Lawrence Van Gelder

The boys, particularly Mr. Webber as Pete, are astonishingly good, and Ms. Monaghan, who looks like a slightly more tomboyish Liv Tyler, makes a deep impression in a minor role. Mr. LaPaglia, of the television series "Without a Trace," brings a tender gravity to the shell-shocked Jim.

Though it could do with fewer talking-head interviews and more extended clips from these impassioned live performances, Young Rebels is essential viewing for anyone interested in rap music, free speech issues or the youth culture of contemporary Cuba.

Lots of people will probably like The Kentucky Fried Movie, just as they like Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's hamburgers. But popularity is still no reason for deifying mediocrity.

Not often does a family film come along that is literate, clever, mischievous and just plain fun.

Of these four plots, the story of Carmen's blended family is by far the most consistently engaging, largely because of the vibrant presence of Ms. Ferrera.

That "The Keeper" was made by a novice is evident in the visible seams between the present-day narrative and the flashbacks; the whole thing plays like a loopy amalgam of stilted costume picture and after-school special.

If an Olympic competition for overplotted movie is ever held, Circus seems a likely contender for the gold.

The overall effect, especially given the gorgeous setting and liquid-gold cinematography, is less a discussion of the divine than a commercial for it.

This well-cast film does with a lighter hand for art what "The Producers" does for show business.

It's an intimate chamber piece, dialogue-heavy and at times claustrophobic, but the four central characters are so deftly sketched, and their shifting alliances so intricately choreographed, that the film never feels talky or staged. The actors are consistently excellent.

A beautiful and devastating meditation on war, history and loss.

Though it flies in the face of credibility and becomes downright silly by its end, I Know What You Did Last Summer knows its way around the rules of the popular horror-film genre.

What Yellowbeard establishes is that for even the funniest of performers, a good script may be as essential as pitching is to baseball.

Comes off as noisy and ill conceived, long on morphing monsters, short on storytelling talent and uneven in its efforts at animation.

Street-wise older children might find it to their taste; but all the new trappings cannot disguise the fact that "Together Brothers" is an old story, being retold perhaps wisely, but not exceptionally well.

In retelling this timeworn story of conflict between young men in the New World and their stubborn Old World fathers, Mr. Efteriades may not have generated many sparks, but with his affection for Astoria and its people he has given his tale a warm glow.

There is an explanation for everything, but it is a long time coming and not worth the wait.

The offending videotape is never seen, but the entire film is built around its absence. Periodically, the film returns to a written police account of the video, which scrolls up the screen, documenting the animal's suffering blow by blow to the sound of ominous music.

For a film about death-camp survivors Forgiving Dr. Mengele is surprisingly uplifting and, at times, even lighthearted.

Its winning cast, spirited music and mordant view of establishment figures, from the police to cocaine-sniffing record industry executives, make Bandits a stylish, buoyant entertainment.

The director's attention to details of character and locale makes for a precise evocation of a New York seldom seen in feature films.

Manages to capture firsthand the danger, fatigue and sheer tedium of an arduous illegal border crossing from Mexico without ever becoming tedious itself.

Begins to seem not so much an examination but an exploitation.

Turns out to be a pretentiously righteous drama that drowns any claim to serious attention in a sea of superficial characters.

With top-drawer voice talent including Joan Plowright and Dick Van Dyke, original songs by Jack Johnson, and old-fashioned two-dimensional animation that echoes the simple colors and shapes of the books, Curious George is an unexpected delight.

Brilliant film of nature has been warped into something jarringly unnatural.

Acted by an appealing cast, enlivened with well-chosen and varied music and filmed with bleak beauty by the cinematographer Eduardo Serra.

A sadistic, bloody, foul-mouthed action movie.