Loren King

Offers something rare for a modern movie: an uncynical depiction of the redemptive power of human relationships.

Once it finds its footing in old-fashioned journalism, the film packs a wallop.

Doesn't win any points for originality. It does succeed by following a feel-good formula with a winning style, and by offering its target audience of urban kids some welcome role models and optimism.

It wisely lets us hear Pinero's words for ourselves, and in the end, they echo louder than the images that accompany them.

Radnor's script is more bittersweet than laugh-out-loud funny.

How does a filmmaker tell a Holocaust story that hasn't been told before? The Matchmaker does it by weaving fable with realism, coming-of-age innocence with adult grief, and guilt with romanticism.

As fascinating as the material is, like so much of popular culture it doesn't hold up well out of context.

It's a raw and raucous rock story that, for once, gets the big picture and the small details right.

A fine, handsome-looking costume drama that works best as a historical account of a brutal era. But as a portrait of the Marquis de Sade, it is not titillating in the over-the-top manner of "Quills."

Wolpert and Reynolds seem to be aiming for the ''Titantic'' audience at the expense of sophistication and historical relevance. It's too bad. The able cast, not to mention Alexandre Dumas, deserves better.

But as likable as it is, Tadpole is hardly a maturing woman's revenge movie, but another male fantasy -- that of the sexually nurturing mother figure. If only all coming-of-age sexual experiences could be as healthy and wholesome.

This bizarre, uneven comedy is notable mostly for the unsettling presence of Nicole Kidman in full, kinky, sex-kitten mode.

The story is unique and engaging enough to transcend the uplifting sports-underdog formula.

A handsome but lightweight period piece about passions indulged and repressed, and the calamitous outcomes that result from both courses.

Winton’s inspiring story deserves greater attention but this film isn’t the best representation of it.

Reynolds is the best thing about Van Wilder.

The intriguing subject, unfortunately, collapses under too many talky scenes of the samurai discussing their feelings and gossiping about who loves whom.

Star Pilar Lopez de Ayala is such a feisty, striking presence, and the film so conventional in its depiction of a jealous and insatiable love, that it is hard to see Juana as anything other than a typical soap opera heroine.

Meadows clearly has a flair for working with actors and for depicting the rough-and-tumble of ordinary provincial lives. If he could go just a bit deeper, the truly great Midlands movie just might surface.

Many of the story lines offer only superficial insight into the characters; Silver's rich but unhappy mogul has been done far too many times.

It's better to see it on the stage... a moderately enjoyable film that lacks the awe-inspiring visual and aural aplomb of Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil's live shows.

Though perhaps more suited to PBS or classrooms than to movie screens, the documentary is engrossing and just may encourage more people to look less to pharmacology for answers and more within.

Mix of stylish action and meta-musings, provides plenty of confusing, satisfying surprises, though it could have used more tightness and punch.

Despite its charms, and the refreshingly non-traditional characters, Lilo & Stitch seems diluted and too derivative to be as effective as one wants it to be.

Snappy but sappy romantic comedy.

An uneven mix of genres that, even when it misses the mark, gets points for originality and a good beat.

Despite its shortcomings, Girls Can't Swim represents an engaging and intimate first feature by a talented director to watch, and it's a worthy entry in the French coming-of-age genre.

It's the pre-teen set who will revel in the adolescent angst and anarchic high jinks of Max Keeble.