Robert Koehler

So harsh and damning is the pic toward the current Catholic leadership -- personified by Los Angeles-based Cardinal Roger Mahony, who oversaw O'Grady's stewardship at various central California parishes in the 1970s and '80s, that charges the church operates "like the Mafia" sound spot-on.

Picture seemed certain to either fly high on outrageous humor or crash under the weight of tastelessness. Instead, the movie just sits there and never comes alive.

Nocturnal settings and musical interludes create their own kind of allure, but picture feels like an art film imitation, not an authentic art film itself.

The street action is vivid, but the dramatics are distinctly not, lending the film an unintended sense of fakery.

Superior family entertainment.

Sequel is no more than a cheapo campy goof, but this edition does contain a higher quota of laugh lines and an unsubtle message that efforts to make gay youth "go straight" is destined to fail.

A beautifully observant and wholly unpretentious film with roots more in Cassavetes than Sundance-style showbiz.

A creaky melodrama that wants to be a musical.

The combo of cheesy effects and martial arts choreographer Cory Yuen's unimaginative staging results in something that's martial artless.

Viewers unaware of the music --hugely popular among Mexicans -- and the often intensely nationalist sentiments behind it, may blanch at the open chauvinism and celebration of outlaw lifestyles. But part of the pic's strength is its presenting the cultural strain as it is, without comment.

Elegantly constructed, deceptively complex documentary.

A dumbed-down remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's disturbingly abstract Japanese horror film.

Grounded in bedrock formula and earnestness.

Obediently follows the verities of the submarine movie and its true story origins but without the imagination needed to refresh the genre.

Darkly amusing idea delivers an early salvo that fades as the film swings across a range of styles and tones director Sergio Arau gamely tries to corral. Even at its half-realized level, pic will anger some as it amuses others.

Miyazaki’s first hit fascinates as a glimpse into the master’s then-developing style, even when the final-act storytelling gets woozy.

Increasingly complicated comic maneuvers turn what should have been a hip look at sexuality into an antsy pic too busy to settle down.

Commits any number of comedic violations during an aimless pursuit of laughs.

Alternately breezy and profound, pic hits enough emotional chords to connect with audiences, which will be charmed by a newly mature Joshua Jackson, a deeply aged Donald Sutherland and a friskily romantic Juliette Lewis.

This is son-of-John-Waters with most of the grossness but none of the essential anarchism -- silly pop trash set for vid-classic status in gay households.

A golden opportunity to analyze the most vital and probably most creative contempo American playwright is missed in Freida Lee Mock's docu, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Kushner's art demands a filmmaker of equally challenging artistry, able to plumb an opus based in polemics, politics and Brecht, instead of psychodrama.

An unappealing, stiff melodrama.

Rude, crude and, uh, cosmopolitan, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo waves the flag for R-rated politically incorrect studio comedy but doesn't top the laugh ratio of the first Deuce misadventure.

A stunning indictment of Belgium's brutal colonization of the Congo in the late 19th century, Brit documaker Peter Bate's White King, Red Rubber, Black Death illustrates how European exploitation in Africa caused irreparable damage to the continent.

At the most basic level, Boricua's Bond is at war with itself.

Not only does this rank among Miyazaki’s finest achievements, it reflects his personal love of aviation, his political concerns and his fullest expression to date of a non-fantasy world resembling our own.

Director Phil Alden Robinson -- has done just about everything he can do to build a sleek, involving and -- for a few minutes -- terrifying movie that can get viewers past the young Ryan factor.

Tries to salvage its dopey premise with frantic final-reel plot contortions.