Ron Wells

Garofalo is amazing, as always, and the film is almost about her as much as the leads. The recreation of the casts' high school years is wickedly funny and dead on.

Best of all, Robert Downey Jr., as Rick's seedy private eye provides a little comic relief at his own expense.

Lee gives us cross-section of characters, almost none of whom escape the summer unchanged.

At least the 20 people who saw it with me -- found it hysterically funny. On the other hand, they all seemed pretty stoned.

After half a century, does the story hold up? Eh, pretty much. In the end, the story doesn't really matter that much as this is really a vehicle for the amazing visuals.

As always, Don Cheadle is fantastic, but the film belongs to Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

It's a harsh lesson, but this movie is more than able to grab and hold your attention for it. I just wouldn't bring a date.

Gallo transcends the medium in a manner I only associate with David Lynch. It's brilliantly spooky.

Quentin actually made a REAL movie, with believable characters and performances, rather than just repositories for clever dialog.

Scorcese has made one of his best and most personal films...Kundun is also mercifully free of white teachers or saviors, such as, oh, say, Brad Pitt?

A very funny and painfully relevant two hours of entertainment.

World Traveler did seem completely aimless for the first third. However, once I comprehended where Freundlich was going with this, I began to really enjoy where the film was taking me.

This is a family film. There's a great deal of wackiness.

While we do get a bit of gore, the movie is really about this wacky bunch of people jumping on each other's nerves, kind of a zany hero's journey.

Some of the acting may not be the best and many of the points aren't made with a soft touch, but damn, I can't think of another film about addiction with a more accurate view from the inside.

Clooney has finally made a GOOD movie.

The portrait drawn by this film is of a man loved and/or respected by nearly all that have known him.

I don't want to say any more about the plot, it's just too much sick fun.

Probably the best comment I could give it is that after sitting through the first two and 1/2 hours, I would have happily sat through another five. How long am I going to have to wait for that DVD Box Set?

OK, the premise may be a little hard to take, but there's plenty of good writing here, anyway.

One warning however: James Caan's shoulder hair, when seen on this size screen, may frighten children considerably (you'll at least want to discuss it openly after the show, answering any questions your kids may have in an honest and direct manner).

Rips out at least one dimension to reduce everything to archetypal good guys and bad guys, or bad guy and worse guys.

It looks like Williamson threw five old scripts in the air and Rodriguez shot the first 90 pages he picked up. I'd like a little more meat on my burger because all I can taste is the cheese.

I'll just say to anyone lamenting the state of American cinema since the 1970s, if you're curious where the next generation of auteurs is coming from, look in the art houses and look in The Matrix.

If distinctly uneven CGI, minimal originality and overly convenient plot devices turn you off, this may not be your film.

Of all the teen films released this year, this one is, by far, the best.

They should have produced this in 3D for IMAX as Metropolis is the kind of work destined to blow the minds of stoners everywhere.

The final result becomes a search not for a knight in shining armor, but one of acceptance for one's own identity.

I saw this movie in a room full of San Francisco movie critics, and I haven't heard that much laughter since, well, the piano duet in "Island of Dr. Moreau" (which you must admit, was pretty funny.)

A great film and an important one.

Jackson gives an amazing, nuanced performance as he teeters on the edge of paranoia. Spacey gives a great, toned-down show as I guy who's in over his head trying to find out what the hell is going on.

While bearing many similarities to Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in look and theme, the film covers Maddin’s traditional themes of failed romance. While much brighter than his other films, if you like Maddin’s other works, you’ll probably dig this. If you don’t, this film will not convert you to the cause.

This movie best exploits the strengths of the show as well, such as the chemistry among the cast.

I've never been a fan, but in the space of a couple hours the Woodster gives both an explanation AND the finger to ALL of his critics. This is mean-spirited fun, just the way we like it!

It seems as if all of the new animation competition has lit a fire under Disney's collective ass and they have something to prove again.

Overall, it's good, not great.

I don't know if this movie could have been made with anyone but Chow Yun-Fat. As Chen, he finally is allowed to display the nervous energy and Eastern rhythms we associate with his Hong Kong work.

Not a film that will change your life. It instead proves that shooting your movie with cheap technology doesn't mean it can't be fun or entertaining. In the end, that's enough.

The best thing the filmmakers did was to pull a cast out of the stage productions. Importantly, the actors convey a sense of history and comfort with each other.

I wasn't in the mood for this film, but it got to me anyway.

The director’s new masterpiece is a summation of nearly everything he has learned as a filmmaker, and about black culture, but he doesn’t feel the need to beat the audience over the head for each lesson he’s trying to impart.

I've already seen at least 20 documentaries this year. They've left me amused, sad, informed, bored, pissed-off, whatever. I'm willing to bet, though, that I don't see another this year as richly entertaining or as cathartic as The Kid Stays in the Picture. Is it really that good? You better believe it.

Lock is filled with great writing, great acting, colorful characters, and a tight story. I actually like this film more than "Pulp Fiction".

Take the safety off of the comedy Magnum called Happiness and put the barrel in your mouth. You'll laugh your ass off as it takes off the back of your head...It could be the best film of the year. At the very least, I'll never forget it.

Waters brilliantly skewers the pretensions of the New York art world and culture, and uses real people from that world in the process.

Not too far below the gloss you can still feel director Denis Villeneuve's beating heart and the fondness he has for his characters. Because he does, you and I can too.

There's some darn poignant stuff going on here.... The problem is that the audience will try to connect everything to the explicit Eden analogy, and not everything will. The director wins points for enticing you to figure it out, though, and I did enjoy it.

Patric and Liotta are as tense and great as they've ever been.

No, this isn’t going to be for everyone, and if you didn’t like the original show, you’ll probably hate this too. For everyone else, this is the one comedy in ’02 you can’t miss.

What could have been the most boring, unwatchable crawl-up-your-own-asshole picture instead becomes a gripping, searing portrait of a lost soul trying to find her way through life. Stephanie Bennett is amazing.

This is not light-hearted entertainment. Be prepared to think. Uncle Dave will take you someplace new.

Thornton's Jacob initially comes across as the love child of Elmer Fudd and Butthead, but ends up as the best role he's ever had.

Unfolding and sounding like a novel, Hartley's ensemble of lower-class losers clash and repel in a startlingly, unpreachy lesson about the importance and danger of influences.

For the most part, the film is brilliant.

I thought I might have seen everything I needed to see about neo-Nazi skinheads in "Romper Stomper" and "American History X". Not only was I in for a surprise, but newcomer Ryan Gosling gives every bit as stunning a performance as did Russell Crowe and Ed Norton in those two films, and then some.

The film is not without its problems, some inherent to Wilde's original play.

More "Heat" than "Eraserhead". It's all good. Just don't be disappointed if it's not what you were expecting. Try to enjoy this for what it is.