Ken Fox

This superbly played film, directed with remarkable skill for a first-time feature filmmaker, is truly an adult drama.

After a positively thrilling first half, Brazilian director Andrucha Waddington's follow-up to his acclaimed 2000 debut "Me You Them" badly stumbles over an unfortunate casting strategy.

The film's opening dedication to Pasolini acknowledges Arslan's debt to Neorealism, but the gritty, documentary style is offset by a charming bit of chalkboard animation that helps lighten the mood considerably.

It's an engaging diversion from a master director who, at the ripe age of 78, appears to be once again at the top of his game.

An even sweeter and lighter whipped confection than "Legally Blonde," this hugely enjoyable sequel serves up a generous second helping of the ingredient that made the original such an irresistible hit.

Indeed, Hirschbiegel himself seems reluctant to single out a protagonist, and finally settles on Junge.

All the paraphernalia so important to the image of the Reich, particularly the uniforms, are painstakingly rendered, bringing a heightened sense of realism to what might otherwise have been a romantic coming-of-age tale.

Marvelously entertaining.

It's very funny, and the little woodland critters that make up the cast are a kiddie-pleasing bunch.

One of the most perceptive movies about the gentrification of Los Angeles.

A sad and sometimes funny tale of Alzheimer's, love and loss.

The film's potshots are perfectly aimed.

The film is bold stroke that hopes to push Romanian society forward by staring into the dismal failures of its recent past.

Damon, an underrated comic actor, is particularly good as an ultra-rationalist who'll scream like a girl and run from anything he can't immediately explain.

This dark, almost mythic heart is what makes the film such an emotionally rich experience.

Once again brushing aside critical drubbings and public indifference, determined independent auteur Henry Jaglom follows up the abysmal "Let's Go Shopping" with something far better: an old-school Hollywood cautionary tale about -- what else? -- Hollywood.

The drawn-out effect is deliberate -- director Babak Payami wants his audience to concentrate on the characters' inner development and their isolation -- but his strategy slows the film down to a crawl.

Directed with charming restraint by the acclaimed American producer Dan Ireland, the film is a quiet triumph for Dame Joan.

The film, beautifully shot in widescreen by Luca Bigazzi, is surprisingly accessible and always engaging, if ultimately tragic.

There's a telling disjunction between the dismal lives of Jia's characters and the optimism of China's officially sunny advance into the 21st century, and their helplessness often becomes a pathetic pantomime.

In the end, Haar's powerful and terribly sad film speaks volumes, not just about life in contemporary Israel, but in the U.S. as well.

Expansive and undeniably brilliant.

Often fascinating.

Fly's striking, often suspenseful drama has all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy: an insecure young prince who must prove his mettle and loses his soul; a cruel, manipulative queen who cares only for power; a close adviser whose motives aren't always clear.

One is left with an unsettling ambivalence about the night's awful events -- there are no absolute villains here, just as there are no total victims -- and much of the credit is due to the performances.

While not exactly in the same league as the visually dazzling "Excalibur" and saddled with cheap looking CGI effects, this Anglo-Italian co-production has quite a bit of fun finding a direct path from the fall of Rome to the birth of Arthurian legend.

Ratanaruang's simple willingness to tie different strands of melancholy melodramas and violent yakuza thrillers together with flashes of surreal mystery immediately sets him apart from the herd.

The atmosphere is once again black, creepy and unsettlingly elegant, lending this twisted tale of psychological dominance and submission a patina of anxiety and dread.

Sweet, melancholy comedy; it's ineffable charm lies entirely in the delivery.

Of the long list of couples who have loved neither wisely nor particularly well, few have such power to disturb as Burton Pugach and the love of his life, Linda Riss.

Most significant and contrary to the Mormon Church's ongoing position, the film depicts Young as present when the plot is hatched to slaughter the emigrants. Needless to say, this workmanlike but unflinching film won't be playing in Utah anytime soon.

Says many things at once without much perspective or clarity.

Stylish, well acted drama.

Without slavishly imitating the photographer's distinctive style, Almereyda also manages to connect his own images to all that's "Egglestonian" in the photographer's world.

Important, awareness-building documentary.

South African director Mark Bamford's sweet-natured ensemble film doesn't shy away from addressing issues of racism -- both black and white.

German filmmaker Malte Ludin's gripping documentary about the father he barely knew is both an extraordinary exercise in family history and an example of what Germans call Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung: "facing the past," particularly the years of Hitler's Third Reich.

Eisenstadt has an unerring sense of comedic rhythm and a knack of cutting away just in time to extract the drop of humor from a potentially pathetic situation.

Newcomer Cassidy is excellent, and Hoskins gives a flawless performance.

Rae's 80-minute film isn't able to answer every question or flesh out important details of these events, and she spends more time on Trudell's artistic endeavors than on his direct political action.

It's a bit like a Chinese "Splendor In The Grass."

Flawed, but fascinating, this somber adaptation of David Guterson's award-winning novel is sometimes sluggish and difficult to follow, but it's also unexpectedly poetic.

Polanski's film is an unqualified success both dramatically and artistically.

Bahrani's willingness to expose the shameful reality of third-world conditions in the Land of Plenty while telling a crackling good story marks him as a filmmaker as important as he is accessible.

A marvelous, deceptively simple accomplishment shot on grainy 16mm film and featuring a cast of mostly nonprofessional actors delivering loosely written dialogue.

The movie's is really good, clean fun that's fine for slightly older kids and a lot of fun for adults.

MacGregor demonstrates just how far he's come as an actor. Swinton, meanwhile, adds another notch to a resume already crowded with good performances.

cinematographer Mo-gai Li's keen sense of color balance and composition make this freaky fairy tale the most beautiful - if not the scariest - horror movie in ages.

A little like a leisurely surf through YouTube.

Intelligent but incomplete-feeling documentary.

An extremely funny, ultimately heartbreaking look at life in contemporary China.

Lucas rarely breaks his glower to express anything other than tough determination. It's an attitude that's clearly modeled on that of storied Nicks' coach Pat Riley, who, it so happens, played for Kentucky that now legendary final game.

What's surprising is how bright and engaging these kids are, and for once you're left wanting more.

Fascinating on a number of levels, and deeply disturbing through and through.

Wrenching documentary.

At a little over two hours, there's a lot of Langlois to digest. But cinephiles won't mind a bit: Richard includes tons of great anecdotes and clips from classic films that wouldn't exist if Langlois hadn't saved them.

Further proof that so-so books often make better movies than good ones.

Film works best as a soberly witty commentary on the workplace and makes an interesting companion piece to "Mondays in the Sun."

Novice filmmakers Arin Crumley and Susan Buice's charming homemade movie is a surprisingly successful experiment in collaborative creativity that sprang from a larger artistic project: their own real-life relationship.

Chernick may not answer every question about this beguiling and enigmatic film, but you wouldn't want it to: Mystery is an essential part of the Barney experience.

The result is an interesting, if slightly unbalanced, hybrid: a social problem film with the warm heart of a deeply felt love story.

Thom Andersen's idiosyncratic, three-hour masterpiece is both a dazzling work of film criticism and a fascinating piece of urban anthropology.

Slick and surprisingly emotional documentary is really a rare, optimistic critique of globalization.

Boorman's original script is razor sharp and very funny, and Gleeson's portrayal is nothing short of brilliant

With this perceptive, however bloody, film, Ishii makes it disturbingly clear that a culturally instilled sense of shame and fear of being shunned mean that women like Chihiro are doubly victimized, both by their attackers and the society that should protect them.

Hopkins plays "Hopkins," and the buff, terribly miscast Gyllenhaal will be convincing only to viewers who've never set foot on a university campus. What makes it worth seeing, however, is the extraordinary chemistry between the atypically raw and unguarded Paltrow and Davis, a fabulously talented actress once again testing her range with a performance unlike any she's given in the past.

The film avoids theorizing about why the bridge should exert such a hold over the imaginations of suicides all over the world, but Steel's dramatic cinematography, particularly the distorted telephoto shots that make the bridge loom even larger than it already does in life, provide one answer.

Where the hero of Maupin's novel learns some valuable lessons about love and faith, the film strikes a darker, even angry tone that's far more understandable and, in the end, far more convincing.

This touching documentary is many things at once: a fascinating biography, a gorgeously shot travelogue, a provocative disquisition on the relevance of architecture and, above all, the record of a son's poignant search for a father.

Best of all is Tsugumi's wild performance.

Not many films have the power to change how one sees other people, but this remarkable anthology of loosely connected shorts from writer-director David Riker just might.

An intelligent, imaginative children's adventure refreshingly free of rapping cartoon animals, fart jokes and mind-numbing special effects.

First-time director Mark Milgard displays enormous promise and a surprisingly sensitive touch with this beautifully rendered tragedy.

Jonathan Demme gets personal with this affectionate tribute to courageously outspoken radio broadcaster Jean Dominique, the pro-democracy advocate whose unflagging support for president Jean-Bertrand Aristide eventually cost him his life.

Levinson brings it all back home to Baltimore and delivers his funniest and most heartfelt film since "Diner."

The film becomes a complex tissue of intersecting lives, but Gleize handles each developing story with amazing ease, and the fabulist touches are the icing on a very tasty cake.

Though absurdly criticized for being too "white" to play Mariane Pearl, Jolie gives an excellent performance. She portrays Mariane as gutsy, smart, passionate and highly efficient.

Seriously sexy stuff from -- surprise -- the former-Soviet Union.

An entertaining, insightful and handsomely illustrated "Freud for Dummies."

Dreams With Sharp Teeth Or, Why is Harlan Ellison so gosh darned angry?

We don't learn too many specifics of Smith's brilliant career, and only a die-hard fan will find all of it vitally interesting.

A riveting account of one of the most extraordinary events in U.S. immigration history.

Unpredictable and hugely entertaining.

While incontrovertibly light compared to contemporary master of melodrama Andre Techine's best work, this 2005 romance is best enjoyed as the welcome reunion of two of French cinema's most beloved stars.

It's a complicated plot, but one that leaves plenty of room for everything a fan could want: gunplay, swordfights, brutal mano a mano fisticuffs, motorcycle races, car chases, Japanese gangsters eating sushi off of topless women, and that old standby, a decapitated head in a box.

A touching examination of the ravages of Alzheimer's disease, made even more so by the extraordinary chemistry between Swedish actor Sven Wollter and his real-life wife, Viveka Seldahl, who died shortly after the film was completed.

Never the most optimistic of poets, Sokurov does suggest the possibility of dialogue on the individual level, and the hope that by asking difficult questions of one another, these mortal enemies can find answers and reach an understanding everyone can live with.

May be the best film to date about the humanitarian and environmental impact of China's enormous Three Gorges Dam project.

Negrin's film is a well-deserved tribute to a principled man who dared to act when principles no longer counted for anything.

Once again, Field has crafted and grown-up movie that grabs you by the throat, drags you in and doesn't let you go until the very bitter end.

The film is an original work by a filmmaker who throughout his career has absorbed the best of what Ozu had to teach, and as such it stands as beautiful tribute from one master to another.

Versatile, highly skilled Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland's poignant drama examines the lingering effects of U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia.

Basilio narrates his tale with such wit and wisdom that one comes away from the film wondering how much youthful potential is slowly being choked to death deep within the bowels of the earth.

Presents the salient points of this troubling case with gripping concision.

Amazingly, not all of the witty and wise barbs are Wilde's, and any confusion between the old and the new is probably the highest compliment one could possibly pay to screenwriter Howard Himelstein's tart screenplay.

Driven by Edward Norton's and Evan Rachel Wood's riveting performances, writer-director David Jacobson's tense drama samples bits of cinematic Americana from sources as diverse as "Shane," "Badlands" and "Taxi Driver."

The accolades are typically gushing - Bono likens Cohen to Byron and Shelley.

The superego gets bested by the id in Spanish director Joaquin Oristrell's curious period sex comedy, which mixes intellectual musings on psychoanalysis with vulgar guffaws of the basest sort.