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.