Paula Nechak

Istanbul-born director Ferzan Ozpetek has outdone himself with this wise and ruminative mystery about memory, unfulfillment and yearning.

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.

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

Often unsettlingly funny, though it ultimately recedes into a dark womb of despair.

It's a methodical, friendly fairy tale in which everyone is good and the outcome is a given.

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

Unfortunately, the life has been sucked out of DiCamillo's story about a brave, unusual little mouse.

We leave hungry for more of the film's substantial, if less physically perfect, subjects.

The teen parties and sidekick silliness are time filler, and not very good filler either -- why even Bruce Willis shows up in a scene that has nothing to do with the story.

Both sophisticated and elemental enough for all ages to grasp the message.

A mess of incohesiveness and fragmented storytelling.

It has a frenetic, unsettled edginess that chafes against its serene, woodsy, upscale private school setting.

Witherspoon is terrific.

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.

Hunt and Johansson, two usually good actresses, are vapidly awful, teetering out of their elements in this shakily drawn period piece.

An innocuous, hit-and-miss affair.

Flies coach instead of first class, despite a charismatic cast.

While the film is technically polished and visually breathtaking, it lacks depth and becomes little more than a lawless fairy tale packed with pretty people.

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.

A low-maintenance crowd-pleaser, but we've seen the entire film, in thematic snippets, before.

A heady, impressionistic mixture of biography, fantasy and social history in which it isn't always clear which is which.

The biggest tragedy about Milos Forman's foray into the life and times of Spanish artist Francisco De Goya is the waste of so much great raw material.

A delight and a surprise.

Isn't very pretty despite its extraordinary look. In fact, the film is downright queasy and unsettling.

Can't find its rhythm and stride. It plays it far too safe and slick.

The film is dominated by computer-generated effects and they're most of its problem -- they don't give us anything to emotionally attach to or invest in.

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

A film that takes you by surprise, refusing to relinquish its grim, fascinating hold. Better yet, it has crept up on us without much advance promotional fanfare. The less known about its twists, the better.

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.

A mystery that isn't mysterious, a thriller that's barely thrilling.

The film strains to achieve the comedic gait of "Wag the Dog" or the improvised, overlapping style that so defined Robert Altman's Hollywood movie, "The Player."

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

It's an unenlightening film that proves youthful anarchy is just as dull as a midlife crisis, and sadly, as predictable, too.

While there are maybe two moments of genuinely clever humor, Storytelling is the work of a previously promising filmmaker who, having no new ideas, has morphed into a sniggering schoolboy intent upon being mean.

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.

Darkly funny.

Disney seems intent upon overdosing audiences with the little guy proving himself against a seemingly superior force.

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.

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

A total guilty pleasure.

A pedestrian movie with a predictable romance at its heart.

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.

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

Director Martha Coolidge attempts to keep the film grounded in reality, but the movie flutters away from her control.

"Shrek" had some refreshing, genre-twisting innovation but Cats & Dogs plays it safe and nice instead and, by not taking risks, doesn't quite make it out of the doghouse.

When a film has to blare its racially and incendiary stance as obviously as Lakeview Terrace, you know it's trying too hard.

Tainted by cliches, painful improbability and murky points.

The film leaves an acrid taste with the viewer who sits through its long and winding tale of tortured courtship.

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

Despite his harrowing real-life experiences, Downey, good as he is, is simply too young for the part. This callow telling begs for a more mature approach.

Kilner and crew cough up a mish-mash of contrasting tones and tempos and wind up a rather odd, misshapen curiosity that wavers into too many styles to avoid a slow death by overkill.

Brokedown Palace does have some plot implausibilities but Kaplan, manages to turn some hashed story lines into something substantial and emotionally affecting.

Maybury's attempt at a more mainstream movie is really just a simple love story cloaked in a lot of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

There's not an original idea rattling around in the empty-headed but gorgeous-to-behold period film.

It's the chemistry between Vardalos and Collette that gives the film its magical dazzle. Despite Vardalos' ingratiating, big and breathy presence, Collette, as the pulse and conscience of these two dreamers, very nearly steals the film.

The Village goes up in smoke (and mirrors). It wants to find a profoundness that hints at something deep and dimensional, but it hasn't the courage of conviction to stay on course as an unabashed ode to innocence.

A big dud.

Racing Stripes is oddly torn in tone: is it an old-fashioned family drama, a coming-of-age story or a crass comedy? Live action or animation? Unlike "Babe," it fails to integrate its conflicting personalities.

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.

Pretty silly stuff, designed to appeal more to older kids and adults than the toddler brigade.

So badly plotted and written that it rarely makes much sense, even with the elementary story line.

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

Though the cast is talented, the script is a mess. It's essentially a collision of missed opportunities.

After its midway mark, just lumbers until it fizzles out.

As has been the case with most of Shepard's plays, transfer to the movies spells doom.

The restless, selfish, unfriendly people created by Lachow as protagonists only make the movie hard to warm up to. It's more akin to fingernails scraping a blackboard than an updated morality play.

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.

In the end, it trivializes the psychological complexity of the girl's post-traumatic stress and betrays a game group of actors who struggle to find balance between the alternately dark drama and the silly, over-the-top melodrama.

Unremarkable sequel to the 1967 hit.

This collision of popular Emmy-winning TV shows is strangely uninspired and, well, a bit dull.

A sloppily scripted film that contains a silly and superfluous subplot about a crooked cop.