Lisa Alspector

Writer-director Aiyana Elliott gives her father his due in this evenhanded yet impassioned documentary.

Director Ron Howard's deftness in suggesting the subjective experience of Crowe's character, who's later diagnosed with schizophrenia, makes for inspirational narrative.

A text that provokes thought more than directs it, which should fascinate new and repeat viewers for a long time.

Funny? This one is. It's also sweet and thoughtful.

Though it strives for broad humor, pushing cuteness and light irony, this bland 1998 movie isn't exactly a comedy.

Set in an expressively underlit environment, this rivetingly moody drama is enhanced by the restrained use of incidental music.

Director John Madden calmly dissects the emotions of a woman whose personal life is effectively nonexistent.

Antonio Banderas signs up for charisma lessons from Anthony Hopkins -- but they just don't take.

The movie manages to push buttons without seeming formulaic.

Movies about the trajectory from outsider to insider in LA social and professional circles--the two always seem inextricably linked--are a dime a dozen, but this one is fresh, thanks to a script by lead actor Jon Favreau that lets us know Mike knows he resembles a character in a movie even if he doesn't know he is one.

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.