The supporting cast is almost uniformly good, from Conchata Ferrell as a sympathetic waitress to Erick Avari as a corporate type with a surprisingly big heart and a hidden silly streak. Turturro relishes his quiet overplaying and steals the bulk of his scenes.

Excruciatingly flat comedy.

Few white directors depict racial interaction in a thoughtful, non-exploitative way, but Sayles has always been one of them.

The film moves swiftly and unerringly to its conclusion. Spielberg remains under Stanley Kubrick's directorial spell.

Know how to tell if a war movie is mediocre? An outspoken bigot, usually a Southerner, abuses a patient member of an oppressed minority -- the Asian recruit, the African American or, in the case of Windtalkers, a pair of Navajo men from Arizona in his platoon.

The dangers in the lives of these Catholic teens are self-made; they spring from small-town boredom and lead to a conclusion that's meant to be emotionally crushing but is only slightly affecting.

Watching this comedy is like going out with an attractive blind date who runs out of conversation after a quarter of an hour.

One of those rare thrillers where the cops aren't fools, villains don't turn stupid at crucial moments, and career assassins seldom miss targets.

I took a 12-year-old along to Scooby Doo just in case I didn't get it. Our verdict: one paw up, one paw down.

The picture lasts 111 minutes, partly because of numerous false endings. Now, that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The movie's weirdness isn't organic; it's imposed, like barber-pole stripes painted on a prison wall.

A question: If you hire actresses from England, Kansas, Ireland and Michigan, shouldn't someone teach them all to do believable Southern accents -- and remind them to keep doing those accents as the film goes on?

If you're put off by deliberate filmmaking (or subtitles, though the movie doesn't have much dialogue), you're in the wrong spot. If not, you'll see why voters gave "Atanarjuat," as it's officially called, a 2002 Oscar nomination for best foreign film.

A middlebrow hybrid that should satisfy most fans of spy movies without blowing them away.

Malcolm Lee's brilliant documentary about American race relations.

Delivers the kind of vengeance fantasy women unhappy with their husbands may want: Vicarious satisfaction, however clumsily delivered, is better than no satisfaction at all. Just be sure to stop by the lobotomy clinic en route to the theater.

Less gloriously showy than "Memento," but it proves you can still craft fine art under the auspices of a big studio.

Parker's afraid that we'll be bored by the language alone, so he throws in absurdities.

If you used this guy's umbilical cord for fishing line, you could land a world-record marlin.

If the brothers Weitzes) don't yet have a defined style, they do seem at ease with this more sophisticated material.

Ryan Gosling's riveting as a neo-Nazi who was raised in Jewish faith

The saga regains its grandeur with a complicated but easy-to-follow story. The characters are as satisfying as the effects.

Heavy-handed symbolism permeates the picture, down to the leading lady's name.

A wild, self-indulgent but completely captivating extravagance.

For all the satisfying details in the script, the big picture remains hopelessly and intentionally trite.

I'll sum up my reaction in a word: Yawn.

It's cheerful nonsense from blithe beginning to obvious end.

Most of the actors keep an icicle-stiff upper lip except for Winslet, who darts around like a finch with a beak full of sunflower seeds, and Burrows, who exudes a musk of refined sexiness.