Michael Sragow

Too bad the bulk of Rowling's humor goes down a black-magic drain.

In its entirety, Hairspray has the funny tilt that only a director-choreographer like Shankman can give to a movie.

When it comes to what's great about King Kong, it's not the harum-scarum. It's the girl.

Chicago is the zingiest, most inventive movie of its kind since "Cabaret."

It's a bad joke that District 9 will be hailed for its "originality."

The movie gets as overblown and masochistic as the worst Joan Crawford vehicle. Its saving grace is that Bernal really does have his own deep-set, smoldering variation on Bette Davis eyes.

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

This movie has an aura of forced tragedy, like a fourth-generation version of "Requiem for a Heavyweight."

You have to grasp at straws to make even "poetic" sense of the narrative.

One happy surprise after another, even when the content is bittersweet or sad.

Promises may want to unite the audience in humanitarian emotions, but it's more useful as a prod to examine what these children are learning from their schools, their leaders, and their media.

A scary movie that's also funny, touching and good for you.

As magical as it is realistic.

Beguiling, moving and just plain fun documentary.

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

The film saddles Craig T. Nelson with the generally thankless role of Paxton's cold, distant dad. But when he feels like the only person who doesn't understand what's going on with Tate and his son, you feel like saying, "No, me too."

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.

The compositions evoke a kind of open-air claustrophobia, whether in overhead shots that pin the characters in the landscape or in tableaux of men, women, and children staving off the chaos of the wide-open spaces with their weary fences and weathered towns.

Bergman's creation of family banter that turns irredeemably cruel remains without peer.

Rarely has appalling, reckless behavior been so soporific as in Savage Grace.

I love Rabbit-Proof Fence as drama, as protest, as moviemaking and as poetry.

Whale Rider is one long, sensitive downer capped by an uplifting finale. A martyr fantasy that turns victorious -- it's a surefire recipe for arthouse crowd-pleasing.

We'll never know what might have been, as eye candy and food for thought replace real thrills in the cool but cold Minority Report.

Like "Hairspray," it's not just a spinoff but a wised-up family comedy that's spirited and inventive. It retains the farcical belligerence of the TV comedy but also heightens the series' oddball warmth and expands on its Hellzapoppin' slapstick.

Few films even try to render the full range of emotions and sensations in female sexuality as the aptly titled Lady Chatterley, directed and co-written by a Frenchwoman, Pascale Ferran.

This movie has a tone, look and mood all its own - it's a joyously bittersweet piece of visual music about isolation, melancholy and everyone's yearning for transcendence, through love, art or both.

It's not another rah-rah football film. Thanks to Nolte, it has its own form of true grit.

You go to Good Night, and Good Luck expecting inspiration, and you get it. It's also unexpectedly subtle, tense, and challenging, complex both in its take on its subject and in its craftsmanship. So the movie brings you to your feet - and, at times, to tears.