Ken Fox

Ranks among the best films ever made about the acting profession.

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.

Barney has been criticized as willfully esoteric, but if traditional meaning is once again elusive in this film, it remains an enthralling aesthetic experience, one that's steeped in mystery and a ravishing, baroque beauty.

Not much happens in this gentle-hearted, black-and-white film from Argentina, but it's what doesn't happen that makes it such an unusually satisfying experience.

This tightly structured, often exciting film is among the boldest in a series of increasingly explicit movies.

On a miniscule budget, Ghobadi conveys the terror of war, while the beautifully edited sequence in which Iranian villagers make bricks resembles nothing so much as a choreographed dance number.

An intoxicating dream of a film that speaks to the daydreamer in all of us.

A bold, remarkable film.

"All of us are by nature wild beasts. We must be like animal trainers and teach ourselves tricks alien to our bestiality." Cutting-edge Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul uses this quote from the novelist Ton Nakajima to introduce his entrancing third feature.

In a startling move, Oliveira devotes the first 15 minutes of the film to the final moments of Ionesco's play, and it's thrilling to watch.

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 folks at Disney prove that clothes -- and little else -- make a man, and do so with extraordinary style.

Also featured are countless cameos from local superstars ranging from the Fall's Mark E. Smith to Mani of the Stone Roses, making the film an absolute thrill for fans of the Manchester scene.

A marvelously entertaining, deeply moving treatment of a highly controversial practice: female genital mutilation.

Bardem's performance is simply shattering.

For once, Carrey is more than merely tolerable. He's actually good, and the film that ebbs and flows around him is something you won't soon forget.

Builds so gradually you probably won't realize it's a near-masterpiece until it's over, but there are hints along the way.

Ramsay's second feature is an extraordinary adaptation of fellow-Scot Alan Warner's acclaimed novel.

The kind of brainy human comedy that only this formidable French auteur seems capable of making.

Terminal illness, depression, suicide and one very angry young man: If there's such a thing as a kitchen-sink comedy, writer-director Lone Scherfig's sad but often very funny film is it.

Brilliantly edited from well over 100 hours of tape, the final two-hour film recalls Michael Apted's 7 UP series.

Nearly perfect.

It's extraordinarily sexy: The atmosphere is all cigarette smoke and Nat King Cole songs, silk suits and tight sheath dresses.

Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's most accessible film to date is also his most wrenching.

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

Rarely have six hours spent doing ANYTHING seemed so rewarding.

Not only is it a reintroduction to a fascinating culture that has survived 4,000 years in a remote and most inhospitable climate, but it's also the first film ever directed by an Inuit filmmaker and featuring an all-Inuit cast.

Every frame gleams and the camel -- a double-humped wonder whose unusual majesty and quiet mystery drives this wonderful film -- is magnificent to behold.

This exciting, ultimately bittersweet, film was shot cheaply on video, but is nevertheless filled with moments of artistry and invention.

The film not only stands as an important street-level document of that time, but makes a valuable contribution to the growing compilation of 9/11 storytelling.

It's both funny and harrowing in the way that only a childhood nightmare come to life can be.

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

Haynes took an enormous risk here, but thanks to his thoughtful script and an utterly sincere performance from Moore, what could have easily become a cold, calculated exercise in postmodern pastiche winds up a powerful and deeply moving example of melodramatic moviemaking.

Maverick Chinese director Jia Zhangke examines the rapidly changing face of China as its economy edges further toward a modified form of market capitalism with yet another complex, multicharacter masterpiece.

It's a documentary, but the filmmakers couldn't have scripted a more revealing microcosm of profiteering and exploitation.

Resembles an Impressionist masterpiece come to life, and ends with a tremendously moving acceptance of art and mortality.

Powerful stuff from writer-director Li Yang that's both an uncompromising indictment of the human cost of China's evolving market economy and an nail-bitingly suspenseful thriller.

The acting is uniformly superb, as is the rich, somber cinematography.

The final effect, particularly the climactic ballroom sequence, is astonishing -- a haunting impression of the vast synchronicity of unbroken time that must surely stand as one of the great achievements in the development of the movie medium.

There's also very little dialogue, but what there is is often very funny, and Ceylan is a master of the dead-pan visual gags that reveal volumes about his character.

Marvelously entertaining, and occasionally brilliant, political satire.

Each frame is exquisitely framed, the acting is superb -- Abedini deserves to be a star -- and the impermanence of the lives of displaced Afghans is hauntingly expressed.

Shattering documentary.

Wickedly funny, deeply disturbing, live-action retelling of an old Czech folktale.

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.

Extremely difficult but worthy film.

Wildly entertaining and quite poignant.

From the ravishing landscape photography to the exquisite costume design, the entire film is a stunning visual experience; rarely since Hollywood's golden age has the genre been so well served.

Its opponents, Arab and Israeli alike, the "wall" is a dispiriting symbol of apartheid and defeat.

[Solondz's] blistering, brilliantly transgressive satire is sure to rattle even the most jaded filmgoer. It's also a remarkably compassionate profile of American life at its most desperate.

Filled with moments of real poignancy and gentle epiphanies, the film is also marked by strong Christian undercurrents, but, like everything else in Salles's film, they're handled with extraordinary delicacy and never feel exclusionary.

An intriguingly mysterious, self-reflexive ode to the dream factory, it's one of Lynch's most satisfying films.

Alternating between the sad facts of Nascimento life -- which included a stretch at one of Rio's notorious prisons -- with the events unfolding outside the botanical garden, the film is a pulse-pounding piece of documentary reportage, and a terribly important account of a social problem in developing countries that won't be going away anytime soon.

A rare treat — catch it while you can.

You'll gladly surrender to the whole gorgeous muddle.

Salles is a master storyteller, and the film's pacing is flawless.

Moodysson puts it across with a sincerity that's genuinely heartwarming, and he sets it all to a surprisingly good soundtrack culled from the Swedish rock (who knew?) of the era.

The film is informative, often grisly and undeniably riveting.

The film could easily be reduced to a parable of post-Communist Eastern Europe, but the allegory digs deeper into the very order of things, exemplified by 17th-century musicologist Andreas Werckmeister's arbitrary imposition of a "tempered" tonal system over naturally occurring tunings.

Like the violence in Alan Clarke's Elephant, the BBC documentary about Northern Ireland from which the film takes its name, Van Sant offers no straightforward reasons for what happens at this particular school. The explosion of violence is far from unmotivated, but its roots are presented as deeply personal and, even more troubling, ultimately inexplicable.

In the end, the film is both a fitting elegy for Arna and the children she tried to help and a deeply disturbing warning about what will continue to breed within the occupied territories until peace is brought to Palestine.

This mordantly funny, emotionally piquant depiction of post-adolescent angst also has its roots in the graphic novel format.

In its own quiet way, it's among the most important films you're likely to see this year.

It's not a pretty picture, but it's an important one.

An enthusiastic recommendation.

what makes Caro's film a future classic is What so many movies geared toward younger audiences lack: a cool and very courageous 'tween heroine whom boys and girls of all ages can admire

Nearly 75 years after the fact, the matter still hasn't given up all its secrets, but Denis' film comes close to a definitive, deeply disturbing account.

Rarely has mental illness been depicted so subjectively and seemed so immediate: John's daily struggle to determine what's real and what isn't becomes as palpable as it is poignant. It's also a touching testament to the love and dedication of John's family.

This rich, complex and surprisingly entertaining film also becomes a meditation on filmmaking and the parallels McElwee finds between cinema and, of all things, smoking.

Despite outward appearances, Paolo Virzi's utterly charming fable is actually a razor-sharp political satire.

Frei assembles a fascinating profile of a deeply humanistic artist who, in spite of all that he's witnessed, remains surprisingly idealistic, and retains an extraordinary faith in the ability of images to communicate the truth of the world around him.

What could easily have been a dry, didactic film is granted unusual power by Cantet's cast, all of whom seem to innately understand the personal nature of Cantet's subject.

Cheung, slinking around the corridors of her hotel in her sheath of shiny black latex to the dissonant chords of Sonic Youth, is an instant icon of everything.

Ever hear of a rock musical that actually rocked? John Cameron Mitchell's glorious adaptation of his acclaimed Off-Broadway show might be a first.

Even those who dismiss Von Trier as a talented sadist might reconsider after seeing this revealing and ultimately poignant documentary -- and the funny thing is, on the surface it's not even about him.

Actor Tim Roth's austere directing debut is one of the most difficult, emotionally wrenching experiences you're likely to have in a movie theater any time soon.

It's never dull -- beautifully acted and handsomely shot in sepia-toned Cinemascope.

This is a brave, groundbreaking film.

His (Finkiel) ability to control economical dialogue with subtle but unusually powerful images -- haunted faces peering out from behind foggy bus windows; train tracks that once carried other passengers to a death camp -- lend this quiet, unforgettable film an uncanny power.

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.

If any film can be considered required viewing as the conflict in Iraq continues to drag on and be reported, surely this among them.

More of the same from Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang, which is good news to anyone who's fallen under the sweet, melancholy spell of this unique director's previous films.

Serves as a powerful tribute to a group of heroes who gave those they saved something nearly as valuable as life: proof that the best of the human spirit can endure even through the worst of times.

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.

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.

Stylish, well acted drama.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It honestly delivers the goods without all the preachy moralizing about violent entertainment and cultural ruin.

Works best as an illustration of the way conspiracy theories serve to weave threads of order, however fantastic, during moments of incomprehensible upheaval.

Occasionally overrated as a writer but consistently underrated as a director, Towne does a marvelous job resurrecting all the seedy jumble of the long-gone Bunker Hill neighborhood.

John Curran's pretty melodrama rubs off a few of the barbed edges from W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 novel about love and infidelity in a time of cholera, but no matter: the centerpiece is Naomi Watts' outstanding portrayal of an adulteress redeemed.

It's a thoughtful and ultimately chilling take on a tragedy that still has the power to disturb and divide.

Zhang's film is sweet and sentimental nearly to a fault; luckily, he's such a master, you'll hardly notice how shamelessly you're being manipulated.

While at times overly familiar, the film never feels self-mocking.

You just know that any film that opens with Nietzsche's aphorism about hope being an evil that only prolongs the torments of man isn't going to a comedy.

It's both very funny and very scary, and never descends to the level of spoof.

Dark, dank and violent, filled with terrifying scenes in which exploited children are beaten, shot or starving to death. In other words, it's just as Dickens wrote.

Heartfelt and often very funny.

Despite its flaws, the film has the same dreamy, romantic melancholy that distinguishes Wong's best films.

A drum-tight, extremely grisly thriller. And odd as it may sound given the subject matter, it's also surprisingly funny.

Weerasethakul mixes fact, fiction and filmmaking into a blend that's intriguingly obtuse, yet surprisingly revelatory.

The morbid theme notwithstanding, this is by no means a downbeat film, and it ends with the rather hopeful thought that for every disaster there's also a chance for survival.

Silly but endearing comedy.

What the film lacks in artistry it makes up for in commitment.

Stylish and surprisingly effective thriller.

British director Shane Meadows' strongest film to date is also his most personal: A stylish fictionalization of his own wayward youth, spent among a group of working-class skinheads in Thatcher's England.

It was really no bigger than a beach ball, weighed about as much as a full-grown man and it beeped. And aside from transmitting a radio signal and accidentally opening a few automatic garage doors, it didn't really do anything except orbit the globe once every 96 minutes.

"Queer as Folk's" Peter Paige makes a strong debut as a writer/director with this original black comedy.

Pitch-black and bound to offend anyone who's not on its wavelength, Nick Guthe's entertainingly slick debut is a mordantly funny slice of lust, crime and sleaze life set in the world of L.A.'s industry elite: Call it 9021-noir.

There's little difference between this joyful holiday film and the standard-issue yuletide-miracle movie, except that the holiday isn't Christmas.

Like the film's giddily intoxicating cannabis hybrid, Rogen and Goldberg's script cross-pollinates Cheech-and-Chong style stoner comedy with Tarantino-esque ultra-violence.

This quirky, uncommonly intelligent adaptation is a strange delight.

Slow but charming film.

Cassavetes' instincts are spot-on, particularly when it comes to casting Timberlake in what turns out to be the most important role in the film. He manages to be both reprehensible and deeply charismatic, and winds up stealing the picture.

Based on the book by syndicated columnist and savvy media watchdog Norman Solomon, who appears throughout as the main talking head, Earp and Alper's documentary shows just how the U.S. government coerces a nation into accepting the very idea of war, and it's a job it couldn't do without the full cooperation of the media.

Looks and sounds great, and is at its best when it isn't trying too hard to have fun.

Some nice scenery, an unexpectedly funny performance by Jodie Foster and a unflaggingly spunky Abigail Breslin make for above average family entertainment.

What this spectacular-looking sci-fi thriller lacks in originality it makes up for in pure beauty: It just might be the most visually audacious and startlingly beautiful space opera since the original "Solaris."

perfectly serviceable costume drama.

More gripping than anything on Court TV and unexpectedly uplifting.

What's best about Block's documentary is how well he captures his own shifting perceptions.

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

fFrst-time feature filmmaker Cam Archer turns what might have been an exercise in salaciousness into a stylish visual poem about desire and adolescent alienation.

A flawed but nevertheless endearing father-son road trip with a distinctive twist.

There have been a number of worth documentaries about gender-benders who cross every conceivable line, but Tomer Heymann's film about a group of Filipino cross-dressers living in Israel is a drag doc with a difference.

Watching Binoche dithering about an American comedy takes some getting used to, but she's a believable soul mate for the hangdog Carell. The rest of the family, however, has got to go.

Rapp's theatrical past is evident throughout: His strongest scenes tend to be those purely character-driven moments when his sharp dialogue takes precedence over any cinematic action. Harris gives another strong performance and Ferrell is great in a comic but low-key role, but this is Deschanel's movie.

It's all confusing, woozy and slightly stoned, and feels very much like adolescence.

Cruise is downright scary. It's the creepiest -- and most entertaining -- performance since his unforgettable appearance in that Scientology video.

Location shooting gives this intermittently powerful film a semidocumentary feel.

For all the impending doom, the film remains suitable for kids of all ages (the filmmakers even end on a happily reassuring note that is at odds with the film's overall message).

The title refers to the giant promotional sign for the Hollywoodland real-estate development that once loomed on the side of Mt. Cahuenga. Shorn of its last four letters 10 years before Reeves' death, it survives as the iconic Hollywood sign.

Leaves you wanting much more.

A well-acted character piece.

Wragby is a stately manor straight out of English House & Garden, rather than a sprawling, suffocating warren teetering on the edge of a coal pit, and sex is portrayed as a means of personal deliverance rather than a universal salvation, leaving Lawrence's admirers still waiting for the film that will finally do the novel justice.

Where "Brockback" leaves its lovers where gay love stories have left them for centuries - isolated, ostracized and miserable - this small comedy finds a far more liberated alternative for everyone involved. In its own modest way, it's the far more radical film.

Even though Kinnear is meant to be obvious love interest, it's the relationship between Kate and Angie that becomes the film's central story, making this comedy sweeter -- and more honest in its depiction of class difference -- than one might otherwise expect.

Among those who are on hand to offer their own feelings about the man known as Peter Berlin and his art are fellow porn legend Jack Wrangler, groundbreaking gay writer Armistead Maupin, pornographer Wakefield Poole and director John Waters, who remembers Peter from his days in San Francisco, and still doesn't quite get what he's all about.

It will certainly appeal to its target audience, and Bynes is charming enough to carry the whole film on her shoulders, which is a good thing considering that she's in just about every scene and leading man Tatum is a stiff.

A sweet, unassuming surprise.

Ambling but never less than endearing.

Sebastien Pentecouteau's startlingly beautiful cinematography lends the film a dreamlike quality and perfectly suits Kounen's mystical subject matter.

Fortunately, no amount of optical wizardry and quick-change trickery can disguise the fundamental power of Harper's performance, a revelatory turn that's truly transformative in every sense of the term.

Raw, uncompromising and surprisingly explicit.

Conrad's script surprises at nearly every turn.

Happily, many of the figures spoken about throughout the film are still with us -- Neville is even able to reproduce Patricia Foure's famous group photo with most of its original subjects.

With 20/20 9/11 hindsight, it's clear that covertly arming the Mujahedeen wasn’t such a good idea after all, but neither Nichols nor Sorkin wants to spoil the fun.

Throughout, Holstein makes no bones about the fact that Father Mychal was hardly perfect -- he was a recovering alcoholic who found salvation in Alcoholics Anonymous -- nor does he attempt to disguise Father Mychal's homosexuality, something he never made public but which no doubt grounded his gutsy work with gay Catholics and people with AIDS.

If you can get past the lips, Ryan gives a touching performance as a woman determined to battle her cancer while knowing life offers no guarantees except death -- an understanding no doubt sharpened by Kasdan's own experience battling Hodgkin's disease as a teenager.

The film's highlights are far and away the musical performances.

The overall effect of watching his film is a bit like a nerve-racking game of Russian roulette: You just know a gun is going to go off, but you don't know which of this multitude of characters it's going to hit.

It presents an image of today's Israeli army, composed of teenagers who are by now several generations removed from the founders' original vision and have begun to question whether tactics designed to keep the country safe will only lead to increased levels of fear, humiliation and deadly violence.

Even though the screen is often divided into a Mondrian-like grid, each individual box containing its own discreet moving image, McDonald's film is surprisingly fluid and easy to follow.

Likably low-key, character-driven dramatic comedy.

The film is by turns strident, obvious, righteously angry and inspired.

Goldbacher's film is lovely to look at, but the blurry heart of the film only suffers by the comparison.

Running just a little over two hours and wordily narrated by talk-radio host Amy Goodman, Stephen Vittoria's hagiography spends more time bemoaning the past 30 years of U.S. political history and setting the dismal tone for McGovern's arrival on the political scene than it does on his 1972 campaign.

Though extensively fictionalized -- Sorowitch is loosely based on the notorious, larger-than-life forger Salomon Smolianoff; Herzog on SS officer Bernhard Krueger, after whom the operation was named.

Apatow's clever comedy is a romance in reverse, and it works.

A solid performance by the often underrated Judith Light lends considerable weight to this melodrama's controversial subject.

The fine acting and sexy chemistry between Bonham Carter and Eckhart make it work.

Aside from the overbearing soundtrack, the film is mercifully unsentimental and Ami himself can be quite droll.

Crtainly worthy of serious attention and filled with revealing moments.

Peculiar but oddly winsome fable.

Andrew Neel's fascinating but troubling documentary about his famous grandmother is more than a mere biography of an important 20th-century artist: It's also an intimate portrait of a family member that questions whether or not "great artist" and "good parent" can ever be combined in the same person.

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.

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.

Working from a script by TV actor Dylan Haggerty, Araki manages to capture what he's been trying to say all along about the lives of the stoned and indifferent with the kind of effortlessness those earlier attempts sorely lacked.

Law-abiding Americans who hand off a solid chunk of their salaries to the IRS might be interested in what filmmaker Aaron Russo has to say on the subject of income tax.

This handsomely mounted documentary takes the same, indulgent tone that at lot of Thompson's friends and associates seem to have had.

The original English scripts certainly were peppered with sly, topical asides aimed squarely at adults. Paul Bassett Davies' updated screenplay attempts to follow suit, but what passes for topical these days is pretty much limited to industry inside jokes and constant allusions other movies. Thankfully, the animation itself is thoroughly inspired.

Whatever the project's "reality," it's insightful as well as entertaining, and the inclusion of real interviews with people both inside and outside the business means it functions as both an intelligent critique and a dire warning.

Neither a prequel nor a sequel. Nor is it really much of a horror movie: It's a bizarre, bloody family drama that puts its predecessor into a larger social context.

An observant and sensitively played drama about adolescent sexuality, unrequited love and heartbreak.

Many of the script's observations sound as though they were lifted directly from the pages of Baxter's book, and they're too platitudinous to impart much wisdom to anyone who's been in and out of love at least once in his or her life. But it's nice to see these ideas played out by a fine cast.

The dialogue is minimal but sharp, the pace swift and the action sequences suitably loud and brutal.

As lightheartedly as the film plays, Morrison manages to say quite a few serious things about immigration and otherness.

Chinese director Ann Hu follows-up her tepid 2000 debut "Shadow Magic" with another luscious historical drama that, thankfully, is a lot more interesting. The plot is no less melodramatic, but here melodramatics work along with the film's theme, not against it.

The gritty location shooting, the absence of a soundtrack and the casting of non-professionals in key roles help capture an all-important sense of place with almost documentary precision.

Style oozing from virtually every frame.

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

The film is a pleasant breeze that refreshes, mostly because it's a rare, thoughtful comedy clearly intended for grown-ups.

This charming tale of a quartet of Australian orphans who share a life-altering holiday in the 1960s should appeal to sentimental adults old enough to wax nostalgic over their own adolescences.

In the end it remains an academic exercise, though a dazzlingly ambitious one that’s well worth seeing.

Goldberger, who made his debut with the similarly gritty and deliberately unpolished "Trans," tries to pull the novel's concerns to the surface, but much of its subtlety is lost. Giamatti, however, delivers yet another superb performance, turning what might have been a freak show into an unexpectedly moving experience.

The end result is an entertaining tour film.

Much of it will probably go right over the heads of kids who aren't familiar with classic movies or the naughtiness of Eddie Izzard.

One isn't quite ready to forgive the miscasting of Gere, however, who is about as convincing a Kabbalistic scholar as Madonna.

Aduaka's comprehensive account of an African nightmare covers a lot of important ground, making this flawed film worth seeing.

Unlike, say, David Cronenberg, who manages to establish a crucial, critical distance between his audience and his schizophrenic protagonist in his adaptation of Patrick McGrath's similarly themed "Spider," Carrere re-creates the insane mind through his camera, and diffuses his point about subjective experience by inadvertently raising questions about truth and the movies.

Taking its title from a key track by the NYC noise band Sonic Youth, S.A. Crary's documentary about No Wave music and its paradoxical influence is both a history of music that sought to defy history and a sharp look at the crisis of innovation in an age of commodified nostalgia.

Despite some excitingly shot concert footage, one scene begins to feel very much like the next, and it's all rather predictable.

Veteran conspiracy buffs probably won’t find much of Stone's material particularly new, but Stone’s film does serve as a neat summary for the rest of us while offering a number of intriguing insights into how conspiracy theories work and what they say about specific cultural and political climates.

It's rendered in shiny, state-of-the-art CG animation, not the charming pen-and-ink drawings with which Seuss illustrated his own books or the hand-drawn artistry Chuck Jones brought to the 1970 Horton Hears a Who! short. But considering the messes that came before, that's a minor quibble.

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

Though impressively ambitious and making the most of a small budget and talented cast, director Ari Taub's feature concentrates so intently on the day-to-day minutiae of infantry life on World War II's European front that the bigger picture gets lost.

Writer-director James Ponsoldt's first feature is a small, modest movie structured around a fairly simple situation that leaves plenty of room for some fine performances.

Needless to say, anyone who's not entirely down with the beastly noise of the Beastie Boys will hate every second of it. This one's strictly for -- and, for the most part, by -- the fans.

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.

For all the gushy feelings, the plight of women like Kiranjit, bound not only by domineering, often physically abusive husbands but by racism and oppressive cultural traditions as well, is poignantly portrayed.

Naturally there's plenty of adolescent drama both on stage and off, and if the film ultimately feels a little thin, that's also to be expected.

Serrill wisely divides his film into chapters according to year, which helps structure the story's natural repetitiveness.

The period detail is evocative, Watson and Etel are particularly good, and baby Crusoe -- a computer-generated image seamlessly woven into the live action -- is a slippery little star in his own right.

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.

Actor-turned-first-time-filmmaker Liev Schreiber tosses out most of what made Jonathan Safran Foer's too-clever-by-half debut novel so precious, rooting out the heart of Foer's story from the precocious bombast.

Some four decades after the birth of the gay-rights movement, the excess and sexual abandon of gay life in the '70s seems more an aberration than an accurate picture of out-and-about gay life at the end of the 20th century.

An intriguing, if flawed mystery set in the shadowy subterranean world of undocumented Mexican immigrants.

You'll laugh and hate yourself for it.

The film does, however, assemble an amazing array of recorded conversations and vintage newsreel, and offers up enough press conference footage to make one nostalgic for the days when an uncowed, penetrating press really did serve the public interest, and the president was a smart, inspirational and often very funny figure who could think on his feet and fearlessly take on all comers.

This is Hunt's show, and she delivers a strong performance that captures all the seriousness and absurdity of the avalanche of circumstances that comes crashing down on April's head. To say she's only half the director she is an actress is actually paying her quite a complement.

For the most part, the result is a smashing success, filled with great performances and exquisite production design. But those final moments, in which the true nature of the story is revealed, are an unmitigated disaster.

It's fun, fast-paced, educational entertainment that's fit for the whole family -- American boys included.

Audriad's film articulates an uncomfortably familiar vision of a nation desperate enough to believe its own lies, where the copy is inevitably much better than the real thing and heroes are only as genuine as one needs them to be.

Peddle captures a vital and increasingly visible community that's easily misunderstood, and his film will undoubtedly help novices further understand the complex differences separating gays, transsexuals and the transgendered.

Odd but never dull.

While not easy to watch, and at times even harder to follow, Haas' film is an important attempt to accurately capture the confusing reality of contemporary Iraq.

A romantic victim to the end, this Ian Curtis is all that worshipful fans could ever hope for.

With his ersatz-gangsta swagger, the once-again buff Bale gives it his all -- he's got to be the most committed actor in Hollywood -- but the real surprise here is Rodriguez, who has all the talent and charisma of a major star.

With an often very funny story line that eventually touches on parental disappointment and suicide, it's clear that, his debt to Hess and Wes Anderson notwithstanding, Waititi has learned a thing or two from fellow antipodean Jane Campion as well.

Simultaneously shocking and deeply religious, Carlos Reygadas' follow-up to his acclaimed 2002 debut, "Japon," tells the story of one man's battle for spiritual redemption through a series of explicit images rarely seen by even the most jaded art-house audiences.