Kirk Honeycutt

Jones displays a firm hand at the helm -- you sense that he is well within his comfort zone in this environment -- and performances including his own are lively and convincing.

The guy knows how to make a heart-pounding movie; he just happens to be a cinematic sadist.

Riveting.

Unfolds in a scrupulously accurate historical adventure story that depicts the world of Jesus' birth with an exciting you-are-there verisimilitude.

Easily one of the most dynamic cinematic portraits of that decaying, vibrant, impossible city ever made; it treats the city itself as a character.

Christian Slater and Selma Blair head a solid cast that Harvey Kahn directs with cool efficiency as the tension steadily rises with every passing minute.

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

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.

A nature documentary that captures the ferocity and heroism of nature.

Few films have so poignantly portrayed a father's relationships with his sons as The Boys Are Back.

Here's a film about kids and for kids that has not lost touch with what it is like to actually be a kid.

The movie is fun, with plenty of intrigue and suspense that will have audiences clutching at their arm rests.

Cage is brilliant.

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.

Yelchin delivers one of those performances that pop eyes... It's a breakthrough role.

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.

A likable mix of laughs and wacky action sequences.

Here is a film about Japan made by Americans, shot mostly in the U.S. and, of course, in English. Once you accept these compromises in the name of international filmmaking, none is a real deterrent to enjoying this lush period film.

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 fanciful and melancholy portrait of exiled Russian poet Joseph Brodsky.

The key to its success lies in the determination by everyone involved to play the damn thing straight. Even the slightest goofiness, the tiniest touch of camp, and the whole thing would blow sky high. But it doesn't.

The movie features a great finish, where three movies' worth of subplots and characters dovetail into a breathtaking climax and final confrontation that is positively soul satisfying.

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

Pure's lively and colorful cinematic style turns a "downer" story about grim lives and desperation into a powerful love story.

If there is a disappointment, it is this: The anticipation may have exceeded the realization. It's a damn good commercial movie, but it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world.

A pitch-perfect ensemble comedy that burrows deep into the mind-set of white, upper middle-class Angelenos, anxious to strike the right balance among career, family, love life and money but never quite pulling it off.

In retelling the still-astonishing story of the political career of Eliot Spitzer, a shooting star whose spectacular crash might forever obscure his accomplishments, Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney has all the ingredients for a potboiler: greed, corruption, sex, power, overweening ambition and jaw-dropping hubris.

A prime example of a solid romantic comedy.