Paula Nechak

Jordan unites his favorite actors -- Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart and Brendan Gleeson -- with the swoony presence of the talented 29-year-old Cillian Murphy.

Lacks the cohesive flow of "Fantasia" and suffers from an attention deficit that seems to mark and flaw our current fast-paced technological era.

A delight and a surprise.

An edgy comedy with heart.

It's a taut, unexpected study that asks many questions about retribution and redemption.

Witherspoon is terrific.

The director's tenacity has resulted in a breathtaking as well as heartbreaking adventure of life and death.

Its only constant is that it's strangely eloquent and quite original.

Because the subjects are all mellowing into grandparenthood and their abrasive, wilder days are behind them, this particular "scrapbook" isn't as heavy hitting and hard-edged as its predecessors.

Though Signs & Wonders loses its bubbles and runs flat in its anticlimactic final moments, it's far more inventive and demanding than any movie of recent memory.

Pape Sidy Niang is terrific as the cop, Z, who is viewing America through a new immigrant's eyes.

A frothy and deliriously enjoyable souffle.

Gorgeous re-creation of another time.

An enigmatic but gorgeous film.

What emerges is a funny and sometimes aching movie that treads familiar dysfunctional family turf but still manages to eke out an emotionally toned balance.

(Fiennes's) Onegin is clueless to anything other than the sensual world, and is finally more repellent than sympathetic.

Allen has avoided his usual stable of jokes and one-liners, and the result is a film that feels and looks fresh from the maestro of urban angst.

The film is not without its flaws, but it sports a terrific production design that integrates magically into the story -- as well as another top-notch performance by Anthony LaPaglia.

There's something essential and emotional missing in this character-driven piece. It's more an admirably performed and observed study -- of a time, place and three very different people -- than it is the heartbreaking and engrossing story it could have been.

A fresh, well-written comedy that doesn't lag, casts its actors against type and has a real love for its characters.

The film is so full of ideas and so dense that its narrative splinters, moving tangentially, and ultimately is weighed down by its rant and rhetoric.

Sticks in the mind and simply won't go away.

While most of the film is well-written and acted, there are some difficulties. Aniston's Olivia is hard to figure.

Cast and crew have a blast making a family movie that spoofs its James Bond-like premise, is jam-packed with action, sweaty-palm suspense and adventurous, high-tech fun effects, and yet never loses its at-the-core heart and sympathies.

Has difficulty reaching a resolution. In the final half-hour, the film becomes almost hysterically out of sync with its prior quiet reserve.

Zeffirelli creates a lovely, perfectly composed and lyrical look at life under Mussolini's black-shirted fascist regime. But despite danger on every corner in Italy, there is a tinge of rose-colored sentiment that blurs the events yet lends to the making of an affecting dramatic period piece.

airily works not only because of Witherspoon and a game supporting cast...but because, with its bark-and-bite agenda wrapped in a blanket of laughs, has the sense to remember that, first and foremost, it's entertainment.

While most movies would sink under the weight of such eccentricity, pretentiousness and earnestness, Garden State is so full of wit and the genuine heart of characters that you can't help but care about what happens to them.

It's an unashamedly old-fashioned and richly visualized evocation of a time when values were key, trust in your neighbor complete, and a way of life that should be simple is made unfathomably complex because of economic hardship.

Here's yet another take on "Pride and Prejudice,"...but all spiced up as colorfully as a dish of curry.

While there is a faithful following of kids, it just never seems as exciting or sad or emotional -- or as ablaze with personalities -- as what has gone before.

Writer and first-time director Thomas Bezucha certainly knows how to create warmth, ambience and situation.

What Jeffs -- and Paltrow -- do capture is the shroud of tragedy that hovered over Plath.

A foreign film feel despite its strong American cast.

Who was Bettie Page? You won't find out in Mary Harron's chirpily cheery chronicle.

[Jarmusch] seems...to introduce gratuitous bloodshed that is out of sync with the engaging, offbeat tempo and dark, comedic moral fable that has come before.

Like a family visit during the holidays. Tensions run high, not everyone is likable but being there's an uneasy comfort because everything is so familiar.

A comic, loving, affectionate glimpse of the '80s, its music and fashions, and most of all at that hard-to-find thing called true friendship.

Unfortunately can't transcend its theatrical roots and the actors, good as they are, seem like they're grandstanding.

Lurches toward an offbeat honesty but it also very nearly crashes in its quirkiness.

There is a certain poignancy to a film that metaphorically examines the stages of a woman's life through each character.

In the end, dark comedy drives the film, but it's overwhelmed by a desire to be liked, really liked.

Quite long and violent enough to have made several critics squirm in their seats during a recent press screening.

Swicord has enough savvy to conjure up a terrific cast that compensates for her rote direction.

A shapeless comedy that is enjoyable to watch and often clever with its barbs -- and doesn't have very much to say.

Often as stillborn in pace as it is conceptually compelling.

For all its somber heaviness and reverential gravity, it never quite pulls all the elements and themes together.

The result is a movie that washes down without much thinking or introspection, provides some laughs and a tear or two, and dishes up a little something to mull over with its messages about friendship and loyalty in the face of naked ambition.

Provided you don't take it seriously, it makes for an addictively entertaining diversion that's as hard to stop watching as the books are to stop reading.

Although budding star Mendes and Washington sparked in "Training Day," there's less chemistry between them this time as she glowers and frets in her role as a big-city cop.

It may not exactly be a traditional love letter to his wife but actor-turned-executive producer William H. Macy has given her a plum part as Bree in screenwriter-director Duncan Tucker's offbeat road movie.

There are too few surprises and even less subtlety in the telling. We can only sit and wait for the next bomb to drop on this poor exploited girl.

There's such a good-natured heart beating beneath the cliches that it's easy to appreciate the film's willingness to poke gentle fun without a whiff of nastiness or judgment.

Something doesn't quite gel in the end.

Tinged with sadness, and despite overstaying its welcome a wee bit, remains an anthem of insurrection, melding its political and humanistic truths into an almost dreamily subversive film tinged with humor and some small hope.

tTere are two things going for Melinda and Melinda: Woody's not in it and Radha Mitchell is.

Wanders off on story tangents that can't be called anything other than bizarre, but nevertheless oddly engages.

Ok, I admit at first I was just laughing at the sheer gutsiness of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. But after 10 minutes, I was laughing at the script.

Sandler and Watson make something out of their underwritten roles, and that they do is testament to their talents: They make this punchy romantic comedy more engaging than it should be.

If you're a fan of Maddin's expressionist style, you'll find the humor within. Everyone else will be scratching their heads, despite Maddin's extraordinary visual imagination.

Before the film flails, like a balloon losing air into a terrible finale, it has the audacity to lay siege to just about every xenophobic bias possible. No one -- or country -- is safe in this comedy and for that alone it's admirable.

At times, the self-congratulatory tone makes for smug viewing and slow going. In spots, the pace is so all-exclusive that not every viewer will be able to get up and dance to it.

It's epic, sweeping, and genuinely engrossing for awhile, but then it stumbles. [07 Nov 1998]

Belongs to its trio of "bovine" voice talent -- Roseanne Barr, Dame Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly -- who play with such tongue-in-cheek delight upon their public personas that it's hard to separate cow character from the celebrities.

Chereau's film is disjointed and abrupt and it rages when is should be deft. We're given too little too late and, despite the lessons that lie within the affair, the lines between enlightenment and nihilism blur.

An almost too-sophisticated comedy, pitting the New World mentality and brash pugnaciousness of America against the staid arrogance of custom that defines the French bourgeoisie.

Doesn't offer much texture or depth of character.

Instead of making fun of the series' fans and their lifestyle, Galaxy Quest targets actors and how an onscreen image can forever lock a performer in a particular role. And that proves to be its saving grace.

It resorts to a story line so predictable that its willingness to go so earnestly into unoriginal territory is doubly disappointing since its first half had so much more going for it.

Don't give the kids any sugar before this one -- it's so hyperactive it'll send them into overdrive without it.

In some ways it suffers from the same unredemptive afflictions as Elwood and his gang: It's a bit flaccid and flabby and lumbers gracelessly along without self awareness or humanity.

Director Marcelo Pineyro imbues the film with mood and style and yet the violent climax holds little thrall as a lack of character development makes it had to care about the robbers' fate.

It's light and airy and, unlike the land-locked planes, runs the risk of nearly floating away into innocuous obscurity.

Much of the monologue feels more self-deprecating and politically intoned than laugh-out-loud hilarious, yet that's pretty much what segregates Cho from less personal stand-up comics like Ellen Degeneres.

But the irony of Les Destinées is that while Assayas is a pro at examining the inner workings of present-day connection and nuance, he's so overwhelmed by the sheer historical scope and detail of this massive saga that after three hours we're starved for emotional involvement with such inaccessible characters.

It isn't quite like watching a train wreck -- it's more perverse and anti-climactic -- but it's as hard to shake once it's passed.

Rich with insight and cinematic style and beauty, the film tells a uniquely moving and inspiring story. Unfortunately, it takes some stamina to distill its message from its overly long, overindulgent love affair with itself.

Makes a case that despite human inability to empathize with the emotional lives of other animals and creatures and to believe they are here only to serve our needs and convenience, birds are as capable of courage, violence, affection and commitment to family as we are.

More chic and movie-savvy than its predecessor.

Though Wood is the star, it's Hutz who is the indelible presence.

Dedicates itself to the beauty and thrill of bodies and motion and in doing so upstages Altman's cinematic conduit. The medium ultimately surpasses its messenger.

A total guilty pleasure.

In the end, the comedian makes the movie seem better than it really is.

More like the kid shows that populate Nickelodeon.

The movie's political and moral points -- and theme about creating family however you can find it -- elevate it above the average kids movie.

While adults may feel out of their league, there are a few jokes that will appeal to them.

While Hunt's directing debut is promising, if understated, it's her performance as schoolteacher April Epner that impresses the audience.

While Gainsbourg and Stamp are charming, Attal's husband is difficult to like, to say the least. Must a woman as gracious and intelligent as Charlotte really settle for domesticity with such a near-abusive boor?

Outside of its star power, it reeks of indie film and doesn't hold much mainstream steam.

What remains is a sumptuous-looking film that sniffs at but ignores deeper Freudian implications.

Strikes a universal chord, no matter what rung of the popularity ladder we were on in high school.

This bloodless, nuanced little thriller carries small weight save for Huppert's enigmatic, thrifty performance.

Certainly kept the toddlers (including mine) at an advance screening engrossed, but for parents and reviewers, it was more of a struggle.

This journey is clunkily rendered, clouded by an avalanche of murky symbolism.

If you can forgive some woeful casting and a plot that is as creakingly thin as an old staircase, you can enjoy director Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.

Lawrence uses the stand-up forum less as a weapon to blast us with his incisive, razor sharp insights into life, sex and ethnicity than as a pulpit or confessional to chronicle his rehabilitation and reformation.

Works best when it devotes itself to the small group of main characters featured on the show.

Attempts to do for "The Big Sleep"-type detective movie and film-noir genre what "Blair Witch" did for horror films.