Russell Smith

For all its knock-'em-dead acting and aggressively stylish direction, Hilary and Jackie is still best described as arthouse comfort food.

It's far from unenjoyable, but the dank shroud of the overfamiliar lies heavy over all, kind of like watching an Elvis concert circa 1976.

There's an undeniable energy, originality and -- most hearteningly -- optimism here that makes Beefcake well worth your time, shortcomings and all.

Buena Vista Social Club is obviously intended less as a concert film than as a set of cinematic liner notes about the vanishing musical culture.

Director Francis Ford Coppola, who established his towering reputation with an adaptation of another pulpy pop novel, hasn't exactly uncorked another The Godfather here.

This is one of those rare cop/action movies driven by character, not spectacle. Murphy helps the cause with the most focused, persuasive acting of his career. As a young phenom, he got by on charisma, which he promptly commodified and cheapened with Hollywood’s enthusiastic collusion. Now there’s a calm, unfakeable assurance behind his eyes that only comes with life experience. It’s something he can and should build on.

Wall to wall blood 'n' guts laced with surprisingly keen social satire, much of it targeting the fatuousness of media culture.

If you feel hostile toward art that not only confuses you but then also suggests that your confusion is precisely the point, you'll probably want to pass on Sonatine. But if disciplined, minimalist storytelling, formal innovation, and contemplation of mystery for its own sake appeals to you, a real feast awaits you in the films of Takeshi Kitano.

The script, partly written by an uncredited Terry George ("Some Mother's Son," "In the Name of the Father") strains mightily for insight but never quite breaks through.

In essence, the artistic failure of She's So Lovely is traceable to a single, supremely ironic fact: For a story by a writer with so much professed faith in the power of truth to bubble up out of apparent chaos, there's hardly anything here that feels recognizably true.

The splendid performance by Sobieski, who ends her long run as industry-mag buzz princess and arrives as a full-fledged star.

On a more basic level, I simply found it so hard to penetrate the two main characters' cauterized psyches that, in the end, I hardly gave a damn what happened to them.

Shoddy, brainless, pre-sold kids' entertainment.

Unfortunately, for all his large soul and exquisite mastery of image, Nava is also one of the worst writers to ever accrue more than two major-movie screenwriting credits.

For all its flaws, Better Than Chocolate is a fair enough entertainment value -- certainly no less meritorious overall than, say, Runaway Bride. But, like many other films that have boasted both a high likability quotient and a positive social message, it seems to be getting a bit more credit than it really deserves. And as far as I'm concerned it's no favor to allow a filmmaker of Anne Wheeler's obvious gifts to operate so far below peak efficiency.

Much like the DNA-scrambled beast to which the title alludes, this film is a chimerical chop-shop product, consisting mostly of spare parts pulled from Alien, Jurassic Park, and even The Ghost and the Darkness.

Ironically, the problem may lie in Baird and screenwriter John Pogue's over-eagerness to give us what they think we want.

Due largely to the tremendous innate warmth and conviction of leads Quaid and Caviezel ("The Thin Red Line"), you may find yourself cutting a surprising amount of slack for this patently ridiculous tale.

All in all, this is perhaps one of those films you applaud more for design than execution while hoping at the same time that its boundary-testing restlessness becomes more widely influential.

Down in the Delta, like a gratingly platitudinous self-help tape, sugarcoats the complex one-step-back, two-steps-forward nature of personal and social progress. And like the drugs and booze it condemns, it provides a warm rush of euphoria, but no real answers.

It's just a little too ironic (to quote Okay Pop Singer Alanis Morrisette) that a movie with the word "magic" in its title should be such a perfect example of the difference between competence and inspiration.

There's plenty of solid, intelligent content here to stir the mind and heart, assuming you're able to overlook the distinctly patronizing presentation.

Given a choice between the puerile but essentially innocent whimsy of Dr. Dolittle and the dimwitted nastiness of, say, "Dirty Work," parents should be grateful for the Eddie Murphys and Jim Carreys of the world for at least providing a kinder, gentler option.

Thanks to this relentlessly likable film's playful sexuality and utter lack of pretension it's surprisingly easy to let all of one's objections float away on a fragrant cloud of kitchen sweat, pheromones, and sweet lime zest.

Neither Hopkins nor Baldwin can be faulted. Both explore and illuminate their half-realized characters as best they can, but creating any real power or suspense is just too big a bear to kill.

This is a gutsy, oddly inspiring film that embodies both the risks and rewards of artistic boldness.

It delivers commendable entertainment value.

Plenty of gore-slinging, wisecracking fun to be had, and yes, the repulsively convincing werewolf transformations and attacks still pack a breath-stopping wallop.