Marc Mohan

A facile, feel-good fable that substitutes cliché for reality at nearly every turn.

Ultimately, the movie takes its characters, and the absurd ethical dilemma it subjects them to, far too seriously.

An alternately harrowing and poetic take on the fatal 1982 hunger strike of Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands, Hunger is also one of the most impressive feature directing debuts in years.

Whishaw's oddly charismatic performance makes the despicable Grenouille into an almost sympathetic antihero. The rather astonishing finale will likely have audiences either howling in derision or ardently dissecting afterward. And it must have given the bluenoses at the MPAA fits.

The performance of Bening (and, quietly, Irons) keeps Being Julia from being too tiresome.

Nothing more and nothing less than a savvy and talented cast having its way with a clever, hilarious script, with absolutely no weighty issues at stake.

Decent performances aside, the only interesting bits involve Geoffrey Rush as a chemistry professor who enables their self-abuse.

Rosemary Clooney (that's Danny Ocean's aunt) steals the show as one half of a sister act accompanying the boys on their yuletide misadventures. The real highlight, of course, is the Irving Berlin score. [24 Dec 2004, p.39]

For those to whom life is but a stage, this will be sweet, sweet candy; to those of us destined to be their audience, it's a satisfying, if flawed, look behind the curtain.

A rather schizophrenic comedy that gives respected performers Dame Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins a chance to show they don't take themselves too seriously.

The whole thing unfolds with sadistic precision, but Edgerton's expert manipulation makes it a fun ride nonetheless.

The title is too cutesy and clever, but it's about the only unsubtle aspect of this poignant, humble drama that'll probably get lost amid the multiplex bombast, but shouldn't.

Warmhearted lesson in tolerance.

Whether Elia Kazan could have done something memorable with this script will remain an eternally open question. This film, though, is most effective as a reminder that Williams' works emerged from a certain time and place, and to approach them from another is fraught with peril.

Cobbled together from other sources without much thought to originality.

Caro stumbles in a couple ways. By flashing forward throughout the film to scenes of the climactic courtroom showdown, she blunts the story's dramatic impact.

The two stories never come close to meshing the way the filmmaker intended. The result is a well-acted movie that simply doesn't gel.

Well, if Jordan believes he's made an excellent film, that's one thing, but the fact is it's a minor, though mostly enjoyable, one.

The overall thrust of the story -- that downtrodden folks in desperate circumstances have the capacity for goodness -- is one too rarely seen.

Unfortunately, the precision and presence Hurt brings to the table aren't enough to carry this warmed-over Southern melodrama.

As with many Iranian films, reality and fiction collide (the lead actor really is a pizza deliveryman), and the moral of the story is a surprisingly blunt critique of the growing inequality of wealth in the slowly Westernizing nation.

When it's not lapsing into disease-of-the-week prose, Adam presents a credible account of the challenges inherent in this misunderstood and often-ridiculed condition.

It's not a question of Lucas' right to revamp his own work -- the movie simply was much better without these absurd additions.

Unfortunately, neither of these fascinating artistic giants is given much of a personality.

Sweet Land brushes against the true spirit of American independent cinema.

The overall effect of the movie is to make you wish there were a statute of limitations on how long maladjusted adults are allowed to blame their parents before it's OK to holler, "Get over it, people!"

What could have been a biting, darkly comic action flick about capitalistic health care run amok is instead a familiar, gory, post-apocalyptic slog.

There's an inherent contradiction at the film's core: this sexually explicit motion picture, seemingly made by and for altered consciousnesses, is all about how an innocent newcomer falls prey to gin, sex, and television.