Ken Fox

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.

John Carlos Frey's tough social drama has a slightly sensationalistic edge, but the disturbing fact is that all too much of his worthy film hews closely to the real-life experiences of undocumented immigrant workers.

It's a complex new approach toward putting memory to tape, and the result can be at times too theoretical, too personal and too opaque, but it's a consistently challenging work that's often sharply poignant.

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.

It's strictly for the kids, and they'll be tickled.

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.

It's really just "Rocky" in gleaming dress whites.

Meeske does offer insight into a way of life that may be finally gone for good.

Folks watching any movie that opens with a shot of a butt crack (with the possible exception of "Lost in Translation") can't claim they weren't warned.

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.

The acting is superb.

Expansive and undeniably brilliant.

Often fascinating.

It's hard to believe that this oddly mesmerizing film, set in large part in the vast subway system that snakes its way through Manhattan and its outer boroughs, wasn't made by a native New Yorker.

Levinson, who has directed enough films to know better, should recognize a stinker of a script when he smells one: Instead clever laughs he serves up sloppy schtick, dead spots filled with lame ad-libbing and Walken crooning "The Happy Wanderer."

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.

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.

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.

Aronofsky has given us a well-acted, gorgeously overwrought and luridly entertaining exploitation flick -- a midnight movie for future generations.

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.

While Brosnan, an Irishman by birth, lays it on bit thick, his performance is surprisingly effective.

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.

For what amounts to a fairly sentimental glance backward, the film is oddly styled; Andrew Dunn (who also shot the baroque "Monkeybone") favors oblique angles and lighting worthy of an Italian horror movie.