Rick Kisonak

Goes south early and its director never comes close to turning things around.

Movies about writers are almost always romanticized affairs but Starting Out in the Evening is the rare exception. It is at once an elegy for the vanishing generation of Bellow, Cheever, Mailer and Updike and a dead on indictment of our culture’s current state.

The film has brief flashes of believability and humor. By and large, though, the script is uninspired, the picture's characters are stick figures, its dialogue is lackluster and the star's performance seldom rises above the adequate.

By and large, reviewers have conceded that the picture is exceptionally gripping and suspenseful while deriding its moral subtext as a crock. The only explanation possible for such fuming pettiness, in my opinion, is the fact that Michael Haneke isn’t one of us.

From the performances of its first rate cast to the infectious score and Audiard's deft direction, this is one of the most accomplished movies you'll see anytime soon-old, new or, as is the case here, combining the best of both.

Serves up heaping helpings of everything fans loved about the first.

We aren't talking Oscar here. We're talking truly fine performances and an unexpectedly hep John Williams score. We are talking a story that rollicks with the most rollicking of them. Not great cinema; just a great time at the movies and certainly a film well worth catching if you can.

Watching the American nightmare of Must Read After My Death play out, it's impossible not to be both horrified and powerfully moved. Impossible as well not to feel profound admiration for the artfulness with which Dews has pieced these archival cries for help into a singular creation anyone who appreciates first rate filmmaking absolutely must see.

Jenkins' film ranks as one of the past year's very best. Like "In Cold Blood," "The Onion Field" and "Dead Man Walking" before it, her picture provides a mesmerizing portrait of the human side of evil.

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

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

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.

Manages to be impressively unsettling given the flaws in its foundation.

Over all though, this is a first rate caper piece elevated by Caine’s effortlessly elegant portrayal. The movie is wall to wall with pompous, sexist, greedy backstabbers and it’s a hoot to watch Hobbs mop the floor with the lot of them.

Over all, though, the picture fires on all pistons. The globetrotting's a good time-I can't think of another spy film that's featured as delightful an assortment of seamy international undersides.

Beyond any contention is Morgan Spurlock's gift for metabolizing common knowledge into uncommonly entertaining cinema.

It doesn't disappoint. It gets the job done thanks in large part to the breakout performance given by Galifianakis. It's no "Old School," but it will do nicely until that film's anticipated sequel rolls around in 2011.

The heart of Ray, of course, is the music and, whatever other shortcomings the film may have, it does not fall short as a showcase for the artist's greatest hits.

Sublimely directed, scored, shot and performed, the picture misses greatness by a nose as a result of shortcomings in its script.

While the massacre is a wall-shaking and effective bit of high decibel drama, some of the movie's best moments come during the Texans' long brave wait for almost certain death.

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.

This is a decidedly hit or miss deal which, despite the current outpouring of critical praise, is destined to rank among the Coen's least memorable achievements.

Billed as a comedy but it would be every bit as accurate to categorize it as science fiction or a World War II drama. It is simply not a funny film.

Post-personality switch, the picture does come to life somewhat but proves a one trick pony.

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.

Full speed ahead fun, a rollicking caper romp that hearkens back to a quainter, pre-Ken Lay age when bigtime fraud could actually entail writing books as opposed to merely cooking them.

Each and every one of the movie's 125 minutes is a moment of searing truth.

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