Thanks to a remarkable script by Bruce Joel Rubin and the directorial skills of Adrian Lyne, this works as both a highly effective stream-of-consciousness puzzle thriller offering the viewer not one but many "solutions" and an emotionally persuasive statement about the plight of many American vets who fought in Vietnam.

A caustic satire masquerading as an action-adventure. Or maybe it's Hollywood escapism masquerading as satire.

It’s a story that seems made for stage magic–which means that without a stage it’s clearly out of its element.

Jarmusch has said that the film's odd, generally slow rhythm -- hypnotic if you're captivated by it, as I am, and probably unendurable if you're not--was influenced by classical Japanese period movies by Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa.

With its American, English, and French characters representing the three cultures Polanski has known since he left Poland, it's also quite possibly his most personal film—and certainly his most self-critical.

Stunning vistas of New Zealand's rolling countryside aren't enough to carry this lame 2006 horror spoof.

Wyatt Cenac, the latest addition to "The Daily Show" With Jon Stewart, is the best reason to see this easygoing romantic comedy.

Engrossing.

A romantic comedy with precious little romance and even less comedy.

The film never strays much beyond the obvious, despite a conscientious effort by Tim Robbins to humanize a white security officer.

Solid formula comedy.

The film is music from beginning to end, and nearly every note of it is magical.

Lots of men cry lots of tears in this supremely self-indulgent, supremely moving documentary about making a documentary.

Favreau, who also plays the long-suffering Bobby, mixes elements of drama into this appropriately annoying comedy.

The ingenious if erratic slickness is disorienting and makes the movie more like drama than journalism.

Predictably adolescent and smarmy, with the mix of sentimentality and cynical flippancy that's becoming Steven Soderbergh's specialty (even when he's pretending to make art films), this is chewing gum for the eyes and ears, and not bad as such.

Graham Greene's impeccably plotted spy story serves Preminger's personal aims with a minimum of modification, as the film develops themes of loneliness, debilitation, and obsessive security—all centered on the tragic survival of moral feeling in a world drained by reason.

This is scandal-mongering fun that also lays bare the deforming power of the male aristocracy.

The European actors (especially Sartor) give commendably realistic performances, but the film suffers from an episodic script, which contributes to the sense of anticlimax when the battle finally arrives.

Camara and Peña are perfectly cast as the bewildered couple, and early on Berger gets some laughs from the one-note premise. But the material grows increasingly stale as the film drags on to its unintentionally creepy finale.

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.

Wolfgang Petersen and writer Andrew Marlowe, apparently afraid to really make fun of any American icons, challenge us to take the story straight no matter what, but the only thing this ponderous movie has going for it is its unintentional humor.

This French comedy fondly lampoons both the popular French spy movies adapted from Jean Bruce's novels in the 1950s and '60s and the colonialist era they were set in.

George is suitably adorable, wreaking the kind of havoc that gives tykes a guilty thrill. Yet the movie concludes with the specious moral that reading is inferior to experiencing life firsthand.

If you like the early work of David Lynch you should definitely check this out; Maddin's films are every bit as beautiful and in certain respects a lot more sophisticated.

Denzel Washington's directorial debut reminds me of a 60s British movie called "The Mark": it's liberal minded, heartwarming, sincere, and consequently somewhat old-fashioned and stodgy.

The makers of this eclectically animated adventure, a follow-up to "The Rugrats Movie," know their audience, though all the "Godfather" references will be thoroughly puzzling to at least half of it.

The movie can't explain as much as it wants to about what makes (and unmakes) a skinhead, but it carries us a fair distance.

With the jokes coming about one per second, you're bound to find something to laugh at. I found myself laughing a lot--even as I began to feel the whole thing wearing thin.

Grim, phantasmagoric view of recent and not-so-recent Russian history.

The movie does a pretty good job with period ambience. But it's a long haul waiting for the hero to keel over.

Slightly above average 50s science fiction (1958), enlivened by a nearly literate script by James Clavell (Shogun).

Despite the resourcefulness of the two leads, the movie finally registers as much ado about very little.

Director-cowriter Nathan Adloff displays real sensitivity toward the central characters, yet he hasn't crafted a story in which his observations might carry any weight.

Paul Newman in his first ascendancy, as the favorite antihero of the Kennedy era. Martin Ritt directed, putting a little too much dust in the dust bowl for my taste.

Befitting her subjects, director Leanne Pooley maintains a joyful tone throughout.

Drawn to these fumbling kids, Hurt gradually opens up about his one great, tragic love (Maria Bello), but any catharsis is circumvented by his floundering costars and their risibly cornpone dialogue.

Humorous touches add warmth without being cloying, but Mullan carries the film with his intelligence and rugged intensity: images of his barrel-chested physique against the craggy shore resound on such an elemental level as to be almost spiritual.

Hal Ashby's 1972 cult film may be simpleminded, but it's fairly inoffensive, at least until Ashby lingers over the concentration-camp serial number tattooed on Gordon's arm. Some things are beyond the reach of whimsy.

After decades of revisionist westerns, this drama by TV veteran David Von Ancken is impressive for its stubborn classicism.

Although most of the elements are familiar and virtually all of the characters are unpleasant, this is a better than average melodrama--mainly because of the volcanic power of Kathy Bates in the title role.

The humor loses momentum as the cleric shuns her advances, and the action grows frenetic following the arrival of his twin brother, a macho general.

Made-for-TV eyewash for disheartened Bears fans to drown their sorrows in.

This 1958 feature is thin stuff, seriously intended but not involving.

This French biopic of Nicolas Sarkozy plays like a competent TV miniseries, moving briskly and focusing on the hustle and bustle of electoral politics as the protagonist climbs toward the presidency.

The dialogue reproduces infantile idiom even as it parodies the baby talk of adults, and a touching, didactic scene involving a baby blanket that’s become the object of sibling rivalry may appeal to a broad age range: it’s as strikingly elegant as it is obvious in its use of metaphor.

Dark fantasy triumphs in this gorgeously animated surrealist adventure.

Not even D.W. Griffith, Steven Spielberg, and Stanley Kubrick working together could succeed in making this pandering piece of nonsense work dramatically on any level except the most egregiously phony.

Superlative documentary by Christian Charles delves into the world of stand-up with a seriousness and attention to detail matched only by Phil Berger's book "The Last Laugh."

Episodic but entertaining fantasy.

The leads are good, and Timothy Hutton is memorably off-putting as the pitcher's disengaged dad. But having created the aching umpire, Ponsoldt occupies him with some fairly shopworn situations.

Despite the sudsy, overlit look of William A. Fraker's cinematography and Downey's varying success with sight gags, this is still a lot of fun. An additional kicker is provided by the picture's crazed doublethink morality, which implies that incest is OK as long as you've got amnesia.

Ponderous, predictable, and unfunny, this gangster comedy was directed by Brian De Palma, though apart from a few of his characteristic symmetry gags in the opening sequences, it's indistinguishable from the work of any average TV hack.

In a novel twist, the movie's dumbest element--joke commercials for racist consumer products--turns out to be the most provocative when end titles reveal the products were all real.

This runs a close second to September as his worst feature to date--marginally more bearable only because it's a comedy and a couple of gags are reasonably funny.

Virtually unendurable.

The emotions are as gritty as the Edinburgh locales, and the sex is dark, urgent, and deeply selfish.

While his film certainly has the nastiness of satire, it doesn't have much political focus; petty malice rather than anger is the main bill of fare, with deep-dish notations about food and sex thrown in for spice.

The martial arts choreography is neither graceful nor exciting--it's worthy of a video game. Only after cars, trucks, and a motorcycle join the action--easily outclassing all the actors--does the movie take on a modicum of vitality.

It certainly fulfills all the conventions of the genre: sci-fi premise, noir stylings, martial arts, snarky dialogue.

MacFarlane gets an impressive amount of comic mileage from having a plush toy talk like a Boston low-life, though for gut laughs nothing compares to the brutal, frantic, and completely wordless fight scene between Wahlberg and his little buddy in a cheap hotel room.

The usual Spielberg rhetoric about the sanctity of childhood and the beauty of dreams seems wholly factitious in this crass context, which even includes a commercial--in the form of a rock video--for the tie-in merchandise.

The most daring aspect of the film, fully realized in Bello's grave performance, may be the notion that a parent can invest endless love in a child and one day find him unfathomable.

A raw, wickedly clever comedy that also includes moments of genuine terror.

Director James Watkins (Eden Lake) treats the material with surprising reverence, generating good clean scares from atmosphere and character revelations rather than shock editing or gore.

Jonathan Winters voices Santa with no edge whatsover, while Ben Stein deadpans a droll tour guide.

This early-1900s costume drama surely differs from Henry James's source novel.

Yet another unironic war movie.

It's been a long time since I've seen a teen movie as lively, as unpredictable, as generous, and as tough-minded as this one.

Keeps building to apocalyptic climaxes that never materialize. (Review of Original Release)

Somehow Christie’s talent shines through this muck, and Laurence Harvey gets to do an entertaining George Sanders impression as the leader of the revels.

Austere and formally complex, the drama may nevertheless be Ozon's most accessible film due to the physical attractiveness and vitality of the intelligent couple.

Edel's stylized mise en scene purposefully frames and distances much of the action; but despite his obvious sincerity and goodwill, and the intrinsic interest of a very European handling of an American subject, the movie's bleakness and despair aren't accompanied by the unified vision that this sort of material requires.

The pseudomystical vagueness that seems to be Spielberg's stock-in-trade stifles most of the particularity of the source.

The movie clicks along pretty well until they launch their elaborate plot against the merchants of death, which seems to go on forever.

Surly, incoherent, and provocatively mysterious.

Turns out to be surprisingly layered.

Even though it stars Albert Finney, this is a picture of no importance, undone mainly by its self-ingratiated cuteness.

There's little here about soldiers and mercenaries that isn't lifted from other movies, though Marshall elicits a steady seriousness from his actors (especially Michael Fassbender, in an introverted lead performance), which generally keeps the movie from sliding into camp.

As in many reductive period pieces, there are no real characters here, just archetypes, namely reactionary cretins and sensitive souls who anticipate modern attitudes.

In one slender documentary codirectors Shane King and Arne Johnson accomplish what Hollywood routinely bungles: incisively depicting the inner lives of complicated young females.

This has its sappy moments, but both women give wonderfully detailed performances, aided by Michael Learned as Hunt's mother and Chris Sarandon as the calm, cold minister.

Not only delightfully funny but unaffectedly romantic.

Much of this is hilarious as long as one can stay sufficiently removed from the realities of Siamese twins.

This Argentinean comedy is short on plot and leisurely in its character development, though by the end it's become a modest and genial portrait of a dysfunctional family.

Writer-director Michel Leclerc keeps stressing how political all this is (the heroine labels almost everyone a "fascist"), but the movie never really decides what it's about, and its odd-couple romance is stale and unpersuasive.

The film slips occasionally into 80s action-itis and can't resist a few conventional friendship lessons, but most of the time it's fresh, funny, and surprising.

Combining the gentle with the vulgar as only the English can, this lively comedy is bursting with character and energy.

The women, many in their 70s and 80s, are still tough and proud--and nursing grudges that go back decades, something Leitman plays up by crosscutting between rivals' accounts.

Steppenwolf alumnus Tracy Letts adapted his play into this fearsome horror movie, directed with single-minded claustrophobia by William Friedkin.

The movie is about the interactions between these characters, and though I'm still trying to figure out what all the pieces mean, there's no way I can shake off the experience.

I enjoyed this while it lasted, especially for the cast.

Mesmerizing dark fable, which also contains moments of comedy and action that don't disrupt its oddly earnest tone

The intentionally broad Greek-American milieu is oddly colorless; having all of the cousins named Nick or Nikki is an OK gag, but once you're past it there's little to hold your attention.

Expresses with uncommon power the highly relevant issue of public indifference to genocide, which is especially well dramatized by a scene with Elias Koteas as an actor playing a Turk.

It's especially good in its handling of actors and its sharp feeling for characters who can't even describe their own problems, much less analyze them.

I'm usually a sucker for courtroom dramas, but Rob Reiner's highly mechanical filming by numbers of Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of his own cliched and fatuous Broadway play kept putting me to sleep.

This forceful expose shows how area residents are fighting to keep their beloved Coal Mountain pristine, but filmmaker Bill Haney allots too much screen time to environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and barely any to the urban consumers in distant states whose thirst for cheap electric power is part of the problem.