Melissa Levine

It's a sweet, silly and not unintelligent romantic comedy: For a period farce, you could do worse.

In many ways, The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a beautiful work, a painstakingly crafted portrait of a talented self-saboteur--a man consistently done in by a vicious mental illness. But it's not as compelling as one would hope.

An affecting piece of work.

Its characters are complex and engaging, its central mystery pulls the action forward at a clip, and the performances by Paltrow and Davis are excellent. At the same time, it's a little too slick.

Watching Cowboy del Amor is like sitting in a room with someone who's making funny racist cracks; you can't help but laugh, but you feel sullied by the implicit collusion. For that reason, the film tips over into the camp of tragedy. Or if it is a comedy, it's the Shakespearean kind, where the marriages at the end are utterly unsettling.

Mostly, Wild Parrots is a great, important, and unforgettable movie.

Supremely enjoyable.

Wildly enjoyable look at the fifth-grade ballroom dance competition held annually in New York City.

An entertainment success, a triple threat of fresh writing, inspired directing, and, yes, good acting.

The result is an experience rich in pleasure and surprise, one that easily stands up to multiple viewings.

Through hilarious and charming interviews with the kids, extended chat sessions with Green, a few words from parents, and a healthy dose of performance footage, we get a sense of what sort of community Green has created, for better and worse.

This is the kind of documentary that, though not particularly accomplished by way of direction, writing, or editing, has such a compelling subject that there's no question about its worth.

One of the powerful things about After Innocence is that, no matter what your position on punitive justice, you can't argue with the film's position.

An interesting film, and a good one, with a harrowing performance by Depp, whose apparent enjoyment of the role seems only to increase as his character deteriorates.

Bleak, minimal, bone-dry and hilarious, it creates a rich and layered world from deft strokes of dialogue and action.

Astonishing if imperfect nature documentary.

Bubble is a strong film with a gorgeously minimal script by Coleman Hough. Soderbergh has directed his actors to perfection, rendering them indistinguishable from their roles. And, though the story resorts to sensationalism for its conflict, the film is eloquent in its portrayal of silence, depression, repression, denial and the woes of the Midwestern white working class.

Mostly it's just a sweet and lightly funny piece of highbrow piffle, as enjoyable as it is forgettable. There's no harm done, but there's not much else either.

The film is rich with real feeling. And Dench's performance is a heartbreaker.

The result is a mood movie that sweeps you into its infatuation and holds you there.

For all of its turgid self-importance, its anthropocentric theater of classical music and sound effects, Deep Blue is a gorgeous film with scene after scene of incredible footage.

But except for a few missteps, the movie is so beautifully and sensitively rendered in its particulars, in its characterizations of soldiers and officers, and in its dramatization of a nearly miraculous event, that the result is an affecting piece of cinema.

In the end, The Producers is an enjoyable romp, and at times--as when Hitler sings "Heil Myself"--it's hilarious. But it's not transcendent.

Smart, patient and ruefully funny... Yet because the film never digs too far into any single person's world, it doesn't build toward much.