Ken Fox

At a time when the images of Arab-Americans are already largely negative, do we really need more violently temperamental, bomb throwing men in turbans and beards?

While we at home can't come close to experiencing the war in any real sense, we do come away from Scranton's film with a greater sense of the soldiers' everyday fear, helplessness and horror.

Andersson creates a world that's at once surreal and disturbingly familiar; absurd, yet tremendously sad. The haunting score is by ABBA's Benny Andersson.

The most infuriating revelation in Amy Berg's powerful documentary is the lengths to which current Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney and other church officials went to protect Father O'Grady and themselves, even though it meant knowingly delivering countless other children into a child molester's hands.

Throughout, the notion that hip-hop is much more than rapping is a persistent theme, and anyone seeking a solid introduction -- or re-introduction -- to that ever vibrant culture shouldn't miss it.

Once Kim and Heidi finally meet, it becomes something much more complex: a gripping drama of culture clash and familial responsibility that also serves as a stinging metaphor for U.S. involvement in Third World nations like Vietnam.

While far from her best work, this accessible, emotionally involving domestic drama nevertheless serves as a welcome introduction.

However you feel about her character and what she may or may not have done, Tamblyn's portrayal of Stephanie Daley is softly devastating.

This gripping documentary sheds light on the frightening totality of Hitler's vision for a Germanic Europe, and the extent to which he and his Nazi thugs were no better than common thieves.

The story the film has to tell is an outrage, but it never devolves into a sputtering tirade.

Simply and eloquently articulates the tangled feelings of particular New Yorkers deeply touched by an unprecedented tragedy.

It's a fascinating film that manages to touch on subjects as diverse as mental illness and what's wrong with the record industry, set to brilliant music by the one of the best bands you've probably never heard.

A psychologically acute profile of one teenaged girl obsessed with leading what she thinks of as normal life.

Makhmalbaf shot this film under extremely difficult circumstances, and it sometimes shows; but it's still an important achievement.

The film may be lighter in tone than Imamura's more recent work, but it still has a number of serious things to say about life in contemporary Japan.

The skating photography is excellent and, like the documentary's soundtrack, songs from the Stooges, Blue Oyster Cult and the Weirdos set the proper mood. But this dramatization does nothing Peralta's documentary didn't do better.

The shame of it all is that Kane somehow managed to assemble an extraordinary cast, whose fine performances can't surmount the tedium of his script.

But for all the divine touches, FH is no Jesus, or even his son: He's just another wide-eyed American Adam on the road again, a dazed and confused Huck Finn of the highways.

The film is marvelously acted -- the Bolger sisters are a delight -- and Sheridan captures New York City's crazy energy as only an newcomer can.

Informative and richly illustrated documentary.

Wood's drama packs an emotional gut-punch that's all the more devastating for its being rooted in a dreadful historical reality.

Most of Halim's script is a laundry list of offensive remarks that he no doubt means to serve as titillating spoof, but none of it's funny or even the least bit provocative, just offensive.

The nerve-racking wait at the Contention hotel is no longer the film's centerpiece, but the deeper characterization gives Bale an opportunity to once again sink his teeth into a complex role, and offers a reminder as to why the notoriously difficult Crowe is sometimes worth the trouble.

We can only hope that the time frame is meant to be sometime before 9/11, and not after. Either way, it's a troubling vision of how terrorism and "martyrdom" occur on both sides of this ghostly war, and is both perpetrated and facilitated by the very forces enlisted to stop it.

This gentle and somewhat slow moving romantic fable has a quiet sweetness all its own, and is thankfully free of the inscrutable ponderousness that often infuses the films of Yektapanah's mentors.

Warm and frequently very funny, Argentine director Carlos Sorin's third feature weaves together three story lines into one road-tripping adventure that's a joy ride from beginning to end.

If the sign of good documentary is its ability to enthrall you regardless of your prior interest in the subject, then Stacy Peralta's hugely entertaining film earns high marks.

Lunkheaded but entertaining action flick.

Actually a marked improvement over the plodding and confusing original.

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.

Excellent performances from Jacqueline Bisset and Martha Plimpton grace this deeply touching melodrama.

Moncrieff offers a rare, unromantic take on female adolescence as sharp as a razor: It cuts right to the bone.

It offers a rare opportunity to watch a world-class playwright bringing one of his own works to life; rarer still, Almereyda puts his notoriously reticent subjects so sufficiently at ease that they actually sit down and discuss their craft.

The film is a trifle long too long for its rather slim mystery, but in face of so much beauty and invention that's a small quibble.

Offers what her fans came to expect from the "Jezebel of Jazz": great music.

A welcome introduction to yet another facet of an artist who continues to beguile well into her seventies.

Dunn's elegant, full-length debut presents a frightening and powerful argument against the kind of reckless, profit-driven land development that not only threatens natural resources, but life itself.

Expansive and undeniably brilliant.

This strange and beautifully expressive film set in a remote Mexican canyon has nothing whatsoever to do with Japan, but its themes are as universal as they come.

It's a great part for a great actor and Cheadle does a magnificent job turning this living legend back into flawed, flesh-and-blood reality.

The result is an interesting hybrid of neorealist grit and star-driven melodrama, in which very real concerns about poverty and social injustice are mixed with a romantic subplot.

The movie more than compensates for its biographical deficiencies with thrilling footage of a recent reunion concert which finds the Funk Brothers still in top form.

It's a great achievement, quiet enough to allow room for her excellent supporting cast -- but strong enough to be felt over James Horner's omnipresent, typically overbearing score.

The film is marvelously acted all around, and the fact that there isn't a false note in the entire film is especially impressive given Kureishi's melodramatic contrivances and the fact that his characters are clichés whose behaviors are predictable at nearly every turn.

What Guttentag and Sturman gain in dramatic immediacy, however, they lose when it comes to historical context, and the chance to offer insight into why such things occur in the first place -- and continue to happen today -- is lost.

It's mostly very crude, often very funny and a little bit smarter than you might otherwise think.

The film is a shattering experience fueled by Jentsch's electrifying performance.

A little too derivative of much better movies to succeed on its own. However, in the context of recent Chinese movies, it's a pretty amazing piece of work.

Dryly funny, deceptively simple road movie that quietly reveals the state of contemporary Romanian life.

Bardem's performance is simply shattering.

A well-crafted potboiler from start to finish.

A fine, straightforward tribute to a sports giant who faced blatant prejudice and paved away for the likes Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and other minorities who dared make a place for themselves as heroes of America's greatest pastime.

The audacious finale, which plays out in a wholly symbolic realm, will leave even the most adventurous moviegoers scratching their heads. See it with a friend; you'll appreciate the second opinion.

"We're not that different, but we're different from what you think we are," says 16-year-old Ebony, and no playwright could have said it better.

A sleek and sublimely deadpan comedy of Japanese corporate manners.

There's enough information packed into Paul Devlin's documentary about the woes besieging the former Soviet republic of Georgia for two movies.

The excellently translated subtitles retain the wit and flavor of the brisk, at times even hardboiled, dialogue.

Director John Crowley and screenwriter Mark O'Rowe's follow-up to their feature film debut "Intermission" may follow an all-too schematic flashback structure, but the film is too brilliantly acted for that to really matter much.

The film is merciless in its depiction of death and suffering, Pitt and Corbet are perfectly cast, and Watts, who also served as executive producer, gives a disturbingly raw performance.

Warm, funny and often brutally honest profile of an aging divorcee and her three very different daughters.

If Israel needs a Mike Leigh to capture the angst of its silently suffering working class, it could do far worse than Nir Bergman.

The music continues to speak for itself. Play loud.

Schroeder's film is a fascinating character study in contradictions and in the end Verges remains loathsome, oddly charismatic and willfully enigmatic.

Mark Orton's overused fiddly score is nice enough, but can't disguise the essential emptiness of overlong scenes.

Cheung gives a revelatory performance.

Innovative sounds and striking visuals combine to form an exquisite cinematic work.

The sheer size of the production dwarfs the human drama.

This far more modest production is a much more interesting film (than "Anywhere But Here").

The film fires off too many intriguing plot possibilities that remain nothing more than that.

Anyone who understands the meaning of the title or catches all the frog references scattered through writer-director Martin Curland's feature debut will have a head start understanding this confused and confusing comedy.

Perhaps more than any war film in recent memory, Kippur is about the actual work of combat.

The film draws careful parallels between orthodoxies and in his own quiet way, Masud, a devout Muslim, level his critique at repressive political regimes and religious doctrines, and those who dangerously confuse one with the other.

It's a handsome production, and a pleasure to watch. With a shadowy palette and a set design reminiscent of Edward Hopper's nocturnes, a soundtrack hearkening back to the sounds of vintage rock 'n' roll, and a cast of characters straight out of a James M. Cain novel.

It's quite an achievement and makes a strong argument in favor of traditional animation — this is the first Disney feature since "Dumbo" (1941) to feature watercolor backgrounds, and they're beautiful. But beautiful illustrations and a funny premise can't save this well-meaning kid flick from its dully plotted story.

Techine's unwillingness to soften his characters reflects a rare honesty about human nature that's rarely seen in movies, particularly movies about fatal illnesses, and his film is an engaging and particularly French character study.

The film works best when it doesn't try so hard, when Salles simply allows his excellent actors and his beautiful images to work their magic.

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.

Unfortunately, the film never really catches fire, despite uniformly high-caliber performances; Day-Lewis, surely one the finest actors of his generation, is excellent.

Remarkable film.

Fans of the genre are in for a wickedly entertaining treat.

An enjoyable, ultimately inconsequential crowd-pleaser.

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

It never fails to come as a shock to find how profoundly moving it all is when these gentle films draw to their graceful conclusions.

Hamer perfectly captures that post-WWII spirit of better living through science by positioning streamlined Swedish cars and hump-backed trailers against the timeless Norwegian landscape.

The whole lighter-than-air lark whizzes by like a brisk, kandy-kolored dream of the 1960s, flavored by a Saul Bass inspired credit sequence; a slinky, Henry Mancini-esque score; and a stunning array of period sets and evocative locales.

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

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

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.

Flawed but undeniably provocative and brilliantly acted by Gosling.

In the end, Bill emerges as someone truly unique and someone who we feel privileged to know.

The acting is superb.

A grim neo-noir thriller.

Shattering documentary.

This hilariously low-key film is punctuated by inspired wish-fulfillment fantasy sequences filled with pro-Palestinian imagery that would be taboo in a western film.

With virtually no music and very little expository dialogue, this is one of the rare films with enough faith in moviegoers to let them figure things out for themselves.

No doubt captures some of the horror and the chaos of the actual situation, but it makes for a loud, often confusing, and always bloody two and a half hours.

Mohammad Rasoulof's heartfelt and darkly comic second feature proves beyond any doubt that Iranian film is still alive and well, despite waning Western interest in one of the world's richest contemporary cinemas.

Shakespeare himself couldn't have written better or more complex characters, and far from strange, by the end of this extraordinary film you couldn't imagine Shakespeare performed anywhere else.