Kirk Honeycutt

The film comes down to a mesmerizing portrait of a man who in any other age would perhaps be deemed nuts or useless, but in the Internet age has this mental agility to transform an idea into an empire.

The visual design of Wall-E is arguably Pixar's best. Stanton, who wrote the script with Jim Reardon from a story he concocted with Peter Docter, creates two fantastically imaginative, breathtakingly lit worlds.

Hysterically funny yet melancholy comedy.

Perhaps returning to Apocalypse Now will reinvigorate the once brilliant storyteller. Certainly, the images, colors and design still astonish. And let's hope that Apocalypse Now Redux will become the definitive version. For the movie hits home even harder now. [14 May 2001]

Given how insultingly fanboys are portrayed, even the fan base could be put off.

As drama the film mostly serves to illustrate the two sides of this crucial social debate in Africa.

The movie contains priceless slapstick from Bill Murray, finely tuned performances by Murray and the beautiful Scarlett Johansson and a visual and aural design that cultivates a romantic though melancholy mood.

Obviously, Munro is reaching for something about how people allow themselves to get mired in the past. But his characters and situations are so exaggerated and dreary that his point gets quickly lost.

While the sadism doesn't stoop -- rise? -- to the level of the "Saw" horror-thrillers, Vacancy does have a name cast.

This is one of the most wildly romantic movies in ages.

A fascinating mix of high-minded gossip and historical perspective, examines the clash of values -- of ritual and traditions versus media savvy and political ambition -- that leads to a crisis for the British monarchy.

It's an extraordinary film.

Pixar again hitches top-notch storytelling to the very best in CG animation.

Greengrass has made not only a thoroughly fact-checked film but a film that uncontrovertibly comes from the heart.

Utterly compelling account of a true-life criminal investigation where "truth" can never be pinned down.

The filmmakers were right to believe that a live-action version of this story would have failed to achieve the universality Persepolis does.

Not only (Kaufman's) most accessible and romantic screenplay, it's his most complete. The third act works like a charm and pulls all his themes, characters and conflicts together beautifully.

Lo Cascio and Boni inhabit their roles with keen intellectual and emotional vigor.

The film takes a whimsical view of this insular and sometimes daft environment where everyone's eccentricities are given an opportunity to shine.

A glorious new addition to martial-arts cinema.

The weapon wielded by Cohen and Charles is crudeness. People today, especially those in public life, can disguise prejudice in coded language and soft tones. Bigotry is ever so polite now. So the filmmakers mean to drag the beast out into the sunlight of brilliant satire and let everyone see the rotting, stinking, foul thing for what it is. When you laugh at something that is bad, it loses much of its power.

Now Eastwood turns on a dime and tackles not just his first war movie but two war movies of considerable scope and complexity. If he doesn't nail everything perfectly, he nevertheless has created a vivid memorial to the courage on both sides of this battle and created an awareness in the public consciousness at a most opportune moment about how war feels to those lost in its fog.

Noir never has been this dark.

A wondrous flight of fancy, a stop-motion-animated treat brimming with imaginative characters, evocative sets, sly humor, inspired songs and a genuine whimsy that seldom finds its way into today's movies.

The always surprising Coen brothers have finally made a very serious movie with A Serious Man. It's about God, man's place in the world and the meaning of life, so naturally it's one of their funnier movies.

Capote represents something unique in cinema.…Most eye-catching for critics and audiences in the weeks to come will be Philip Seymour Hoffman's brilliant metamorphosis into the persona of the late author.

It perhaps started with "The Queen," continued with "Young Victoria" and now achieves the most intimate glimpse inside the royal camp to date with The King's Speech.

Bad enough to create one of the most joyless Christmas movies ever, but then to go for an unearned feel-good ending adds insult to injury.

Cage is brilliant.

The movie rolls merrily along with slapstick action and whimsical characters.

Arguably the most conventional documentary made by Errol Morris and, perhaps equally surprising, it displays sympathy toward its subject.

Haneke echoes the theme of Hitchcock's "Rear Window": Moviemaking is basically an act of voyeurism. We secretly examine people's lives in every movie. But in this one, there is a hidden camera, a movie within the movie as it were, forcing us to observe a character along side a mysterious stranger.

The movie does achieve something nearly impossible: Someone who doesn't even like the sport may care about Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland Athletics.

Under Eastwood's painstakingly stripped-down direction -- his filmmaking has become the cinematic equivalent of Hemingway's spare though precise prose -- the story emerges as that rarest of birds, an uplifting tragedy.

To call this movie fascinating is akin to calling the Grand Canyon large.

There are eight individual decisions to be made here, yet Beauvois never humanizes any of his monks. The film instead consumes itself with songs, communal prayers and nightly meals.

Say Anything is an easy film to like. Ex-rock journalist Cameron Crowe, known for two screenplays about teenagers caught up in the fast lane, has written and directed (for the first time) a surprisingly gentle comedy about teens that concerns itself with values and love.

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's final film about the West Memphis Three demonstrates how the first two docs played a role in galvanizing national support to free the wrongly convicted men.

Audiences will eat it up: This is a postmillennial spy-action movie pitched to a large international audience. You hardly need subtitles.

It is more sad-funny than funny-funny, but Jenkins has enough empathy and wit to realize that even the sad parts are, somehow, funny.

Women's roles and the eternal fight to expand their rights in Iranian society get a light, hugely entertaining treatment in Jafar Panahi's Offsides.

A ferociously entertaining film.

Kim Ki-duk keeps dialogue to a minimum and actions simple in what is virtually a two-character piece. Humor arrives organically, often resulting in hearty laughs.

Bale again brilliantly personifies all the deep traumas and misgivings of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne. A bit of Hamlet is in this Batman.

This is a slick studio production with a huge movie star and top professionals occupying every production role so that the polish of this well-made film makes even homelessness look neat and tidy.

In Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant enters the world of high school kids just as he did in "Elephant," achieving this time a much sharper, more focused portrait of how these rapidly maturing young people act, think, speak and behave.

The value of this film, not just to moviegoers today but to future generations, is simply enormous.

Working with non-pro actors, Hammer pulls authentic performances from the trio that are at times almost too painful to witness.

An engrossing, highly intelligent reimagining of the legend of Arthur.

An eloquently shot and closely observed documentary about a poor family in modern-day Indonesia.

In the end, it isn't so much that the New Arthur isn't the Old Arthur. Rather it's the anti-Arthur.

Arguably Eastwood's most ambitious film since his multi-Oscar winner, "Unforgiven." But it lacks the power and depth of that film's dynamic script by David Webb Peoples.

Crazy Heart lacks that spark of originality. So what Fox Searchlight has salvaged essentially is a highly watchable performance by Bridges, one of many he has furnished throughout a long career.

This is a discouragingly limp movie in which nothing is at stake.

The final episode of George Lucas' cinematic epic "Star Wars" ends the six-movie series on such a high note that one feels like yelling out, "Rewind!" Yes, rewind through more than 13 hours of bravery, treachery, new worlds, odd creatures and human frailty.

A dull actioner that looks like a bad video game.

Painfully funny satire of British and American bureaucrats in the days leading up to the Iraq War.

Imagine Paddy Chayefsky's "Marty" saddled with more sentimentality and sprinkled with a few more laughs and you pretty much have Last Chance Harvey.

It's refreshing to witness a superhero with doubts. Maguire and Dunst again display the depth of talent they bring to these roles by injecting such everydayness into larger-than-life characters.

A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of "Avatar." Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in "Avatar" serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story.

A naturalistic drama rich in psychology and attention to details. There's no glamour here, but one false move by anyone can result in death, so tension fills nearly every scene.

The film is superbly crafted, covering huge amounts of time, people and the zeitgeist without a moment of lapsed energy or inattention to detail.

Kill Bill-Vol. 2 puts to shame doubts entertained about aesthetic strategies or structural imbalance provoked by "Kill Bill-Vol. 1." Now that the entirety of Quentin Tarantino's epic revenge melodrama is on view, "Kill Bill" emerges as a brilliant, invigorating work, one to muse over for years to come.

Teaming with Depp, his long-time alter ego, Burton makes Sweeney a smoldering dark pit of fury and hate that consumes itself. With his sturdy acting and surprisingly good voice, Depp is a Sweeney Todd for the ages.

Thumbsucker is a head-scratcher. It's well directed and acted. Yet the story has little emotional pull.

Spicing up the entire package is a screenplay by Canet and Philippe Lefebvre that bristles with wit and energy.

A newcomer to film, Michaletos grew up on a farm with cheetahs, so he can act natural around the animals while making this Huck Finn-like character more than credible.

His (Fernando Meirelles) impressionistic, guerilla style of filmmaking works surprisingly well in capturing the hypnotic urgency of le Carre's fiction. And his viewpoint is less British and more Third World.

The film hits another comic mother lode in the byplay between Black and Cusack.

It is hard to imagine a better cast or production values so the film should find audiences among sophisticated urban adults.

As with the Bourne films, Gilroy has a knack for creating strong characters and situations that resonate with tension. It may be formula, but the guy is a solid chemist as he crafts excellent set-ups and payoffs.

With strong visuals and even stronger emotions, Rachid Bouchareb's Days of Glory makes a powerful war film about a particularly unique subject.

A couple of rather Dickensian supporting roles by Robbie Coltrane and Maximilian Schell fall embarrassingly flat as they are more creations of costumes and makeup than actual flesh-and-blood. But then the same can be said for the entire movie.

Writer-director Richard Shepard assembles all the elements for a dark suspense comedy only to lose his way in a surfeit of plot mechanics and unlikely behavior.

Although the pace is slow, "Twilight" is a moving account of a family in crisis and the love that provides a short window of happiness for the father.

While "Exorcism" focused on a murder-trial battle between the priest and a prosecutor, Schmid's film beautifully details the behavior, events and socio-religious pressures that lead to the decision to perform such an extreme ritual.

Director Tom Hooper ("John Adams") ably balances the games (surprisingly little football footage, actually), the personalities and the drama.

Cody's dialogue has a definite rhythm and Reitman directs his actors to deliver the words in the rapid-fire precision of a '30s screwball comedy. Indeed all scenes develop a rhythm and inner logic that bring the movie to often startling revelations and insights.

The period sets, costumes and cinematography all superbly recreate the brutal era, grand illusions and everyday suffering of the Poles under both the Nazis and the Soviets.

All the movie's playfulness rubs off on the actors. Scenes crackle with life. The chemistry among all the actors is terrific.

Certainly for most audiences the viewing experience will prove not only tedious but bewildering.

The film lets you get caught up in the excitement of this religion and the addictive nature of those stadium lights. Berg and cinematographer Tobias Schliessler get up close to the action, catching the hits and miscues in all their violent urgency.

Even a klutz could hardly make a bad movie about these compelling figures. Thankfully though, Guido Santi and Tina Mascara are superb filmmakers, fully alive in their terrific film Chris & Don: A Love Story to all the undercurrents of art, social class, sexual orientation, challenging relationships and, most especially, the touching love story at the heart of their film.

A greater argument for music education in our secondary school curriculum can't be made than Mark Landsman's doc about a Texas high school funk band that tore up the music scene from 1968 to 1977.

The best one yet.

The gorilla is great, the girl terrific, sets are out of this world, creatures icky as hell, and the director clearly does not believe in the word "enough."

The film doesn't just fail, it actually gets sillier by the minute.

No true fan of science fiction -- or, for that matter, cinema -- can help but thrill to the action, high stakes and suspense built around a very original chase movie.

The Hours makes for a fascinating and ultimately successful stunt in its cross-cutting among the decades.

For anyone with a keen interest in this unique American musical form, Rejoice and Shout is a must-see and see-again.

No question, watching this film is a tough go. Horror films cause less seat-squirming.

What a relief to escape the series' increasing bondage to high-tech gimmicks in favor of intrigue and suspense featuring richly nuanced characters and women who think the body's sexiest organ is the brain.

A film that starts out as a gimmick but winds up as a genuinely touching character study, though one does wonder whether that is what the filmmaker initially intended.

A bold film both in its storytelling strategies and its filmmaking logistics.

It's caustic, irreverent, constantly amusing and a tiny bit rude. Not a lot, though. This isn't the "Beavis and Butt-Head" or "South Park" movie. It's almost -- dare I say it -- charming.

A stunning documentary that not only beautifully elucidates a nearly forgotten incident but touches on crucial themes involving isolation, sanity, self-worth, impossible dreams, the nature of heroism and limits of human endurance.

This is a marvelous family story, tapping into all sorts of childhood dreams and nightmares involving Mommy, monsters and heroic youngsters. Selick's imaginative sets and puppets are in perfect pitch with Gaiman's fantasy.

Less a political movie than a boxing film without the gloves.