Isn't satisfying or surprising. It doesn't even make sense from scene to scene.

One of the most uncompromisingly bleak films I've ever seen.

It settles into the typical reflective mode of Iranian films, but something IS happening: A human being is slowly, sullenly, silently approaching his combustion point.

This fairy-tale quality gives director Clooney, who's making his debut behind the camera, his stylistic clue. He's in perfect sync with writer Kaufman; they treat even the most "serious" scenes like Monty Python routines.

The usually quiet Zellweger is the revelation: Like her character, the actress seems happily amazed to find herself crossing a polished dance floor, sheathed in silk and diamonds, having the naughty, self-glorifying time of her life.

After an hour, The Pianist stops being the Holocaust movie and becomes a Holocaust movie.

Menno Meyjes' provocative film might be called an example of the haphazardness of evil.

Many shallower movies these days seem too long, but this one is egregiously short.

Brilliantly interweaves stories that take place decades apart, and features stellar work by three of the best English-speaking actresses: Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

Slight, enjoyable comedy.

Production values are acceptable in the Klasky Csupo vein. If you know that company, you're prepared for animation that isn't conventionally attractive: flat backgrounds, characters with big heads, pushed-in faces and beanpole limbs.

Ray Liotta and Jason Patric do some of their best work in their underwritten roles, but don't be fooled: Nobody deserves any prizes here.

Each major character is complex, none more so than Bill. He's almost Shakespearean in scope.

Spike Lee's films have been provocative, blunt, thoughtful, misguided, daring, sentimental, funny, honest and silly. But 25th Hour earns the director two new adjectives: irrelevant and tedious.

Seeing Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is like having a second date with the woman who made you fall in love at first sight.

A dark comedy that's as emotionally honest as any picture of 2002.

The final drum-off (c'mon, you knew it would come down to that) resembles a combination of music, gymnastics and martial arts, and I don't think I've seen a more pulse-pounding scene this year.

Plays out like a sprinter competing in his first distance race: It bursts forth with tremendous energy, sustains itself for quite a while, loses steam near the end but finishes ahead of most of the pack.

It combines elements of "Lord of the Rings," "Star Wars" and James Bond flicks with generically satisfying results.

The outtakes prove Analyze That could have been even worse.

The real joke is that the picture's most conventional elements, the superbly acted entanglement between the complicated Orlean and the boastful but unexpectedly thoughtful Laroche, would have made a compelling movie all by themselves -- if written by someone other than Charlie Kaufman.

It's not only an ultraviolent, ludicrously inconsistent rip-off of Bradbury's idea, but it poisons the well for future efforts.

The first movie I'd have enjoyed more asleep. That's not because it put me to sleep, but because it may be the most dreamlike film I've ever seen.

The rabbits, foolishly introduced to a land that couldn't support them as they bred and dispersed, are symbols of the English: ravenous, unheeding, ineradicable and a constant threat to the native way of life.

Solaris is a film where people...often...speak... like... this, and the camera moves slowly across sterile interiors.

Like the story, Kline builds in intensity: He has no flowery speeches that would be untrue to his character, but he leaves a clear impression of a man who values knowledge and the imparting of it above all else.

The picture should satisfy both diehard fans, who liked the plotting and interaction of early Bond films, and "Die Hard" fans, who prefer Bond shaken and stirred by massive explosions, vehicular crashes and gunplay befitting a Central American revolution.

I do wonder why a gay director's best-known movies about straight guys, Talk to Her and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!," suggest that satisfying relationships with women are most easily achieved if they're 1) unconscious or 2) in bondage.