As Benny, [Driver] nudges the film out of its few valleys of smarm, making Circle of Friends a heartfelt love letter to circles of friends everywhere.

Thankfully there are no weight-loss montage sequences; what you see with Muriel is what you get, like it or not. This refusal to change or convert the main characters makes the film so appealing.

Outbreak has the feel of a movie written by a committee of writers -- it's totally lacking in personality.

After a string of disappointments culminating in this silly waste of time, it's hard to care if horror's golden boy carries on or not. Forget The Mangler. Go do your laundry instead.

The film's story is both culturally specific and broadly universal and that duality is a large part of what makes Once Were Warriors work.

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.

Watching Heavyweights isn't as bad as either war or fat camp, but its few bits of truly comic dialogue (courtesy of co-writers Brill and Judd Apatow) and inspired acting aren't enough to save the film from its syrupy and predictable theme.

It's a rich, humid mix of race, murder, and mystery that works well, even if it doesn't work perfectly.

A sorry excuse for a movie, and director Davis (CB4, Guncrazy) and star Sandler should be very embarrassed.

It's a mess, and one that even the pickled cowboys behind me found yawningly tedious, and that's not something I ever thought I'd be saying about a Sam Raimi movie with the word “dead” in the title.

Boyle, MacDonald, and Hodge honed this wonderful coupling of music, visuals, and clever words, as well as a strange affection for toy babies, in their first film.

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

All in all, In the Mouth of Madness is a fun, clever horror picture, full of creepy crawlies, things that go bump in the night, and references to everyone from H.P. Lovecraft to Dario Argento.

The film is unapologetically sweet and hopeful, but it's said the heart's true home is the water, that its nature is to bob atop the cares of the world like a wooden cradle on the waves.

Watching and listening to these two is a charming experience; their conversation has the ring of veracity, and rarely does the viewer's interest stray.

Highlander 3 has an edge over its prequels in that it's so shoddily directed that it's probably a great deal of fun to watch after a couple of six-packs. Actually, that's probably the only time it might be fun to watch, and I'm not going to be the guy to put that theory to the test for you.

The camerawork, which relies heavily on shots of picture-perfect vistas and not enough on human beings and their place in this world. When we do see the characters, we primarily see their beauty.

Director Benton's style in Nobody's Fool is controlled, almost austere, but it allows the actors to breathe familiar life into their roles. It's a fresh air they breathe, a rejuvenating one that affirms the virtues of a simple story about everyday people.

Higher Learning is a disappointment. What might have been director Singleton's (Boyz N the Hood, Poetic Justice) most ambitious and potentially intriguing work, wound up as his most shallow and scattershot.

For his part, Hawthorne rushes pell-mell into the thorny valley of dementia and crawls out with every puncture registering on his worn face. The performance is rich and rewarding.

Ready to Wear is to filmmaking what paper dresses were to fashion -- thin, trendy, and disposable.

I.Q. doesn't profess to explore the theory of relativity, but even as a light romantic comedy it fails to engage the viewer completely.

The Jungle Book is far more thrilling than frightening and is easily capable of entertaining three generations of filmgoers simultaneously.

Death and the Maiden is a streamlined razor-ride of a movie: taut, riveting, and a psychological horror show that will leave nail-marks in your palms for days afterwards.

Even this director and the talents of three wonderful actors can't save this weak script.

It's hard to give a damn one way or the other about Street Fighter -- it's so thin that an errant sneeze might topple this glossy house of cards.

Finney's portrayal of Alfie is heartbreaking in its naïveté about his own desires, yet he also brings to the character an unbridled joy in life's basic pleasures.

But though there's half a cashew of Steve Martin's amazing physical comedy, a couple of pecans of Sven Nyqvist's beautiful cinematography and a few eye-catching filberts of very Venice-y set decoration, it's not nearly enough to satisfy. Be forewarned: Open this can of Mixed Nuts and you'll find nothing but a bunch of goobers.