Marjorie Baumgarten

Although the conclusion is heavily sentimentalized, Stone finds the common ground Americans can rally around for relief from the devastation: We are, in the final analysis, good people.

All goes according to course, and that's exactly the problem with Dan in Real Life.

Boys adventure stories are a dime (store novel) a dozen, but girls adventure tales are rare things indeed.

Not a sequel, not a prequel, but a "reimagining" as the producers say. And they're basically correct, although I wouldn't put any real emphasis on the "imagination" aspect of that term.

Told from younger brother Doug's point of view, Phoenix's voiceover spans the length of the film and winds up making the images that unfold practically redundant.

This sentimental perennial is a holiday chestnut.

Spotlessly dull.

It's definitely quite the spectacle as directed by the modern-day king of epics, David Lean. The movie is something that should be experienced by everyone at least once in a lifetime.

Smith gives the appearance of wanting to provoke, but along with his smuttiness, he wears his heart on his sleeve.

The blood and gore quotients of Punisher: War Zone are extremely high and are sure to sop the appetites of the series' fans and virtual bloodlusters.

In this context, The Crucible very much becomes a story about a love affair gone bad and a young, solitary girl who uses the situation to advance her position in society and wreak her vengeance. Surrounded by some phenomenal acting performances (notably Day-Lewis, Joan Allen as the wronged wife, and the always welcome Paul Scofield in the unenviable position of judge and jury), the weaknesses in Ryder's technique become more blatant.

There is plenty here to enjoy for beach bums and fans of bikinis and six-pack abs, but others are likely to find themselves hopeless wet blankets.

Looks and tastes an awful lot like a TV movie of the week.

Enemy at the Gates is a disappointment primarily because it seems so rich with possibilities.

Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. ultimately offers a welcome glimpse of one of the individuals behind the sea of faces racing by in the subway cars -- the kind of face and individual that Hollywood customarily has never given a second look.

Must be counted as a forfeit.

One well-staged sequence in a parking garage is the film's only memorable moment

The documentary hasn’t the depth of another study of high school ball, "Hoop Dreams,"' and tends toward repetition, but, in the end, its heartfelt saga scores.

Never manages to get its relationships framed in as sharp focus as "Lantana" and goes down some unproductive side roads in its attempt to get to the point.

Gray's signature long takes and overhead shots are in evidence and add to the film's fatalistic tone, and one rainy car-chase sequence is a real keeper. But, overall, it's impossible to shake the film's gloomy sense of eternal repetition.

Unruly girls around the world are liable to find these Bandits stealing their hearts.

One of the sharpest prison dramas ever, although it's graced with some very humorous portions as well.

At the age of 81, Altman may show signs of mellowing, but he again emerges as a master filmmaker.

Writer-director Byler, in his first feature film, also proves to be a noteworthy new voice, even if his cinematic sense outweighs his narrative sense in this initial outing.

Based on a Cornell Woolrich short story, this is one of Hitchcock's finest moments, full of subtle humor and nasty black turns, not to mention a wonderful score by Franz Waxman and gorgeous cinematography from longtime Hitchcock director of photography Robert Burks.

As a biopic, the movie has several shortcomings, but as a background story Madame Satã is full of atmosphere.

Hope doesn't float in this film so much as it rises to the surface and then stagnates.

[A] prescient and sharply drawn comedy about the depths to which one unscrupulous station will sink.

Celebrate Father's Day in grand movie style.

Hudsucker Proxy works more like a fairy tale in which all implausibilities are acceptable and none of it has to play by real-world rules. But it's a fairy tale without any lessons, a satire without any targets.

In an inspired bit of casting, Lyle Lovett plays the dad of the goofy-looking Diz/Gil. That these two could be related might be the only believable touch in this whole misfired thing.

These people and the tale of their migration and reintegration into life’s ebb and flow will remain with the viewer long after Johnny's and Sarah’s green cards expire.

The keen observations of The Class ultimately become a remedial education in themselves.

Even this director and the talents of three wonderful actors can't save this weak script.

Invades theatres with its fangs bared for action. It's bloody hell and we love every minute.

Despite perpetual rumors of its demise as a genre, the Western is alive and well in the Australian outback.

This Tom Clancy thriller gets the proper screen treatment here with this first-rate cast and direction by one of the genre’s best: Die Hard director John McTiernan.

Despite its subject matter and some humorous moments, the film lacks any real verve and punch, and brings little new to the table in the already tired new genre of junkie confession. The performances are solid and there are flashes of humor, but on the whole Permanent Midnight is in the dark.

But let's face it. This whole movie is based on stereotypes.

A marvelous achievement that refuses to avert its gaze from the poetry and the insane savagery of the hopeless.

Posey and Sheen appear to have a blast playing oversized characters so obnoxious that it's obvious they belong together.

An intriguing psychological study that, more or less, leaves out the psychology and presents us with surface behavior.

Bill Murray's Polonius is so delightfully coy and self-satisfied that this performance is reason alone to see the picture.

Due more to how it makes you think rather than to what it shows, Night of the Living Dead gets under your skin and burrows into your blood and psyche.

Look at Me marks the character's shift from being the object of attention to the subject of her own dreams.

You get the sense that this elegant, tough-guy jazz caper is a movie Clint Eastwood might have been proud to make.

The window Hollywoodland offers into old-style workings of the company town is fascinating to behold, however the film doesn't always know where to direct our gaze.

Something haunting is going on here, but it's as difficult for the viewers as it is for the characters to sink their teeth into anything truly satisfying.

More than any other filmmaker making movies about the new “kids” generation, it seems to me that Araki -- with both Doom and Totally F***ked Up -- has his finger tuned most acutely to the human pulse and not just the lens shutter.

Anchored by a terrific performance by Abbass, Satin Rouge shows that the idea of women's self-actualization knows few continental divides.

It's staged like something straight out of King Kong with the look of an old 1930s Universal horror movie where the lightning flashes strobe across the undulating coils of tubing in the mad scientist's laboratory. There's a lot of really ugly violence in Ricochet, the kind of images and thoughts that just make you feel scummy to be involved with, no matter how passively.

Although the characters and their backstories are carefully thought out, Delpy and Hawke deliver their dialogue as if spontaneous and unmeditated.

All the players deliver performances that kill.

Zips along at an urgent pace, both tantalizing and repulsing as it goes.

The reality-show producer played by Walken is described by his assistant (Suvari) as having the attention span of a "ferret on speed." I'm sure he would love Domino.

Arguably, the best John Ford film ever, certainly one the very best, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is an American classic. Ford addresses the complexity of heroism in a poetic manner.

Painfully dunderheaded about the proclivities of the human heart.

Overstays its welcome by at least a half hour. But, assuming that cute Camaro stays in the picture, I expect we’ll all be back for the planned round three.

Michael Mann is in top form here helming this bone-chilling thriller.

In contrast to its great title, Mad Hot Ballroom is anything but: Let’s just say I was not spellbound.

Danny Aiello and Robert Forster also turn up in tiny roles that further serve to distract attention from the real business at hand.

Instead of entering the jungle to find the heart of darkness, Stiller (the director, co-star, and co-writer of Tropic Thunder) goes in to take aim at the Achilles heel of Hollywood: its utter pomposity and self-importance.

It’s a perfectly nice period piece and biographical backgrounder, but the film feels as though it’s a meal of tasty side dishes that lacks a main course.

The performances are all solid, although the screenplay frequently bogs down with the complexity of palace intrigues and plots that could have been rendered more consumer-friendly.

One of the best movies I've seen this year and, consequently, the less said about it here the better. The beauty of this movie is in the way it twists and turns, thwarting expectations, confounding stereotypes and venturing into places you least anticipate.

Its doomed portrait of guileless dreamers may be found lacking in plot activity and empathetic characters. But for anyone interested in a movie that wipes clean the grungy patina of self-delusionment, Jackpot hits solid pay dirt.

One of Hitchcock's very best comic thrillers, North by Northwest features scene after unforgettable scene.

Loses something in its transposition to America where the two leads are not nearly as widely known as they are in their home country of France.

An emotional triumph.

Bob Dylan might have been wrong when he sang that "there’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all." His new movie, although a complete narrative mess, is a thoroughly Dylanesque escapade.

Jenkins' superlative work proves her first film was no fluke; let's hope it doesn't take another nine years to hear from her again.

Frame's story is told with an intriguingly naked honesty but one that never drags the viewer into emotional prurience. It creates a fascinating portrait.

Neither ditzy enough as comedy nor realistic enough as human drama to live a long life.

The kind of quiet, effective film that burrows under the viewer's skin and takes root before you've had a chance to realize that it's permeated your constitutional makeup.

As out-of-whack and sophomoric as all this is, the movie sustains a rudimentary action interest.

Pamela Gray's script and the way these actors bring the characters to life are the film's real treasures.

Depends on the magical for the inner workings of its story, and that might not suit viewers desirous of more concrete explanations. But, again, the movie seems just right for the viewers it aims to please.

Reiner abandons his previous movie's sense of farce and satire for much broader and more innocuous comedy.

Mikey & Nicky is commonly, and unfairly, categorized as a John Cassavetes knock-off, which diminishes the originality of Elaine May's screenplay and this character study she crafted especially for co-stars Cassavetes and Peter Falk. She unleashes the darkest, most mercurial side of Cassavetes, and in Falk finds the actor's moral ambiguity that had been obscured as a result of his then-popular run as TV's Columbo.

This is the best performance Cage has delivered in ages, and Herzog demonstrates, once again, that he is capable of virtually anything.

Kubrick’s film vividly depicts the harsh realities of war and remains a great anti-war drama.

Unaccompanied Minors isn't likely to become a frequent flyer but it could strike a chord among children of divorce for many holiday seasons to come.

Everything about its scale is epic.

This movie belongs to Posey, and her nuanced performance makes Broken English a worthy adventure.

We've come to expect each new Demme film to percolate to an urgently musical beat. (The Manchurian Candidate also features a few cameos by musicians as diverse as Robyn Hitchcock and Fab Five Freddy.)

Ultimately works a great deal better than you might expect.

Never makes the leap from a little fantasy about sex with a stranger to a larger story about a woman settling down for life.

Beauty and the Beast, one of Disney's latest animated features is even better than The Little Mermaid. At the same time, it's vaguely disappointing.

Spielmann’s deft storytelling is coupled with immaculate compositions that constrain the characters as confidently as any prison bars. Revanche reveals Spielmann as a true master of his craft.

A terrific piece of work.

The story is so meandering and unbelievable that Westerners are still likely to roll their eyes. I have no idea what Indian audiences will make of Kites. The film is rousing, but it does not soar.

It's shoot-em-up action from start to finish, beginning at such a peak that there's hardly any room for the action to build or climax.

Not one of these new-fangled Christian movies that camouflages its proselytizing with decent storytelling and filmmaking technique. Time Changer is clunky, repetitive, and ham-handed.

The Spanish Prisoner seems an almost purely theoretical exercise, with Mamet as the con man whose sole goal is to make us believe anything he wants.

A compendium of really neat stuff and nifty sequences, and it will just have to do until Vol. 3 or reunification comes along.

This frothy little comedy is a pleasant enough amusement. It's not a big belly-laugh of a comedy, but it's quickly paced, fun and entertaining.

The movie makes use of every avian pun possible, a pattern that becomes quickly monotonous and predictable, if not contagious.

Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark) is ideally cast as the mom, and as the step-dad, Leary gets a break from his bad boy of MTV image. The Sandlot is truly one about the boys of summer.

This veteran actor is always great, and it's just a little bit sad that he has to play a big, scary demon for us to sit up and finally take notice.

Like a time capsule from another era of journalism, The September Issue chronicles a distant past that flourished not but two years ago.

The film is wickedly hilarious but more in a droll and knowing kind of sense than a har-de-har-har manner.

Again, Hill gives us a world filled with morally complex characters, but that just may be this film's undoing.

In the end, Blackballed doesn't take home the winner's cup, but its genial stick-to-itiveness and reasonably well-aimed humor earn the film at least a good sportsmanship trophy.

The movie makes us all want to stand up and cheer, “Shine on, Tina. Shine on.”

Coppola’s rejuvenated sense of career is a welcome addition to the world of filmmaking, even if the two films he’s made in the new millennium (2007’s "Youth Without Youth" and now this) are not up to his own self-set high standards.

It is certainly the best button-pushing movie of the year.

Sirens, is unable to rise above its intrinsic prurience.

Hardly lives up to its name -- bedeviled is more like it.

The poverty that is at the heart of the situation is in prominent relief, yet there is a happiness about their lives that defies sheer gloss. Here is a brother and sister who truly love each other and are bonded by their complicity.

Billy Wilder’s cynical edge is finely honed in this darkly amusing satire, which won three Academy Awards. It’s a film that is perennially ready for its close-up.

Wonderful performances steal the show in this film based on the real life of Karen Silkwood, a worker in a plutonium factory in Oklahoma, whose health and safety concerns prompt her public exposure of the company's practices which, in turn, lead to dire personal consequences.

It's all probably too slippery for the youngest viewers to grasp and too sketchy for the nostalgia crowd (for whom this revival seems most geared).

So many logical questions go unasked in The Gift, which, ultimately, is the movie's downfall. Mark this package as Return to Sender.

As a filmmaker, Meredith has a strong, if derivative, visual sense, although his screenplay is packed with too many cliches and familiar riffs.

As the camera moves through the tall grass of this new world, there comes the realization that we could be within any one of Terrence Malick's movies, any one of the previous three stunners he has made in his 35-year-long career.

A war movie with a conscience, an action movie with a funny bone, a caper movie with a shifting agenda.

The actresses are terrific together, and it’s nice to see Helen Mirren smiling onscreen for a change. And although Calendar Girls is resolutely pleasant, the movie never really goes much beyond that.

Only a devotee of the original film or a hardcore sourpuss could find serious fault with this world romp.

With its complexity of viewpoints, Get on the Bus has to be seen as one of Spike Lee's most mature visions to date.

A charmingly mounted, period romantic drama that benefits from the performances of a fine ensemble cast and the lovely location settings of Florence and Tuscany.

Does not live up to its name. It's more like White Men Can't Box, Either.

Mehta and her cameraman Giles Nuttgens capture the area's rich interplay of light and color, land and water, and riches and poverty.

The film's moody, dark palette and soft, inchoate backgrounds tend to lull the senses rather than actively engage the viewer. The magic practiced by this illusionist does not extend to the screen.

A listless family comedy and bland morality primer.

For all its unwieldy temporal scope and narrowness of perspective, Nixon is an amazingly graceful beast, flawed yet invigorating, packed with enough material that will fascinate and irk moviegoers of all stripes for quite a time to come.

Unlike any coming-of-age movie you've seen before. Equal parts sweet and perverse, this Scottish film is unpredictable in places where it might be twee, and subversively fanciful in others where it might be punishing.

The problem with The Beat That My Heart Skipped, as it was with "Fingers," is that the gravity of the character’s psychological divide is clear after the first half hour, and both films add little in the next hour to deepen our – or the characters’ – understanding or entanglement.

The way the individual stories are intercut builds connections between the seemingly discrete tales such that they begin to converge in ways that were not readily apparent. Repeated viewings, I'm sure, would enhance the connections, so smartly are they conceived.

More than a story about Iraq war veterans, The Lucky Ones is a movie about carefully considering one's options.

Exploitative and crass, the film paints an ugly portrait of youth gone wild and the ineffectuality of the police to curb the menace.

Scott’s is the story of how Robin Longstride (and, no, that’s not a name made up by Mel Brooks), an archer in Richard the Lionheart's last Crusade, became Robin of the Hood, the wily defender of the overtaxed people of Nottingham.

Langella is terrific in a small but critical role as CBS president William Paley, although the one essential problem with the film is that it never clearly delineates the jobs fulfilled by the cluster of other newsroom employees that are always huddled about.

Rises above its problems to deliver the essential goods.

The movie's not bad in the action department, especially if you're a perennial fan of the gun shots and verbal quips combo. But it's so cynical, so brazen about its cardboard iconography, so calculatedly cool, that you just start longing for that crystal dream -- any dream but this one.

This is the main movie that built the house of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman's production company devoted to low-budget camp. The Toxic Avenger tells the humorous story of a geeky weakling who is turned into a superhero when he is slimed by some toxic waste.

The film is so self-referencing, however, that a running gag about Wax/Travolta craving a “royale with cheese” moves the film’s energy backward rather than forward. Perhaps instead it was a reference to the film’s nutritional value rather than its screen precedents.

This stirring historical re-creation depicts the experiences of America's first unit of black soldiers in the Civil War and the young Northerner who leads them.

It's a winning formula, and when done right like it is here, it transcends the clichés and moves audiences.

This sumptuous-looking film clearly spared no expense in its visual rendering; its optical flourishes and attention to detail aim for the Disney gold standard and, for the most part, come pretty darn close.

Summer Hours is a lovely rumination on the meaning of things, but one that remains rooted in its human subjects rather than the inanimate objects that are more easily graspable.

The game footage is as engrossing as the real thing, although it comes at the expense of diminished attention to the teen players and their emotional problems.

What's most memorable about Wilde is Fry's near-perfect encapsulation of the artist. It's a performance equal to the legend it portrays.

Moog is an inventor's movie all the way.

Who would have ever thought to pair up Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King? But weird as it sounds, this creepy thriller works.

As a whole, the film has too little character and/or plot development to sustain narrative interest. What A Scanner Darkly excels at is mood and tone.

Amy Heckerling’s portrait of high school/shopping mall life in Southern California is still just about as good as it gets...The panoply of teen types and turmoils is dead-on accurate.

Light Sleeper represents Schrader at his best, giving us a character we've become familiar with over the years and Schrader's intimate mastery of our fascination with decadence, loss and redemption.

It's filled with marvelous performances, fabulous wit, and some dizzying images.

Dingy atmosphere and great performances make this a standout.

Only a couple years removed from his screen super-success in Saturday Night Fever, Travolta struts his way through Urban Cowboy’s modern-West parable about machismo, cowboy manqué, and mechanical bulls. Travolta captures some of the confusion of a little big man on the new prairie, Debra Winger provides a vixenish challenge to his manhood, and Scott Glenn plays the guy in the figurative black cowboy hat.

Writer-director Duncan Tucker does little to develop his narrative setup beyond the basic and obvious, and his film begins to feel more like an exercise than a fully realized story.

Thanks to Susan Seidelman for reminding us that romantic comedy is suitable for any population or age group.

While The People Under the Stairs may leave some horror fans unsatisfied and other horror detractors repulsed, it ought to satisfy those viewers who appreciate a thoughtful and visceral movie entertainment.

Everything is a puzzle and it's as though Lynch lost track of his reasons for making this prequel and got hung up on filming the sordid details that TV won't allow: shots of peeled-back corpse fingernails; close-ups of oscillating uvulas; visions of strange-looking, backward-talking, gyrating weirdos; and uncensored whiffs of sex, cocaine, and families undone.

The cast is great and the scene in which Carl Reiner and vaudeville vet Tessie O'Shea are lashed together is unforgettably funny.

Before lapsing into the land of the insipid,... John Hughes actually made a few movies that shined some light on the trials of modern adolescence. The Breakfast Club is one of them.

Good performances elevate the material.

Despite a title that makes this movie sound as though it might be the latest madcap offering from Pedro Almodóvar, In the Land of Women is a much more conventional affair – a tame yet appealing melodrama about finding one's self that is alternately formulaic and unique.

The film may seem a bit undercooked until it gets to the staging of the ultimate battle, but Obsessed is swinging from the chandeliers by the end.

Williams' shape-shifting, gag-spouting, celebrity-impersonating Genie is truly a hurricane in a bottle. His manic energy and hip humor are so exhilarating that the rest of the movie risks grinding to a halt whenever he's not onscreen.

The movie is both harrowing and funny, but I’m not sure the filmmakers would agree with everyone about which scenes are which.

The problem with this American indie filmed in Korea is that, despite the captivating faces and sad predicament of these little girls, nothing much happens.

With an over two-hour running time, these side issues come across as unnecessary weight and threaten to turn off the very viewers the filmmakers worked so hard and so ably to win over in the first place.

DreamWorks has gathered for the movie and for these extracurricular projects an amazing collection of voice talent that complements the film's stunning technical achievements.

No matter your standard of measurement, this production falls short.

The spoof that launched a thousand parodies – this is the one that's 100% funny.

Favreau keeps the picture throttling forward with a carefree charm.

No background material is going to help the viewer who isn't already aware of why a Fugees reunion is such a cool thing to witness, but it's impossible not to get caught up in this party's good vibe.

The delivery in Idiocracy is frequently flat, but it's vision is dead-on.

An epic biopic, over three hours in length, Gandhi captures the spirit of the man and his struggles.

Ingenious in its simplicity.

The on-target performances, along with the unceasing barrage of popular music and daring narrative gambles, combine to make Trainspotting one of the grand movie rushes of 1996.

Cynical yet mildly amusing Yuletide-season comedy.

By letting her babble on and become a somewhat risible figure, the filmmakers display a somewhat mean-spirited attitude, despite all their fuss about finally appreciating this put-upon survivor.

The Cove exposes the dark secrets that underpin the world’s dolphin mania, whether it’s our enjoyment of the animals performing circus tricks in aquariums, the swimming-with-dolphins industry, or the government recruitment of the sea mammals’ intelligence, communication, and sonar abilities for military applications.

With Bad Education, the great Almodóvar delivers the finest movie of his career.

Until something better comes along, we're just gonna have to keep the fires burning on this Ron Mann Joint.

For those unfamiliar with the notoriously camera-averse philosopher and his thoughts, Derrida will most probably prove to be an unenlightening bore.

Phenomenon flails about in a search for direction: inspirational drama, romance, social study, government intrigue- nothing fits or is explored very deeply.

Plenty of fun while it lasts, but its aftereffects are mighty fleeting.

It just may be a movie that has difficulty transcending national borders.

Inspiring and shows just how far a couple of guys, a few computers, and a good sense of humor can go.

Hands down, this is the best Astaire-Rogers musical ever. Nothing more needs to be said.

The film provides a window into the conversations and debates that occurred among soldiers on military bases and while in country, opinions shaped and altered by first-hand experiences and knowledge.

Yes, this Superman soars, but he doesn't always take us with him.

When people think fondly of John Hughes, it's movies like Ferris Bueller that they're thinking of.

The film's story is both culturally specific and broadly universal and that duality is a large part of what makes Once Were Warriors work.

The film is an atmospheric work, a period piece set in the 1840s during the dawn of the Age of Photography with a dense and moody visual style that befits its Brönte-esque subject matter.

It's unusually provocative and challenging for a Hollywood movie and, surprisingly, allows the audience to piece things together without too much external direction.

How the devastating story of the senseless murder of a 14-year-old could be stripped of emotion is a feat in itself, though one of dubious achievement.

It's a spooky movie without anything really scary in it, a ghost story without any spirits, a romance that displays scant affection, a reincarnation tale that never uses that particular word nor engages in anything terribly transcendental.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a fun movie; so much better than it has to be and so much better than you expect it to be. Buffy is to vampire movies what Valley Girl is to Romeo and Juliet stories: a fresh reworking of an old formula staged by up-to-the-second California teens.

With a concluding chase/shoot-out episode that might even make Hitchcock jealous, Carlito's Way is a dandy piece of entertainment. If the story needs a bit more depth and reason, who really cares? There's hardly time to notice.

A work that shellacs itself into your consciousness.

From the ad campaign, we pretty much know how things are going to turn out, and her pedestrian attempts at subplots are even more transparent than those in "Awakenings."

A dreadfully misguided movie.

See it for the performances – they are delights from the leads on down to the characters in the episodic vignettes. But the film’s vision of Gen-Y nesting is liable to leave you up a tree.

The movie features a very cool soundtrack and more hip lingo than two ears can absorb. But, like the air in Denver, this movie is spread awfully thin.

Raimunda believes that dirty linen should be washed at home: Thank goodness Almodóvar hangs some of it up on the screen to dry.

As is, Welcome to Mooseport is clunkily earthbound as its characters and the situations plod forward while never getting anywhere.

It's a wonderfully nuanced performance in an otherwise un-nuanced narrative.

Episodically eventful but utterly unsuspenseful, the film is a diversion that requires little attention and satisfies the film-going needs of a wide variety of viewers.

The one thing about Luminous Motion that can be said with certainty is that Bette Gordon should be making more movies.

An intriguing, disquieting, but ultimately overdrawn nightmare.

Tsai’s drama is something like a mixture of Robert Bresson and R.W. Fassbinder, as God’s bedraggled souls struggle with the desires of the damned, and nobody wants to go into that good night alone.

As a leading man, Casey Affleck has a nebbishy quality and a mumbly speaking voice that I personally find disruptive to a movie's flow.

The problem is more the overall tone: unpleasant, divisive, snarling and deceptive.

Despite cute kids, tough dads, and problems controlling bed-wetting and farts, Daddy Day Camp should just limp off to the nurse's tent and call it quits.

The story is bizarre, unique, and thoroughly unpredictable, while its images resemble some kind of bastard offspring of the linear realism of George Grosz and the fantastic foreboding of Edward Gorey.

This multi-Oscar-winner nails its characters, time period, and locale so perfectly that it becomes even more compelling as time goes by. Fueled by two riveting character studies and its exposure of New York City's seamy underbelly, the movie screams “contemporary” and “eternal” at once...It's one of those rare movies that comes together just about perfectly, so check out this theatrical release while you can.

The plot in Mr. Nanny is flimsy, mostly tenuous excuses for making Hogan kiss a doll or sing a lullaby or dress in purple leotards and pink tutu while whomping on the bad guys. But so many things in the story make so little sense that you have to ask yourself why the people involved in the project weren't asking themselves more questions from the get-go.

The movie will not be for all tastes. Its seedy lifestyles, nonjudgmental attitudes, nonlinear narrative, and central character whose problem is his lack of emotions is definitely nonstandard fare.

Morse and Caruso provide better reasons to see this film than do Ryan and Crowe.

Although little is ultimately “solved” or demystified in The Piano Teacher, the movie allows a chaperoned peek into the mind of one of civilization's “discontents.”

As disturbing as it is well-made, this low-budget indie is a thoroughly original piece of work.

The comic equivalent of a lump of coal.

A rousing, girl-positive, indie success story whose dynamic rhythms deliver a connecting punch.

It's all well and good to run a scroll of corporate evil-doers at the end of the film as in Dick and Jane, but if these robber barons were skewered properly along the way, such heavy-handed, last-minute tactics wouldn't be necessary.

Viewers unfamiliar with Wharton's novel may have a hard time, especially at first, deciphering all the characters since Davies presents them at a steady clip while providing little background or explanatory material.

If, at times, Shine's luster reveals more elbow grease than internal radiance, the movie is still a moving tribute to the human capacity to overcome all odds.

The film is visually bland and hits a few comic dead ends, but there's an element of pathos that allows us to believe in the plight of the fictional James.

As Norman Bates, Vince Vaughn makes us better appreciate how much Anthony Perkins brought to the original project. It's clear now that he owned the role and that he shares equally with Hitchcock the credit for making Psycho the memorable creep show it is -- and was.

A strange Hollywood film, but for a home movie it's one bang-up job.

Everything Reeves has done since always has the whiff of "Ted" about it. Party on, dudes.

As a filmmaker, Clark still seems more beholden to his roots as a still photographer: Images are sometimes worth a thousand words, but, ultimately, they will always be skin-deep.

Many questions occur to the viewer along the way but are never addressed by the filmmakers.

A classic case of preaching to the choir, since it’s doubtful the film will reach many of the minds that need changing.

The film's closing may be less than conclusive, yet The Son's Room must be admired, at least, for its unsentimentality.

There's so much ache in this plaintive little film that it almost makes you believe that the entire world is composed of estranged parents and children searching in vain for one another.

Ultimately sinks under the weight of its good intentions. It’s like watching Univision or Telemundo on the big screen.

For the most part, it works well at this level with the added bonus of some unexpected intellectual twists. The predominant thing that bogs down SWF is the script. It has too many plot holes to be fully believable and too little psychological background on our unbalanced roomie (and when it is revealed, it's revealed all in one stroke).

Naïf meets waif in this touching yet unrealistic tale of love amongst society's write-offs. Between Masterson's schizophrenic Joon Pearl and Depp's oddball Sam, it's difficult to tell which one's the naïf and which is the waif.

Never fully rises to the occasion, maintaining a goofily even keel throughout but rarely tipping over into all-out froth and nuttiness.

Lady Chatterley is the recipient of six César Awards, France's equivalent of the Oscar. Although the film is capable of sustaining our interest throughout, the viewer may find it lacking in some of the transcendence Lady Chatterley's lust is supposed to inspire.

Midway through, a character remarks as he leaves the scene of a takedown of Ronnie, "I thought this was going to be funny, but it's just kind of sad." The same thing is true about the movie as a whole.

An understated movie that, in turns, is funny and heart-breaking and uplifting, Manny & Lo is a work that burrows under your skin and makes you impatient for the next project from first-time feature filmmaker Lisa Krueger.

Life Is Sweet observes this constellation of people without ever really commenting on their lots. Very little occurs and thus, if you don't find yourself drawn to these characters, you will find yourself wondering when it will all be over.

Streetcar is always a wonderful screen drama and now, also, a study in film archeology. [Director's Cut]

The rap stars-turned-actors who populate this film exude a real presence, if not a wealth of acting chops. Williams' script is a real muddle, however, reinforcing the worst clichés about video directors who make the leap to feature filmmaking.

Somewhere between conception and execution the movie turned sour and most of the cuteness was replaced with venom and malice.

In many ways even more hellish and stylish than its predecessor... A horror cult classic.

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the movie does not work, though it's difficult to sort out the “what is” from the “what was” and “what might have been.”

The film is hobbled by the narrative predictability that inevitably governs this type of drama.

The movie’s length forces our suspension of disbelief for at least an hour more than is comfortable and pushes mindlessness to a dangerous longevity.

The premise works despite its inbred hokiness due to Anderson's sure direction and the lovely central performances of Hope Davis and Alan Gelfant.

Less can sometimes be perceived as more, but in the case of The Myth of Fingerprints less is simply less.

However, Lyne (whose sexually exploitative works include such popular box-office fare as "Flashdance," "9 1/2 Weeks," "Fatal Attraction," and "Indecent Proposal") has turned in a Lolita that is remarkably tame and tasteful. This is a Lolita for the English Lit crowd rather than the raincoat crowd.

If Billy Wilder achieved nothing else in his entire career, he would still rank as one of the great masters of cinema for pulling off this comic tour de force.

Lush, succulent, verdant, aromatic. These are the kind of words that come to mind when describing this new Vietnamese film, a film dominated by textures rather than plot.

Humanoids features a number of strong female characters, including a lead scientist and another who defends her homestead from the marauding creatures.

Director Patrice Leconte (The Hairdresser's Husband, Monsieur Hire) again displays his keen observation of the minute details that transpire between people, though Ridicule doesn't share the same mordant perversity as his previous American successes. It does prove that certain games that people play never go out of fashion.

That is the heart of what's missing here: the buzz that unites these games and players, the seductive lure that excites as it also placates. The dramatic throughline is murky as well...Undeniably good are the performances, however.

This movie presented a radical melange of genuine horror and self-aware comic touches, not to mention the fabulous Rick Baker special effects.

The movie has its moments but it plays like a ball of confusion. Life Stinks seems to be Brooks' bid to be taken seriously and leave the fart jokes behind. And something about that stinks.

The kind of film that will be suitable for all-ages entertainment once the family runs out of conversation after devouring all the turkey, but it's unlikely to expand its audience beyond these captives.

At 2 1/2 hours, the film is too long in the telling and too short on suspense.

A living artifact that does what movies do best: exist in time.

The film's politically correct repudiation of the familiar black-and-white characterizations of the white and red man is ultimately undermined, however, when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction.

Although Love the Hard Way is saturated with a doomed romanticism that feels more fictitious than real, the actors lend the movie a potency that it would not have had otherwise.

There's no getting around how dreadful Twelve is – how tone deaf it is to its young protagonists and how vapid its ersatz production design seems.

Despite its compelling nature, Greenaway’s film is not always an easy one to sit through.

And for all Lee's ballyhoo about racial stereotyping, one might expect him to adopt a less hackneyed approach to his portrayals of Italians and women.

As we find ourselves again immersed in a time of war, Trumbo's ageless story offers a useful corollary.

Ultimately more bleak and furious than most Hollywood tales of this sort. Man on Fire plays it out to the bloody end, like there’s no fire extinguisher in Mexico but for the oceans that hold its borders.

Veterans Eva Marie Saint and Cicely Tyson make welcome appearances.