Lisa Alspector

This low-key romantic comedy proves that destiny-powered love stories can be formulaic without being predictable.

This bleak vision directed by Darren Aronofsky ("Pi") is pointless with good reason.

Unfortunately the allegory tends to overpower the characterizations even as it deepens them.

A blandly twisting plot with no meaningful revelations or substantial themes.

The movie, which leans too heavily on the metaphorical value of the two historic events, dives from heady romance into heavy moralizing.

Many of the plot points seem belabored because they're introduced in the voice-over, then ploddingly dramatized, then analyzed by the family over meals.

Kelly is a supple and courageous storyteller, boldly free-associating as he mixes parody and satire with earnest psychodrama and coming up with plot points no one could anticipate.

The clunky plot is set in Santa Fe, and includes a foil character who might as well wear a sign on his forehead.

The script by Brannon Braga and Ronald Moore provides all the background necessary for viewers unfamiliar with the characters' previous movie and TV-series exploits, but not so much as to annoy fans.

A persuasively feminine coming-of-age story.

It's hard to tell whether these characters are meant to seem as staunchly symbolic as they do when they deliver some of the back-story-heavy dialogue.

Exciting, clever sequences driven by surprisingly little plot and culminating in a climax full of the transmogrification animation was invented for.

Audaciously combining conviction and childish humor, this SF thriller reminds us that the distinction between the tangible and the intangible may be frighteningly arbitrary--an idea that's made too scary ever to seem trivial, no matter how silly things get.

Director George Tillman Jr.'s screenplay covers an array of events in the characters' lives so replete with drama it could easily be too much, but the movie's humor is vibrant, the sorrow unexploitive, the sexuality character enhancing, and the love heartfelt--and Tillman is tremendously skilled at bridging the vast shifts in tone.

Though I hate to ruin the complex experience of following a rather calm story about a lonely widower as it becomes something else, I feel obliged to point out that the hard-core gore and soft-core surrealism of this baroque morality play may not support any theme.

All the comedy, tragedy, and various obstacles to romance seem to have been contrived to divert the story from its tendency toward pulp erotica.

Subtly profound love story.

This 1998 movie is essentially a compilation of things-aren't-what-they-seem games played on the viewer; all its little tricks, including Ricci's snide and smart-alecky voice-overs about movie conventions, are really old--except one. But it's not worth the wait.

Some delicately interwoven and unresolved subplots help make the young character's rite of passage wholly, disturbingly compelling.

The plot is largely a series of excuses for one-liners expertly delivered by Maguire, making all the hatred, maiming, and killing seem like digressions.

A black waitress and a white corrections officer in rural Georgia experience more misery in the first hour of this movie than some people do in a lifetime, and to its credit the drama doesn’t collapse under the weight.

Challenges us to reconcile its snapshots of earnest entrepreneurs, colleagues, and fans with its long takes of her disillusionment.

This gorgeous expressionist drama makes the comparisons so effectively at the outset that by the end they seem belabored.

For the sake of more irony--the movie is lousy with it--the precocious characters have an infantile response to the discovery that their parents are missing: all want their mommies after a night of junk-food excess.

Takes too long to get its themes and characters out on the field.

Doesn't quite support the weight of its allegory.

Many of the elements in this story about a woman who's nearly eclipsed by her overbearing mother are all too familiar, yet the combination is utterly charming.

It's all very clever but not really provocative - though a layer of political subtext may make the scenario seem funnier and more meaningful.

The ultimately uncomplicated view of sexual and emotional violence in a family is only tragic, not insightful.

Transcendently kitschy, trippingly funny fairy tale, which has a surprising amount of psychological insight and a dance number to die for.

This brash shocker by John Sayles—who wrote, directed, and edited—is bound to annoy as many people as it intrigues.

The connection between his boasting about killing and killing so he can boast about it -- is made beautifully insidious.

After loosening us up with some irresistible shtick that rigorously fulfills genre expectations, the movie subtly, systematically begins to break down familiar tropes in the depiction of attractiveness, attraction, and heterosexual courtship.

Though hypocritical in the way it sensationalizes sexuality, this serious and funny 1998 movie about a 15-year-old coming to terms with her body and her family in 1976 is, refreshingly, never coy or ironic.

Until the story diverges from a similar agenda, the gags about the daily grind and what happens when a drone forgets how to be submissive make for beautifully low-key satire, and the caricatures of office types seem clever.

An admirable if frequently soporific 1992 adaptation of Norman Maclean's account of life in Missoula, Montana.

At once a light comedy and a reasonably serious meditation on the perils of fame.

It's marvelous or unwatchable.

The conventional ghost-appeasement scenario isn't very suspenseful, which may be part of the reason it's so gripping.

This engrossing animated thriller (2000) somehow displays realist gore, nudity, and sexual violence in a tone not too far from that of a children’s adventure; its innocence stems in part from the convincing naivete of the heroine.

Partly because the seducer's technique is methodical--as a former conquest explains to the naive heroine--the movie's answers are too easy.

The social criticism is as unforced as the humor (and the references to "The Conversation") in this 1998 conspiracy thriller, whose spirited action is balanced by an almost contemplative attitude toward surveillance phobias and the movie cliches they've spawned.

Blends extremes of violence and humor to create an irreverent tone that nullifies everything; the plot is so clever it crushes the characterization, making all the action seem perfunctory.

Not even supercool Robert De Niro can enliven this boring tale about a team of mercenary operatives.

Quaid's buoyant earnestness complements the stunning, low-key performance by Caviezel, whose close-ups give new meaning to the idea that still waters run deep.

Writer-director James Toback must believe his audience is hopelessly prudish if he thinks this pedantic story, which takes place over several hours in a Manhattan loft, is provocative.

Their blossoming love is thwarted at every opportunity by wicked stepmother Anjelica Huston, whose practical motive -- she wants her own daughter to become queen -- is part of an unusually nuanced characterization.

This grasping comedy targets kids of all ages but will please no one as it exploits exhausted ideas about adolescence.

This eerily dry drama bravely attempts to show, without resorting to the literal staging of contradictory scenarios, how much perceptions of the same situation can vary.

This kind of wheel spinning comes from having the desire to speak but nothing much to say, and Smith, who's made a slight movie about his being a slight filmmaker, seems to know this.

One reason this production-design vehicle is so incredibly boring is that the characters keep having to explain the plot to one another.

Tiresome, blood-filled comedy.

The imposing performances in this chess game between pointedly black and white criminals (Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne) and police detectives (Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, David Caruso) are as impressive as ever.

The characters have been designed to make fun of themselves, disguising the craft of writer Neil Cuthbert and director Kinka Usher in getting us to laugh at them.

The line between romance and sex is blurred in this enthralling feature by Guy Maddin, whose overwhelming stylization unexpectedly produces an emotional and psychological authenticity.

The idiosyncratic instrumentation and melodies in the score by Angelo Badalamenti ("Blue Velvet") and a masterful opening scene are wasted on this pathetic thriller.

Beautifully regenerates the Jay Ward TV show its characters were based on.

A sense of authenticity overshadows any contrivance in this subtly classic drama.

The narrative emphasizes coincidences, but they're nicely understated. If it didn't seem gimmicky and self-indulgent...the movie might be more affecting.

The lesson of this barely stylish crime thriller is that a dull story is not improved by withholding information about characters' motives from the audience as long as possible.

Eventually writer-director M. Night Shyamalan neutralizes Willis's star presence with impressive plotting that's a fine excuse for the powerful atmosphere.

Though the questionable motives and bad planning of offscreen characters who far outrank Gibson make it difficult to take at face value one soldier's last words -- "I'm glad I could die for my country" -- some viewers will, which may be as the filmmakers intended.

The blend of animation techniques somehow demonstrates mastery modestly, while the special effects are nothing short of magnificent.

The movie's no roller-coaster ride, but there isn't a boring moment either.

A hallucination sequence and a scene set in a Vegas nightclub are so engrossing you forget they're animated; even the showiest techniques don't detract from the story.

Grisman presents, with a sense of humor, the apparent contradictions of a complex personality.

The slick satire cleverly equates materialism, narcissism, misogyny, and classism with homicide, but you may laugh so loud at the protagonist that you won't be able to hear yourself laughing with him.

The fluidity with which the story frequently makes the transition between the different characters' perspectives is refreshing, even daring.

Exciting mainly because anything can happen and does, the movie drags a bit as it approaches a climax set atop the Statue of Liberty.

The extravagant makeup and special effects are actually unobtrusive because they're demanded by the pleasantly formulaic story, whose conflicts -- and broad, innocuous political allegory -- justify the heartwarming resolution.

The moody images and Michael Nyman's score aren't enough to salvage this banal 1997 science fiction story.

Writer-director Deepa Mehta fuses the soap-opera elements of her plot -- which reveals one sexual secret after another of the variously betrayed, selfish, and self-actualizing members of the two couples' New Delhi household--into profound drama.

Elegant flamenco tragedy.

The vicarious catharsis offered by this adaptation of Anna Quindlen's novel is as efficient as that of any family-affected-by-illness drama.

This 1998 romantic comedy mostly bores with its cumbersome exposition and close-ups of trivial objects scattered throughout lackluster montage sequences.

Instead of a credible main character this 1999 button pusher has lots of showy cinematography and generic dread.

Fast-paced editing doesn't compensate for unconvincing dialogue.

Persuasive stylized drama.

Its charm and humor will be overshadowed for some by the exploitation of gay stereotypes--which is ironic, since their arch usage ultimately allows the movie to be progressive, if only slightly.

Whedon and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen") bend over so far backward to make Weaver's and Ryder's roles beefy that they end up mocking the characters' bravura.

The movie illuminates how the moral, economic, and spiritual concerns of its characters converge in situations that defy ethical platitudes. In less capable hands the brasher metaphors might have come across as trite, but director F. Gary Gray (Friday) generally manages to ensure that the line where technique meets meaning is marvelously blurred.

Smug, uninsightful light drama.

Solid formula comedy.

Lots of men cry lots of tears in this supremely self-indulgent, supremely moving documentary about making a documentary.

Favreau, who also plays the long-suffering Bobby, mixes elements of drama into this appropriately annoying comedy.

The ingenious if erratic slickness is disorienting and makes the movie more like drama than journalism.

Wolfgang Petersen and writer Andrew Marlowe, apparently afraid to really make fun of any American icons, challenge us to take the story straight no matter what, but the only thing this ponderous movie has going for it is its unintentional humor.

The makers of this eclectically animated adventure, a follow-up to "The Rugrats Movie," know their audience, though all the "Godfather" references will be thoroughly puzzling to at least half of it.

This comedy-thriller that has no particular motive for changing tones.

The dialogue reproduces infantile idiom even as it parodies the baby talk of adults, and a touching, didactic scene involving a baby blanket that’s become the object of sibling rivalry may appeal to a broad age range: it’s as strikingly elegant as it is obvious in its use of metaphor.

Dark fantasy triumphs in this gorgeously animated surrealist adventure.

Virtually unendurable.

Yet another unironic war movie.

This early-1900s costume drama surely differs from Henry James's source novel.

Engagingly corny drama.

Mesmerizing dark fable, which also contains moments of comedy and action that don't disrupt its oddly earnest tone

The precredits sequence is exciting--it's the only part of the movie that even begins to use the idea of the vulnerability of a horror-movie audience reflexively. The rest of the story is a straightforward narrative that's threatening only to the ingenues in the cast.

Isn't absurd enough to be funny.