Melissa Levine

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.

This is inelegant storytelling, and it almost entirely cancels out what's good about the film: Max Minghella, for one thing. The son of director Anthony, he gives a very fresh performance, popping with energy that the other characters seem to drain.

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.

However you slice it, Bleep remains a work of naive invention and wannabe spirituality.

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.

The title pretty much says it all: syrupy romantic comedy dripping with unearned sentiment.

Its smarmy resolution just doesn't work; the lessons learned are a bit too medicinal. But we're willing to forgive, since it's otherwise a good-natured and enjoyable ride.

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.

Has its heart in the right place, but its head seems to be lost in a swirling maelstrom of teen movies that have come before.

Part of the reason that it doesn't quite succeed is that these messages are so tried and true.

Wacky, hodgepodge and decidedly homemade, CSA nevertheless is worth seeing. Sure, it veers off into nonsense, and there are times when the film loses its center. But the premise, the passion and the scathing political commentary ultimately keep CSA afloat.

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.

The trouble with 12 and Holding, which pits four young protagonists in intertwining battles for spiritual (and, well, literal) survival, is that it's just too much.

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.

Schreiber's edits gut the story of its power and punch. His film is strong on comedy and farce, enjoyable as a quirky-friendship gag, but it fails in its attempt at tragedy.