytelling starts to dawdle.

An offensive premise and a pathetic, almost pleading desire to outrage our sensibilities with it.

An exceptionally glib satire about reality TV, by writer-director Daniel Minahan, that puts most of its effort into looking as much as is possible like a real TV show.

As usual Spielberg is too bored by everyday life to use his premise for anything but a fairy tale, whose cheap pathos suggests a bad Chaplin imitation. This grows progressively phonier and eventually devolves into "Mr. Roberts," with Stanley Tucci filling in for James Cagney as an airport bureaucrat.

What's mainly missing is the sort of conviction and passion that gave El mariachi its charge; one feels at almost every moment that Rodriguez is fulfilling a contract rather than saying something he has to say. There's a lot of panache here, but not much inspiration.

Beautifully composed and deftly delivered, it becomes the libretto to Potter's visual music, creating a remarkable lyricism and emotional directness.

For me, part of the fun of Snake Eyes is the genuine satisfaction of seeing Brian De Palma finally arriving at his own level.

A powerful Christian parable, painful but illuminating, about crime and redemption.

Too preoccupied with personality and emotion to qualify as porn, but still very much concerned with the kind of interaction that goes on in such a place, this is a touching if relatively specialized chamber piece.

If you can get into the spirit of the proceedings, you're likely to find some fun.

The results are too pretty and well acted to be a total washout, but the fascination with evil and power that gives the novel intensity is virtually absent; what remains is mainly petty malice and mild cynicism.

Reasonably lifelike and nicely acted (Keener is especially good), but otherwise nothing special, this is an OK light comedy.

If Wahlberg in a beret is your idea of fun, don't let me get in your way.

The theatrical monologues come close to defeating him (Wenders), and only Jessica Lange, as one of Shepard's abandoned girlfriends, manages to avoid cliche.

A deeply stupid and offensive action comedy-romance.

Kevin Jordan (Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire), a protege of Martin Scorsese, wrote and directed this dull 2005 autobiographical feature; it feels real, but solid performances fail to enliven the characters.

A horrendous effort all around.

While no Hawks movie can be considered a total loss, this reductive replay of Rio Bravo and El Dorado is too peevish to qualify as tragic, and only occasionally funny.

This inspirational vehicle, based on a true story, is as hokey as it sounds, and it sometimes cuts too fast to allow us to see the dancing properly. But as in "Saturday Night Fever," the sense of reality giving way to fantasy on a dance floor is potent, and writer Dianne Houston and director Liz Friedlander are so sincere that they make much of it work.

This exudes trendiness at regular intervals, and otherwise manages to be reasonably charming about Manhattan's melting pot culture, but my general response was still "Wake me when it's over."

John G. Avildsen directs Stallone's primitive script with the corn it calls for, hoping to distract from the simplicity with a few fancy montages, and does a fairly good job with the climactic slugfest; but the dramatic moves are so obvious and shopworn that not even.

While the actors show some sensitivity and Scott works up a modicum of suspense and involvement, the real interest of this picture is the radiance of the images—a mastery of lighting and decor second only to Scott's Blade Runner, with atmospheric textures so dense you can almost taste them. Unfortunately, this mastery bears only the most glancing relationship to the story at hand, and Scott becomes guilty of the sort of formalism that used to be charged (less justly) against Josef von Sternberg. But even though the movie doesn't leave much of a residue, it looks terrific while you're watching it: Manhattan has seldom appeared as glitzy or as glamorous.

At least the special effects and outer space vistas are more handsome than usual.

A piece of mythmaking stupidity.

The landscapes--which come close to outshining the worthy actors in the opening and closing stretches--are beautiful, and the plot, which is basically a grim coming-of-age story, holds one's interest throughout.

This frantic tale seems at once preachy and incoherent, collapsing into a more or less random collection of disconnected, unfocused scenes.

This is a remarkably gripping, suggestive, and inventive piece of storytelling that, like Kubrick's other work, is likely to grow in mystery and intensity over time.

The characters are so full-bodied and the feelings so raw and complex that I'd call this the best thing he's (Singleton) done to date.

All in all, an entertaining (if ideologically incoherent) response to the valorization of greed in our midst, with lots of Rambo-esque violence thrown in, as well as an unusually protracted slugfest between ex-wrestler Roddy Piper and costar Keith David.

Director Bryan Barber (known for his music videos) and his cast display so much gusto that it's hard to keep up your resistance--I wound up finding this more enjoyable than the Oscar-bestrewn "Chicago."

Not a movie that needs to exist, but it passes the time, and at least Hopkins manages to look like Picasso at odd moments.

A hokey but highly entertaining tale of corporate greed that should be especially satisfying if you're pissed off at big business.

Has memorable characters and images. Yet the story is elusive and occasionally puzzling, and some of the ideas are amorphous and self-conscious.

Starts out silly, gets sillier by the minute, and frequently had me and most of the people around me in stitches.

If you've never seen the lovely Wenders film, maybe you'll be charmed by this low-grade variation, all of whose best qualities--such as the airy crane shots poised over city vistas and freeways--can be traced back to the original; otherwise you might run screaming from the theater.

Aiming at a microcosm of American life comparable in some ways to Do the Right Thing, Singleton can't quite justify or explicate his parting message ("unlearn"), but his passion is exemplary.

According to common usage, the French word stupide comes closer to silly than to dumb, which is how I might rationalize my affection for this harebrained, obvious, but euphoric tale.

It reminded me of "Pump Up the Volume" in many ways.

Even if you find Franken hard to bear, as I do, the movie's take on how he functions in the world is both authoritative and compelling, and the movie steadily grows in stature.

But despite a compelling opening, as a movie it loses focus and purpose as it proceeds.

Ordinarily I don't care for this kind of thing at all, but something must be said for Jackson's endless reserves of giddy energy; perhaps because this is so clearly meant to be silly, he generally avoids the calculated mean-spiritedness of more prestigious directors like Spielberg and Renny Harlin.

Though the look aspires as usual to be both otherworldly and familiar, there's nothing that doesn't reek of southern California (as opposed to Hollywood) plastic, and this is as true of the characters as the decor.

It's the romantic sparring with Catherine Zeta-Jones as another glamorous thief -- not the unsuspenseful heists -- that makes this silly thriller lightly bearable.

The cast is OK, and LaBute still has an eye, but the uses they're put to seem contrived and arty.

Director Joel Schumacher submits to the Wagnerian bombast with an overly busy surface, and the script by Lee and Janet Scott Batchler and Akiva Goldsman basically runs through the formula as if it's a checklist.

A curiously sour movie in its amused contempt for this fatuous family laced with affectionate nostalgia for its unshakable slickness and insularity, but also an undeniably strange one in its adoption of TV formats and cliches, as if these were the only indexes of contemporary reality that we have left.

It's far more ambitious than its predecessor and suffers from too many ideas rather than too few, making it an inspired, fascinating, and revealing mess.

The movie takes a while to hit its stride, and its conclusion is fairly slapdash, but somewhere in between are some of the funniest bits of low slapstick Brooks has ever come up with, and an overall uncloying sweetness helps to save much of the rest.

An amiable demonstration of how two charismatic actors and a relaxed writer-director (Brad Silberling) can squeeze an enjoyable movie out of practically nothing.

This is mainly a narrative brain-teaser like "Memento" or "The Jacket"; merely keeping up with the game requires so much energy that the thinness of the material becomes fully apparent only toward the end.

John Zorn's ethnically tinged score is effectively minimalist without succumbing to Philip Glass-style monotony, and Harris Yulin is effective as the hero's semi-estranged father.

The problem with this film's earnest script about corruption in college basketball is that the usually witty Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump) wrote it long before he developed his familiar jivey style. Not even an unsentimental basketball fan like director William Friedkin can wash away all the corn syrup.

The film can't simply be discounted as a skim job on the original; Romero's dark social commentary, which grew in impact over his entire Dead trilogy, is still very much present here, even if it no longer has the same bite and urgency.

So keenly felt and so deeply imagined I couldn't help but be moved, even grateful for its bleeding-heart nostalgia.

Unbelievably pretentious and a bit of a hoot but rarely boring.

Somewhere in writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore's overstyled movie, about a 12-year-old boy (Sulfaro) during the Italian fascist period who has the hots for a mistreated war widow (Belluci), is a pretty good short story about the fickleness of community and the cruelty of gossip struggling to get out.

The few halfway decent ideas in the story (by John Skip, Craig Spector, and Leslie Bohem) and production design (by C.J. Strawn) are mercilessly and fatally crushed by the inept direction of Stephen Hopkins and the flaccid editing.

A fairly enjoyable piece of junk from Oliver Stone.

It's certainly a provocation, with a few funny moments, and for my money it's less phony and offensive than "Finding Forrester."

The whole thing's pretty cute and breezy, but don't expect logic or coherence.

Now that Robin Williams has been emasculated--dangerously schizoid comic turned into nice-guy movie star--it isn't too surprising that a commercial hack like Chris Columbus would use him the way he does in this cutesy 1993 comedy: cutting between Williams trying on different voices rather than holding the camera on him as he lurches between these voices without notice.

Less suspenseful than the original but more ethically nuanced, politically pointed, and violent.

Limiting the potential overripeness of the material with tact and sincerity, he (Wang) generally makes the most of his resourceful cast; only the dog overacts.

Matthew Robbins acquits himself honorably as cowriter and director of this gentle 1987 fantasy about miniature spaceships that land on a tenement in Manhattan's Lower East Side and save the tenants from imminent expulsion and disaster at the hands of greedy real estate developers.

80 minutes of formulaic unpleasantness isn't even close to my idea of a good time, and I doubt that Hitchcock himself could have done very much with Mark L. Smith's script.

Holly Hunter and Sigourney Weaver, a cop and a shrink, are the main trackers, but so little is done in Ann Biderman and David Madsen's script to give them or their colleagues or even their prey interesting human dimensions that the overall ambience is chiefly pornographic.

Binoche is especially effective playing a character that seems to have as many layers as her makeup.

Just when I'm ready to write off the mockumentary as an exhausted form, along comes this delightful and hilarious improv comedy from the UK in which a bridal magazine sets up a promotional contest for the best offbeat wedding.

Apart from the grim forebodings of tragedy, writer-director Nick Cassavetes seems to have modeled this ambitious docudrama on Larry Clark's kiddie-porn shockers, but he doesn't know what to leave out, and the movie becomes excessively complicated with ancillary agendas.

An amiable, highly ingratiating piece of lowbrow entertainment.

The postmodernist evocations of the past (roughly the 50s through the 80s) are a charming mishmash, delivered with wit and style.

The problem, as always, is that when you try to mix cliches with more complicated data it's often the cliches that win out.

Chen Kaige clearly intended this Chinese fantasy-action spectacle to top Zhang Yimou's "Hero," and I must admit that I prefer it to the earlier movie: the digital effects are sometimes excessive, yet Chen's story of a loyal slave, his master, and a wealthy, seemingly doomed princess is more affecting, especially in the closing stretch.

Brooks' film is especially welcome now because it frankly admits that most Americans are ignorant about Muslims and have a lot to learn, in contrast with the few other Hollywood movies dealing with Muslims -- "Syriana," "Munich" -- which seem to suggest that non-Muslim viewers can emerge knowing the score.

A tiresome 1998 rip-off of The Hustler, with poker (in a New York Russian Mafia milieu) taking the place of pool, Matt Damon taking over for Paul Newman, and John Malkovich's scenery chewing supplanting Jackie Gleason's self-effacement.

This thriller is effective if you can accept that--as with some of John Dickson Carr's locked-room mysteries--the trickiness counts more than any plausibility.

Compared with the novel, the movie might seem predictable. But compared with other movies, it stands alone.

The special effects are impressive, but they don’t add up to a movie.

Nicely written as well as filmed.

The first half is better than average for an opulent Classics Illustrated film, thanks to realistic period detail, brisk storytelling, and Reese Witherspoon as the saucy rags-to-riches Becky Sharp. Then the whole lumbering weight of the production catches up with the filmmakers, slowing the proceedings to an interminable crawl.

Properly speaking, this isn't a movie with characters but with figures, each of them as overblown as a plastic inner tube.

If you can swallow one more amnesia plot and one more recycling of favorite bits from Godard's Bande a part, pressed to serve yet another postmodernist antithriller about redemption, this has its compensations.

At its best it's a free-form fantasy with glitzy, well-executed effects and assorted metaphysical conceits but little feeling for any of the characters apart from derision (with a few touches of racism here and there).

I have no objection to soap opera when it's delivered with conviction and a sense of urgency, but this sappy tale ... held my interest only moderately.

The actors do a pretty good job, though not good enough to sustain 133 minutes.

Though the premise seems obvious and facile, the execution and the delineation of the various characters (all recognizable Hollywood types) are likable and funny, and the cast is great.

Another takeout—untidily slapped into a Styrofoam container—is more like it. Aimed at less discriminating viewers, this sequel to the 1987 Stakeout, again directed by John Badham, isn't too bad if you're looking for nothing more than good-natured silliness, low comedy, gratuitous tilted angles, and protracted dog jokes.

[Brooks's] second Williams adaptation (1962) is literally a form of emasculation that offers little indication of what made the original play interesting (especially in Elia Kazan’s stage production), despite the fact that Paul Newman and Geraldine Page are called on to reprise their original roles—as a hustler returning to his southern hometown and a Hollywood has-been—and do a fair job with Brooks’s hopeless script.

This is smooth and at times even sensual -- a well-oiled machine.

The story has its corny aspects, but thanks to Scott's skill as an image maker and as a storyteller--proceeding from the very blue and very abstract water seen behind the credits to the climactic, extended storm--this is superior to both "Dead Poets Society" (as a tale about a boys' school and its charismatic teacher) and "Apollo 13" (as a true-life action adventure).

I was worn down by the excess: Depp's fruity impersonation of Keith Richards (or William F. Buckley) as pirate Jack Sparrow; too many bottomless chasms on an island with too many jungle savages (after the fashion of Peter Jackson's King Kong); Bill Nighy playing too squishy a villain with a beard of too many crawling octopus tentacles; too much violence, pop nihilism, and sick humor.

Leslie Dixon's script and TV sitcom specialist Garry Marshall's direction are basically warm, funny, and lighthearted, and the relaxed amiability of the two leads—as well as Chicagoan Michael Hagerty and Roddy McDowall (who doubles as executive producer)—helps to make this good family entertainment.

Despite the familiar story arc and MTV visuals, Bendinger puts this across with a certain amount of pizzazz, and the competitive gymnastics are often spectacular.

Laughless, brainless, styleless, and clueless.

Attractively animated.

It shows rare courage in protesting the widespread abuse of innocent Iraqis, but its pseudodocumentary form is full of awkward misfires (such as a protracted use of theme music from Barry Lyndon) and its acting is often terrible.

The first third or so offers all the dominatrix fantasies one might wish for, but then fantasy gives way to the aggressiveness of the special effects and optical effects.

Honest curiosity and observation are what make this work, and in this respect Christina Ricci (as Wuornos's lover, Selby Wall) is almost as good as Theron.

Apart from the welcome grace and pluck of Asian action star Michelle Yeoh--who all but steals the movie away from Pierce Brosnan's Bond and single-handedly makes this a better wedding of Hong Kong and Hollywood than either Rumble in the Bronx or Face/Off--this film has no personality whatsoever.

A piece of cheese without much flavor.

As a well-directed star vehicle with a couple of good action sequences, this is good, effective filmmaking, but I was periodically bored; when Ford and Pitt aren't lighting up the screen nothing much happens.

I'm not sure how much has been gained in the updating.

I was engaged by Chick's characters...But that point passed pretty soon after the credits rolled, and nothing has come back to haunt me since.

One thing I especially like about it, apart from the flavorsome 40s decor in color, is that it's silly in much the same way that many small 40s comedies were.

The problem is that happy endings this strident and overextended begin to seem somewhat desperate.

Brewer knows how to guide his leads through this improbable story, and he kept me interested in spite of everything.

This is familiar but atmospheric, with good performances by Peter Falk, Blythe Danner, Joey Bilow, Michael Santoro, Merle Kennedy, and former football pro Don Meredith.

The involved backstory and Hartley's own generic music both prove burdensome; the main attraction is the cast's amusing way of handling Hartley's mannerist dialogue and conceits.

This is an ideal straight-ahead version of Jesus's story, built around Christopher Plummer's offscreen narration, for people who don't already know all the details and can't follow all of "The Passion of the Christ" without a synopsis.

If you're fond of Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn's physical talents for comedy even when they have slender material to work with, this occasionally amusing fluff can pass the time.

Hurt's character is so inert and unemotional that some spectators may find it difficult to stay interested in him.

There's something offensive about the movie's chintzy view of death and the way it periodically flirts with promising conceits (i.e., Goldberg offering her body as a surrogate so that Swayze and Moore can "touch" one another) only to back away from them in as cowardly a manner as possible.

This is obviously a sincere undertaking, and there's a certain homemade charm to the special effects used in the combat scenes.

I was wooed by its sexy romanticism all the way through to the mysterious and beautiful coda.

If you can accept the flouting of logic and credibility that usually goes with this kind of horror picture, this scary and suspenseful genre exercise, chock-full of false alarms and brutal shocks, really delivers.

I'm not sure what it all means, but, as in Ed Wood, Burton's visual flair and affection for the characters make it fun.

Murphy seems either incapable of or uninterested in creating a recognizable world, so local comic effects count for everything.

A collection of shots and characters designed to circle the globe rather than to say anything much about either the filmmakers or the audience, a triumph of multinational capital at work rather than of people or ideas.

Promises more than it delivers.

This anachronistic tale goes beyond Capracorn to evoke Depression-era fare like "One Hundred Men and a Girl" in which the charm is overtaken by mush. One wants to protect this, but it's hard not to gag on the cuteness.

By common consent, this is 1939 drama is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s poorest and least personal works, though it has some compensations.

At least (John) Waters cares about most of his freaks; for Lynch they're basically exploitation fodder for a puritanical "dark vision of the universe" that seems to come straight out of junior high, complete with giggles.

Amiably unvarnished... Much more successful than most other films that deal with daily life in the projects.

For torture and violence freaks, every clank and thud is duly and hyperbolically registered.

Brooks's sweetness, innocence, and boundless love of the infantile inform everything from the brassy production numbers (capped by an homage to Jailhouse Rock) to the final credits.

The mixture of sincerity and sitcom phoniness is bewildering at times, but on some level, I guess, the film works.

A delightful script and an equally delightful performance by Collins.

Slapdash but good-natured romantic comedy.

The ugly, aggressive, proliferating effects were all I could begin to contend with, and trying to keep interested in them was like trying to remain interested in a loudmouth shouting in my ear.

Some of the gags here are funny, but they aren't executed effectively enough to score.

More witty than laugh-out-loud funny.

Though it's not unlikable, John Singleton's second feature ("Boyz N the Hood" was his first) is an unholy mess in almost every respect.

Gardos -- treats it competently, though without much freshness or imagination.

Despite some of the sentimentality that is also Woo's stock-in-trade, I was moved and absorbed throughout.

So visually striking, so compulsively watchable as storytelling, and so personal even in its enigmas that I found it much more pleasurable than any of the Hollywood genre films I've seen lately.

Proves that the Disney people can sell just about anything--including a misogynistic celebration of big business and prostitution.

The Big Lebowski is packed with show-offy filmmaking and as a result is pretty entertaining.

As Dr. Octopus, Alfred Molina makes a more baroque supervillain than Willem Dafoe did as the Green Goblin, but the other stars--seem happy to be giving us more of the same.

This brisk, free-falling fantasy about the famous collators of German fairy tales, played here as a kind of comedy act by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, is Terry Gilliam's most entertaining work since the glory days of "Time Bandits," "Brazil," "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," and "The Fisher King."

This heart-warmer by Robert Benton has some of the tender wisdom and humor of his other features (e.g., Nobody's Fool).

Those who miss the wildness of his premainstream work will probably be only partially appeased.

Most of the film is set in an abandoned house, where enjoyably murky intrigues abound, and the last ten minutes feature a chase sequence with miniatures that is almost as much fun.

The film ultimately comes up short when it has to deal with Hickok as something other than a legend; Hill is hampered as usual by his fixation on iconography.

David Mackenzie, who directed the remarkable Scottish drama "Young Adam" (2003), delivers another masterful, disturbing tale of illicit passion, erotic obsession, and sudden death set in the 1950s.

As in other Ivory-Jhabvala adaptations, ritzy consumerism is very much on display, but what makes this better than most is Johnson's amused admiration for nearly all her characters, regardless of nationality.

It's too bad that Pakula allows this 1993 movie to dawdle after its climax, but prior to that he's adept at suggesting unseen menace and keeping things in motion.

High-spirited martial arts and comedy, with heavy doses of Star Wars and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The story has its hokey moments ("There's something very fishy about that girl"), but the sincerity and focus of the storytelling compensate.

Moderately watchable but awfully predictable.

Uys's juggling of the separate yet interlocking plotlines is fairly adroit, and his whimsy continues to be good humored, although once again it's purchased with a sentimental and complacent view of African life designed to flatter the viewer.

Stupid, vicious, and pretentious, though you may find it worth checking out if you want to experiment with your own nervous system.

What's really fun about this silly but spirited comedy isn't just the ribbing of "swinging London" fashion and social attitudes but the use of the compulsive zooms and split-screen mosaics of commercial movies of the 60s.

Directed by Katt Shea Ruben from a script she wrote with producer Andy Ruben, this starts off with some spark and drive, in part because of the writing and playing of Gilbert's character, but gradually sinks into cliche and contrivance as the familiar genre moves take over, dragging down the characters, plot, and style.

Despite the cast -- Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, Denise Richards, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Theresa Russell, Robert Wagner, and Bill Murray -- I found it preposterous.

The main compensation is Harrelson's well-judged and finely shaded performance; the secondary ones are the ladies he hangs out with -- Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, and Kristin Scott Thomas. But the rest of this mainly drifts.

A good concert film might have been culled from Vaughn's 30-date LA-to-Chicago tour in September 2005, which showcased stand-up comedians Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Maniscalco and included bits with Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Dwight Yoakam, Justin Long, and Keir O'Donnell. But this is more like a DVD extra for that film.

At times the plot developments in this post-Tarantino story seem so random they suggest automatic writing, but the characters and some of the settings kept me interested.

On its own modest terms, this romp delivers.

The main problem here is the gross inferiority of the new version to the old: compare Tracy's handling of the opening monologue with Martin's and you'll get a fair indication of what's become of commercial filmmaking over the past four decades.

Heckerling still has some of the sensitivity she showed in handling actors in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and she has a deft way of illustrating her heroine's fantasies about possible mates without any fuss.

I guess one out of three ain't bad.

The narrative kept me glued to my seat.

The most underestimated commercial movie of 1987 may not be quite as good as Elaine May's three previous features, but it's still a very funny work by one of this country's greatest comic talents.

Better than you might imagine, though it still has its silly aspects.

Foley has a fine sense of shading in depicting a slightly dysfunctional family. The problem with this subgenre is the way it has to demonize and dehumanize its villains in order to produce the desired effect, which brutalizes the spectator along with the story and characters. If you can accept this limitation, this is a very efficient piece of machinery.

Not at all bad for a toy commercial.

A hollow view of hollowness with a very polished surface.

The thriller plot, while serviceable, registers as somewhat gratuitous, but the Buenos Aires locations are nicely used.

The movie's suggestiveness gives way to a certain thinness and lassitude.

Provides an interesting introduction to a compelling figure in contemporary pop music.

The film certainly held me, and even fooled me in spots (when it wasn't simply confusing), but when the whole thing was over I felt pretty empty. It would be facile to say it substitutes style for content; actually, it substitutes stylishness for style.

What Brooks manages to do with them as they struggle mightily to connect with one another is funny, painful, beautiful, and basically truthful--a triumph for everyone involved.

Duke is a superb director of actors, and, as in "Deep Cover", Fishburne manages to suggest a lot with a deft economy of means.

Full of odd notions and interludes, the movie never really comes together, but fitfully suggests a cross between Boys Town and Greaser's Palace.

If the Disney animated original (1961) -- adapted from Dodie Smith's novel -- tried to approximate live action, this 1996 Disney live-action remake often tries to evoke cartoon.

The only other adaptations I've seen of the Alexandre Dumas novel (which I haven't read) are the Classics Illustrated comic book and the 1939 James Whale potboiler, both of which I prefer to this vulgar and overwrought 1998 free-for-all, which makes you wait interminably for the story's central narrative premise.

As an action thriller with music by Isaac Hayes it's not bad.

As satire it's toothless and at times close to incoherent; its predictable swipes are aimed equally at conservative racists and bleeding-heart liberals.

Handsomely mounted and stylishly directed but otherwise rather unpleasant.

I don't believe in fixing things that aren't broken. Sandra Nettelbeck's wholly accessible "Mostly Martha" (2001) is one of the most delightful comedies of recent years, so the idea of a remake with English instead of German dialogue is already pretty dubious, an insult to the capacities of both audiences and the original filmmakers.

George Lucas produced and Jim Henson (of Muppets fame) directed this heftily budgeted 1986 fantasy, which seems to be a conscious attempt to play on the female coming-of-age themes of classic fairy tales.

The psychological and psychoanalytical probes into sexual and emotional problems keep this reasonably lively.

The couple's parents have a bit more personality than the other characters, but on the whole this is strictly by the numbers.

It may drive you nuts, but it’s probably the most inventive and original Godard film since Passion.

This has plenty of designer gore to go with its periodic spurts of bloodletting, and a lot of care and attention were obviously devoted to selecting locations, designing sets, and grooming handlebar mustaches. Much less attention went to making one believe that any of the events took place circa 1879, but at least the bursts of action keep coming, and most survive Cosmatos's addiction to smoldering close-ups.

Joffe may remain as variable a filmmaker as ever, but this time, at least, he gives one something really solid to think about.

Neither the crime nor its detection is especially interesting, and screenwriter Tony Gayton doesn't appear to be aiming for psychological insights.

This is simply efficient, routine storytelling with a high gloss but an undernourished sense of character.

This arty and moody account of her formation as an artist, as its subtitle declares, is basically invented. Its nerviness only pays off in a few details and in Nicole Kidman's resourcefulness.

A lot of superwimp gags executed by Luke Wilson grow out of this premise, as do some tacky 50s-style special effects. The movie's too slapdash to keep its characters consistent, but this has its moments.

Foreigners who argue that Americans are Neanderthal savages can point to this movie as persuasive evidence.

All this is supposed to be as cute as bugs and chock-full of worldly wisdom, but even with lead actors as likable and as resourceful as these, the material made me alternately want to gag and nod off.

It's neither sexy enough to qualify as good trash nor serious enough to pass for history.

The late 300-pound transvestite Divine, John Waters’s most enduring muse, makes his/her first star entrance in this 1969 feature—the first Waters movie to play outside Baltimore—driving a 1959 Eldorado to the strains of “The Girl Can’t Help It.”

This caper movie starts off as enjoyable guff before turning strictly formulaic and winding up as unenjoyable guff.

More concerned with attitude than character and too moralistic to be much fun.

After making his best and smoothest drama (Match Point) in England, Woody Allen returns there for one of his most clueless and awkward, outfitted with a standard-issue Philip Glass score.

Ryan's abrasive and rather creepy character is something of a departure for her.

Death of a President wants to function as a mindless thriller that eventually makes us think -- and only after the film is over question the form that encouraged us to be mindless. These are incompatible agendas, and in the end neither is fully successful.

Like "The Hustler," this absorbing Las Vegas story about a professional poker player (Eric Bana) uses gambling to tell a tale of moral regeneration. But Bana can't carry a picture like Paul Newman, and poker proves less photogenic than pool.

Sometimes it's hard to tell what's mere overreaching and what's nostalgia for Hollywood's former grandiloquence.

While Spencer Tracy provides a solid performance in the title role and Dimitri Tiomkin won an Oscar for his score, the overall effect of trying to film this rather unfilmable novel is a bit like an illustrated slide lecture.

But it's also Howard's and his audience's misfortune that a good time can be had by all only if nothing of substance gets said.

It's not clear why Steven Spielberg's Amblin decided to make a live-action entertainment starring the least interesting and most saccharine of all 50s cartoon characters, the friendly ghost who can't help scaring people, but here's your chance to search for an answer.

For most of the running time I was mainly confused, as well as mildly nauseated by the gross-out details of a tale that tends to be more slimy than scary.

More fanciful than factual, less likable than either The Big Easy or Breathless, McBride's previous two features, the movie tries hard to re-create the euphoria of 50s rock films, but the poor-white milieu is treated with such crude derision that all the characters wind up seeming like two-dimensional geeks.

This movie is a clone itself, a far cry from "Total Recall" but vastly superior to "End of Days."

Apart from some unexaggerated notations about American puritanism in the 1940s and '50s, this is more a work of exploration than a thesis, and Condon mainly avoids sensationalism.

An appalling piece of junk that tries to redo The Odd Couple and Grumpy Old Men in presidential terms.

One can certainly be amused and entertained by writer-director Michael Davis's hyperbolic action frolics--I was--but not without feeling pretty low and stupid.

Howard lacks the sense of film rhythm --required to make such an exercise work. Just about the only clear triumph here is an underplayed performance by Angie Dickinson, though Winger and Rosanna Arquette also provide welcome relief from Howard and Le Mat's self-indulgent carousing.

A lot of uninteresting and unpleasant people torture, abuse, and fire guns at a lot of other uninteresting and unpleasant people, in a repulsive, interminable would-be crime thriller.

A pretty good job of zipping things along and occasionally scaring us, and the digital effects are fun.

Apart from the script, it's the actors who make this a film worth seeing; all of them look and sometimes even act like real people rather than types or icons, and behind their interactions can be felt the depths of lived experience.

It's ultimately a losing battle when the audience's lack of interest in eastern Europeans is assumed at the outset.

Well crafted and mindless in the best Hollywood tradition.

Alas, most of the surprise and the wit to be found here ends with the title.

Although the film is built around the town's big centennial celebration, there are no big dramatic events in the usual sense; the film's focus is the complications, readjustments, and discoveries of middle age, and it's entirely to the credit of old movie buff Bogdanovich, who wrote the script, that there isn't a single film reference in sight.

A talking bulldog named Frank steals the show.

So-so ecological SF thriller from 1974 about superintelligent ants.

Like some of Joan Crawford's and Bette Davis's studio vehicles, this soapy romance exists only for what Gong Li can bring to it: a certain amount of soul and nuance.

Sam Raimi tries to do a Sergio Leone, and though this 1995 feature is highly enjoyable in spots, it doesn't come across as very convincing, perhaps because nothing can turn Sharon Stone into Charles Bronson.

Both actors are so good that one might easily overlook the Pollyannaish subplot.

The story (what there is of it) doesn't make much sense, but this is a very scary horror thriller that should keep you either on the edge of your seat or halfway under it.

Killing Zoe has little of the style, pacing, characterization, or wit of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction (though Avary worked on the scripts of both).

A lot of effort appears to have gone into the glitzy period re-creation, but this is mainly a tearjerker.

The eroticism is powerful, and the documentary candor and directness of the sex scenes make this well worth seeing.

Attractive black-and-white 'Scope compositions, strong Paris locations, and effective handling of the actors makes this captivating throughout.

Allen doesn't get us to care much about any of the characters here.

Marek Kanievska (Another Country) directs with relentlessly fancy visuals in a series of opulent southern California settings; Ed Lachman's cinematography is letter perfect as always in its handling of light and color (assisted here by Barbara Ling's flashy production design), but it's a pity to see it wasted on such claptrap.

This interminable contest between two narcissists, stretched out over many miles and years, is supposed to have something to do with romance.

The modeling of human figures and the sense of depth are both impressive; the characters themselves are mainly idiotic.

I never thought that a thoughtful director like Gillian Armstrong would get trapped in such Euro-nonsense, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

A light and fairly innocuous youth picture.

The set decor is more intricate than any of the characters.

A rather stagy and creaky early talkie (1931) by Alfred Hitchcock, adapted from a John Galsworthy play.

Brooks has an uncanny talent for making us feel insightful.

Thematically the film starts off like “The Believer,” Henry Bean's 2001 drama about an anti-Semitic Jew, and winds up like “Sullivan's Travels” without the comedy.

The silly story is basically just an excuse for some thrills and goofy one-liners, but even if the more likable characters tended to get killed off too early for my taste, I wasn't bored.

Director Billy Kent seems to have instructed most of his actors to behave like robotic sitcom characters; the principal exception is Danny DeVito, who simply behaves like Danny DeVito.

This three-hour 1962 remake of the Charles Laughton-Clark Gable MGM classic (1935) was the first production in which Marlon Brando really ran amok, with various delays causing the budget to skyrocket. Hardly anyone was pleased with the results.

This is thoughtful nihilist provocation at best.

In many respects this is a black counterpart to The Naked Gun, and very nearly as funny; the bounty of antimacho gags is both unexpected and refreshing.

Morrow and his collaborators so clearly believe in this project that I was carried along, often charmed and never bored.

For my money, what keeps it bearable is mainly the mugging of the older folks -- not just Jack Black, who steals the show in a part seemingly inspired by John Belushi, but Catherine O'Hara, John Lithgow, and cameos by Chevy Chase, Lily Tomlin, and Kevin Kline.

On a mindless exploitation level this is pretty good, but on other levels it seems to make promises that it fails to deliver on; none of the deaths carries any moral weight, and the climactic special-effects free-for-all tends to drown out all other interests.

One of the few Romero films written by someone else (Rudolph J. Ricci), it has a good eye for the kind of unglamorous middle-class life seldom seen in American movies.

The script itself—credited to Ronald Bass, and adapted from Nancy Price's novel—is a tissue of so many stupid and implausible contrivances that the only possible way of enjoying it is by taking your brain out to lunch.

Stylish and effective, if slightly overlong, thriller.

This sprawling and ambitious three-part Canadian film traces the spread of AIDS on three continents, but it gets off to a confusing start… By the time the movie returned to Africa, it had lost me despite its talented cast and its noble intentions.

But the inspirational aspects of the tale--which mainly has to do with the determination of Close to form a vocal orchestra at the camp, despite the class divisions between the women--never quite carry the dramatic impact they're supposed to.

Striking to look at, though often offensively opportunistic, this mainly comes across as a throwaway shocker with energy to spare. There's not much thought in evidence though.

Drawn from a children's book by Croatian illustrator Milan Trenc, this fantasy isn't exactly heavy, but its ideological implications are interesting nevertheless.

Despite the high spirits, most of the comedy is feeble and forced; Steve's career as a therapist seems especially far-fetched.

Falk throws himself into the part and almost single-handedly enables this comedy drama to transcend some of its sitcom limitations.

The direction of Fran Rubel Kuzui (Tokyo Pop) suggests that she's more comfortable with character than action, and Joss Whedon's script has some fun with Valley talk (both genuine and ersatz) but strains to sell the story.

Apart from a few incidental flickers of Wang’s sidelong humor, there’s little of his personality evident in this film about a divorced underground cartoonist (Tom Hulce) finding himself enmeshed in a murder plota story that steadily loses coherence and interest the longer it proceeds.

Leave it to coproducer Jerry Bruckheimer to revive the Indiana Jones cycle without the period setting, the camp elements, or Spielberg's efficiency; director Jon Turteltaub just plods along, and the script by Marianne and Cormac Wibberley is equally poker-faced.

This is mainly the girl's story, though the numerous southern archetypes out of Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers (who's explicitly referenced) keep threatening to overwhelm her.

This is pretty much the Lucas mixture as usual, this time in a Tolkien mode, with everything from the Old Testament to Kurosawa to Disney fed into a blender and turned into wallpaper. For easy-to-please five-year-olds of all ages.

May have more heart than head, but it's also just as interesting for what it leaves out of its romantic story as for what it retains.

A reasonably updated facsimile of a 50s service romp called Operation Mad Ball, a similar celebration of high jinks.

Rudolph Mate directed, and Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, and John Hoyt all make a game try at sounding like real people—which is not always easy, given Sidney Boehm’s script.

This packaged tour through the great man's career is unenlightening and obfuscating, despite an adept lead performance by Robert Downey Jr.

The best (which also means the sexiest) Campion feature since "The Piano," featuring Meg Ryan's best performance to date and an impressive one by Mark Ruffalo.

Some of it looks like a TV commercial, and the characters' motivations could have been generated by a computer, but the cast--Ray Barrett, Julia Blake, Simon Bossell, Saffron Burrows, Pippa Grandison, and Aden Young--is attractive and energetic.

Nichols is so astute at directing the actors (who also include Bill Nunn, Donald Moffat, and Nancy Marchand) that it's relatively easy to overlook the yuppie complacency, shameless devices (starting with an adorable puppy), and product plugs (especially Ritz crackers) that undermine the seriousness of the whole project.

This comedy is an ill-fated attempt to remake "Risky Business" (1983) for the 21st century, complete with a wind-chimey score, the hero posing in his underpants, and a cynical happy ending.

This comedy drama is capably acted and undeniably touching in spots.

Well-intentioned but obvious drama.

The old-fashioned theme of disaster as an existential test of character still works.

The only thing that keeps the proceedings bearable is the cast gamely rolling with all the shameless sitcom punches the script keeps throwing at them.

Murphy takes on a softer edge than usual this time: the plot recalls a Jeanette MacDonald operetta of the Depression, the mythical African country looks like a Beverly Hills fever dream, and, true to Murphy's idealized black middle-class view of things, everybody gets what he wants without much fuss or sacrifice, and virtually the only poor people in evidence are white.

Part of Morton's achievement is to present all four people through the viewpoints of the other three; Wagner can't do that, but the performances are so nuanced that the characters remain multilayered, and they're not the sort of people we're accustomed to finding in commercial films.

Alison Lohman isn't very convincing as the reporter who's trying to dredge up some dirt on the entertainers, and the elaborate flashback structure can't hide the fact that the story never fully comes to life.

This goofball comedy is easy to take and just as easy to leave alone--unless you develop an affection for the hapless characters, which isn't too hard to do.

Unfunny and instantly forgettable comedy.