How often are psychosexual lunacy and classic cinema combined so fiendishly well?

The film's slick and entertaining, an obvious must-see for musical hounds.

The Boss of It All finds the common ground between business and acting -- panicky improvisation -- and wonders whether applause or an executive comp package is the greater reward.

Steel City may be the only movie released this year that's so observant you can hear what the characters AREN'T saying.

Like its hero, the movie doesn't flinch for most of its running time.

Albert Finney's name on a cast list is a guarantee of pleasure, and there's much to savor besides in Suri Krishnamma's A Man of No Importance. [03 Feb 1995]

Dans Paris provides a brooding, poetic echo - an after-dinner mint to a lasting meal.

This intriguing story, like many tales of mid-20th-century American art, is fueled by testosterone.

A sweetly acted and neatly executed social comedy.

This charming, bittersweet 90-minute monologue consists of the actor telling tales of his childhood and early years, when he was an ugly duckling from an uglier family. The anecdotes are bruisingly funny and delivered with clarity and light mockery.

Amazingly, no one seems steeped in the salubrious self-explication of therapy. They just sound like very good storytellers.

CJ7 is precisely the 80-something minutes of delirium and cheesy special-effects you'd expect from the man responsible for the chaos of "Shaolin Soccer" and the lunacy of "Kung Fu Hustle."

How are girls supposed to behave in a culture that tells them they're Disney princesses for the first 12 years and sex toys after that? Girls Rock! has one answer: Strap on a Fender and rage against the machine.

Sings in the key of life.

It looks great and the dancing is the kind of stuff that would upstage the average pop star.

A compelling look at the price paid by the men who devote their lives to these extraordinary animals.

It spreads the punishment around, from the executive suites of Hollywood to the mean streets of Baghdad. Everyone here comes out smelling bad - that's why the film's so good.

This being a Czech film, drama, comedy, history, and social commentary are served up in equal proportion.

Cool, carnal, and lethal, The Last Mistress is a period drama with a difference.

Because "Petrol" is so grim, its few moments of repentance and reconciliation don't feel as contrived as they might otherwise; if any film has earned the right to be sentimental, it's this one.

Mad Detective is equal parts gonzo inspiration and overwrought indecision. It could be called "The Lunatic From Kowloon."

Parents are another matter. Almost to a man and woman they lay expectations on their children that ignore who those children are.

In the end, though, Weiland ("Made of Honor") pours so much heart into his autobiographically "true-ish" story that accessibility is a nonissue.

A romantic comedy with film noir shadows.

It's intriguing. To be honest, though, there is less to it all than meets the eye.

"Ashes of Time" was always more a work of philosophy than pure entertainment, and a decade and a half later it still is.

What is the value of art in times of strife? Should people be sitting in the theater or rioting in the streets? Walter's film reminds us that once there was a man whose work made no distinction between the two.

The larger point Harvard Beats Yale makes, perhaps, is about the inevitability of loss. Many of these men, now in their early 60s, look terrific. Others, let us say, do not. Either way, all of them look very different from the helmeted young athletes of 40 years ago. A sense of mortality shadows the documentary. On or off the gridiron, time is the only opponent who always wins. Even at Harvard, even at Yale.