Kevin Maynard

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

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."

Offers effortless charm, wit, and originality in spades.

Basically one elaborate joke about male modeling and all the vanity, emasculation, and fatuousness that attend it. Fortunately, it's a good joke.

A literate, dialogue-driven treat delivered by a cast that truly savors the script's wicked wit.

As talented as Polley proved herself in "The Sweet Hereafter" and "Go," this is her best work yet.

This is such seductive entertainment that you might as well stop grousing and give in.

Not all of the jokes hit, but enough of them do that anyone who's ever filed, collated, or played Mixmaster DJ with the transcribing machine will find cathartic giggles in this breakout debut.

Pie has some nice surprises and is enjoyable in a smutty, sitcom way. It offers up the outrageousness of "There's Something About Mary" without wallowing in cruelty.

Though similar thematically to "Anywhere But Here," Tumbleweeds is a breath of fresh air that busts the cliches of dysfunctional mother-daughter sagas.

Some moviegoers are bound to take issue with the trick, "Sixth Sense"-style ending (or cynically see it coming), but The Others is mostly spooky fun, and a strong calling card for Amenabar.

Agnes Browne hums along as a series of pleasant vignettes, only frantically shifting to a single narrative track in its third act for the sake of an unbelievably upbeat ending.

Though unflinching in its savagery, Amores Perros is always compulsive viewing.

While both leads are appealing enough, it's the stuff on the sidelines that keeps All Over the Guy entertaining.

American History X is a crash course on how to make a message movie that resonates with crackling power.

A meticulously mounted film that retains the author's ambiguous characterizations yet is still emotionally accessible.

Too poignant and funny to be dismissed.

Actually, it's a childhood "A Clockwork Orange," a reverent realization of the late Stanley Kubrick's final obsession.

There's nothing more incendiary than the reopening of a forgotten chapter of history --nothing more incendiary than telling the truth.

The flutes soar a little too often, but Yimou's film is genuinely moving.

Goran Visnjic is such a sensitive, non-menacing gentleman that any woman would want him as her own personal blackmailer.

Most tenderly, the film deciphers the true meaning of its corporate-speak title in Franck and his father's impassioned struggle to ensure each other's welfare.

A cross between a Hogarth painting and an MTV video, Plunkett & Macleane cuts quite a swath.

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.

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

There's lots of sweet music to savor in this snide industry satire.

Croupier should please people who take their noir straight up -- with plenty of twists.

Yields beguiling nectar.