This is a twilight film, full of sorrow yet lyrical, beautiful, and dark.

The resulting portrait shows a seriously troubled man whose brutality was bred into him on the punishing streets of Brooklyn and whose modest wisdom seems as hard-won as any title. Tyson's fight career may be over, but his battle with himself has many rounds to go.

Crisp supporting turns by John Turturro (as a hostage negotiator) and James Gandolfini (as the mayor) combine with plenty of vehicular mayhem to make this a superior diversion.

The contrast between Cadigan in recovery and at his most disturbed provides an excellent antidote to romanticized and sensationalized portrayals of mental illness in Hollywood films and on TV talk shows.

The dialogue slackens after the first half hour, but the stars have some fine comic moments together, and the intimate precode encounters are pretty sexy.

Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs) gives a charismatic lead performance as Dee, a historical figure who became a folk hero, but the real attraction is Tsui's giddy imagination.

It's a good character for Dangerfield, one that veers him away from the “I don't get no respect” pathos that comes too easily to him, and enough attention is paid to the minimal plot to integrate Dangerfield's classically constructed one-liners into something like a dramatic situation. This is what they mean by “a good vehicle.”

It's a haunting portrait of a young man who, while genuinely gifted and loved by friends and family, couldn't cope with the world.

Screenwriter Mark Bomback doesn't do much with the backstory scenes linking Pine and Washington to their worried families, but the main story is gripping, flawlessly paced, and nicely grounded in operational detail.

The pace is blistering, and Wilder's deep-seated hatred of Germans has never been put to more comic use.

Fleet, gripping documentary.

But like much of Herzog's work, it's essentially apolitical, focusing on a man at war with his environment -- and no one plunges into the foliage like he does.

For a Disney movie, Holes is mercifully low in saccharine.

This thriller draws its effectiveness less from the intelligence of the direction (by Terence Young) than from the unbridled sadism of the concept: Audrey Hepburn is a blind woman in unknowing possession of a doll stuffed with pure heroin. Alone in her New York apartment, she's terrorized by a gang of thugs that includes slobbering psycho Alan Arkin and smooth-talking Richard Crenna.

I can't say that this feature by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, about the life and art of Harvey Pekar, made me want to run out and buy his comic books, but it does offer a highly interesting and original introduction to them.

This has much of the warmth and feeling for adolescence that Crowe displayed in his first feature ("Say Anything"), though the slick showboating of "Jerry Maguire" isn't entirely absent either.

Superior 2002 farce by Walsh, Roberts, and Katie Roberts, all veterans of Chicago's ImprovOlympic who went on to form the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Masterful low-budget drama.

The movie is perfectly appropriate for girls, and its opening scenes play like a more intelligent and historically grounded version of their G-rated princess dramas.

Less a biography than a diplomatic history of Britain in World War II, the movie draws a satisfying narrative arc from his extended campaign to rally President Roosevelt and the American public to Britain's defense.

The story didn't fully answer all my queries about the characters, but did such a nice job of keeping me interested that I wound up appreciating the mysteries that remained.

It may be questionable history (though the film is anything but jingoistic), but it is superb filmmaking, personal and vigorous.

We finally learn much more about Moskowitz than about Mossman, and more about Mossman than about his novel, but Moskowitz's passion for books is irresistible.

The film is full of finely observed details.

Morris argues that the photos also functioned as a cover-up: prosecution of the case centered on them, leaving free and clear many of those higher up the chain of command.

This corny and manipulative movie taxes your ability to suspend disbelief and predictably punishes characters for their hubris--earmarks of a great disaster flick, if the tone is just right.

It's easy to drift away from the story and become absorbed in Minnelli's impossibly delicate textures, but there is a little something here for everybody.

The transition from stage to screen may be bumpy in spots, but this movie is much funnier than Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc?, and the long-take shooting style is executed with fluidity and precision.

A late radical shift in tone, from jittery exuberance to ruinous alienation, strikes an impressive contemporary note amid all the obeisance to custom.

This extraordinary Italian thriller is a study in contrasts: light versus dark, youth versus maturity, the playful versus the lethal.

This engrossing documentary widens to consider the phenomenon of viral videos and the humiliation they can bring to their sometimes unsuspecting victims.

The extraordinary child actress Ana Torrent (Cria) made her debut here at the age of five. Much in the film is derivative, but Erice excels in precise evocations of childhood feelings.

The simple premise of one scene of table-turning voyeurism is brilliant.

Some have compared this French crime drama to "The Godfather," and though that may be a common critical touchstone, writer-director Jacques Audiard manages to replicate its most elusive element, not the dark comedy or the operatic bloodletting but the incremental corruption of a decent man into a willful, coldhearted killer.

It isn't easy when you're up against the likes of Reed, writer Graham Greene, and producer David O. Selznick, but Welles still manages to dominate this 1949 film, both as an actor and as a stylistic influence. What's missing is the Welles content.

The incredible adventures pile up unrelentingly, with no inflection, no downtime, and each new space is a set decorator's hallucination, as brightly colored as a candy store on acid.

They deliver a clear and compelling primer on the federal budget deficit, the trade deficit, and the personal debt crisis, all of which are driving our country toward a catastrophic financial meltdown.

I was haunted afterward by its seething rage at the malicious paternalism and sexual hypocrisy of fundamentalist Christians.

It's unclear whether this macho thriller does anything to improve the state of the world or our understanding of it, but it certainly sets off enough rockets to hold us and shake us for every one of its 99 minutes.

Many of the elements in this story about a woman who's nearly eclipsed by her overbearing mother are all too familiar, yet the combination is utterly charming.

What mainly registers is the quiet desperation and simple pleasures of ordinary midwestern lives, the fatuous ways that people cover up their emotional and intellectual gaps, and the alternating pointlessness and cuteness of human existence. This may be a masterpiece of sorts, but it left me feeling rotten.

Both lead actors are wonderful, and director Ziad Doueiri (West Beirut) artfully addresses the cultural and even spiritual dimensions of the story without losing sight of the lovers' tenderness and confusion.

A treat for balletomanes, this 2001 feature may be too precious for others.

A hokey but highly entertaining tale of corporate greed that should be especially satisfying if you're pissed off at big business.

The astronaut interviews are fun and occasionally moving, but the real reason to see this is the remastered archival footage, some of it previously unseen and all of it spectacular.

The extraordinary plateau attained by Hitchcock’s first sound film in relation to his overall development is the sum of many accomplishments: above all, a decisive mastery in moving back and forth between objective and subjective narrative modes.

This fourth installment is a complete reboot, returning to the web-slinger's creation story, and Garfield, more than any other factor, contributes to the sense of a bleaker vision along the lines of "The Dark Knight."

The one mystery Black and Eastwood can't solve is Hoover's love life - perhaps because the solution is too simple to be believed.

There isn't an ounce of flab or hype, and the story it tells is profoundly affecting.

A camp musical-comedy hoot. It comes on like an outrageous episode of "The Simpsons" or "South Park."

It's presented in such a nicely understated manner, and Ambrose turns in such a good lead performance, that it rises several notches above most of today's teen movies.

What this movie has going for itself in spite of its cloying pleas for indulgence is a playful and interesting narrative structure that precludes much development and comes to the fore only toward the end. The whole thing may drive you batty, but as with "Rushmore," the melancholy aftertaste lingers.

Juicy, adroit, and likable.

Sidney Lumet's direction, like David Mamet's patchy script (which adapts a Barry Reed novel), may not be quite good enough to justify the Rembrandt-like cinematography of Edward Pisoni and the brooding mood of self-importance, but it's good direction nonetheless; and there are plenty of supporting performances—by James Mason, Jack Warden, Milo O'Shea, Charlotte Rampling, and Lindsay Crouse, among others—to keep one distracted from Newman's dogged Oscar-pandering.

Audaciously combining conviction and childish humor, this SF thriller reminds us that the distinction between the tangible and the intangible may be frighteningly arbitrary--an idea that's made too scary ever to seem trivial, no matter how silly things get.

Initially this seems naive and archaic, but it conceals a Buñuelian stinger in its tail.

Leftist propaganda of a very high order, powerful and intelligent even when the film registers in spots as naive or dated.

Woody Allen's bad movies often seem to be taking place in some kind of upper-class fantasy world, which may be the reason I find this upfront fantasy to be his funniest, most agreeable comedy in years.

This comic fantasy is the best vehicle he's (Sandler) ever had, a high-concept goof that gradually darkens into an emotional nightmare reminiscent of Capra.

Very competently mounted and acted (there are also juicy parts for Judy Davis, Tony Shalhoub, and Jon Polito), this is basically a midnight-movie gross-out in Sunday-afternoon art-house clothing--an intriguing novelty that revels in effect while oozing with cryptic signifiers.

Despite its ponderous, funereal moods and pacing, the film is a highly accomplished piece of storytelling, building to one of the most suspenseful duels ever staged. It also repays close attention as a complex and fascinating historical meditation, as enigmatic in its way as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kerrigan returns with his best work to date, at least in terms of narrative drive and suspense.

Joe Johnston - returning to the vibe of his first directorial effort, "The Rocketeer" (1991) - creates a fun retro-futurist environment with a World War II setting, and he has the discernment not to let the effects overwhelm the story.

Scary and exciting.

Funny? This one is. It's also sweet and thoughtful.

Cuesta directs the lead actors with such feeling that their misery seems authentic.

Without becoming manipulative, sensational, or trite, the movie lets us know what became of the animals -- many dogs and one stowaway cat -- on the ill-fated ship.

Allen's movies specialize in contemplating the notion that money can somehow remove vulgarity or produce gentility. Small Time Crooks may conclude quite conventionally that money can't buy you everything, but most of it flirts even more conventionally with the opposite premise.

Herzog's wrenching interviews with the victims' relatives, may not turn anyone against capital punishment, but they're gripping nonetheless. Incidentally, the spiritual inquiry Herzog aims for here has already been rendered onscreen, in Steve James and Peter Gilbert's powerful documentary "At the Death House Door" (2008).

A first-rate thriller, maintaining a high level of suspense.

The plot is standard fantasy-adventure pulp, though director Joe Dante (Gremlins, Explorers) has so many screwball things going on in it that the comedy all but overwhelms the formulaic line of action.

This slam-bang remake of a 1963 feature by Eichi Kudo builds slowly, accumulating characters and themes, then explodes into a prolonged and masterful battle sequence inside a deserted town.

Ultimately this is a film of rare and pleasing smoothness—Hollywood as it was meant to be.

A delicious bit of Americana (1941) by Raoul Walsh, capturing superbly the 1890s ambience of Walsh’s own early years.

Like many other comedies about serious matters, 50/50 grows more dramatic in its second half. What really impressed me, though, was how easily Reiser could pivot back to comedy at a moment's notice without seeming cheap.

Rivers comes across as a consummate professional but also a genuine person, ruthlessly honest about her life decisions and utterly devoid of self-pity.

The players and their stories are as wonderful as the music, and the filmmaking is uncommonly sensitive and alert.

Proves again that the best documentaries currently outshine Hollywood features as the most watchable, energizing, and relevant movies around.

The performances are solid: pulling inward in every scene, Phoenix taps into the New York loneliness that defined Paddy Chayefsky's Marty, and Rossellini is excellent as the worried mother, who doesn't have much to say but watches her beloved boy like a cat.

One of Sidney Lumet's best jobs of directing and one of Al Pacino's best performances (as a bisexual bank robber) come together in a populist thriller with lots of New York juice. Its details are stronger than its structure—the film loses some of its energy before the end—but it's an astonishing fusion of suspense and character, powered by superior ensemble acting.

Eastwood essentially uses the Lady Chablis the same way he did a few extended Charlie Parker solos in Bird--as unbridled, inventive improvisations that challenge the well-rehearsed "head" arrangements of everyone else.

May have some of the trappings of an exotic thriller, but it's basically a character study.

Has its faults, but it's Barbet Schroeder's most relevant and interesting film in over a decade.

Viewers hoping for new revelations will have to be content with learning that Hitler suffered from severe stomach problems. Yet there's much more here than a trickle of unsatisfying tidbits.

Gutsy romance-drama that breaks a cardinal rule of storytelling and pop psychology: its iconic lovers aren't forced by a tragedy to learn that they shouldn't depend on each other to feel whole.

Fascinating oddity.

This is a powerful and persuasive look at an ethnic community and what makes it tick.

Illuminating with their energy and wit.

This is a drama of shifting values and compromised ideals, arriving at a view of life that's wise, complicated, and tinged with melancholy.

The film tends to groan under the weight of his obsessions -- and his sister's fixation on circumcising her son -- yet for much of the 95-minute running time the chemistry between Attal's vulnerable husband and Gainsbourg's sweet, beguiling wife is irresistible. The terrific score is by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.

Into this cauldron walks the title character, a gentle Algerian refugee with his own history of terrible loss, and as he tries to take over the dead woman's class, his rocky relationship with the kids pushes both him and them to new levels of empathy, understanding, and forgiveness.

The virtues on display are very much those of the heroine: generosity, imagination, charm, and the capacity to keep an audience mesmerized with a good story.

Despite some signs of muddle and uncertainty, this is a surprisingly strong picture about a convict (Hoffman) on parole in LA learning what the supposedly “normal” world is all about.

This beautifully understated feature (2004) revolves around sex, but it's neither erotic nor puritanical; its young characters are governed by their urges, but the experience itself seems as neutral and mysterious as sleep.

Their gross-out humor is basically sweet tempered, for all its tweaking of PC attitudes, and though this film looks slapdash, its script (by the Farrellys, Ed Decter, and John J. Strauss) is surprisingly well put together.

Even in its sanitized state, this movie about the generational revolt that reinvigorated Disney’s animation department in the 1980s and ’90s is fascinating, thick with studio intrigue and lavishly illustrated with archival sketches and test animations.

Despite the predictable mix of humor, musical numbers, and celebrity cameos (Art Carney, Liza Minnelli, Gregory Hines, Joan Rivers, etc), the movie is breezily fun and every bit as entertaining as its predecessors.

A more visually conscious stylist than most Italian commercial directors of the period, Lattuada remains largely unknown in the U.S., though in Europe he's been touted as the great eclectic talent of the postwar Italian cinema.