Tim Merrill

Serves as more proof, as if any were needed, that Allen desperately needs to devote more time to polishing his scripts, and less to heedlessly banging out one film a year, year in and year out.

Starts out as a first-rate chick movie and winds up a second-rate guy movie. But if this somehow proves to be a formula for the perfect date movie, then Kidman is even more brilliant than we thought.

Anyone with a weak heart or a queasy stomach should stay away. In fact, most everyone everywhere should stay away. But if you still want to see Irreversible, be prepared to see images that will upset and disturb you for a long, long time. Be prepared to be shaken to the very core.

Frida favors us with plenty of color, a feast of eye candy. As food for the soul, however...there are always her paintings.

A courageous film, especially from a first-time director, and deserves all the audience support it can attract. It’s a People Story, and it’s About Something. However, it’s also something of a heavy sit.

On the whole this is pretty standard shoot-‘em-up fare. Bang, crash, boom -- yawn.

Fast-paced, at times even a bit frantic, Under the Skin of the City is above all a mother-and-son story.

It’s a true endurance test, far too grim to be considered exciting, but not really informative enough to enlighten us about the effect of our presence in Somalia in 1993.

There are pleasures to be had early on in Crush, but they get fewer and farther between. Nice while it lasts, the glow wears off all too quickly.

Rarely interesting, always confounding.