Like Costa-Gavras's "Amen." (2002), this German drama uses a true story to examine the Catholic church's response to the Holocaust, but it focuses less on institutional politics than on personal conscience and responsibility.

Writer-director Richard Brooks had a flair for sensationalism, and his adaptation of Evan Hunter's novel is loads of fun as a consequence, but don't expect much analysis or insight.

Peter Cushing carries most of the ho-hum script as Dr. Van Helsing, though the well-lit color photography, central to the Hammer formula, can't compare with the shadowy magnificence of Nosferatu (1922) or Dracula (1931).

Some of the editing has a giddy, overeager quality, the natural excess of a young prodigy, but when the action and the tempo align, the results are exhilarating: an early brawl in a pool hall fairly leaps off the screen.

Clooney directed with an actor's appetite for vivid star turns, and he certainly gets them from Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Paul Giamatti.

Partly because the seducer's technique is methodical--as a former conquest explains to the naive heroine--the movie's answers are too easy.

Given all the filmed memory pieces about screaming, violent Italian-American families in New York boroughs, I'm not especially thrilled by even a well-made example.

The social criticism is as unforced as the humor (and the references to "The Conversation") in this 1998 conspiracy thriller, whose spirited action is balanced by an almost contemplative attitude toward surveillance phobias and the movie cliches they've spawned.

Unfortunately their story ends just as it becomes most provocative.

Blends extremes of violence and humor to create an irreverent tone that nullifies everything; the plot is so clever it crushes the characterization, making all the action seem perfunctory.

Engrossing documentary.

A heart-wrenching performance from Brenda Blethyn sustains this 2009 drama by French writer-director Rachid Bouchareb.

Documentary maker Edmon Roch spins a zippy yarn of Pujol's improbable exploits from archival footage, talking heads, and clips from classic espionage dramas.

It’s a funny film, and it’s even charming in a shaggy way, but there isn’t a light moment in it—Cassavetes demands that comedy be played as passionately as drama.

Huston's performance is spellbinding. And the naturally lit digital cinematography (by Rose and Ron Forsythe) is both poetic and harrowingly intimate in depicting Ivan's impending death.

An engaging look at what baseball might have been like in the era before big money, with players who love the game struggling to survive.

The movie never finds a consistent tone -- the humor is dynamically offbeat, the dramatic moments a bit canned -- but Braff's affection for his misfit characters and skeptical take on how people sell themselves short in America make this the truest generational statement I've seen since "Donnie Darko."

This nuanced coming-of-age drama by Cao Hamburger exudes warmth without getting mired in nostalgia.

Jonathan Demme's debut film is campy, choppy, and generally immature, though his bonding themes are fitfully discernible amid the cartoonish action.

Krause is completely believeable as the solid old man, and though the story moves slower than molasses, it leaves the same dark aftertaste.

This documentary tells this story reasonably well, though one might question whether director Eric Bricker's jazzy montages, collages, and rapid camera movements are appropriate to the contemplation of still photographs.

It's easy to pick this emotional bunny rabbit apart—for the sentimental bathos, the literalism, the radiating wholesomeness (everything David Lynch parodied in Blue Velvet, down to the impeccable small-town streets and flowers framed against a screaming blue sky . . . only Castle gives it to you straight, without irony)—though what's remarkable here, and altogether rare, is the artifice and polish of Castle's studio-rooted style.

Directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (Lost in La Mancha) are too preoccupied with hip cleverness to have much else on their minds, and the music is so-so.

In Private Parts Stern is clearly presenting a sanitized version of his story--he had control over every aspect of the film and vetoed more than half a dozen scripts before choosing the one that pleased him--in an attempt to reach a whole new level of stardom.

If your taste runs in this direction, you're bound to be amused.

The plot of this 1995 romantic comedy, directed by Jon Turteltaub ("Cool Runnings") from a script by Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric Lebow, is pretty stupid throughout, and the filmmakers show no compunction in shaking its silliness in your face, but the film's casual warmth may make you tolerate some of the shortcomings.

What emerges is a powerhouse thriller full of surprises, original touches, and rare political lucidity, including an impressive performance by Jeff Goldblum as a Jewish yuppie gangster.

If you care whom she winds up with or why, you probably caught more of the TV references than I did.

It's soon apparent that a closer model for this charming romantic comedy is "Bell, Book and Candle." The direction by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball) is so fluffy it's easy to drift along and ignore the logical lapses.

I enjoyed quite a bit of it, in large part because of the energy and charisma of Jennifer Lopez in the title role.

The maternal triangle is pretty well handled too, giving a good sense of where Lennon came by all that exuberance and melancholy.

Flawless comic timing and vivid imagination power this rollicking sequel to "Jumanji."

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.

Not even supercool Robert De Niro can enliven this boring tale about a team of mercenary operatives.

Not having read the Richler novel, I can't comment on the movie's fidelity to it, but this has the overstuffed feel of a sprawling, life-spanning story that's been wrestled down to feature length.

The final showdown, in which the critters tangle with security-rigged lawn flamingos and garden gnomes, would have made Rube Goldberg proud.

His story demands to be heard, though Tucker and Epperlein lack the material for a full feature and pad this out to 73 minutes with some incongruously playful elements (spy music, comic-book illustrations, scenes of Abbas frolicking at a beach).

Clooney badly botches the spy plot by casting himself as Barris's agency contact... and a truly awful Julia Roberts as Barris's Mata Hari lover (she's soundly upstaged by Drew Barrymore as his devoted girlfriend). Yet the mounting delirium drives home Kaufman's basic point: that a shadow government rules by bread and circuses.

This British drama is so overplotted it smothers the two main characters as much as they do each other.

The filmmakers aren't exactly cruel, but they focus on compulsion rather than passion, which by implication tends to tarnish the more intellectual and scholarly members of the breed.

Apart from a certain implausibility in the film's initial premise, this is a first-rate entertainment that captures Le Carre's jaundiced if morally sensitive vision with a great deal of care and feeling.

Missing is most of Tarkovsky's contemplative and mystical poetry (which is why it's 90 minutes shorter), and added are some unfortunate Hollywood-style designer flashbacks -- The story is still strong and haunting, but I'd recommend seeing this, if at all, only after the Tarkovsky.

What Brooks manages to do with them as they struggle mightily to connect with one another is funny, painful, beautiful, and basically truthful--a triumph for everyone involved.

Run-of-the mill drama.

This exercise in mainstream masochism, macho posturing, and designer-grunge fascism is borderline ridiculous. But it also happens to be David Fincher's richest movie.

Kitano is clearly enjoying his powers as a master of the form, and the movie invites the viewer to share in his enjoyment.

Captures the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius, and great artist at work as he creates and perfects his final show.

This elliptical, poetic movie is filled with yearning, humor, and warmth.

Fans of Coppola's movies (and/or perfume ads) will find this free of the absurd pop-rock flourishes in "Antoinette" and more consistent with the skilled tonality and narrative ambiguity of "Translation."

Quaid's buoyant earnestness complements the stunning, low-key performance by Caviezel, whose close-ups give new meaning to the idea that still waters run deep.

Chris Smith, codirector of the indie sleeper "American Movie," dreamed up this funny one-hour documentary, about five freaky homes and the people who live in them.

This premise may sound all right on paper, but on-screen it doesn't really wash: if the girl had been half as committed to music as she now is to revenge, she would have overcome her disappointment.

Dumont is much more confident when he sticks to the title town and the young woman the men left behind; his habit of alternating close shots with extreme long shots and his singularly unsentimental way of showing sex are as distinctive as ever.

The unvarnished quality of some of the acting limits this effort in spots, but the quirky originality of the story, characters, and filmmaking keeps one alert and curious.

This is worth seeing, but only if you think you can tolerate the precious voice-over narration from the couple's wounded cat, delivered by July in a high, scratchy voice.

North Face also deals with actual events, offering plenty of thrills and spectacular vistas.

John Zorn wrote the percussive score, which is compelling throughout.

Despite the title, this is less a soccer documentary than a corporate hagiography along the lines of "The Last Mogul" or "The Kid Stays in the Picture"; its real hero isn't Cosmos star Pele (who wisely declined to be interviewed), but Steve Ross, CEO of Warner Communications, which owned the team.

Engrossing and frequently hilarious.

Parts of it are colorful and imaginative, but the film flattens out toward the end.

It's gripping and provocative, making effective use of Charles Berling and the music of Sonic Youth, though I wish it were a little less indebted to David Cronenberg's "Videodrome."

Norman Jewison's literal-mindedness actually helps squeeze some of the goo from the material.

2005 French feature by the highly uneven Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool, Under the Sand), who doesn't have much to say about his subject that's fresh.

Making Shakur the narrator works pretty well at first...But once he becomes an overnight star at age 20, his relentless self-articulation to Tabitha Soren begins to sound like the usual white noise of celebrity, his ideas about race and power in America potent but undeveloped.

Writer-director James Toback must believe his audience is hopelessly prudish if he thinks this pedantic story, which takes place over several hours in a Manhattan loft, is provocative.

The witty title aside, this is a miserably dull exercise in stingy-Jew humor and post-Jarmusch nonreaction.

This smart and rocking video documentary by Tim Irwin follows the trio from its origins in suburban San Pedro, California, in 1979 to the death of singer-guitarist D. Boon in a 1985 car crash, which ended his deep and creatively fruitful friendship with bassist Mike Watt.

It's not very special, but it's nice to see a Disney film that follows the rules of the family-film genre as Walt laid them down, rather than trying to emulate Spielberg's empty, high-tech grandiosity.

I don't question the legitimacy of celebrating the courage of these individuals and their families, and I can even tolerate the hokey nostalgia for World War II epics. But I'm troubled that the filmmakers have elided so much else of what happened on that day, as if it were some kind of neutral backdrop.

Comes to the comforting conclusion that they're just as alienated, idealistic, and vulnerable as the baby boomers of the 1960s.

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.

Anticapitalist propaganda that persuades and uplifts is in short supply these days.

Director Daniel Alfredson grounds the mystery in a real sense of place: his Stockholm looks and feels like a major city where corruption lurks behind attractive facades. The reporter character is better developed than in the first movie, but most of the supporting characters from the book have been shrunk to little more than walk-ons.

Effective advocacy film about the genocide in Darfur.

Redford's inability to suggest any irony about himself finally sinks it—it's the only sanctimonious satire you'll ever see.

I don't care for Benjamin's way of using death to validate his sentimental themes, but at this point any American movie that can get past the "I love you”s without audience snickers has to be counted a success.

Jennings's film, with its missing fathers, sometimes threatens to become cloying, but it's almost always righted by a healthy dose of slapstick or the spectacle of little kids posing as muscle-bound killers.

A missed opportunity, though as usual Quaid is dazzling.

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

Films that address faith and love as eloquently as this moving 2008 documentary are rare.

Effective portrait of an independent woman with a troubled and unstable sense of herself.

Less about the characters than about the first two movies, whose best scenes it congeals into ritual or parody.

One keeps waiting for the title characters' lives to intersect, but when they finally do--with a reporter asking Powell to comment on Child's disparaging remarks about her--Ephron scurries away from the moment and its implications.

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.

"Cut" is the most interesting of the three shorts because Park uses the opportunity to take stock of his career and the excruciating cruelty of his movies.

Richard Fleischer’s professional efficiency tarts up a bit with dated 60s flashiness (multiple images, etc) and semidocumentary pretense in this 1968 feature about Boston sex murderer Albert De Salvo (Tony Curtis), brought to justice at last by police inspector Henry Fonda.

Frank De Felitta wrote and directed this feeble but well-stuffed comedy; Alan Arkin and Emily Morton are wasted in cameos as Garcia's drama coach and acting buddy, respectively.

In the end I didn't believe in their relationship, but I was pleased to see Keaton tearing it up for two hours.

Steven Sebring spent a decade making this documentary about the punk poet, and it shows.

A modest success that makes one wish Soderbergh could find some happy middle ground between funky experiments and "Ocean's Eleven."

Carpenter creates a vision of the technological future that is both disillusioned and oddly affirmative in its insistence on the unscientific survival of emotional frailty.

Diary of the Dead features some of the most hilariously gross images since "Dawn of the Dead." In one online video the filmmakers find, a father playfully pulls off a birthday clown’s red rubber nose and the guy’s real nose comes off with it.

It's a devastating portrait of self-deceiving obsession, and a notable improvement on Viertel's book in terms of economy and focus.

Gripping drama.

The double crosses are so intricate and the cynicism so enveloping that it becomes increasingly difficult to care about the characters

This is why movies were invented.

The film is fairly formulaic, though some of its puns and wisecracks are hilarious, especially those delivered by the Littles' lazy and cynical Persian cat (Nathan Lane).

The inventive performances -- keep this story interesting in spite of its puritanical framework.