Maitland McDonagh

The cast deliver consistently fine, subtle performances, underscored by Ben Nichols' mournfully melodic guitar score.

Casually paced and filled with telling detail, Yamada's delicate drama with swordplay (there's not much, but what there is packs an emotional wallop) transcends its specific setting in its depiction of Katagiri's internal struggle.

The result is discomfiting, funny and oddly touching.

Given the dearth of outlets for short, noncommercial animation, fans of the form shouldn't miss this collection.

There's a surprising sweetness under its crude exterior.

But the soundtrack will delight anyone whose blood stirs at the strains of "I'm Coming Out," "Le Freak" or "Doctor's Orders."

Its vivid sense of place and time make it compulsively watchable, even at a running time of two and a half hours.

The film's climax, which cuts back and forth between the 16-year-old Dongo (Silas Radies, whose younger brother plays Dongo as a ten year old) making his dangerous debut with the fly-by-night Aurora Circus and the 2002 competition that takes him back to Hungary for the first time in years is nothing short of riveting.

Precociously glib and never less than engaging.

Lepage maintains a leisurely pace and lets the narrative wander, but ultimately lands on the right side of the line between contemplative noodling and aimless navel-gazing, ending with an image that's simultaneously melancholy and playful.

Given the controversy, which strongly suggested that the filmmakers had it in for President Bush, the film's biggest shocker may be how kind Range and coscreenwriter Simon Finch are to him.

A quietly harrowing chronicle of addiction and fragile recovery anchored by Vera Farmiga's intense performance.

This coolly beautiful film is both a superior thriller and an engrossing study of a sociopath's progress.

In a story driven by questions of loyalty and allegiance, no candidate is identified by party. It's a bipartisan nightmare from which no one escapes unscathed.

The extensive CGI work is well used and the children are exceptionally well cast, especially the girls.

Mamet's jabs at Tinseltown's silken ruthlessness are quietly pointed, and the ensemble cast -- even the brittle and sometimes annoying Pidgeon (Mamet's wife) -- is brilliant.

Whether this measured exercise in romantic melancholy moves you to tears or bores you to them is probably a matter of personal susceptibility to the sting of bitter regret for love lost.