The yuppie dream of an unencumbered life where style always exceeds substance is at the crux of The Object of Beauty. Partly likable and partly odious, your reaction may depend on whether, like the proverbial glass of water, you see their lives as half empty or half full.

I didn't care much for this movie. It's brutal and it's brutalizing. It seeks to make the audience an accomplice rather than a rational observer.

The way the individual stories are intercut builds connections between the seemingly discrete tales such that they begin to converge in ways that were not readily apparent. Repeated viewings, I'm sure, would enhance the connections, so smartly are they conceived.

The movie's light, easily forgotten and very good for a few laughs. I sure hope that eating thing comes true.

Something about The Comfort of Strangers remains aloof, creating a physical and emotional distance between its characters and its audience. Some of that is, no doubt, Pinter's script. But Schrader pinpoints a nucleus of moral decay and then observes it with a detached clinician's eye rather than the eye if a rapt storyteller.

Ju Dou is a juicy and stylish potboiler that keeps the pilots turned on full blast.

Director Apted has somehow managed to take one of the most contrived plots I've ever seen and make it seem, if not original, then at least way above average.

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.

Rifkin has fashioned a crawly little movie that underscores the Faustian price of fame in a way that few recent films have managed.

Obviously, there's something going on here but I'm not convinced Besson knows what it is.

At long, long last: the real thing.

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.

Depp, as the the fragile but irresistibily fabulous title character, is a delight.

It's shoot-em-up action from start to finish, beginning at such a peak that there's hardly any room for the action to build or climax.

Home Alone is the apex, the pinnacle, the culmination of every bad bit Hughes has ever written or directed. It overflows with primitive, disastrously unfunny sight gags and neo-hateful familial humor.

The film's politically correct repudiation of the familiar black-and-white characterizations of the white and red man is ultimately undermined, however, when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction.

Barry Sonnenfeld's stunning cinematography and the sharply etched characterizations make this film one for the ages.

Frame's story is told with an intriguingly naked honesty but one that never drags the viewer into emotional prurience. It creates a fascinating portrait.

This is tragedy at its most hilarious and comedy to break your heart; sweet violence in a hellish fairy tale.

David Lynch doesn't tell stories as much as he shows hallucinations. Wierd, wild, excessive, obsessive, idiosyncratic visions.

Despite its compelling nature, Greenaway’s film is not always an easy one to sit through.

This Tom Clancy thriller gets the proper screen treatment here with this first-rate cast and direction by one of the genre’s best: Die Hard director John McTiernan.

This stirring historical re-creation depicts the experiences of America's first unit of black soldiers in the Civil War and the young Northerner who leads them.

Adapted by Katsuhiro Otomo from his sprawling, post-apocalyptic cyberpunk tale of government conspiracies, street gangs, and psychic powers that can save or destroy the world, it's still an all-time classic, and has never looked better.

Jim Jarmusch applies his minimalist style to the margins of Memphis as seen through the experiences of three sets of foreigners. Great casting and occasional moments of grace.

Marks the end of an era of good -- even very good -- Disney animated features, and the start (one hopes) of a new period of great ones.

Certainly one of the best drug movies ever made.... Great performances make this dispassionate study a memorable experience.

It was written by military-horror storyteller David Rabe (Sticks and Bones, Streamers), and features outstanding performances by this ensemble ñ especially Fox and Penn.

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

What we have here is a film with no respect for the laws of nature, the laws of man, or the intelligence of the viewer.

Jackson does it all in this movie: writes, directs, stars, produces, and designs the makeup.

Occasionally a bit preachy with its critique of advertising or the Eighties commodity mindset, this one's still relevant, and that's because Robinson isn't just trashing tactics -- he's trashing an entire industry.

Teen Witch is an all-around delicious flick, both despite and because of the afterschool special quality of its message.

Director Michael Lehmann made a stunning debut with this sharp satire of teen cliques.

Everything Reeves has done since always has the whiff of "Ted" about it. Party on, dudes.

Danger's never clear and present, but rather a convention. Simply put, Oliver & Company didn't work for me not because I'm many years past my sixth birthday but because it never scared me into forgetting that fact.

Shameless E.T. knockoff.

It's the same old story, seven times around, you just can't keep a good corpse down. ’Spite a massacre the film before, To Crystal Lake, they keep coming more. And one by one, they end up dead – a sliitted throat; an axe in the head.

Stunning opulence dazzles the eye.

The film's triumphantly perverse climax, in fact, is just that: a three-tiered split-screen of three couples shagging that resembles nothing so much as a national flag and is set to a rendition of "My Girl" sung by a black trio dressed as colonial soldiers. When it hits such giddily subversive high notes, Sammy and Rosie ... transcends provocation and bursts into ecstatic revelation.

A smart, creepy, violent, funny, and modern vampire movie that benefits from some wonderful performances, a stunning visual texture, and music by Tangerine Dream.

Reiner abandons his previous movie's sense of farce and satire for much broader and more innocuous comedy.

This skillfully creepy film tells the story of some housemates who experience unwelcome visits from a partially decomposed former resident who rises from beneath the floorboards. Seems he wants the flesh and blood of the new residents in order to settle some old scores.

But 'neath its candy-coated shell lies several solid grains of truth -- not to mention some fab choreography, a solid-gold title, and a couple of pristine examples (in Swayze and Grey) of what is meant by the term "career-making performance."

This crude live-action takeoff on the Cabbage Patch phenomenon ought to have had star Anthony Newley humming "Stop the Movie, I Want to Get Off."

Great effects and a nasty undercurrent drive this vehicle.

Beautifully photographed by Frederick Elmes, the visuals are often at odds with the barreness at the movie's core.

The film's sense of family values will make your head hurt and the chase scenes will set your noggin spinning.

In many ways even more hellish and stylish than its predecessor... A horror cult classic.

The plot is gripping and relatively fast-paced, and Winger and Russell are excellent counterpoints to each other -- Winger is earthy and likable, and Russell is sexy and sinister.

Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb dramatically and unforgettably burst from nowhere onto the screen with their searing portrayals of Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and American groupie Nancy Spungen. Their performances in this embellished docudrama are so intense and definitive that they leave little room for any other memories of these doomed junkie lovers.

You either think it's dementedly wild at heart or a lost highway to nowhere.

Michael Mann is in top form here helming this bone-chilling thriller.

When people think fondly of John Hughes, it's movies like Ferris Bueller that they're thinking of.

This is the main movie that built the house of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman's production company devoted to low-budget camp. The Toxic Avenger tells the humorous story of a geeky weakling who is turned into a superhero when he is slimed by some toxic waste.

One of the 10 best films ever made, period.

This modern cult classic is a triumphantly dark comedy directed by one of the film world's truly original visionaries, Terry Gilliam. "Imagination" is this futuristic film’s middle name.

The more one knows about Holmes lore, the more the film's foreshadowings of future cases will be evident. Set in a boys boarding school, the film's imaginings about the life of the young detective are quite entertaining.

The film's ostensible support for a woman's right to self-expression is undercut by the notion that it doesn't matter what a woman does, anyway, so long as she has a nice ass. Still, there doesn't seem to be much point in getting hot and bothered about a movie that's so poorly-crafted it's going to have a hard time garnering any kind of audience.

Back to the Future entertainingly deals with the child's eternal question: If my parents had never met, where would that leave me?

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.

Before lapsing into the land of the insipid,... John Hughes actually made a few movies that shined some light on the trials of modern adolescence. The Breakfast Club is one of them.

As good as it ever was, and improved slightly by hindsight, experience, and extra cash.

If Tuff Turf had used a little more of Downey's relaxed intelligence and amiability, and a little less teenage angst and sense of violence as retribution, it might have been tough stuff. As it is, it's a lightweight in a genre populated with featherweights.

Director James Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd (both of whom co-wrote the script) demonstrate their storytelling virtuosity.

The film has some truly great right-wing anarchic moments, bur for the most part its politics are all too predictably – and only – militaristic, misogynist, racist, and xenophobic; for too much of its running time, it’s just a childishly simplistic masturbatory fantasy for right-wing hebephrenics that’s mostly safe enough to play the White House.

Unsettling and odd, it's the perfect film for a dreary, rainy day.

Molly Ringwald is radiant here as the eternal teen looking for love.

Cox, who wrote and directed the film, creates a strange but hilarious view of our culture, a brilliant satire on modern society...deserves the same respect and attention given to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "This Is Spinal Tap," two films that define the cult category.

Wonderful performances steal the show in this film based on the real life of Karen Silkwood, a worker in a plutonium factory in Oklahoma, whose health and safety concerns prompt her public exposure of the company's practices which, in turn, lead to dire personal consequences.

There are countless hilarious scenes in this film. Even if you didn't grow up in the Midwest, you'll still be able to appreciated the anticipation of the holidays and all of the tension and happiness that accompanies the most eagerly awaited and equally dreaded time of the year.

Does it make any sense? Nope. Does this detract from the film? Not at all. It's classic Italian Grand Guignol at its most disturbing; a car crash, autopsy, and disembowelment all wrapped up in a nice, soggy package.

When all is said and done, director bob Fosse (Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz) delivers a sluggish movie that exhibits none of his usual flash and even less psychological drama.

Beautifully made, courageously edited, and swift-moving, this challenging, provocative film is a work that is both humanist and revolutionary.

Each member of the well-chosen cast not only creates a distinct character with unique and memorable resonances but also meshes these separate personalities to form as satisfying an example of ensemble acting as we are likely to see for quite some time to come.

Director Dick Lowry and scenarists Stuart Birnbaum and David Dasheu's idea of a good time is so crude, they probably think Caveman was a comedy of manners.

As a narrative work, it undeniably drags: but then, that's not really its intent. This is a spectacle to be absorbed and analyzed.

Linda Blair finds herself locked-up in this women-in-prison cheez fest. The warden has a hot tub in his office and Stella Stevens cracks the whip.

Coolidge has no axe to grind with Valley Girls. They’re simply teenagers subject to the classic problems of love and peer pressure, albeit spiced with their own distinct valley jargon. Coolidge directs all this with a light hand and the non-stop musical score features music by the Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Clash, Men at Work, Sparks, and many more.

The Hunger is typically Tony Scott -- more style than substance, and perhaps simply an excuse to get Denueve and Susan Sarandon, Miriam's post-Bowie love, in bed together.

The worlds of the natural and the artificial are compared and contrasted in this non-narrative visual orgy.

An epic biopic, over three hours in length, Gandhi captures the spirit of the man and his struggles.

Amy Heckerling’s portrait of high school/shopping mall life in Southern California is still just about as good as it gets...The panoply of teen types and turmoils is dead-on accurate.

The Thing is paranoid, bleak, uncompromising, and thankfully devoid of a traditional Hollywood happy ending. Led by Russell, the ensemble cast is outstanding, but the real star of the film is Rob Bottin's imaginative creature effects.

Martin's inner giddiness makes Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid a classic. This loose film is more than a spoof of the hard-boiled noir of the Forties and Fifties; it is a tribute to the wonderful memories these films created in a generation.

Schwarzenegger has probably never been better-cast.

As anthropology, Out of the Blue is engrossing; as a social document, it is essential; but as undiluted raw power, it is absolute. No filter.

One of the most suspenseful films of all time, its wartime action setting makes it easy to forget it's also one of the most spiritually righteous. [Director's Cut]

Here, Martin and company turn the proceedings into an unfunny farce, flinging out silly jokes at the rate of an Airplane movie in the desperate hope that something will stick.

A bad sequel to a good movie...The main concentration is on gross-out effects and lame chase scenes.

This movie presented a radical melange of genuine horror and self-aware comic touches, not to mention the fabulous Rick Baker special effects.

A genuinely outrageous and occasionally brilliant coupling of American animation and classic early-Eighties heavy metal (does anybody even remember Riggs and Trust?).

Edwards' crowning achievement. It is a wickedly funny, impeccably cast, ingeniously subversive satire of the Hollywood film industry.

It's a bit unnerving to realize that an entire life can be summed up so well in 20 minutes and that four generations can be fit into a mere 96 minutes without feeling cramped, but that's what's so beautiful about stories like this, too.

Uneasy blend of the extreme visuals of director Ken Russell and the bloated dramaturgy of writer Paddy Chayefsky (who disowned this adaptation of his novel).

Neil Diamond isn't the best actor, and the 1980 version of The Jazz Singer doesn't have the best script, but this movie (love on the) rocks nonetheless.

Pure entertainment, and a true chop-socky classic.

The performances are riveting and the visuals are stunning. The boxing sequences are brutally realistic - there are no crappy Rocky theatrics here - and the humanity oozes out of every scene.