Robert K. Elder

The best of Brooks' movie parodies: a high-style sendup of Universal's James Whale-directed Boris Karloff "Frankenstein" movies. [26 Oct 2007, p.C3]

Like Ice Cube's "Friday," How High probably will survive as an underground classic, until it's pushed further underground and forgotten by the next disposable "cult classic" to hit video.

Offers the most onscreen explosions in recent memory. It's almost pornography for arsonists.

Plays so flat, so to close its "movie message" formula, that it seems as if we've seen this movie before.

At the end of 83 unmerciful minutes, audiences will be exclaiming, "Dude, I can't believe I sat through that movie!?" Stick to the trailer.

Ends up a few frames short of the perfect horror film, but very few.

A noir masterpiece with Oscar-caliber performances, Sexy Beast slowly turns up the heat until we squirm.

With Clockstoppers, Frakes hobbles along with a high-concept film that doesn't live up to its potential.

A train wreck you can't help but watch.

Kwietniowski turns up the tension so incrementally, we don't realize the scope of Mahowny's moral wreck until it is too late.

Writer-director Peter Sehr displays obvious directing talent, especially in his use of nonlinear love scenes. He shows the coupling, the approach and release all at once, out of order, mixing the entire seduction ritual into one fluid montage.

Black delivers the best line (“Do you want me to get naked and start the revolution?”), and Lithgow scores a giggle for calling his ex-wife “coyote ugly” to her face, but neither of them can disguise this lemon.

Unlike the intrigue and winding switchback of moral mysteries that defined "L.A. Confidential," Dark Blue travels on flat, predictable terrain.

Leaves us puzzled as to why the term "damned" applies at all, when vampirism is depicted as so cool, fashion-savvy and glamorous.

Call it a weepy for the gay community:The Trip is an oddly marketed, oddly titled romance. Yes, there is a trip, but it takes place during the last 15 minutes of the film and seems almost tangential.

Hotel might be best described as the art-house version of "Cannonball Run."

Sacrificing content for style, Caruso gives us a lot to look at but little to ponder.

Good performances in bad movies are nothing new, but it's sad that Moore's first major cinematic outing scrapes the bottom of the melodramatic barrel.

Neither drama nor comedy, Summer Catch is a long, slow lob of a movie that never crosses the plate.

Bette Davis gave one of her best and nastiest performances in Wyler's stylishly sordid 1940 romantic murder-mystery from W. Somerset Maugham's story. [02 May 2008, p.C5]

McGrath's version of Nicholas Nickleby cashes in on age-old show biz wisdom of "always leave 'em wanting more." It's a pity we're only allowed such a small nibble of one of Dickens' richest works.

What makes XX/XY so engaging; it attempts to define love through broken characters who know neither themselves nor the meaning of love.

It's an event film, all about flash and spectacle, even though the movie itself is void of any real substance.

Replete with audience-insulting writing and blatantly hateful jokes, storytelling like this makes most video game plots look like "Moby Dick."

When Serving Sara reaches beyond its grasp and dreams big, Perry and Hurley float the movie on aplomb and wit. When the film gears down for slower-paced set pieces and disposable villains, its stars find themselves knee-deep in a giant comedy cow pie.

This otherwise predictable romantic comedy does have several genuinely funny scenes, thanks to Monica Potter's comic delivery and charm.

This sequel succeeds as a slightly convoluted, paint-by-the-numbers buddy/action comedy with fast, funny banter and well-choreographed fight scenes.

Plays like an amateur debut effort written over a weekend during which its writer wasn't entirely sober.