Russell Smith

In this magnificent, profoundly tragic film, Nolte and Coburn each turn in career-best performances as a father and son who embody the ancient, seemingly ineradicable male pathology of violence, retribution, and the slow death of the soul.

Efforts to pin down its odd seductive power are as futile as, say, describing the specific sense of disorientation you feel at the instant when a darting cloud suddenly obscures the sun, throwing all your perceptions into a new light before you realize what's happened. Disquieting, but subtly consciousness-expanding. Just see the movie.

In terms of sheer, unrelenting visual invention, Velvet Goldmine is a wonder.

Anyone who can watch this film and deny that the Sex Pistols were one of the four or five most exciting and indelibly brilliant rock groups ever is pumping formaldehyde, not blood, through his veins.

The stunning vitality and passion of this film arises not only from the high-voltage personalities involved (especially Ali and King) but from the way they galvanized political and ethnic pride among the people of the poor West African nation.

Thanks largely to the raw bravery and intensity of the two leads' performances, Happy Together takes a quantum leap forward in terms of visceral power.

For my money the most gloriously, enchantingly trivial play in the Shakespearean canon, A Midsummer Night's Dream may also be the most screwup-proof of the bard's works.

The driving forces behind Dick's courageous, defiantly candid film are curiosity about all things human and a desire to explain the seemingly inexplicable.

Fonda brings all of his childhood frustration and angst to the screen in one of the year's most unexpectedly brilliant acting performances.

With this artlessly profound and affecting story of love, von Trier emerges as one of those blessed filmmakers who've managed to blend their early stylistic flamboyance with enough human empathy to make their work both visually and emotionally compelling.

Just the thing to clear your Capra-glutted holiday movie palate.

Director Jim Sheridan, who has collaborated with writer Terry George on In the Name of the Father and Some Mother's Son clearly understands the weariness that inevitably consumes not only long, seemingly irresolvable conflicts but stories about them.

With her audience's full attention assured, first-time director Kasi Lemmons then proceeds to unravel a spellbinding, powerfully seductive tale that blends Southern Gothic magical realism and disturbing family drama with the flair of a born storytelling genius.

Funny, scabrous, disturbing, tragic, and improbably life-affirming, The General travels its own idiosyncratic path with more real style and substance than the past half-decade of Hollywood gangster movies combined.

The filmmakers go to obvious pains to add a bit of nutritive value to their sweet, frothy confection.

Microcosmos is more about reverie than revelation. Still, don't be surprised if you come away from it with that feeling, like the aftermath of a deep, strange dream, that your consciousness has been enlarged in a subtle but very real way.

It's a consistently entertaining story.

From the pure entertainment standpoint, ABL's nonstop action helps it avoid the slack moments that marred “Antz”. The dialogue, kiddie-accessible though it is, is plenty intelligent for adult enjoyment.

When Eastwood is at the top of his form -- as he is for much of this film -- there's no more spellbinding storyteller in American cinema.

Possibly due to the story's origin as a Ruth Rendell novel, this is the most coherent, viewer-friendly narrative he's ever filmed.

Yet for all its unmistakable visual trademarks (hypersaturated colors; mad-scientist tinkering with film stocks and editing technique; sudden presentation of enigmatic, troubling images), this is also the most radical departure Stone has ever made in terms of basic sensibilities.

If you're fed up with the stultifying, formula-driven character of today's mainstream films, give Fallen Angels a try. At the very least you'll be engaged, and if you're lucky you may just recapture some of your original wonder at the seductive power of movies.

Rare two-for-one Chan special.

This film's intelligence and uncompromising originality commend it to even moviegoers with zero tolerance for top hats, parasols, and crap English accents.

A center ring extravaganza of smackdown movie entertainment

Though Cuaron slips a time or two during his stylistic highwire act, his refreshingly original movie, aided by Hawke's career-best acting in the lead role, is a joy to watch.

Clockwatchers may not be a Grapes of Wrath for the Nineties, but its intelligence, slow-boil outrage over grunt workers' dehumanization, and subtle assertion of their power to resist make it a terrific piece of pro-labor propaganda.

Commands respect as mainstream filmmaking with more of an agenda than just pimping cinematic junk food to the brain-dead masses.