Michael Sragow

Unpretentious and brashly exploitative.

For those of us who wish that John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club" had kept the cheeky tone of Hughes' "Sixteen Candles," what ensues is the best Hughes farce that Hughes never made about adolescent snobbery and heartbreak as well as adult obtuseness.

May be thin, but it's also sharp, like a stiletto.

The bulk of the film merely yearns for lucidity and magic. At its worst, Respiro resembles My Big Fat Italian Nervous Breakdown.

It's an odd duck: a labor-intensive piece of light entertainment.

In Julie and Julia, Ephron, like her heroines, has finally found what suits her: a surprising comic and romantic realism.

Casino Royale marks a shrewd relaunching of a franchise. But Campbell and company show too much of their sweat. If these movies continue to follow Fleming's profane pilgrim's progress, the next Bond movies should be more emotional and funny, with a bit of brass-knuckled charm.

he Kite Runner lives in the galvanic performances of two young Afghan actors, Zekeria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada. They bring home the torment of Afghan life before and after the Taliban and, just as important, the resilience of children everywhere.

Kung Fu Hustle is to "House of Flying Daggers" what "Blazing Saddles" is to "Unforgiven."

Intelligent and robust contempt has become so rare in movies that the first half of Art School Confidential is intermittently exhilarating.

Freedom Writers is the rare inspirational-teacher film that is filled with genuine, jaw-dropping coups of real-life poetry.

Too often when actors portray complicated or enigmatic characters, they seem to be flirting with the audience, playing hard to get. Not Williams.

What makes the movie potent, though, has nothing to do with metaphor or parable. It's that the story provides Connelly, Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Kingsley's wife with all the tools they need to resurrect, flesh out, revamp and criticize outmoded male and female roles.

The fascination, humor and poignancy of Departures, this year's winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, rests in the Japanese ceremony of preparing bodies for their caskets.

What makes it all work is that Frank remains a self-made hero.

Although the movie is unabashedly alarming, it's also intelligent fun.

It pulls together diverse residents of the city, from produce vendors to academics, and trains a loving eye on their unique environments and the urban landscapes they all share.

Overall, you're left wondering why every big novel needs to be a movie. White Oleander would work better as a four-part miniseries -- or at least as a less conventional screenplay.

A solid, satisfying movie.

Blessedly unimportant, Fantastic Four cruises along on modest yet genuine comic-book pleasures.

Leonardo DiCaprio brings straight-razor reflexes and rooted emotion to the role of a deceptively rugged CIA man.

This picture is absorbing -- and eye-filling -- whether the prose and the passion are connecting or running on parallel tracks.

May not make adults feel as if they're 10 again, but it will awaken their memories of Saturday matinees that upped children's adrenaline without blinding them with Day-Glo colors or insulting their intelligence.

Producers hits few wrong notes on the big screen.

Quick and lowdown-delightful. It's also a graveyard or two up in class from the torture films that, in recent years, have redefined horror for the worse.

The movie may be Nine Queens, but it slakes your thirst for surprises and thrills because of its Nine Jokers.

Cabin Fever may not be a horror classic, but it's definitely an ideal midnight movie.

Spurlock's movie is the real-life slapstick record of a kamikaze Mac attack. Schlosser's book is the contemporary equal of Upton Sinclair's classic meatpacking muckraker "The Jungle."