Rick Kisonak

The pacing is brisk-something wacky happens every couple of minutes, the editing crisp and the effects promising. Then disaster strikes: the first act gives way to the relative witlessness of the second and third.

Elegy's last act is a mournful smorgasbord of bathos in which major and supporting characters alike drop like flies. The body count is practically Shakespearean. The same, regrettably, can't be said for Coixet's touch when it comes to tragedy.

The combination of pen, ink and geopolitical strife have yet to yield anything quite like it.

There isn't another American screen actor who could have given this performance, not one who so deftly could have navigated the razor's edge separating the wiseacre and the wise.

Her beauty, independence, and stock portfolio notwithstanding, Chelsea’s tale is a timely, tragic one told with typical Soderbergh finesse, a sly, sleek merger of sex, lies and hi def video.

Eastwood tells the story at a pace well under the Hollywood speed limit, tosses in details so beguiling they seem about to sprout into motion pictures of their own and bathes his subjects in shadows as lovely as those in any Rembrandt.

It may not be great but you're guaranteed to feel great walking out the theater door.

Even by Hollywood sequel standards, this is lazily conceived, cynically recycled stuff.

Rare is the motion picture which grapples with issues this provocative and profound. Rarer still is one which does so this well.

The amazing thing about Venus is that it's brutally honest about all this but at the same time funny as hell.

Simultaneously offers priceless insight into the nation's past and a worrisome take on the future.

If my moviegoing experience was magical in any way, it was only in that I once or twice nodded off for a spell.

This is a film which resonates on a surprising number of levels. But the level on which it undoubtedly works best is the victim-goes-postal-and-takes-the-law-into-his-own-hands level.

As an affecting work of compassionate craftsmanship, The Letter delivers.

Not bad for a mainstream suspensefest. Gere's good, Lane, as I said, is amazing in places and Lyne does some of his most assured work in years.

Has its rollicking moments and snappy lines but even Pacino can't elevate them into more than a fleetingly juicy treat. This is a movie that desperately wishes it had been written by David Mamet.

A competently calibrated feel-good machine. It's as effective as anything on The Lifetime Channel. Which is likely where this project would have wound up were it not for the involvement of Washington.

No End In Sight is the most important film of the year thus far and, more significantly, the most comprehensive, clear-eyed account of the Iraq debacle and the arrogance behind it that we have.

Until this past Friday, the worst werewolf film ever made was, hairy hands down, Mike Nichols' "Wolf." Cursed now assumes that dubious distinction and someone is going to have to try very hard to wrestle it away.

By far the most appallingly cretinous picture in which Keaton has ever appeared.

Given their lack of training, nearly all the young performers do a commendable job. It's the director who slips up by, among other things, dividing his cast into such predictable phyla.

New territory for the Vermont director, and he shows every sign of feeling right at home in it.

On its own terms, Departures is a thing of rare and remarkable beauty.

Long before you buy your ticket to the new Jim Carrey film, you've already been doomed to disappointment. Several parties play a role in this. Interestingly, Jim Carrey isn't one of them.

Proved that cheerless, existentially unflinching literature can provide the basis for exhilarating cinema.

The score is appropriately ethereal. From the Paris skyline to the Great Wall of China, the film's locales on every continent are rarely less than breathtaking. Calling the camerawork stunning, of course, is an understatement.

Exceptional performances and unexpected twists of plot keep the story from descending into overwrought melodrama.

Bottom line: the spectacle he was preparing may well have provided Jackson with the appropriate note on which to close his long, controversial career. This, however, I think even die hard fans will concur, isn't it.

Portraying the same 1945 confrontation from the vantage point of the Japanese was an inspired idea. Unfortunately, the movie it inspired is something of a letdown.

This is a gentle, understated character-driven piece that has more in common with European romantic dramas than those made in this country as a rule.

The first half of Luis (Angel Eyes) Mandoki's new thriller is as whiteknuckle, nerve-wracking as they come. The second is such a mishmash of overblown action and gaping plotholes, it's hard to believe it's the work of the same director.

The movie gives us lovingly shot landscapes, portraits of extraordinary friendships, a great score, dialogue that only occasionally slips into history lessons, a number of memorably etched minor characters, a splendid performance by its youngest star and two mysteries.

Perkiness Alert! Much of the banter and many of the gags are amusing but Witherspoon cranks the perkiness to off-the-dial levels here and anyone with low tolerance for superpeppy movie do-gooders should consult a physician before viewing.

The plot is romantic comedy boilerplate from start to finish and, with the story's outcome a foregone conclusion, the least the director could have done is throw in a bit of cultural enlightenment to keep the audience occupied while he connects the dots.

Suffice it to say that MacDonald has made the finest mountain climbing movie you are likely ever to come across. The cinematography is awesome, the score by Alex Heffes terrific, the reenactments remarkably credible.