Ken Fox

This madcap paranormal love triangle is charming on its own terms.

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

Corny and irritatingly simplistic though this fast-paced biography of 16th-century German religious reformer Martin Luther may be, it's undeniably entertaining.

This is a brave, groundbreaking film.

The film is slow and somber during the windup but pretty scary in the follow-through.

Simply exhausting; it wants to be funny and sad and lighthearted and serious all at once.

Hoch's considerable skill speaks to an extraordinary empathy and a willingness to understand where even the toughest customer is coming from.

The humor is too adult for children and the plot far too childish for most adults; in fact, everything about the film is really too silly to warrant much consideration.

This intermittently interesting symbolic tour through European history once again places ideas over aesthetics and technique.

Supremely silly on the surface but full of sophisticated sight gags and deadpan humor.

The folks at Jim Henson Pictures have wisely opted not to mess with the late Jim Henson's winning formula; the crowd-pleasing soundtrack features hot '70s funk classics, the Muppets are as cute as ever and there are more than a few flashes of adult humor to keep grown-ups laughing right along with the kiddies.

There are worse movies, but that's no excuse. Rarely has so much money delivered so little entertainment.

Though written by Wes Craven and his son, Jonathan Craven, this is pretty standard stuff: A lot of creeping through dark tunnels with just enough characterization to help you keep track of who's still alive, but not enough gore to really satisfy fans of Aja's bloodbath.

Meyrou follows the family through the three day trial, the verdict and its aftermath, but the perpetrators remain a mystery.

Though it's quite possibly an even worse film than "Bruce Almighty," the sequel offers at least one consolation: The smug and increasingly unfunny Jim Carrey is replaced by the very talented Steve Carell.

It's a mainstreamed, big-screen version of the bowdlerized, endlessly syndicated version of the show, not the raunchy original.

A truly fresh take on the romantic comedy: It's as sad as it is funny, and the boy-girl match so misbegotten you can't help but pray it won't work out in the end. Call it an anti-rom-com, and see it if you can.

The film works best when it doesn't try so hard, when Salles simply allows his excellent actors and his beautiful images to work their magic.

You'll laugh and hate yourself for it.

It's the supporting characters' combination of smarts and sass, not to mention an honest and positive depiction of the mentally challenged, that turns this potentially crude and heartless comedy into something that the Special Olympics actually endorses.

This sleek and cleverly assembled film is a brutally honest portrait of an obsessive personality, a woman whose mania for control over her weight and the world around her fed her demons and fueled her art.

Carries an important and timely reminder about the fate of torture victims, so deftly wrapped within a touching and beautifully acted melodrama that the result is the furthest thing from a didactic message movie.

At a brisk 97 minutes, the film skips over many episodes that make Hahn's book a pulse-pounding page-turner, but offers her rare perspective on both sides of civilian life during those nightmare years.

General audiences will regret the absence of titles identifying various clips and interviewees, but Fellini fans will want to eat the whole thing up with a spoon.

Beneath the heavy accents, wild gesticulating, slaps to the head and garish flocked wallpaper, there's an awful lot of heart.

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.

The scene transitions are sometimes jarring, but the story unfolds like a particularly juicy bit of small-town gossip, one that's told by a particularly vivid storyteller.

The script originally began life as a stage play, but still feels underwritten.

Not everyone will be comfortable with a story that's as geared toward recruitment as any Army film, be it God's or Uncle Sam's.

A wonderful premise that delivers solid laughs and has a heart as big as the state in which this farce unfolds.

It's good fun, and the whole debate raises some interesting questions about larger questions of authorship and whether or not it ultimately matters who "Shakespeare" actually was.

It's swiftly paced and never dull, but the heavy-handed symbolism comes fast and thick.

Despite a terribly conceived coda, Luke and his brothers have mostly succeeded, thanks in large part to sharp dialogue, a solid vintage soundtrack (Rick Nelson's "Garden Party" features prominently) and some great older actors -- Cassel is a particular standout -- from the heyday of American cinema.

Cusack makes a half-hearted attempt to connect with Coleman, but chemistry is fatally absent and small wonder: Dennis is a unsettlingly strange creature who could well be from another planet.

There isn't enough by way of a story here to keep director Rosser Goodman and writer-star Brent Gorksi earnest but lethargic drama about a romantically stalled Angelino from petering out as well, but some decent performances from the likeable cast may be enough to hold your interest.

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.

Deneuve has never been better.

Impressively stylish but curiously empty.

Dracula fans will appreciate the witty ways in which Maddin has drawn Stoker's troubling racism and xenophobia to the fore, while making the most of the sexual ambivalence that helps make the story endlessly fascinating.

The audacious finale, which plays out in a wholly symbolic realm, will leave even the most adventurous moviegoers scratching their heads. See it with a friend; you'll appreciate the second opinion.

It all feels like an insubstantial short that's been stretched to the breaking point.

Grim tale of good and evil.

The few good lines go to Kristofferson and the ever-amusing Kier, but Snipes's considerable energy is buried under an affectless, Terminator-style demeanor.

Both farcical and deeply troubling, it unfolds with the kind of breathless, minute-by-minute immediacy that only eyewitness reportage can bring.

Hauntingly beautiful documentary.

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.

A nonstop cavalcade of Roth-style animation starring Rat Fink, vintage footage, artfully animated black-and-white film, and fanciful "interviews" with beautifully preserved cars of the era.

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.

A fascinatingly obtuse puzzle box that manages to be gripping even after it stops making sense.

How can such awful things come out of the mouth of such a pretty girl?

It's overtly about provocation, set in a tony Danish suburb where a group of men and women living commune-style in an empty house are discovering their "inner idiots" by pretending to be developmentally challenged.

By turns fascinating and intolerable.

The boys' laddish catchphrase -- "Shut up!" -- is particularly irritating, especially since they never do.

A turkey with all the trimmings.

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.

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

Although Zach Braff's promising writing-directing debut is a bit affected, few actors with behind-the-camera aspirations succeed as well as the Scrubs star does with this melancholy romantic comedy.

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.

Fatih Akin's surprisingly grisly feature spills more blood than both of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films combined, which is strange when you consider that it's a love story.

Don't be put off: Hernandez's exquisite romance works on an emotional, as well as intellectual, level.

That Techine manages to coax a somewhat happy ending from this staid, somber film is heartening proof that what doesn't kill us might indeed make us stronger.

Though "Pulp Fiction" is the obvious point of reference, but this hugely entertaining Mexican crime comedy is actually closer in spirit to "Go," Doug Lyman's underrated 1998 lark.

The result is a rather conventional, Biography Channel-style portrait of a man who helped change the face of theater in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Isn't exactly a straightforward biography, but rather a snapshot of the iconoclastic American maverick at a particular point in his career.

Intelligently acted but oddly stagnant adaptation of Brian Morton's acclaimed novel.

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.

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.

It's a great achievement, quiet enough to allow room for her excellent supporting cast -- but strong enough to be felt over James Horner's omnipresent, typically overbearing score.

The downside is that many of these characters are hastily sketched and their stories unsatisfactorily developed.

The film is surprisingly satisfying and meaningful.

If ever an English-language film needed English subtitles it's this.

Members of what used to be referred to euphemistically as the "raincoat crowd," will probably enjoy Winterbottom's experiment more than most.

Clearly, it's not for everyone. Extra points for a great electronic soundtrack, striking widescreen cinematography and an unapologetically freaky attitude.

Most mystifying, however, is the bizarre hero-worship surrounding the fingure of Kim Jong Il, a nationwide personality cult that makes Joe Stalin and Chairman Mao look like D-list celebrities.

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.

Part documentary, part one-woman quick-change show and part sociological investigation, this is enthralling theater with a purpose.

The result is a confused mess of mixed signals that substitutes a brutal climax for any kind of satisfactory resolution. Parents should be warned about the frequent gunfire and a grisly death by hanging.

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.

The film's rather shallow treatment of his art only reinforces the long-held opinion that Hockney is more a brilliant visual stylist than an artist of any great depth.

Taut psychological thriller.

Falk is as good as ever and the rest give it their all; you couldn't ask for a better cast, just better material.

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.

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.

A sharp, superbly acted character-driven comedic drama.

The film's real star is the stunning Montana landscape, beautifully captured by cinematographer Paul Ryan.

The wonderfully drawn characters and their soap-opera entanglements are dryly amusing and well played.

Even after it becomes clearer which side of law Harris is operating on, the film continues to work as a taut -- if violent -- police thriller.

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.

The accents are thick and the soundtrack noisy, but even as the screen explodes in chaos, Greenglass maintains a solid grip on the story.

The film basically follows Moore and Slater's book, but without the details that reveal the strange complexity of the Bush-Rove symbiosis.

Highlights how far we've fallen.

A wickedly entertaining bit of domestic tragedy.

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.

By the time it's over, this deeply unsettling tale of romantic obsession strays far from the usual course of teen flicks and into some very dark territory.

While there's plenty of Shakespeare, Lawrence and Yeats scattered throughout John Brownlow's screenplay, there's precious little Plath -- no doubt the unfortunate result of the stranglehold the Hughes estate still maintains over her work.

While Gyllenhaal is a competent actor, Ledger - surprisingly enough - is becoming a great one, and the levels of intensity they bring to their roles render this romantically star-crossed relationship emotionally lopsided.

The casual listener is easily put off, but by the end of the film, even a newcomer can see the magic that made fans of Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth and led the estimable Yo La Tengo, Pearl Jam and Wilco to cover Johnston's remarkable body of work.

Baer asks all the right questions.

Heartfelt but only intermittently interesting documentary.

It's lighter, funnier and violent, and it's not entirely without hope, making this tale of survival under horrendous conditions far more suitable for younger, more impressionable audiences.

Akin achieves a peaceful balance here –- alongside the death and seemingly senseless tragedy, there’s also a kind of reassuring equilibrium.

It can hardly be called a children's film, but a masterpiece of feature-film animation for all ages.

It can make for entertainingly silly viewing, but it should come as no surprise that the film's plea for tolerance and unexpectedly tragic ending -- an unfortunate throwback to the Dark Ages of gays in films -- rings equally hollow.

Kechiche's film is bursting with life: Shot entirely on location using surprisingly long takes, all of it feels surprising authentic, even as these young kids attempt to spout dialogue that's nearly 300 years old.

A clever, ingeniously animated film filled with many shining moments.

The meat of the matter is fight sequences, and rather than being goosed with now-common digital effects and Hong Kong-style wirework, it's all real and all breathtaking.

Despite the exotic locale, this is a coming-of-age tale that should be familiar to anyone raised on the tales of Jack London or Robert Louis Stevenson.

Stylized to the point of poetry.

How about something a little nasty for the holidays?

The play for the heartstrings is so cold and calculated that the movie's sentimentality feels as synthetic as its hero, and the philosophy is simpleminded and lazy.

First-time feature director Sanaa Hamri's virtually perfect romantic comedy is a marvelous mix of brains and heart that confronts serious questions about race and dating with sensitivity, humor and enormous sex appeal.

Totally daft and a lot of fun.

Beautifully shot in rich colors by Franz Lustig, it's possibly Wenders' most accessible film to date, and among his most emotionally satisfying.

The film doesn't dwell on bad feelings, and anyone looking for lurid details won't find them. But fans will love the live footage of this still-powerful band ripping through a virtual greatest-hits set.

Never less than gripping.