Maitland McDonagh

It's an impressionistic experience rather than a linear one, and the process of surrendering to the images and rhythms of lives lived in simultaneous harmony with the physical and the spiritual is greatly helped by the chants that dominate much of the soundtrack.

Bleak, darkly humorous and surprisingly unsentimental, Michael Winterbottom's film has the desperate air of a cri de coeur, and unlike many fiction films about war, its use of real-life footage seems in no way inappropriate or exploitative.

Solidly entertaining and surprisingly free of the Mamet-isms that can suck the life right out of the most tightly crafted story.

Genuinely gripping, balancing the travails of constructing the tunnel against the characters' stories with considerable skill.

The last word on Haskell Wexler's career hasn't been spoken, but it's hard to imagine there's much more to say about him as a bad dad.

Arguing that you shouldn't expect rich characterization from a comic-book movie misses the point: Vivid relationships separate the graphic novels from the funnies and, in the end, spectacular set design is just window dressing.

A tour de force and an utter delight, studded with priceless supporting bits by Miriam Margolyes, Maury Chaykin, Rosemary Harris and Rita Tushingham, each of whom steals at least one richly deserved moment in the spotlight.

An utterly preposterous but entertaining sci-fi action brain-bender.

The result is rather like eavesdropping on a bright but painfully self-absorbed adolescent's secret thoughts: sometimes fascinating, other times just infuriating.

The result isn't very funny: There are clever bits, sure, but they're embedded in long, painfully obvious sequences built around one-shot gags.

Balaban and Nairn are radiant, with none of the mannerisms that so often make Hollywood actresses look like Stepford teens.

This psychological horror picture is harrowing and occasionally macabre -- you'll come away wondering what kind of father would cast his daughter in such a sexually brutal film.

The execution is masterful and even as you see the building blocks of the climax being put into place, it's a delight to watch them fit JUST SO.

The results isn't especially engaging, despite a quietly charismatic performance by Weiss, a relative newcomer who holds his own against far more experienced actors.

By the time Reilly's shaggy life story winds down, it's hard not to wish he'd been your friend, too.

Epic, meticulously researched and ultimately disappointing, Martin Scorsese's bloody valentine to the birth of his beloved city is less than the sum of its parts.

The success of this effect, which helps elevate the movie above a classy disease-of-the-week saga, rests firmly on Russell Crowe's performance, and it's a strikingly good and moving one.

What you're seeing isn't wire work or CGI -- it's stunt choreography, beautifully executed, flawlessly cut together and brainlessly thrilling.

Film is preposterous without being surreal; only at the Tailor's Ball -- which takes place shortly before the end -- does it strike that perfect balance between the bizarre and the curiously mundane.

Kassell's visual influences are evident -- she's clearly a fan of the down-and-dirty films of the '70s -- but the consistently fine performances smooth over the rough patches.

Sentimental, manipulative, predictable and utterly charming.

First-time writer-director Rian Johnson's gimmick is that his SoCal teens talk like film-noir yeggs and dames, slinging hard-boiled shade and spitting out terse, rat-a-tat dialogue peppered with slang that was yesterday's news 40 years before they were born. But the result is, against all odds, marvelously entertaining.

Falls far short of its grim potential.

Without their efforts, ordinary moviegoers would never know that air-guitar competitors must craft a series of one-minute routines, some to songs they've only just heard, or that their efforts are judged on the 4.0 to 6.0 scale used to rank competitive figure skaters. Important to know? No. Fascinating? Absolutely.

It's amusing more often than it isn't, largely because the cast is so nonchalant and, well, French about everything.

The plot unfolds exactly as you expect, but Gedeck imbues Martha with a remarkably subtlety of spirit.

Conventional to the core but gets a blast of pure, hard-driving energy from Joaquin Phoenix's and Reese Witherspoon's vividly realized performances.

Whaley's determination to immerse you in sheer, unrelenting wretchedness is exhausting.