Steve Davis

As real as the Astroturf in the Brady's backyard and as eager to please as Alice's meat loaf, The Brady Bunch Movie is -- to exhaust this string of metaphors -- pure junk food. But like most junk food, it sure tastes good.

One can't help but wonder how much better this film would have played straight, without its characters in seemingly constant song. God help us if there's a film version of "Cats" in the works.

Takes you back to a time in which people – children, in particular – still created whole worlds in their heads, inventing characters and situations as far away as their flights of fancy would take them.

It's a good, solid little film about a man whose story deserves better.

Blessed with an ensemble cast of young actors without Brat Pack pretensions, Where the Day Takes You is often so authentic in its depiction of street life that you'll find yourself flinching, a response undoubtedly intended to result in a little consciousness-raising.

Nothing more than an extended version of the syndicated television program, with the unkempt Irwin spending most of the movie excitedly shouting at the camera as he taunts something venomous.

The best bit, however, is not even in the movie, but in the film’s end credits: an expletive-filled parody of We Are the World in which a host of has-beens croon about their halcyon days as child stars.

By the end of Bug, you may find yourself scratching yourself as well -- your head, that is -- wondering what the hell this is all about.

Strives to depict its love-hate relationship in emotionally neutral terms, but the sympathies are ultimately lopsided.

As in "The Pianist," Polanski is content to allow the film's narrative to evoke the emotions he wishes his audience to experience.

This empty-headed comedy about a Playmate who finds herself a house mother to a group of misfit sorority sisters is little more than a recycled version of "Legally Blonde" with bunny ears.

The titular role of Monsieur Ibrahim is not a terribly taxing one, but Sharif effortlessly demonstrates that he still has the stuff that made him a star so many years ago – he exudes a charismatic appeal that is apparently timeless.

Its simplicity belies an emotional complexity that will linger in your mind like a gentle dream.

It's bigger, but it ain't necessarily better.

There's much to enjoy here as long as your expectations aren't too high.

Mighty Aphrodite may take its thematic and structural cues from Greek tragedy, but it's second-rate Borscht Belt all the way.

And the rest of the movie? Same screaming, same endless chases, same breasts, same blood, same axe, same lack of explanation, same ending primed for another sequel. Is there a pattern emerging here? In short: same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

It's hard to imagine how anyone could remain dry-eyed while watching the scene in which John Q. tries to cram in a lifetime of fatherhood advice in a goodbye speech to his son.

Although Scott Frank's screenplay has more than a few holes in it...they're forgivable, mostly because this movie is so utterly likable. Little Man Tate is a small movie by industry standards, but it nevertheless stands pretty tall.

The fishy smell that permeates Perfect Stranger comes from all of the red herrings flopping around this absurdly plotted Hollywood thriller.

I'll maim, chop, slash, and I'll kill, Just as I please.

The next time he (Baumbach) attempts something similar, he might take care to lessen the bile and amplify the heart.

As much a movie about class, race, and sexual orientation as anything you've ever seen.

Despite its flaws, which become more evident as time elapses, Lions for Lambs is worth seeing for no other reason that you’ve never seen anything like it before.

The Last of the Mohicans rarely flinches in depicting the eye-for-an-eye savagery of war. Although not explicit in the way you might expect, it nevertheless requires you to screw your courage to the sticking place. Perhaps that's a tribute to its ability to take you along its journey without much effort – real enough to elicit a visceral reaction, romantic enough to remind you it's only a movie.

Director Miner (Friday the 13th, House) executes some of the scary scenes competently (one in which Sands gives his male host the ultimate French kiss is grossly memorable), but he never takes the material beyond its rather limited parameters.

Jawdroppingly bad, this adaptation of Michael Crichton's 1980 novel about a talking ape named Amy and a fabled lost city deep in the jungles of central Africa is as sophisticated in execution as a Jungle Jim movie.

To MacLachlan's credit, his impersonation of the indomitable is serviceable, although it must be said that the role is weirder than anything David Lynch ever dreamed up for him.

The only redeeming thing in Switch is Barkin's vulgar and adept physical performance of a man literally trapped in a woman's body. She's in a constant state of discomfort, whether it's trying to walk in high heels (a sight gag that quickly gets old), scratching her breasts, or sitting with her legs apart in a tight miniskirt. Her presence, however, is a small consolation in a movie that takes the battle of the sexes and turns it into a pointless skirmish.

If only Bullock could have foreseen how bad Premonition would turn out to be, she would have spared herself (and us) a lot of agony.

It's an occasionally entertaining ride, although one fraught with numerous logical holes.

Unfortunately, there's not much of a story to go with Hunter's engaging performance and LaGravenese's words.

As forgettable as a puff off a generic-brand butt: filtered, flavored, and ultimately unsatisfying.

This oddly dispassionate film about a young man dying of cancer is the French antidote to those Hollywood weepies in which the heroine courageously faces her own mortality with every hair in place.

Ladybugs is a clapboard of a movie, but it's a genial, harmless one. The misfit antics of the soccer games are good for a few laughs, although Michael Ritchie's 1976 film The Bad News Bears is far superior in that area of comedy. Regardless, when you find yourself ashamedly laughing at Ladybugs, remember that comedy was never meant to be politically correct.

With the exception of the handful of scenes in which the Flubber does its stuff, however, the youngsters will no doubt be bored by it all.

May not be best chick flick around, but it's the flick with the best chick by far.

This overly sentimental family Christmas drama, featuring a veritable checklist of prominent Hispanic actors, falls victim to the shortcoming so prevalent in similarly ethnic-themed movies with similar casts – everything and everyone is so damn serious.

A confounding movie on many levels. For all its sophistication and sensitivity, it turns out to be little more than an upscale B-movie about getting even.

Although the stellar contributions to this supremely intelligent film are many, there's no mistake that the presence of director Redford dominates the film.

The don't-get-caught '80s and holier-than-thou '90s do battle in True Colors, a political drama of all-too familiar dimensions. The painstakingly obvious screenplay by Kevin Wade (Working Girl) plays like an eighth-grade civics primer: ethics and morality are good, greed and corruption are bad.

Hopelessly muddled but doggedly entertaining.

There’s also something to be said for wanting a little bit more.

Although Belushi's scruffy charm has its moments, it's the late Shakur's performance as the conscience-stricken half of the duo that draws the most attention. There's a gravity to his performance that is totally unexpected, a surprise that -- given the circumstances -- is as sad as it is welcome.

Like something by Tolstoy or Dostoyevski, but -- of course -- on a much smaller, less ambitious scale, it is a work that weighs on your mind long after you leave it.

Araki's self-described “guerrilla” style of filmmaking has just the right edge here, yet is polished enough not to distract. In this respect, Totally F***ed Up is a much better film than Araki's last effort, The Living End. Although the teenaged ennui in the film sometimes comes off as hip nihilism, there's no question that the pain and turmoil depicted is anything but heartfelt.

Neither a badly miscast Cage nor an oddly dispassionate Cruz remotely suggest the ardor of love's passion.

The fun in Norbit is watching Murphy at work – the guy has a knack for bringing the physicality of his comic characters to life.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey isn't much of a trip. In a word...NOT!!!

Amidst the rubble of political rhetoric that underlies Arlington Road, one thing is clear: The enemy is us.

When teamed with her former husband, the director James Cameron, Hurd produced some of the most memorable action films of the Eighties, including The Terminator and Aliens. Her first collaborative effort with new husband De Palma, however, has produced one of the worst efforts from a major talent in a long while.

There's no doubt that the slow disintegration of Allen and Farrow's relationship inspired this work, but that is where the comparisons end. This is not an instance in which art imitates life, as so many have claimed. Here, real life is the stuff of tabloids, while Husbands and Wives comes close to the exquisite stuff of art.

Of course, the selling point of this movie is the boy wonder Culkin, making his first screen appearance since the inexplicable megahit Home Alone. Relegated to a supporting role, Culkin is natural and appealing, a picture of blue-eyed innocence. What a more interesting movie you'd have if it were entitled My Guy.

In many ways, this is the thinking-person's teen movie.

It is a story about loyalty, friendship, and honor. In other words, it's less titillating than you might expect.

For those who adore McCourt's work, Angela's Ashes will most likely disappoint; for those unfamiliar with this inspiring chronicle of a survivor, it will neither impress nor dishearten to any degree.

Boys on the Side is surprisingly effective, although its narrative often advances awkwardly.

Playing by Heart is, above all, an actor's movie: lots of monologues, lots of engaging conversation, lots of opportunities to shine without pouring it on too thickly. Everyone has his or her moment, although it is the older folks (Connery and Rowlands) and the youngsters (Jolie and Phillippe) who come off best, giving affecting performances in roles that serve as generational bookends in the film.

This fresh adaptation shakes the dust off Jane Austen's early 19th-century novel of manners and gives it a good airing out. The result is a witty and lovesick skirmish of the sexes that exceeds all expectations.

The biggest shame in this movie is how it wastes Frances McDormand.

Director-screenwriter Dearden, who wrote the script for Fatal Attraction, does a terrible job of making the pieces of the who's-he-going-to-kill-next narrative stick; jumping around with an unnerving frequency, this film self-destructs before your very eyes.

Still, The Ex is more appealing and less dumb than most movies that pass as comedy today, so any criticisms of its shortcomings need to account for that big-picture perspective. Indeed, there are worse ways to spend an hour-and-a-half.

A gruesome whodunit that's missing more than a few brain cells.

The naiveté with which the missionaries approach their initial meeting with the Waodani, whose propensity to violence was well-documented, appears at once incredibly stupid and divinely loving.

The gentle lift you feel in watching Defying Gravity is propelled by the earnestness of its emotions.

While the somewhat indefatigable Stone may survive this misfire (she's survived plenty of others), Lumet may not.

The way the destinies of four people converge in a small Arkansas town in One False Move is nothing short of wondrous.

This year's entry in this lowly subgenre is Four Christmases, a D-list comedy with A-list actors.

Whether you view it as intellectually dishonest or just plain sloppy, Deception is a movie that more than lives up to its title.

Like Spencer Tracy, Gene Hackman, and others who have made acting on the big screen seem so easy while taking us on a journey that is far from simple, Clooney is the real thing.

A wretched experience from start to finish.

While Yes defies film's conventions in many, many ways, it's still that same old story, the fight for love and glory.

A chancy work of self-promotion. Of course, Madonna is a master of image manipulation, forever reinventing herself, so it's difficult to assess exactly what was up her sleeve when she commissioned this movie. Whatever her purpose, Truth or Dare succeeds in somewhat demystifying the icon she's become, giving her a human dimension that has eluded exposure since her rise to superstardom.

Interminably unfunny, this holiday offering about how the three Firpo brothers learn the true meaning of Christmas from the inhabitants of the quaint small town whose bank they've robbed is something of a crime itself.

Will likely warm the cockles of your heart, even though it's hardly the stuff of great romance.

Davies tells David's story in a striking series of tableaux and dioramas, all impeccably executed to the last detail. As in Martin Scorsese's work, there's a great deal of control in Davies' directorial style, to the point that it seems totally lacking in spontaneity. But unlike a Scorsese movie, The Neon Bible implodes rather than explodes.

As Dawn, Matarazzo isn't afraid to evoke the horrors of puberty with a straightforward charmlessness: She's gawky, unhappy, and confused, while her tingling of sexual desire downright gives you the shivers.

With beauty and talent to spare, Portman is something to behold: It's as if Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster were somehow genetically melded at an early age. She's definitely a beautiful girl to watch for.

For those enamored with Wells' books, however, this film version will likely meet their expectations, and it undoubtedly will spawn more Ya-Ya chapters throughout the country.

Thoroughly predictable from start to finish.

There’s only the faintest glimmer of Rock’s talent for piercingly funny humor here, a shortcoming for which the comic can only blame himself, given that he also produced and directed the movie.

A notch above the mediocre movies that are usually made from mediocre John Grisham bestsellers. That may sound like faint praise, but it’s an endorsement for this surprisingly entertaining film.

It sounds like great fodder for sensationalism and special effects, but Fire in the Sky is disappointedly earthbound.

The Ten offers a brand of comedy for very particularized tastes, though everyone should appreciate the in-joke of featuring Ryder in the skit about the Eighth Commandment. For those of you less versed in the Bible, that’s the one that says thou shall not steal.

Although flawed in many respects -- it's not as smooth and silky a movie as it could have been -- Don Juan DeMarco nevertheless evokes a romantic mood that tickles and caresses.

It's too bad that Gas Food Lodging is as disconnected as it is because there's a real current of feeling here, especially in Balk's sympathetic performance and the film's unflinching depiction of a single woman trying to raise a family on her own. Rather than make a lasting impression, it makes only a passing one, as impermanent as the momentary view of a dying town on the highway.

Although there are some exhilarating moments here, they're offset by frequent distractions: Lewis' standard (and now boring) weird performance, an occasional lack of logic in the story line, a tendency to go operatic, and the overall feeling that the movie is unsure of where it is going.

The film's cast, all unknowns with the exception of comic/Broadway performer DeLaria, acquit themselves well, with the skinny, innocent-eyed Stafford a credible Candide navigating a new world of experience. His grounded performance charters Eric's stumbling progress to a sense of self that befits Edge of Seventeen: without apology.

It’s all veddy stiff-upper-lip -– this is romance from a masochist’s point of view -– and the intimacy of the emotions often feels cramped.

Always an intriguing (though sometimes unpolished) actress, Basinger has softened the rough edges over the years to become an extremely watchable performer who deserves better roles than those in which she appears onscreen.

Taking the concept of the dysfunctional family to a degree that might even boggle Leo Tolstoy's mind, Flirting With Disaster is every son or daughter's nightmare… multiplied.

It's a bad movie that only a parent could love.

It never really rollicks like a good political satire.

Despite its predictability and sappiness, this conventional comedy about a worldly lounge singer who masquerades as a nun as part of a witness protection program busts loose as one of the funniest -- and happiest -- films in a long time.

Unlike other filmmakers in the autumn or winter of their careers, Eastwood doesn't seem content to rest on his laurels and give his audiences the tried and the true. For that reason, among many others, he and Million Dollar Baby are true champions.

Never fully taps your empathy or your fears; it plays like a movie that's always about someone else.

Because screenwriter-director Brock fails to create a moving relationship between its mentor and student in life's lessons, the film hardly resonates five minutes after it's over.

From its brilliant and sublime opening sequence to its self-reflexive ending, The Player distills everything that's wrong with the American film industry with the precision of someone who's been there.