Lisa Alspector

There are moments of high hilarity in the slapstick that results when the characters attempt to minimize mucus-membrane contact during sex.

Elegant flamenco tragedy.

Tedious mockumentary.

A standard mix of performances, interviews, and gimmickry -- the image and sound sometimes loop or jump in a tiresomely literal attempt to translate the techniques of scratching and "beat juggling" into cinema.

This mild thriller's consistently dark atmosphere makes the scene-of-the-crime tableaux...transcend exploitation and even suggest a kind of feminist odyssey.

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

The movie occasionally makes an unexpectereference -- though with more desperation than wit.

The premise of this neither dark nor funny movie--which wants to be both--is that it's somehow ironic when wealthy characters are motivated by greed.

The twists and revelations of this rigorous noir reduce it to canned psychodrama.

Kitschy, clever expressionist sets, subtly marvelous 70s costumes, and an almost monolithic rock sound track enhance the meaty performances of actors who clearly appreciate the opportunity to riff on a classic--and promote vegetarianism.

A scene set inside the chicken-pie-making machinery proves that the Rube Goldberg formula is infallible.

The thin story covering her acquisition of one wave after another while narrowly escaping death time and again is strictly for player one.

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

Writer-director Peter Greenaway never uses narrative lightly...references to the act of filmmaking exhaust their impact pretty quickly.

An open-mindedness in the plotting of this romantic comedy set on Ireland's Donegal coast adds a couple of mild surprises to the story.

Disturbing--if less sophisticated than the best SF (science fiction)-horror TV.

The script, which infantilizes one of the older siblings as much as the father does, undermines its own admonitions against parents and adult children meddling in one another's lives.

The plot somehow manages to be both hackneyed and convoluted.

The lawyer is marvelously played by Evelina Fernandez, who wrote the screenplay based on her play.

Conveys little sense of a connection, as if di Florio had made it mainly because she had access to a celebrity.

Scenes that should have been uproarious are weaker than many of the movie's smaller moments.

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

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.

This 1968 Beatles musical gets somewhat plot heavy near the end, but it's a marvel of innocence and free association, blending several animation techniques in a loose narrative full of gentle bad puns and flowing visual segues.

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.

This gently satirical farce is atmospheric when dabbling in religion--the chef turns to spiritual magic to defuse her passion for her husband--and moving during her heart-to-hearts with her friend.

Lee performs magic. He's preserved and expanded the experience of an adrenaline-pumping, uproarious night of racism-, classism-, and sexism-subverting humor.

This hopelessly redundant action gross-out aspires to a form of hip vacuousness--and may achieve it.