V.A. Musetto

Is nothing sacred? In the schizophrenic war epic The War lords, Jet Li, the hunky action hero, cries -- no, make that sobs -- several times. What will his legion of young male fans think?

The Japanese whalers are clearly in violation of international law, but no government is willing to take action. That leaves it up to ragtag groups such as the Sea Shepherds to do their best to shut down the whalers. The planet owes them a big "thank you."

Paints an entertaining picture of the cherubic gentleman, who as the first curator of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art brought new excitement to the stodgy institution.

The result is, alas, competent but unexceptional.

The indie film is funny and, at times, heartbreaking. Wisely, it avoids the happy ending that Hollywood would have insisted upon.

There's not enough here to justify the almost two hours.

What do you get when you mix a Douglas Sirk melodrama with a Sergio Leone Western? Tears of the Black Tiger, a high-camp Western from, of all places, Thailand.

The actors can't escape the confines of the warmed-over, coming-of-age-in-suburbia script by Mills, from a novel by Walter Kirn.

Gripping and even-handed film.

The film has all the visual flourishes we expect of Doyle and Wong, and they're reason enough to see Ashes of Time Redux. Just don't expect to make sense of the plot.

From the rapid-fire, purposely unreadable opening credits to the final baby POV shot of a birth, this is a dazzling and brutal exercise in cinematic envelope-pushing.

Excellent performances are given by all, with Alidoosti, who has the face of an angel, once again a wonder.

As Mark Twain didn't say, reports of the death of mumblecore are greatly exaggerated. As proof, I offer Andrew Bujalski's wise and wondrous Beeswax.

There are a few sweet moments as the story reaches its unsurprising conclusion. But, all in all, Flakes isn't going to bowl you over.

It examines other crises faced by JFK - Cuba, the Berlin Wall, civil war in Laos, the insurgency in Vietnam - and finds that in each case Kennedy chose talk over tanks. (Often, he went against advice of aides and generals.)

The only thing missing is the mud that the big boys love to sling. But the Stuyvesant candidates are kids - give them a few years.

A dry but enlightening documentary.

This film is no fairy tale for children. Not only does it contain nudity and sex, both straight and lesbian, but it also presents childhood as a time of terror.

A creative mix of horror, noir and psychological thriller. At times the story defies logic, but viewers who can accept that will find themselves caught up in the film's intensity.

One of the most beautiful per formances I've seen this year is given by Blanca Engstrom in the Swedish coming-of-age charmer The Girl.

Director Ferzan Ozpetek's film doesn't break any new ground; rather, it recycles every cliché about gays in what is essentially an extended soap opera.

The tragic victims in "City of God" are played by actors while those in La Sierra are flesh-and-blood real.

Throughout, Mrs. Marcos comes across as an elitist, insulated against real life by wealth and power -- yet one who truly believes she is misunderstood and has done nothing wrong.

The 25-year-old filmmaker takes no sides himself. Wisely, he allows folks of all opinions to put their feet in their mouths all by themselves.

The story becomes so convoluted and contrived that much of the tension dissipates.

An extraordinary woman like Eva Kor deserves a less ordinary biography.

Octubre has the feel of something Jim Jarmusch might have made in his early years -- lots of dark humor that you'll think of in the middle of the night, and laugh about.

Plot and dialogue take a back seat to a series of inventive sight gags that unspool with effortless charm. An ensemble cast of talented amateurs is in top form.

The presentation is conventional in style but uplifting in spirit, and worth seeing even if you know nothing about basketball.

Viewers are left wondering just why they should care about them and the rest of the film's one-dimensional characters.

While the slow buildup won't bowl 'em over at suburban multiplexes, the film should please Fessenden's loyal followers and win him new ones.

Eggleston doesn't speak much, and when he does, it's usually a mutter, forcing Almereyda to use subtitles. Fortunately, Eggleston's photographs come across loud and clear.

As my cat, Audrey, will confirm, I love animals. But I draw the line at having lions, tigers, gigantic snakes, bears and other predators as pets. Other people have different opinions.

But exciting as La Scorta might be, it is at heart a conventional thriller that breaks no new genre ground.

Iraqi-Kurdish director-writer Hiner Saleem is in no hurry to tell the story, and viewers drawn in by the warm-hearted tale and charmingly eccentric characters will be in no hurry for the closing credits.

Combining a thoughtful script with splendid acting -- especially by Sansa -- Bellocchio has fashioned a tense thriller that is both understated and powerful.

The episodic film makes valid points about the depersonalization of modern life. But the characters tend to be clichés whose lives are never fully explored.

There isn't a dud in the 10 shorts, although some are more dud-ish than others.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird may owe a lot to other films, but it is always fresh and never boring.

Be advised that this is no ordinary music doc. There are no talking heads and no performance footage of Nirvana. In fact, there's no Nirvana music at all. Instead, Schnack gives us other artists' music that had an effect on the troubled rocker.

The script falters at the end, as the two reach the Turkish village where Ibrahim was raised. But the winning performances -- and killer '60s soundtrack -- save the day.

Having root-canal surgery would be less painful than sitting through the martial-arts disaster Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior.

Magaly Solier is compelling as the teen. She has little to say, as the camera remains fixated on her expressionless face.

It is a vivid, at times heartbreaking, portrait of a life and a nation in crisis.

The film is conventional in style and is likely to mean more to the sadly forgotten musician's fans than to others.

Needless to say, In My Skin isn't for everybody. It's recommended to viewers who, like Esther, want to feel something, no matter how distasteful.

Filled with affecting moments.

A slim story that becomes schmaltzy at the end.

A pleasing alternative to the season's Oscar-baiting movies.

As one interviewee opines: "It's all about the money."

Director and co-writer Martin Pieter Zandvliet draws inspired work from Steen.

Pedro Castaneda, a nonprofessional appearing in his first film, and Veronica Loren tug at your heartstrings with their portrayals of the lead characters.

Addiction Incorporated delivers a hard kick in the butts to the tobacco industry.

You have to wonder just how true to life the melodramatic depiction of these events is, especially since the film was made in partnership with TV's "Masterpiece Theater."

It's just that the script, which Ozon adapted from a play, is lightweight and better-suited to stage than screen.

It includes abundant sex and full-frontal nudity, not to titillate but because it's needed to convey the inner sexual turmoil the girls are going through.

A stylish look and a fair amount of hot and heavy sex (mostly hetero), and the final shootout is pretty nifty.

If you're going to make a documentary about Leonard Cohen, the singer-songwriter, you should have him perform some of his better-known melodies, like "Suzanne."

You can sympathize with both sides in their ideological battle, which ends in a most unexpected way.

Yes, The Secret Life of Words owes much to Lars von Trier's 1999 "Breaking the Waves." But Coixet's riff stands on its own thanks to thoughtful performances by Polley and Robbins.

The director-producer, Nicole Opper, has known Avery's Brooklyn family for years, which no doubt accounts for the film's intimacy.

Dong, who is gay, does his best to stay objective. Just how these families interact may surprise you.

The result is a charming mix of Walter Mitty and "About Schmidt."

If you're looking for substance in a Hong Kong movie, stick with Wong Kar-wai ("In the Mood for Love"). But if brainless, predictable fun will do, check out Shaolin Soccer.

Kari successfully meshes comedy, ennui and tragedy, much in the manner of Jim Jarmusch and Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki.

There are many funny lines and situations, accompanied by strong performances all around. Sadly, Good Bye Lenin! falters at the end, when it loses its edge and lapses into sentimentality.

That's all laudable - but Perry, a longtime filmmaker, should have given the doc more urgency and punch.

Could do with a tad of editing itself. Other than that, there's nothing bad to say about this cool homage to the film world's unsung heroes: editors.

Unfolds as meditatively as a game of go. Cinematographer Wang Yu shifts easily from tranquility to violence, and he is able to turn something as simple as a man walking outdoors into a visual feast. Chang Chen, a star of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," provides a strong yet understated portrayal of Wu.

We also begin to suspect that Deraspe is putting us on - that this is a mockumentary, not a documentary. About the time that a bunch of grown men and women - stoned and drunk - start playing spin the bottle (spin the bottle!), we're certain that she's tricking us. Or is she? It's anybody's guess.

Pleasantly free of blood and guts, with Kurosawa using instead the mighty power of suggestion to give Pulse an invigorating aura of menace.

Soldini is able to take the shopworn theme and keep it interesting and fresh despite its lack of new ideas. He's assisted by strong performances by his two leading actors.

Unfolds leisurely, in anecdotal style, with deadpan humor and a sense of the absurd.

Things move so swiftly and confusingly that there's little time to explore any of the people in depth. Less style and more substance is definitely called for.

The praise for this static, overlong, stagebound work is a mystery to me.

The documentary is much too conventional -- lots of boring talking heads, etc. -- to do the subject matter justice.

The collection is a mixed bag, although there are no clunkers.

Kelemer doesn't offer anything that hasn't been done before in documentaries of this type. Still, Won't Anybody Listen makes for interesting viewing as a study of true-life underdogs.

Has some truly touching and funny moments. But it goes on for too long and bogs down in a surfeit of characters and unnecessary subplots.

According to rumors swirling on the Internet, an English-language remake is already in the works, possibly directed by David Cronenberg.

Doesn't always make sense, and you cannot always tell what is real and what is imaginary, but viewers will be having too much zonked-out fun to care.

Strel's 2007 adventures on and in the Amazon are detailed in John Maringouin's fun documentary Big River Man.

In an effective touch, Kisses opens in black and white, changes into color for its Dublin scenes, then returns to monochrome.

Debbie, for better or for worse, is the high point of the entertaining but lightweight film, which is better suited to public TV than the big screen. Oh, yes. If anybody should decide to open another beauty school in Kabul, be sure to leave Debbie in Indiana.

Judging by this passionate film, the medical community -- has no clue about what causes this awful malady and, worse, doesn't seem to care.

As the wife, pixie-ish Kanako Higuchi provides the perfect accompaniment to Watanabe.

Director Lou Ye, who gave us the lilting "Suzhou River," doesn't care much for dialogue. He lets Wang Yu's pulsating camerawork do the talking.

Falters when it gets involved with supernatural gobbledygook.

Mildly diverting, but lacks humor and pathos.

Takita could easily trim 30 minutes of flab and oceans of tears from Departures. It still wouldn't merit an Oscar, but it would be a lot more watchable.

There's not enough good material to fill the film's overlong 105 minutes. Is there an editor in the house?

The Inheritance has a promising start but soon becomes preachy and melodramatic.