Ruthe Stein

The result is a film that fails to completely involve you, even as you admire its artistry.

If the formula seems a little tired, it still has more sophistication and pizzazz than most action films.

Force of Evil is a more thoughtful kind of film noir than we are used to but still employs the traditional black-and-white contrasts and shadows.

This is by no means a polished film. But it has an energy lacking in thrillers that cost hundreds times more to make. It should be viewed as a calling card from gifted and resourceful filmmakers whom I hope some Hollywood producer will have the sense to sign up immediately.

You never catch Gosling doing anything out of character. It's the first Oscar-caliber performance I've seen so far this year.

Isn't likely to win Murphy another Oscar nomination, but it allows him to do what he does best - loads of physical comedy.

Sam Garbarski's use of slow-motion shots is pretentious, and he paces the film too slowly. But he captures the seedy side of London, giving you a feel for Soho during the day when sunshine exposes a cheap gaudiness.

The result is a deeply moving experience, alternately funny and sad.

So disturbing it makes you uncomfortable watching it.

Family entertainment at its best.

Overall Freedom Writers is a noble effort. At a time when New Year's resolutions to change already are falling by the wayside, you can't help but be moved by a group of young people who followed through on their resolve.

Art School Confidential exudes confidence as long as it is satirizing a questionable, at least according to Clowes, institution of higher learning. But the film loses its way with multiple subplots, becoming a hodgepodge that isn't particularly hard to follow, but, far worse, provides no compelling reason to bother.

Nightmare-inducing.

Vivid and madcap but fails to connect on any emotional level.

Well intentioned, but only occasionally creepy.

Reprise has a smart and knowing script and will compel audiences to reflect on themselves at that age.

Vincente Minnelli's lavish and hugely entertaining adaptation of the Gustave Flaubert classic leaves little doubt that Emma (Jennifer Jones in an over-the-top performance that works surprisingly well) has found satisfaction for the first time in the arms of wealthy rogue Rodolphe (a perfectly cast Louis Jourdan). [26 Aug 2007, p.N44]

The message is muddled.

The film version is gorgeous to look at and contains amusing performances from Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett in the title roles. But it fails to get inside the minds of gamblers as Peter Carey so admirably did in his Booker Prize-winning novel.

As a sports drama -- a genre that's gotten entirely too much play lately -- "Dreamer" is singularly unexciting.

The Rainmaker has a mostly plausible story, an engaging young courtroom hero (Matt Damon, Hollywood's new cover boy), a giant insurance company as the perfect adversary and the best supporting cast of any movie this year.

At its exhilarating best, Following Sean is reminiscent of the lauded British documentaries that began with "7 Up.''

Black Snake Moan' is a trip to that unfamiliar territory well worth tagging along on.

Annoying, soporific and singularly humorless.

While hardly glorifying abusive husbands, Take My Eyes, a mesmerizing and deeply disturbing film from Spain, makes an attempt to understand their thought processes.

Compelling.

It works primarily because of the chemistry between Chan and Tucker, which is at its combustible best this time out.

A richly satisfying and darkly funny movie.

The filmmakers succeed with an unexpected ending. It's as fresh as everything in the movie, which turns out to be about so much more than one youngster's resilience.

Trumbo is welcome just to bear witness to the severe consequences meted out to one man who dared to do the right thing.

Except for an ending that's so implausible it might have derailed a less solid work, Twelve and Holding is a realistic and sympathetic portrayal of what it's like to be young and confused

Visually stunning, it meshes haunting images with a complex multilevel story about the enchantment of youth.

A romantic saga that dares to ask realistic questions.

Save the price of admission to this dull retread and go have your hair done.

Wildly uneven, with long stretches as dull as Dickie.

Don't Tell often has the eerie feel of a Hitchcock film -- "Vertigo" in particular -- where you're not always sure if what you're seeing is really happening.

Worth seeing.

Good in their individual scenes, Yakusho and Kusakari are magical together. They convey so much yearning -- not so much for each other as for that extra something to give real meaning to their lives.

That the would-be buddies are played by Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt ensures enough star power to keep things moving even during the sluggish early scenes that set up their relationship.

Proceeds at that pace to an ending that is as inevitable as it is poignant.

A disturbing drama about the dehumanizing and humiliating effects of war.

All along, you know something terrible is going to happen, and when it does, you leave the theater shaken and deeply moved.

Lacks what could kindly be called coherence.

Viewers will be swept away by the beauty of individual moments and by Ivan Barnev's extraordinary performance.

Harris and particularly Elise give over-the-top performances that bring Diary to the edge of soap opera.

The young people in Nowhere spend a lot of time worrying about the world coming to an end. Watching these sour characters abuse themselves and one another, the more immediate concern becomes: When is this movie going to end?

Funny, original, occasionally poignant and almost all of it too dirty to repeat in a newspaper.

Each time Something New touches on something controversial, it quickly retreats to some silliness.

Immediately shoots to the top of the list of the year's worst movies.