Ken Fox

It's wholesome fun for the whole family.

Berman and Pulcini, who turned Harvey Pekar's graphic memoir into the visually inventive, Oscar-nominated "American Splendor," dress this film as an anthropological field diary and add several fabulous touches.

Interestingly, the real heart of the film is in the finely drawn adult characters.

Rossier's film leaves the dispiriting impression that democracy simply will not be tolerated in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Armenian-American quartet have taken it upon themselves to teach their fans about what happened to their families in that now-forgotten time, a deeply personal mission that has proven effective in politicizing their audiences.

An enjoyably ironic rethink of a beloved fairy tale.

Kenan and Kel share a wonderful comic chemistry that has a lot in common with the anarchic goofiness of Abbott and Costello or Martin and Lewis, leavened with a good deal more mutual affection.

The movie's refusal to treat young girls like silly tramps-in-training is almost radical: It's just good, clean fun and actually offers children of a certain age a role model even adults can feel good about.

A lot fresher and bit more sophisticated than the ordinary run of maudlin chick flicks and crude gross-out sex farces that now pass for romantic comedies.

Dramatically simple but emotionally complex.

By the film's downbeat climax, Cerda's dread of death and uncertainty about digging too deeply into what's better left buried have become palpable, and The Abandoned lingers beneath the skin as any decent horror movie should.

Efron's remarkable performance as a wild child who seems to truly exist somewhere betwixt and between is riveting.

Singaporean writer-director Eric Khoo's third feature is a beautiful, contemplative study of love -- unrequited, unfulfilled and reborn.

Equal parts "Oliver Twist" and "Pinocchio," Russian director Andrei Kravchuk's fictional hearttugger exposes a troubling real-life practice in contemporary Russia: the buying and selling of abandoned children to rich foreign couples.

The mystery is marvelous.

Aside from some unnecessarily crude stereotypes, Eddie Murphy's least-painful comedy in years has a certain peculiar charm.

Razvi, once a pushcart vendor himself, is particularly good; he brings a visceral poignancy to a character who comes to represent every desperate soul who ever tried to make it in the land of plenty.

The result is a rich and touching exploration of the vagaries of fortune, literary reputation and, above all, friendship that works on several levels at once. The soundtrack includes songs by Joy Division, New Order and Le Tigre.

Clad in dull khakis and a polo shirt, the always reliable Kinnear is his (Brosnon's) perfect foil, while Davis' neat turn as a suburban wife with a penchant for guns and the men who use them turns what might have been a cliched supporting role into something worth watching.

Hypnotic, culturally pertinent drama.

Exchanging Buddhist mantras like diet tips, they thoughtlessly destroy themselves after destroying each other.

Thanks to some first-rate acting from its stars, it ranks among Perry's best.

Winner of the John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature Under $500K at the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards, Henry's film is beautifully shot and extraordinarily well acted by Williams.

It's beautifully shot -- the sweat-drenched jukejoint scenes are particularly evocative -- and features a terrific performance by Ricci, one that deserves to be seen by a wider audience than the one certain to be reeled in by those torrid ads.

Charming, if slight, Venus-and-Mars romantic comedy.

Ending the film with a perfunctory run-through of Lennon's murder on the doorstep of his Manhattan apartment building, however, foregrounds an unfortunate irony: Had the INS succeeded in forcing Lennon out of the U.S., he might be alive today.

Zizek as a larger-than-life figure who manages to engage you even when you're not entirely sure what he's going on about.

Hamburger's earnest effort offers interesting perspectives on Jewish life in South America's most populous city as well as the fate of political dissidents during a particularly dark period of Brazil's recent past.