Ruthe Stein

To say it is about a debilitating disease is as reductive as saying "Little Miss Sunshine" is about a beauty pageant. Both are intimate stories of family ties that bind but sometimes also choke.

One of very few films to accurately portray the experience of growing up male.

A breed apart from anything coming off the Hollywood assembly line or, for that matter, from the saccharine romances Britain has lately produced.

Wise and wondrous.

Evokes grand emotions -- anxiety, sadness, joy -- sometimes within moments of one another. Broken Wings has heart and a poetic soul.

A revelatory independent film whose moments of incredible sadness are offset by the same state of grace that blesses its astonishing title character.

An engrossing new drama from France.

The Visitor, is, if anything, more imaginative and touching than his first.

Frothy and exuberantly entertaining - in part because of the sexual innuendoes - it's the best romantic comedy so far this year.

There's an edge to this exemplary family movie, just as there is in the story.

Exhilarating and enchanting family picture. It's the best I've seen this year and highly recommended for girls and for boys, too.

Often is on the verge of spilling over into melodrama, but that doesn't bother me because life is the same way.

The thrills in Spike Lee's singularly savvy thriller are in small unexpected moments.

Unlike Sean Penn's demagogue in "All the King's Men," you're able to forget that Whitaker is acting. He embodies the role. When clips of the real Amin are shown at the end, it's almost shocking to realize the extent to which Whitaker has become him.

Block's hypnotic documentary, among the finest of the year.

Daring in its affirmation that a dowdy woman in her late 60s still can let go of her inhibitions and exhibit a lascivious side.

Utterly enchanting.

Sly, near-perfect comedy.

The very best thrillers -- a select group to which The Clearing clearly belongs -- exploit subconscious fears that bubble up at vulnerable moments.

The humor manages to be simultaneously sophisticated, supremely silly and very dark.

The real wonder becomes how British filmmaker Sandra Goldbacher was able to write and direct such an accomplished, touching and original movie her first time out.

Immediately has you in its thrall and doesn't let go -- a reminder of how powerful and moving cinema set in wartime can be when all the elements align.

Woody Allen's strongest and most mordantly funny movie in years, even if it is also his bleakest.

It grabs you from a symbolic opening scene of gang members rolling the dice -- the odds, it soon becomes clear, are stacked against them getting lucky -- and never lets go.

A film that must be seen to understand the sad truths of our times. It's been made with a sensitivity and creativity that's come to exemplify Winterbottom's work.

Richly satisfying entertainment the way movies are at their best, when they prod you to think.

Deliriously charming.

The movie is a stunner, so hypnotic that the length hardly matters.

A richly textured and compelling film.

Lemmon and MacLaine are magical together, and MacMurray more than holds his own as the third part of the triangle. He commands the office - and, not incidentally, the big screen - with a sexual energy he would scarcely have a chance to show again.

Totally original yet filled with familiar human frailties, "Everyone" leaps off the screen to become one of those rare movie-going experiences.

Notes on a Scandal won't be everyone's cup of tea. But if you like your films strong, this one is not to be missed.

I don't claim to have seen every entry from around the world, but it's hard to imagine five better than this deliciously offbeat comedy, as wildly inventive as anything Billy Wilder ever conceived.

Nobody into lush melodramas dripping in sex should miss this pulsating Italian import.

Among the many strengths of the sweetly touching Introducing the Dwights, a small gem from Australia unearthed at the Sundance Film Festival, is that Jean never becomes Godzilla.

Imaginative and immensely engrossing film.

Instantly captivating.

Much of that appeal comes from compelling performances by the two main actors.

Hauntingly tells a story older than the Odyssey and as timely as today's body count from Iraq.

This was Davis' return to the screen after her own legal battle with the studio to get meatier roles. She got one here, and she gives it her all. [09 Jul 2006, p.32]

Family entertainment at its best.

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]

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

The title is all that's boring about director Michel Gondry's latest mind bender, as trippy as LSD.

The new movie shrieks of motherhood - raising hot-button issues like biological clocks running down, the rights of birth mothers and whether to adopt or give artificial insemination a shot.

A compelling and visually arresting drama.

As good as family entertainment gets.

Much as she did in "Little Miss Sunshine," Breslin imbues Kit with joy.

Suffused with a golden glow, the movie looks and sounds like a fairy tale.

A quirky but surprisingly lighthearted dark comedy.

Bloody good.

A warmhearted film.

Like its singular central character, Before the Fall stands out from the pack.

Boasts a collection of oddball characters, some more sharply written than others.

Don't little ones have enough to worry about without ecological concerns popping up in family entertainment? Happy Feet should have stayed light on its feet.

Filled with moments that will make you smile.

A frothy comedy with the most adorable buddies since "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

The film has aged gracefully.

By creating likable characters and putting them in situations that seem plausible, if a bit of a stretch, the film succeeds where others of its genre fail.

Fun to watch although falling short of a real hoot, this latest in a barrage of family movies largely succeeds at keeping the kiddies entertained and their parents from nodding off.

Director Robert Mulligan exhibits the same sensitivity about young people and their foibles as he did in "To Kill a Mockingbird." In 1962. You never sense that he's making fun of Hermie or his pals. [08 Jul 2007, p.16]

It's doubtful that audiences go to animated features to hear movie stars talk. They go because a film sounds like fun and something their kids and maybe they themselves might enjoy. Bolt is all that and more.

Watching the film is like being at a freak show: You feel like a voyeur, yet you can't take your eyes off this Mommie Dearest or her childlike middle-aged daughter.

The director has a natural's gift for storytelling and eye for casting.

A solid WWII movie that's been lost among myriad others about the same war. [02 Jul 2006, p.28]

Caruso, a very visual director, serves up some surprises and scares, and he's paced his movie briskly. You're out of this disturbing suburbia before you know it, shaken and even stirred.

The casting, at least, is magical. Plowright shows both her character's strength and her heartbreaking vulnerability, sometimes at once.

A wildly entertaining fantasy thriller that propels Russian cinema into the 21st century.

Heart-wrenching film.

With a strongly visual director, Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner," "Alien", the film really shows what's involved at this level of combat training.

Van Houten, a veteran of European TV, is in almost every scene, and her energetic performance keeps Black Book percolating despite an overstuffed plot that strains credibility and often tips over into melodrama.

A heartwarming, inspirational tale.

Attempts something startlingly original by melding light opera with soap opera.

A bit of fluff expertly made and a hoot to watch.

Deliriously original.

Sounds great and if nothing else should help diminish the stereotype, blasted by the film's subjects, of Gypsies as little more than pickpockets whom travelers need to be wary of.

Given the juiciest plotline, Tamblyn goes for it, turning in a hard-boiled performance that's a needed contrast to her co-stars' tendency to go for sweet.

Extremely pleasurable and well worth seeing.

An appealingly quirky thriller from Brazil.

Has an old-fashioned feel, as if it had been made in the period of its setting. I mean this as a compliment.

The key to enjoying the film is warming up to the heroine, Poppy.

As uneven as I Think I Love My Wife often is, it still has an emotional resonance lacking in most films about relationships. By dealing with temptation in even a quasi-realistic way, it affirms that, like comedy, monogamy is hard.

This deeply moving and disturbing film derives power from being based on the true story of a black South African who does everything possible, no matter how degrading, to get by within an immoral system, but becomes radicalized almost despite himself.

Shot on the streets of New York and offering vistas of the city before all the glass and steel skyscrapers, The Naked City, which won Oscars for cinematography and editing, boasts an impressive pedigree. [04 Jan 2004]

It works as an intriguingly offbeat character study while offering Nicolas Cage a chance to show why he used to be considered one of the top actors of his generation.

For all its depiction of a descent into drug addiction, Candy is filled with surprisingly sweet moments and goes down more easily than seems possible given the subject matter.

Adapted from a French play but never seems stage- bound.

A subtly rich performance by Dillane and a fine supporting cast make this Holocaust drama worth seeing, even if you don't think you can bear another one.

Richard Jenkins gives the standout supporting performance, worthy of Oscar consideration, as Josey's father, a miner unable to conceal his anger at his daughter for having a child out of wedlock and, now, creating dissension at his workplace.

An argument could be made that too many bad things happen to the good members of this sisterhood. The movie does occasionally teeter on the brink of soap opera, but then, so does life.

Karyo -- a big star in France but little known in this country -- has Steve Martin's knack for keeping his dignity while doing outrageous slapstick.

Fascinating and distinctly politically incorrect.

Like a soap opera, but most of what glitters is gold.

Wondrous performances.

The star's amusingly inventive performance keeps your attention through predictable early scenes when "Ohio" repeats familiar material on women's sexuality. It's like a continuation of "The Vagina Monologues" to see Liza Minnelli, as a New Age orgasm coach.

A tearjerker that earns its sobs with heartfelt emotions.

Dunye's engaging personality quickly wins you over. She deserves to be a character in a movie; she's more interesting than most.

An enjoyable if fairly predictable film.