Yu's portrait of Darger, which clocks in at 82 minutes, skims over the only aspect of his life that commands respect: his craft.

The drama is hampered by a vague screenplay that takes its sweet time explaining the characters' past and never specifies the nature of the boy's palsy and apparent retardation.

Lots can be said for The Aviator as entertainment, though not much for it as edification.

Episodic but entertaining fantasy.

Brooks has an uncanny talent for making us feel insightful.

The old-fashioned theme of disaster as an existential test of character still works.

As long as Spacey is singing, the movie soars.

A film about freedom as well as death, this won't suit every taste, but it rewards close attention and has moments of saving humor.

The stand-up performance is still that of the mom--Sigourney Weaver, making the most of the meatiest part she's had in years

Haggis's dialogue is worthy of Hemingway, and the three leads border on perfection.

All I got was this lousy movie. OK, it's not that bad, though in contrast to "Ocean's Eleven," which gave its megastars a neat little heist story, this sequel is both contrived and convoluted.

Noah Baumbach collaborated on the arch script, whose bittersweet weirdness leaves a residue even as the narrative disintegrates.

The overall mood is stately and melancholy, the selective use of color is ravishing, and some of the natural views are breathtaking.

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

Awkward storytelling and spotty exposition reduce it to a string of rude shocks--not even the eventual denouement provides a lucid enough account of where this is all coming from.

The only one who seems to be having much fun is Parker Posey, camping it up as one of the vampires.

The children are not exactly reporters -- they bring back no shattering images of sexual servitude -- but their photography, like much children's art, is fresh and sometimes startling.

The actors are brilliant, the dialogue extremely clever, and the direction assured. But by the end I couldn't have cared less about any of the characters.

Zhang weaves in both thrilling martial-arts set pieces and stunning studies of period silk tapestry and costume.

Gorgeous high-definition digital photography adds to the rapture; the museum resembles a cavernous magic lantern with its seductive plays of light and shadow.

The film's relaxed pace, unassuming tone, and respect for its characters all recall the films of Abbas Kiarostami, who provided the story idea, but director Ali Reza Raisian adds a slightly more dramatic and emotional edge.

An engrossing tale of ego, strategy, and the limits of human intelligence.

Unfortunately writer-director Paul Feig has a weakness for artiness in general and hokey art movies in particular, and the overall sluggishness of this 2003 adaptation starring Ben Tibber makes such devices as slow-motion seem like mannered rhetoric.

The ghoulish tone and Mikkelsen's glassy performance smother any laughs.

A comprehensive and devastating critique of the TV news networks' complacency and complicity in the war on Iraq.

Engrossing documentary.

Fedja van Huet gives a fascinating performance as two very different twin brothers.

Sacrifices compelling drama for gratuitous whimsy and big-budget spectacle.

Provocative documentary.

Dark and challenging.

The players deftly balance flip caricature with a surprisingly moving depiction of those trapped in the celluloid closet.

Despite a three-hour running time Stone is too occupied with psychodrama to explore Alexander's innovations in battle, and Farrell, clearly out of his depth, seems less a leader of men than a Hellenistic James Dean.

In any normal year this dire comedy would be the undisputed lump of coal in our psychic stocking, but with "Surviving Christmas" still in theaters it's a close second.

For one of the first times in his career Jean-Luc Godard has elected not to hector and harass his audience, and it seems to have paid off.

It's a story worth telling, though once the participants and the filmmakers start basking in their virtue, the material begins to feel overextended.

It runs like a Swiss watch, though the plot continuously turns on Cage's liberal interpretation of ridiculously cryptic clues.

Washes onto the big screen with a tide of weak one-liners, exaggerated reactions, and vaguely nauseating gags.

If you're a fan of professional bad boy and Spanish gender bender Pedro Almodovar, far be it from me to dissuade you from enjoying this elaborate Chinese-box narrative, which boasts an especially resourceful performance by Gael Garcia Bernal.

Fascinating oddity.

The first positive portrayal of homosexuality in Russian cinema, a distinction that carries it only so far.

Wong Kar-wai's idiosyncratic style first became apparent in this gorgeously moody second feature.

Director Chad Friedrichs works around Jandek's never having revealed his identity by interpolating shots of the PO box and rocks on the beach with the talking heads of fans, critics, and journalists, and lots of Jandek's wistful, haunting music.

It's silly adolescent stuff, but director Brett Ratner and screenwriters Paul Zbyszewski and Craig Rosenberg serve it up gracefully.

Rudely funny splatter comedy.

The plays and amusements the boys put on--by far the most successfully magical scenes in the movie--inspire Barrie to create his great work, "Peter Pan."

Carefully re-creates the first movie's lightweight romance and mildly cheeky gender comedy.

Apart from some unexaggerated notations about American puritanism in the 1940s and '50s, this is more a work of exploration than a thesis, and Condon mainly avoids sensationalism.

An alternately comic and macabre portrait of a deranged friendship.

Miller and coscreenwriter Julien Boivent have a gift for aphoristic, if glib, dialogue, and Nicole Garcia and Ludivine Sagnier do their best to flesh out hopelessly one-dimensional characters.

This ensemble drama by screenwriter David Hubbard isn't perfect, but its harsh honesty and sincere faith in humanity make it genuinely uplifting.

The story offers lessons in faith and self-esteem; the darker passages of the child's journey are countered by shimmering, cascading beacons of light; and fine period detail adds to the nostalgic glow.

In a tale filled with perverse twists of fate, the most perverse may be that Overnight, not "The Boondock Saints," is Troy Duffy's masterpiece.

More concerned with attitude than character and too moralistic to be much fun.

Bear Cub casually pulls off an amazing feat--combining innocent childhood nostalgia and graphic sexuality.

Ardant embodies the diva's dazzling blend of glamour, hauteur, and vulnerability, and despite a faintly campy script by Martin Sherman, Zeffirelli captures the artistic imperative that drives both characters-and deepens their loneliness.

With its black-and-white flashbacks and relentlessly earnest tone, this sometimes threatens to become a PBS documentary, yet its script is exceptionally fluid, tracing the tributaries of art, race, and sexuality that feed one's sense of self.

Expect nothing but pure showbiz and you won't be disappointed.

Bay Area filmmaker Jon Moritsugu (Fame Whore, Mod Fuck Explosion) is known for his angry, manic energy, but the characters in this video, denizens of the San Francisco art fringe, seem like they're heavily sedated.

The fun hardens into Fun after he's (Mr. Incredible) lured out of retirement and imprisoned in a remote island compound, though the sleek computer animation is spellbinding as usual.

Differs from other authorized Hollywood musical biopics in one striking detail: its subject, still alive when most of this was made, is almost never shown as a likable person.

Sicko horror film from Australia, whose sadism is topped only by its absurdity.

In this eerily tranquil psychological thriller, Nicole Kidman's placid countenance is like a Rorschach: you'll project onto it what you want to see.

Director Roger Michell seems genuinely taken with the contrast between brotherly love and homosexual obsession, but these themes are overwhelmed by the suspense machinery.

This is both melodramatic and overly tidy in its plotting, but its odd personal relationships are utterly believable.

Payne's entertaining but familiar comedy lacks the insolence of his "Election" and the freshness of his work with Kathy Bates in "About Schmidt."

Most of the chills have been faithfully re-created, though first-time screenwriter Stephen Susco hasn't done much to straighten out the muddled narrative.

Another go-round for the premise of an overaged kid insinuating himself into a stranger's family.

You'd have to be a real curmudgeon not to enjoy a show with Ruth Brown, Mavis Staples, Solomon Burke...

Here his (Bale's) physicality is repellent, yet he carries the occasionally creaky plot of Scott Kosar's unsettling screenplay to a resonant finish.

Despite a few narrative confusions, I found it pure magic.

Seriously gruesome docudrama.

The movie's studied tranquillity will appeal to some, though its embrace of traditional village life struck me as self-satisfied to the point of smugness.

A masterful documentary, one of the most unsettling discussions of Vietnam and its aftermath ever to appear in any medium.

So perversely enjoyable it gives the lie to her (Breillat's) image as a serious, politically incorrect purveyor of pornographic instincts.

This is hysterically funny in parts, but most of the laughs are raunchy or scatological--always a sure bet when puppets are involved.

Manages to transplant the action to Chicago without completely ruining it, though the emotional impact is largely deflated by the change in cultures.

Witty, satisfying, and a terrific showcase for the radiant Bening.

Even the always radiant Linney can't save this misbegotten film.

This is a masterwork by Ousmane Sembene, the 81-year-old father of African cinema and one of Senegal's greatest novelists.

There's an uplifting message about heroism, dispensed in dialogue so familiar you can practically lip=synch it.

Naim's premise has possibilities, but its execution often feels slapdash -- the viewer's sense of deja vu may be even more excessive than the characters'.

This film doesn't really clear the bar, but it's handsomely mounted and proves that heartless manipulation of the weak and gullible never goes out of style.

Much of the film's potency derives from its personal edge -- the passion for precise period decor, the title dedicating the film to Leigh's parents (a doctor and midwife), and even the childlike classification of many characters as either good souls or villains.

Captures all the action of a tumultuous season while showing the emotional toll on the players.

This teen romance doesn't have a single authentic moment.

In contrast to the clueless media cliches about suicide bombers, this offers a comprehensive and comprehending portrait of what helps to produce them.

Roberts never surmounts the cracker-barrel contrivance of the plot, but his low-key humor, clear affection for the characters, and strong cast are enough to put this gentle drama across.

A half-baked conspiracy subplot in the last third makes Carruth's knotty narrative even harder to follow, but this is still scary, puzzling, and different.

A highly entertaining form of ecological agitprop--radical but accessible.

The movie's sexual politics couldn't be more regressive--Crudup learns to be a man in the sack as well as on the boards--but it's still a competent middlebrow costume drama.

The songs are shrill and cloying (if mercifully forgettable), the choreography is embarrassing, and the comedy sets a new global standard for puerility--and not in a fun way.

I expected this to be much funnier: Latifah coasts on her charm and Fallon seems incapable of playing an actual character.

It's something of a masterpiece: a confessional experimental documentary with echoes, both conscious and unconscious, of filmmakers from Andy Warhol to John Cassavetes, Stan Brakhage to David Lynch.

This drama about Baltimore firefighters makes a serious effort to honor the sacrifices of professional rescue workers, but blasts of hokum keep threatening to collapse the building.

This dazzling CGI feature by DreamWorks Animation appropriates the vivid undersea psychedelia of "Finding Nemo," though in contrast to that movie, the father-son parable here is just an excuse to burlesque "The Godfather" for the 100th time.

A philosophical comedy about man's place in a universe colonized by Targets and Wal-Marts.

The video is narrated by Taylor, who magnanimously presents Newcombe as a Byronic hero, but ultimately proves that the pursuit of success and the pursuit of cool can be equally pointless.

The most powerful and telling image is a black-and-white still of Kerry burying his face in his arms after he threw his ribbons onto the Capitol steps; it's a moment true enough to cost him the presidency.