Maitland McDonagh

A refreshing alternative to the hypertrophied spy thrillers in which exaggerated action sequences, over-the-top super-villainy and high-tech gadgetry trump character and plot.

In the end, the film feels a little futile; its relentless, one-miserable-note tone is numbing.

Cornish's raw, nuanced performance and Shortland's sympathetic but unsentimental portrayal of Heidi's fumbling steps toward maturity are underscored by Sydney-based band Decoder Ring's catchy, angst-ridden score.

Tedious and obscure where it was apparently meant to be atmospheric and tantalizing.

For all its tongue-in-cheek toying with images, it doesn't reward attempts at serious intellectual analysis. It has the air of a surprisingly juvenile lark, a pop-influenced prank whose charms are immediately apparent and wear thin with repetition.

Michael Meeropol provides a far more eloquent statement of the song's enduring impact: "Until the last racist is dead, 'Strange Fruit' is relevant."

Desperate-to-shock slice of sleaze life.

This fast-paced entertainment is a surprisingly successful mix of spectacle and human-scale drama.

Henry James's novel of social-climbing, forbidden love, friendship and betrayal, given a lush treatment that neglects neither the elaborate period trappings nor the story's intensely contemporary emotional underpinnings.

Gypsy music is the music of pain, poverty and oppression, all of which she's experienced; it's their blues.

De Felitta's portrait of Paris -- who died in June 2004 -- isn't always flattering, but it is genuinely moving on many levels, none of which require knowledge of or even interest in jazz.

The gross-out factor is surprisingly low, and the combination of Stiller and De Niro is inspired.

This dazzling pop allegory is steeped in a dark, pulpy sensibility that transcends nostalgic pastiche and stands firmly on its own merits.

Salvatores draws strikingly unsentimental performances from his young actors, all making their film debuts, and juxtaposes the petty meanness of children with the calculated cruelty of desperate adults to haunting effect.

Slickly entertaining documentary.

While the aerial dogfights are handsome and apparently historically accurate, right down to the tracer bullets that leave graceful, crisscrossing trails in the clouds, they have a video-game feel.

First-time writer-director Greg Mottola has a real feel for characters, a quality that's in disturbingly short supply among young filmmakers. The Malone family could easily be a one-dimensional collection of sitcom caricatures, but by the movie's end they feel like real people. He also pulls off a tricky shift of tone, from pleasant, mild comedy to something far more bitter and haunting.

Allows the supporting cast to steal the movie.

Engrossing documentary about the life and times of publisher Barney Rosset, who spent much of his career advancing the cause of free expression, is a flawless match of style and subject.

A behind-the-scenes documentary that manages to be unabashedly sympathetic without being a puff piece.

If only this amiable shaggy dog story...didn't degenerate into an implausible, second-rate thriller after takeoff.

The film's pared-down narrative is anything but aimless, and it pays off in a haunting final last scene scored with Gang of Four's "Damaged Goods."

The result is a beguiling mix of the familiar and the exotic, vivid proof that a good story can withstand endless variations without losing its fundamental vitality.

Roos' sly, throwaway insights into the ways people deceive and undermine themselves are both ruefully funny and painfully on the mark.

Vividly photographed in shimmering colors and driven by a propulsive score.

If the ending isn't conventionally happy, it's certainly deeply satisfying.

Adults also are more likely than kids to snicker at jokes.

If Griffin were a jowly Southern redneck, his mean-spirited rants would make him a pariah.