Ken Fox

Clumsy and amateurish. But it's also occasionally quite charming, and ultimately more commendable for what it ISN'T than worthy of censure for being nothing more than an inconsequential comedy.

An extremely funny, ultimately heartbreaking look at life in contemporary China.

For all the film's cleverness -- and it's often very clever -- it's as thin as its heroine.

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.

What's surprising is how bright and engaging these kids are, and for once you're left wanting more.

Screenwriter Vincent Molina takes into account changing attitudes towards homosexuality and the resulting film never feels like the kind of thing we've seen time and again in the '80s and '90s.

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

Wrenching documentary.

At a little over two hours, there's a lot of Langlois to digest. But cinephiles won't mind a bit: Richard includes tons of great anecdotes and clips from classic films that wouldn't exist if Langlois hadn't saved them.

Further proof that so-so books often make better movies than good ones.

Film works best as a soberly witty commentary on the workplace and makes an interesting companion piece to "Mondays in the Sun."

Novice filmmakers Arin Crumley and Susan Buice's charming homemade movie is a surprisingly successful experiment in collaborative creativity that sprang from a larger artistic project: their own real-life relationship.

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.

The result is an interesting, if slightly unbalanced, hybrid: a social problem film with the warm heart of a deeply felt love story.

Thom Andersen's idiosyncratic, three-hour masterpiece is both a dazzling work of film criticism and a fascinating piece of urban anthropology.

Slick and surprisingly emotional documentary is really a rare, optimistic critique of globalization.

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

The mystery is terribly plotted and the satirical elements are limited and not very funny.

With this perceptive, however bloody, film, Ishii makes it disturbingly clear that a culturally instilled sense of shame and fear of being shunned mean that women like Chihiro are doubly victimized, both by their attackers and the society that should protect them.

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.

A fascinating, often tragic history of a program the Soviet Union held up to the rest of the world as communism's ultimate technological achievement.

The film avoids theorizing about why the bridge should exert such a hold over the imaginations of suicides all over the world, but Steel's dramatic cinematography, particularly the distorted telephoto shots that make the bridge loom even larger than it already does in life, provide one answer.

Crams more subplots, minor characters and comic situations into 100 minutes than most sitcoms burn through in an entire season. And that's not necessarily a good thing.

Viewers who remember Max Baer may, however, take issue with the way the film treats this charismatic fighter. In 1933, Baer became an important symbol of Jewish strength when he faced off against Hitler's favored fighter, Max Schmeling, and while reducing Baer to a bloodthirsty villain makes it easier to root for Braddock, it's an unfair bit of character assassination.

But one can only imagine how different the film might have been with, say, Parker Posey or Catherine Keener -- truly funky actresses with some real edge -- in the lead.

Nicely shot around New York City, this dodgy mixture of cutesy romance, dark satire and murder mystery uses the same central conceit as Neil LaBute's "Nurse Betty."

The Sisyphean ordeal at the heart of the film strongly recalls Roman Polanksi's 1958 short "Two Men and a Wardrobe," while Lachow's loose, improvisatory approach -- as well as the occasional self-indulgence -- feels more like Henry Jaglom.

An enjoyable, ultimately inconsequential crowd-pleaser.