Kevin Maynard

Best of all is the supporting performance of The Jackie Robinson Steppers Marching Band, a real group of high-school musicians in which the three girls all perform.

Strictly where the boys are: posing, posturing, and talking engine envy.

The Spy Who Shagged Me is impossible-to-resist summer fun that left me feeling, dare I say, randy for more? Oh, behave.

This grade-Z programmer is a painfully earnest, clichéd, amateurish waste of time.

Plays out like a raunchy, substandard WB soap.

Dares to substitute wit and warmth for the standard gay indie tropes in tackling its tale of an unconventional couple.

Even if it sometimes skips, it's consistently wittier and more idiosyncratic that most studio movies.

Ultimately too slight and opaque to inspire much ardor.

It's so plot heavy it never finds its nimble comic rhythm.

A disarming helping of Capra-esque corn served up by writer-director Rob Sitch.

A profoundly moving human drama, a quasi love story about two lost men who form an unlikely friendship.

Plays out like a raunchy episode of "Felicity."

Elevates the horror genre with a refreshing intelligence and humor -- too bad it's not half as good at generating scares.

The script is pure Disney formula. Dinosaur offers next to nothing in the way of variation.

The overlapping dialogue and the comedy of famous people playing self-variations is pure Altman (Leigh, not surprisingly, has worked in three Altman films).

Only Elaine May shines, in a weird and wonderful turn. Her loopy character has such a struck-by-lightning demeanor that she's always delightfully off in her own comic orbit even in the tritest of scenes.

Liam is mostly an emotionally devastating chronicle of the disintegration of a family. The entire cast is superb, but Frears has cast two screen naturals in the lead roles.

The rapper-ever-increasingly-turned actor -- is having the time of his life, big pimp styling in a flashy wardrobe as he guts and struts.

Plays like a Chinese "Cinema Paradiso," full of feeling without succumbing to sentimentality.

Shows its roots early on: Mixing the high camp of "Strictly Ballroom" with Monty's gritty milieu, the film comes off as little more than a contrived composite, despite the best efforts of pros Rickman, Richardson, and Griffiths.

This jailhouse jam is quite a haul.

The only reason to sit through On the Line is for some entertaining, if fleeting, musical moments.

Giuseppe Tornatore has long been a master of cheap sentiment ("Cinema Paradiso," " The Legend of 1900"), but his latest film is his most shallow, reprehensible exercise in nostalgia to date.

It's a coffee-table movie, but what saves it are a couple of performances.Rowlands puts a spin on every line reading, Harris quietly mines regret, and Shields, assured and sexy, has never been this good.

The film's a vacuous bore.

It's such a sensory experience; in its best moments, the film washes over you like a fever dream.

A raunchy, scattershot, but often hilarious spoof.

Nolan's engrossing, backwards-ticking noir will run you so thoroughly in circles that you'll need to see it at least twice for maximum enjoyment.

Despite Arteta's best efforts, I eventually stopped caring about their bond because Chuck's character is conceived as such a two-dimensional yuppie.

Banderas may have been crazy to make such a heady directorial debut, but it's hard not to be charmed by his ambitions.

This talky, self-important flick is a bore of biblical proportions.

Makes for compulsive viewing even though its noirish plot doesn't make a lick of sense.

The man (Apted) behind the excellent "7 Up" series has put a human face to science, making the seemingly abstruse both accessible and easily relatable.

The film's greatest flaw is its miscast leads, who conjure up zero dewy-eyed, wish-fulfillment magic.

Too much of a study in formalism to register deeply on an emotional level.

Offers little in the way of splendor in the grass.

The politicizing is intense, but the actual game footage is even more engrossing; Carlson uses both digital video and 16mm film to put us squarely in the midst of the gridiron brouhaha.

This is a second-rate Woody Allen midlife crisis comedy without the laughs.

Even if the great debate that pits artistic integrity against corporate compromise doesn't thrill you, see Cradle Will Rock anyway. It's marvelous, provocative entertainment; art for art's sake.

In spirit, 101 Reykjavík is so Almodóvar that it could melt the polar icecap.

Starts as light, fluffy fun but becomes so blithely preposterous that it ceases to exist.

Optimistically explores how vastly different people can come together, and how any journey is more about what happens along the way than simply getting from one place to another.

It's a pleasure to watch these unhurried, character-driven vignettes when such great actors are anchoring them.

The more we realize that we're stuck in the company of a totally relentless loser, the drearier the entire experience becomes.

Families already know exactly what they're in for, and they're likely to leave the multiplex high on the hum of a charming cast, sunny San Francisco locations, and a suitably happy ending.

The entire ensemble is first-rate.

Along the way, we end up losing patience with our couple-to-be because they seem too smart to endure the indignities ceaselessly heaped on them.

Faithless, filmed mostly during Sweden's endless winter, will chill you to the bone.

Oddly, Bully's only moments of power come at the film's end, after the crime takes place.

Brooks' least satisfying film in quite a while.

A big disappointment. It's toe-tappin' tripe aimed squarely at the undiscerning Britney Spears set.

Badly photographed, clumsily edited, and lacking any discernable cinematic style.

A witty, if overextended, take on pornography.

The year's first sure-fire Oscar nominee has arrived with flying colors.

Proof of Life won't hold your heart hostage for very long after it's over, but here's looking at Russell Crowe -- he's the real deal, sweetheart.

For the most part, it's when the women do the singing -- that Songcatcher really comes alive.

One more attempt to pass off chopped liver as foie gras.

Never less than riveting.

Zahn's dazed and confused, droopy-mustached dude steals every scene he's in...a movie that will make you smile and put a lump in your throat.

Duller-than-a-Vitalife-convention compilation of talking heads.

As intriguing as the premise sounds, Mission to Mars hasn't a single moment of real suspense.

This historical epic about the "virgin queen" of England's early life moves with the crackling urgency of a contemporary political thriller.

A funny, frenetic, and often quite touching microcosm of the Big Apple life itself, essayed by a pitch-perfect cast and boasting authentic urban flavors.

Whenever Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon resorts to flying fists or soaring sword battles, the Force is definitely with it.

Covers some bases, but it feels like the Cliffs Notes version of a grander epic.

Lynch's faith in the kindness of human nature has been renewed, yet thankfully he's never maudlin. Instead, he wins over our emotions with the film's understated beauty.

It's the funniest, saddest performance of the year in a film of uncompromising wit and heart.

A sentimental slice of 1950s Italian-American life that doesn't soft-pedal its characters' simmering prejudices within their insulated community, or pander to their dreams of getting out.

It's dull, two-dimensional, and totally toothless.

Despite the film's impressively epic look and an interesting cast of young and old actors, it ringingly sounds the same dour note over and over again.

Too often, the movie is more forced and frantic than actually funny.

Juggles a few too many subplots, cramming in more issues than your average nightly newscast. But more often than not, this is a film to savor.

Writer-director Harmony Korine seems more interested in churning your stomach than in warming your heart.

A mockumentary about small-town beauty pageants that's so confidently unfunny it's DOA.

A fast, funny film that goes down like a cyanide-spiked piña colada.

Hard to watch -- not because of its unflinching realism, but rather for its mawkish reliance on every boy hooker flick from "Midnight Cowboy" to "Johns."

A riveting, unsentimental tragedy of unrequited love.

This predictable romantic comedy outing has occasional flickers of ingenuity.

The movie's still thinner than a supermodel's waist. It's not just that the results are less than heavenly; it's that we don't know what the hell they are.

This is one of those movies in which there are only two types of people: officious yuppie pricks, and the beautiful folks who stop and smell the daisies. What keeps it (barely) from being completely intolerable is Keanu Reeves' hilariously awful lead performance.

On the whole, this documentary is best-suited to hardcore fans.

It plays out like an endless series of scenes we've seen before.

This one's still worth checking out -- especially for the naturalistic performances by the feisty Touly and the rest of the young cast.

I'd rather go on an all-Crisco diet than sit through Poor White Trash again.

Considerably less fun than a marathon of Star Search episodes.

A miserable western that is clearly headed downward toward the latter destination.

It's amiable enough, but the only real opportunity here is to see Walken step out of the shadows.

Smith and Fitzgerald are funny, feisty, poignant, and altogether realistic. Will they end up lovers, friends, side-by-side corpses? Their sharp performances make Series 7 as frighteningly addictive as crack, or even "Survivor."

Its emotional sweep is ultimately undercut by murky characterizations and generic plotting.

Hellish matrimonial misfire.

If you're looking for refuge from summer movie bombast, it's frequently intoxicating.

This fictionalized, frequently stomach-churning biography of Australian criminal Mark Chopper Read features the most bloody ear-severing scene since "Reservoir Dogs."

Offers effortless charm, wit, and originality in spades.

A charming movie.

Engagingly silly sub-"Moonlighting"-style banter.

A fitting tribute to these displaced children because it so simply and elegantly personalizes their place in the most horrific chapter of 20th-century history.

Should be shot at sunrise. Or strung up by the neck from a tall tree. Or at least run out of town by a big posse.

Tries to have it both ways -- as a kitschy ode to bodybuilding culture and as a tragic story of a man who was persecuted for his dreams.