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.

Riegert and his cowriter, Gerald Shapiro, breathe some fresh air into the material with their credible characters.

Nothing special, but it's a decent example of a vanished genre—the small character comedy.

It's a noble undertaking, and Eastwood is stylistically bold enough to create a view of combat based mainly on images that are clearly manufactured. (As with "Saving Private Ryan," the movie's principal source is "The Big Red One," whose director, Samuel Fuller, actually experienced the war.) But this is underimagined and so thesis ridden that it's nearly over before it starts.

Carl Reiner comedy whose technical execution (Michael Chapman's cinematography is masterful) is better than its script.

Though the film lacks the frantic imagination of its inspiration, Robert Rodriguez's "Spy Kids" franchise, grade-schoolers should still enjoy its fresh-scrubbed humor and fantasies of youthful omnipotence.

Lacks the raw power of the original but offers its own brand of exploitative fun.

This isn't a major Dante effort, but his ability to make a good-natured satire that allows an audience to read it several ways at once is as strong as ever, and many of the sidelong genre notations are especially funny.

With a mug like hers Cervera must have realized this was her big chance to star in a musical, and she gives a dazzling performance.

Until the story diverges from a similar agenda, the gags about the daily grind and what happens when a drone forgets how to be submissive make for beautifully low-key satire, and the caricatures of office types seem clever.

Michael Chiklis (of the cop show "The Shield") steals the movie as the agonized Thing.

The cast--including Julianna Margulies, Olivia Williams, James Coburn, and Anjelica Huston--keeps this pretty watchable, and casting Mick Jagger as director of the escort service was inspired.

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 Pang brothers rely heavily on visual razzle-dazzle (courtesy of cinematographer Decha Srimantra) and startling sound effects to work up the scares.

Rebecca Miller's second feature shows her to be a careful but somewhat schematic scenarist; her shaky directorial skills are partly offset by her skill at eliciting convincing portrayals from actors.

The tone seesaws between comic wackiness and romantic sincerity, with Paltrow better suited to the latter.

Seriously gruesome docudrama.

There's something more than a little perverse about taking one of the most timid, self-effacing heroines in English literature and turning her into a paragon of modern free-spirited womanhood.

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).

The task of dramatizing this proved too difficult for Niels Arden Oplev when he directed a Swedish adaptation in 2009, but as Fincher demonstrated in "Social Network," he knows how to make information technology eerily seductive. Unfortunately Larsson's salacious plot elements - mass murder, Nazism, and the like - feel just as shallow as they did in the earlier version.

In this cute 2001 children's feature from the Netherlands, the title cat magically transforms into a woman (Carice von Houten, later of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book) and assists a beat reporter with his field research.

Though the film occasionally conveys some of the sweetness of early Cassavetes it has none of the mystery: these characters are enjoyable types but not a lot more. Certainly the cast has fun.

As usual, Tarantino's sense of fun is infectious but fairly heartless.

Even as a simple genre picture it works only in fits and starts.

This French variation on the backwoods horror movie proves that even a little thematic complexity in the early scenes can yield a substantial payoff when things get going.

Overly familiar in its themes, though still somewhat potent in its depiction of an alienated 14-year-old boy from a well-to-do family who's preoccupied with video technology and winds up commiting a monstrous act. In some ways, the portrait of his parents is even more chilling.

One gets a pungent look at what makes being a pimp look attractive to some people in certain circumstances.

This 1970 film is John Cassavetes's most irritating, full of the male braggadocio and bluster that mar even some of his best work. But it's impossible to dismiss or shake off entirely, and the performances—as is usually the case in his work—are potent.

It has a kind of deranged sincerity and integrity on its own terms.

Nora Ephron, who wrote and directed this, repeatedly alludes to the 1957 "An Affair to Remember" as her principal point of reference, yet at no point does she indicate any awareness of what makes that tragicomic love story sublime and this one merely cutesy.

Producer-star Tom Cruise handed this one to alumni from the TV spy drama "Alias," and the result is nearly as good as the series' best, Woo's Mission: Impossible 2.

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.

If you can get into the spirit of the proceedings, you're likely to find some fun.

As disposable fun, this is every bit as enjoyable and as forgettable as most Hollywood equivalents.

Survivors of the 70s may find their memories stirred by tales of cruising Studio 54 and the Saint, of abandoned piers and empty Allied vans; younger viewers may be fascinated by the contrast between these balding middle-aged men and their black-and-white snapshots, showing them in tight jeans, flannel shirts, long hair, and Zapata mustaches.

This downbeat indie drama gives the leads a few excellent scenes together, and they acquit themselves credibly. But there's also a fair amount of wilted comedy from the stock supporting characters.

One of the most technically proficient of David Cronenberg's early gnawing, Canadian-made horror movies, though it lacks both the logic and the queasy sexual subtext that made his still earlier work - "Rabid," "They Came From Within" - so memorably revolting.

Aside from the Pirandellian games and some interplay of different film stocks there isn't much going on here, though von Trier rewards the patient with a strange and horrifying climax.

With its chase scenes, shoot-outs, explosions, and special effects, this looks more like Jerry Bruckheimer product than a traditional Disney feature. But there are also some light-hearted moments, the best occurring at a UFO convention where the aliens seem more normal than the earthlings.

The movie gets off to a weak start, but the jokes get progressively more bent.

DuBowski focuses on religious faith as much as sexual preference, which may be the most interesting aspect of the film.

This pleasant romantic comedy is essentially "Far From Heaven" with the races reversed.

There's something stirring and gutsy about this evocation of collective ferment -- not to mention timely, in the wake of the Seattle uprising against the World Trade Organization.

The main problem is that Burton operates best on a modest scale; saddled with a blockbuster, he doesn't know how to animate all the dead space.

Be forewarned: this comedy bears only the faintest resemblance to the classic book and film of the same name.

Mimi Leder directed Michael Schiffer's script, handling some of the action sequences deftly enough to promote the latent idea that people who don't speak English don't deserve to live.

As a moral reconsideration of the role of violence in previous Eastwood films, this is strong and sure, and characters who play against genre expectations give the film a provocative aftertaste. The only limitation, really, is that the picture hasn't much dramatic urgency apart from its revisionist context.

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

Like the drive-in classics of Roger Corman and Samuel Z. Arkoff, this develops the principal characters and conflicts with just enough depth and keeps the narrative moving at a brisk pace.

Fans of the famed porn star, who died of AIDS in 1988, will want to catch this exhaustive 1998 video biography.

When Sayles has a compelling story line he's one of America's finest (Matewan, Lone Star), but when he doesn't he can be dull and unfocused. Filling out the latter category is this ensemble drama about piracy, both personal and economic, on an island off the coast of northern Florida.

Nonfans may be put off by its relative lack of dramatic tension and soft-focus analog video.

At times the plot developments in this post-Tarantino story seem so random they suggest automatic writing, but the characters and some of the settings kept me interested.

Roth puts a sardonic spin on the puritanism of the 80s slasher.

There's enough whimsy and Capracorn here to choke a horse, and things get even more complicated when the four dead people enter the body of Downey in turn—to help him help them. Fortunately the talents of the actors—especially Downey and Woodard—sometimes make this effective (i.e., funny or moving) in spite of all the goo.

Would be sweeter if the fair maiden weren't such a pill and more exciting if the villain weren't quite so nasty.

To showcase the special effects, the filmmakers reportedly trimmed many of the dialogue-based scenes, thereby dulling the dramatic impact of a strong genre premise.

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.

What's mainly missing is the sort of conviction and passion that gave El mariachi its charge; one feels at almost every moment that Rodriguez is fulfilling a contract rather than saying something he has to say. There's a lot of panache here, but not much inspiration.

Brainlessly efficient action thriller.

Images about imagery can be diverting, even insightful, but this painterly 1999 feature piles up studies in elaborately choreographed motion that are their own reason for being.

Gets a little soapy, but the dismal working-class milieu and the measured performances by Mezzogiorno and Girotti (a venerable Italian actor who died last year ) bolster the sense of solidity.

This comedy-drama was written by Simon Beaufoy, who brought us "The Full Monty," and it has some of the same gamy mix of alternative sexuality and working-class heart.

The film flits from one relationship to another, dispensing some well-acted bedroom scenes and a fair amount of angst and philosophical dialogue in a neighborhood bar.

Though it easily surpasses most American action flicks, it suffers from the old commercial imperative of making the protagonist a nice guy, something Refn has seldom bothered with in Europe.

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.

There are plenty of funny moments, as well as a sweet subplot involving the unkempt drummer and the guitarist's no-nonsense mom (Christina Applegate).

Cher generates much of the movie's limited interest with her powerful screen presence, and Maggie Smith's skill as a diplomat's widow who believes she has a special relationship with Mussolini is undeniable. Yet the story, structured by the fragmented perspectives of too many characters, is more often lightweight than funny.

But the inspirational aspects of the tale--which mainly has to do with the determination of Close to form a vocal orchestra at the camp, despite the class divisions between the women--never quite carry the dramatic impact they're supposed to.

For a kids' picture this is relatively funny.

It's smart, swanky, and good-looking, but strangely, it's not all that funny.

A few of the bad-taste gags are funny, and Carrey's grimaces have a certain inspired delirium, but this is a long way from the social comedy of Jerry Lewis.

This leads to some fairly amusing gags involving surreal ads for actual products (e.g., for Jaguar: “Sleek and smart. For men who'd like hand jobs from beautiful women they hardly know”). Moore's boss is so horrified by this development that he sends him to a sanitarium, at which point the movie takes an abrupt nosedive into the sort of tacky media lies it is supposedly attacking.

This doomsday scenario takes up the first third of the movie, after which the tension dissipates badly and the husband and wife, now separated by plastic sheeting, wait for help to arrive.

Broomfield, whose celebrity exposés are known for their intrusiveness and innuendo, lost me with his gentle shower scene between an Iraqi woman and her husband; even if it wasn't invented, is it really any of our business?

A rather ho-hum if watchable neo-noir.

One can have a reasonably amusing time with this predictable sequel, which is a bit longer on action and shorter on wit and character than the original (hence less good, in my opinion), but still diverting and harmless enough.

Not to be confused with the 1959 Mamie Van Doren-Mel Torme exploitation item, this is an uneven first feature (1996) by independent filmmaker Jim McKay about the friendship of three rebellious high school seniors.

Fortunately for the company, Largo turns out to be a formidable knife fighter in the corporate sense; fortunately for this sleek, empty thriller, he turns out to be a formidable knife fighter in the street sense too.

The best, Shaking Tokyo, stars the versatile Teruyuki Kagawa.

Whether or not she's alive is the question that's supposed to animate this ostensibly metaphysical horror movie, but thematic rigor mortis sets in long before the final reel.

Stylish color schemes make this pleasing to look at, though the uneven narrative is both a minus and a plus--in one of the best scenes, beggars do an impromptu celebratory dance in the salon.

Whether the character is supposed to be a stand-in for Cody, who grew up in the western 'burbs of Chicago and has since won an Oscar, is more than I can say, but the movie suffers from the sort of self-pitying fog that can envelop a writer when he dives into his own malaise.

Glodell seems to be reaching for the nihilistic buddy romance of a movie like "Mean Streets" (1973), but without the serious intent; despite all the roiling emotions, this begins to feel like a pile-up of macho fetish items and stylistic affectations.

Like some laid-back distant cousin of Tim Burton, writer-director Goran Dukic manages to balance the ghoulishness with whimsy and melancholy, at least for a while. But the strain is obvious in the story's last third, as the filmmaker struggles toward a resolution that fits the logic of the hero's netherworld.

As in most of Wang's films, a memorable cast of characters compensates for a serviceable plot.

The argument is so tilted against windmills (sorry) that this comes perilously close to an advocacy video. But Israel deserves credit for delivering the bad news that wind power, like natural gas and nuclear, comes with its own array of social and environmental headaches.

Unfortunately, as in many such big-screen comic books, the backstory beats the hell out of the present-tense plot.

Only Depp and Ray Liotta (as Jung's father) manage to animate this tired formula.

The visual effects are as gleefully shoddy as ever, and the playful ideas sometimes achieve a dreamlike suggestiveness.

A bathetic TV-movie-type "learning experience" that provides about as much insight into teenagers as 40s westerns did into Indians--it's all in the costumes and customs.

Broadly speaking, the popular literary biopic is a hopeless subgenre, but this account of the relationship between Sylvia Plath and husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes manages to test the rule thanks to its unusual seriousness and first-rate performances.

The lesson of this barely stylish crime thriller is that a dull story is not improved by withholding information about characters' motives from the audience as long as possible.

I suppose the constant repetition is necessary (Matlin's character only communicates through sign language), but it points up the film/play's willingness to sacrifice situational truth for didactic accessibility.

Still reeling from the success of Carrie, De Palma turns this 1978 film into an endless series of shock effects, some of which work but most of which don't.

James Cagney gives it all his drive and speediness, but this plodding, straight-line 1957 biography of Lon Chaney Sr. never comes close to capturing the actor's obsessiveness or offering any insights as to how he made his personal pain and humiliation accessible and meaningful to a mass audience.

Old-time music aficionado John Hartford is on hand to hold it all together, and in fact his presence is the most gripping element of this disappointingly flat production.

Two interesting asides: the director and most of the cast aren't gay, and the film is based on a true story from 1996 -- the real Iron Ladies are shown, too briefly, during the closing credits.