Sean Axmaker

An anti-war spectacle that uses the story of brothers divided by the 1950 civil war as a metaphor for the wounds of the split.

For all its darkness and tragedy, Monster's Ball is a film that wants to be liked and Forster stumbles over his good intentions to win the audience over.

The orderly and clean drama is more like theater than history come to life.

More clever than smart and isn't always emotionally convincing, but the cast brings a palpable, persuasive awkwardness to the social tensions of this not-so-romantic getaway, and there's a sly wit to the way the filmmakers mix and match and upend genres.

The spirits of Jim Jarmusch and Kevin Smith hover over this breezy slacker comedy set on a comatose Sunday afternoon.

The actor holds the stage with his warm humor and emotionally charged anecdotes.

With the story's vivid and passionate women and the power of emotional healing (not to mention the intense eroticism of his hothouse romance), gives Sex and Lucia a dynamic, vigorous life.

There is no "why" in The Grudge, at least not an explanation that provides comfort or cure. It simply is. That's what makes it really scary.

At its best when it remains with the women, and Marshall draws marvelous performances from all.

For the most part the eruption of repressed anger is blindly destructive. There's little healing to be found in the bitter melodrama, but there is a small sense of triumph as the children face up and move on.

Spottiswoode and Schwarzenegger deliver a clever and colorful conspiratorial thriller with high-energy action scenes, car crashes a go-go, spectacular technology and big explosions, packaged with ferocious glee and spoofing humor. Who could ask for more from Ah-nold?

Those willing to give themselves up to Lynch's sensibilities will find a hypnotic and richly textural experience that challenges them to make their own connections through the imagery, echoes of repeated dialogue and metaphor.

Not a comedy of guffaws and goofy gags, but a wry, underplayed little piece with an undercurrent of loss and abandonment.

Ayala gives Joan a fiery, full-blooded passion and Aranda challenges Pedro Almodovar in the arena of self-destructive love, obsessive passion and sweaty cinematic sex. It's the lustiest costume drama in years.

"Time destroys all," claims the film, but the monstrous capabilities of human evil is the real culprit here, and Noe is determined to prove that the real evil that men do is not fodder for cinematic spectacle and cinematic entertainment.

There's a real joy to this film, a love of the music and an appreciation of the band's eccentric humor.

Jolie steals the film from nominal star McAvoy in the wild gunfight and dynamically absurd chase that kick Wanted into high gear. Her wicked moves and seductive smirk brand her immediately as a true believer who really, really loves her work.

Verbinski puts a Jackie Chan flourish of high energy and gymnastic action on the swashbuckling stunts and swordplay and keeps this lark sailing along.

I guess there's something grizzled old codgers like Clint can teach those young hotshots after all.

It's a gloriously baroque vision and Leconte believes in his sequin and sawdust fantasy with such unabashed enthusiasm that he makes it work even through its most absurd moments.

For all of its weakness, Ju-On: The Grudge is creepy and unnerving, qualities in short supply in gore-filled American horror films.

When (Tykwer) connects it's exhilarating and gorgeous, a sight to behold.

This restrained drama of lifelong friends drifting in separate directions is a quietly rich and resonant portrait of disconnection.

It makes for an unusual angle on the era, and a passionate paean to the power of books, ideas and art.

Though it's hardly as uplifting or inspiring, it's hard not to appreciate these driven men who know they've found their calling when they start to anagram in their dreams.

It's as if Gondry lets his performers settle into their parts and feel their way through their stories. It gives the film an ambling pace and a unique chemistry that bubbles with strange and unexpected flavors.

Inspired, inventive and funnier than it has a right to be, Larry Blamire's loopy spoof of 1950s bargain-basement sci-fi and horror knock-offs gets it right where so many well-meaning efforts go wrong.

Presents itself as a sassy twist on "Taming of a Shrew," but what looks like just another contrived sex comedy becomes, surprisingly, an insightful and sensitive look at knots that family ties create in adult romance.

There are some flat moments, to be sure, and Palansky's direction can be a bit unsteady and awkward, but he doesn't wallow in the eccentricities or the modestly self-empowering moral. This fairy tale feels pleasantly down-to-earth.

Has the modesty of a savvy, smart drive-in movie with Hollywood studio polish and a movie buff's loving care.

The film is weirdly fascinating in its own maverick way.

A spirited, screwball crime-thriller with a sly heart.

There is such a joy of play in the film that it's easy to overlook the overdone performances and the lazy script shortcuts.

In a summer of comic book super-operas dense with psychological torment and sprawling well over two hours, the unpretentious efficiency of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is refreshing.

It's Waters' way of saying: It's only a movie.

"Network" it's not. Weitz doesn't have the killer instinct for merciless satire but he knows how to stage a gag and deliver a punchline.

A furiously choreographed martial-arts spectacle wrapped in a fumbling narrative.

A highly entertaining film that still packs much of the punch and the quirkiness of Willeford's novel.

Plays in spots something like a stage play smartly brought to screen.

For all the misery and emotional mess of Snow Angels, Green finds resilience and hope in the kids and even in some of the grown-ups.

The hit-and-run destructiveness of the rapacious media is nothing new, but Cordero gives his cynical take a unique setting and a queasy climax.

Unusual even for Japanese animation.

He (Chan) still can turn a silly little action comedy like this into a high-spirited, butt-kicking good time.

The result is a painful and poignant film at once empathetic and critical, more soberly unnerving than exciting, but never less than compelling.

Oliviera's mastery is a joy to experience and his bittersweet comic touch adds a loving absurdity to what could have turned maudlin or morose.

The rough, exposed emotional candor of Cheung's singing voice carries into her performance.

My Brother Is an Only Child isn't a critique of the left but a film about the consequences and responsibility of "political action." Luchetti measures social justice not in ideals but in positive change and the compassion with which it is accomplished.

Linklater powers the film with the energy and attitude and beat of his soundtrack.

Wry and dry.

The skewering of spiritualism, dogma and passive-aggressive prayer groups has an exaggerated absurdity that borders on cartoonish and Dannelly's satire is more clever than cutting.

An inspired melding of action thriller, satire and biographical drama through the looking glass of a funhouse mirror.

The result is joyous and exhilarating.

It's the kind of stunt that gets Oscar nominations and accolades. Theron turns it into a raw, bristling performance that deserves them.

Where the Wayanses flogged every last chuckle from their belabored ideas, Zucker spring-loads his gags and lets them fly in rapid-fire succession. Not everything hits the target, but he tosses so many of them off with a wink and a grin that they catch you by surprise.

Much of the film is oddly ambiguous, as if Tran used it to explore conflicts of tradition and modernity and never came up with any answers.

A slick, smart-alecky rat-a-tat crime comedy.

It's more admirable than enjoyable, beautifully crafted and artfully unpleasant.

It's a romantic fantasy of the gangster brotherhood and their doomed lives, executed with Takeshi's unique mix of stoic ruthlessness and giddy energy.

Dark farce, a four-handed game of sexual trumps.

Inkheart feels a little confused in its tone and direction, but only a little, and I appreciate the way it both celebrates the power of literature and reminds us that stories have a life beyond the page, even if they are only in our hearts and minds.

This tale of kooky social misfits finding their place in the world is an audience pleaser, for all the reasons such tales usually are.

There's not enough insight to the social phenomenon presented onscreen, but that doesn't make the utterly human horror of this thriller any less unsettling.

The film's strength is compelling character relationships and Whedon's trademark dialogue, a smarter version of the cliched action-movie barrage of wisecrack under fire, only better executed, laden in personality, and enriched with evocative western colloquialisms of a frontier culture.

It's a tough movie with a fearless performance by Bacon and brave filmgoers will be rewarded with a bracing experience.

It may not be art, but A Dirty Shame is shameless fun.

Kahn manages to turn his feast of flesh, navel-gazing talk and self-destructive jealousy into a thoughtful reflection on the subject.

Andrew Bujalski's refreshingly modest look at life in the directionless netherworld between college and career is the rare film that finds its story in the minor contradictions and simple conflicts of ordinary people doing, well, not exactly nothing, but nothing important.

A reminder of the offbeat comic sensibility and visceral charge that marked him (Sabu) as a director to watch.

The concept is clever and Johnson's brisk editing, dynamic camerawork and snazzy transitions has fun with it all. It makes for an inspired time-warped teenage film noir.

It's pure romantic fantasy, almost too cute and naively innocent for its own good. Jeff Balsmeyer, a former storyboard artist making his directorial debut, stumbles through the clumsy establishing scenes, but his playful direction smoothes out as the characters settle in.

It's as much conceptual art as dispassionate survey of the bloodless assembly line nature of the modern food industry, all process and work, automation and repetition.

While not a grand-slam comedy, the offbeat humor and easy byplay gives The Grand a winning hand.

Oddly fresh and naively chipper.

The faces of its inarticulate characters tell the story, and Majidi has put some amazing faces on the screen.

It's hard to call it thrilling -- these aren't characters you actually care about and De Palma isn't as concerned with building tension as playing visual games -- but it sure sparkles.

The film walks a fine line between contempt for Polanski's crimes and sympathy for his trials and his screwed-up psyche, and it manages both while showing us why he fled the U.S. rather than face the corrupted judicial circus.

The script is full of brassy lines.

Murders aside, Mac and Pat are the most fun-loving Shakespearean couple to hit the screen, and Morrissette's answer to Lady Macbeth's damned spot is brilliant.

Don't expect scary from this trilogy of short horror films from a trio of Asia's most interesting directors, which are not so much extreme as twisted.

Director Cherie Nowlan creates vivid personalities for the entire family and exposes the raw nerves of the biting humor.

There's an unconvincing warm, fuzzy happy ending, in which recognition is treated as cure and understanding heals all. But, until then, Phoebe in Wonderland is an involving and empathetic drama of mothers and daughters.

The triumphs still are affecting, the setting is compelling and some of the human moments amid the political circus and culture wars are downright moving.

After all of these years playing smug street thugs, cocky idiots and patsies, can you blame Dillon for giving himself an elegant girl (Natascha McElhone), a devoted guardian angel, and a little redemption?

Scratch could use some of the wit and jagged energy that defined "Hype!"

Kassovitz keeps the film zipping along with solid pacing and just enough action to clear the credibility gaps as long as the film is rolling.

The film shoehorns in every memorable character from the original film.

A quietly, somberly effective American indie drama.

Doesn't necessarily offer anything new to the male/female dynamic, but it refuses to let Coles off the hook with an easy epiphany and a painless happily ever after.

Behind the sad and vulnerable eyes of Bernal's damaged Elvis is both a fierce rage and a desperate need for his father's recognition, but he's more enigma than person. Hurt is more nuanced as the sincerely spiritual man faced with a past that threatens his family and his future.

A few scenes are a bit coy and the "big secrets" threaten to pitch into melodrama, but Birmingham keeps bringing the film back to the delicate dynamics of the relationships at its heart.

It's a twisted but beautiful love letter to a city, not factually correct but emotionally true.

Winterbottom carves his own intimate tale out of the sprawling material, a modest miniature with witty flair and moments of humility.

Director Len Wiseman, confidently stepping up from the smallish budget "Underworld" films to mega-budget Hollywood mainstream.

Outside national borders, this naive vantage point is an entry into a country's history and culture, explaining without seeming patronizing.

Salles tends to explain rather than suggest, but he connects with the anguish and abandonment to give this ghost story an emotionally haunting core.

It's so beautiful and moving and simple that I'm willing to forgive Majidi his contrivances.

It's more than simply a well-crafted piece of fake history.

It's less a deconstruction of the heist film than an ambitious contemplation of our fascination with the genre, directed with a dispassionate eye at a ruminative pace and centered by a queasily emotionless figure wading through a swamp of moral ambiguity.