It's more like a feature-length music video, with grainy images illustrating songs from (Youngs) recent album of the same title and actors lip-synching to his reedy vocals.

A genuine charmer by George Roy Hill, a director best known for such ersatz charmers as Butch Cassidy and The Sting. His crowd-pleasing instincts have been subsumed by a bracing technical assurance here; the contrivances are still there, but they're presented with a smooth and rare professionalism.

Sitting on the shelf since 2008, when it was muscled out of the marketplace by "Cadillac Records," Sony's glossy, star-studded movie about Leonard. But it's clearly the better movie, earthier, wittier, and more intimate in its treatment of America's racial divide in the 1950s.

Distinguishes itself with three-dimensional characters and an engaging storyline.

Crary struggles to explain the eruption and influence of the extreme rock underground that began with the late-70s "no wave" scene and eventually generated acts like Swans and Sonic Youth.

The end credits are accompanied by clips of Porter from the Emmy-winning documentary Gridiron Gang (1993), which prove that key scenes from this movie were lifted straight from life and that life needs better writers.

Director Simon West hits just the right note between self-conscious silliness and real dramatic intensity in this 1997 action thriller, which uses typecast actors to make the characters' one-liners and predictable behavior resonate.

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are both such guarded celebrities that I have a hard time imagining them as lovers, a problem this Chicago-based romantic fantasy surmounted by isolating them from each other almost entirely.

This engaging, mostly improvised no-budget feature is based in part on Mandt's experiences, its loose narrative structure developing by chance as the duo encounter an assortment of characters on the road.

Rowan Atkinson's recalcitrant TV character is the hub of this 1997 feature that will disappoint fans and nonfans alike.

Ultimately this is a sharp-focus issue movie, decrying intolerance as it explores the effects of labeling, the complexity of fetishizing, and the differences between business and crime.

Doesn't quite support the weight of its allegory.

Never seems to find its tone.

The animators have re-created equine movement and behavior with uncanny verisimilitude.

A generally effective sex comedy, distinguished by its origins (Brazil) and the considerable appeal of its star, Sonia Braga. (Review of original release)

The characters are so vivid that the suspense never lags. Crowe is best in buttoned-down roles like this one, and he holds the husband's fear and resolve in balance.

If you're fond of Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn's physical talents for comedy even when they have slender material to work with, this occasionally amusing fluff can pass the time.

Hurt's character is so inert and unemotional that some spectators may find it difficult to stay interested in him.

This agreeable French comedy wears its class consciousness on its sleeve but functions primarily as bourgeois light entertainment.

Some may condemn this gruesome, heartless exercise, but I prefer to savor the irony: three years after the Francophobia that accompanied Operation Iraqi Freedom, every bonehead in America will be lining up to see a Frenchman's movie about subhuman hillbillies.

There's something offensive about the movie's chintzy view of death and the way it periodically flirts with promising conceits (i.e., Goldberg offering her body as a surrogate so that Swayze and Moore can "touch" one another) only to back away from them in as cowardly a manner as possible.

As it turns out, what's going on is yet another cinematic rip-off, this time of “The Exorcist.” Apparently rec stands not for record but for recycle

Pederson has no smoking gun that connects Nashi to dirty tricks or violence, but there are plenty of both swirling around Moscow.

On the whole there's not a lot of flesh on these cynically haphazard bones.

Has an adolescent energy and a tempered sexuality.

An ounce of self-awareness about its almost gleeful use of cliches would have improved this dance soap opera.

I was wooed by its sexy romanticism all the way through to the mysterious and beautiful coda.

This is obviously a sincere undertaking, and there's a certain homemade charm to the special effects used in the combat scenes.

Romantic comedy is set mainly in NYC, where the plight of its ambivalent lovers seems particularly trivial.

If you can accept the flouting of logic and credibility that usually goes with this kind of horror picture, this scary and suspenseful genre exercise, chock-full of false alarms and brutal shocks, really delivers.

Writer Kevin Williamson, who's also responsible for the overrated "Scream," sets cleverness above emotional impact in a poorly conceived 1997 thriller with plenty of empty references.

The genuine sense of loss and nicely observed family details don't stand a chance against the generic buildup to the big game.

Favors character development over rude scares, though given the narrow parameters of the genre, it's not really a worthwhile trade.

I'm not sure what it all means, but, as in Ed Wood, Burton's visual flair and affection for the characters make it fun.

Even the revelation of what the fifth element is at the end is disingenuous--in fact, the archness of this whole project is repellent.

Murphy seems either incapable of or uninterested in creating a recognizable world, so local comic effects count for everything.

Likable as she is, Latifah can't overcome a tortured mistaken-identity plot, buffoonery on the ski slopes, and enough saccharine dialogue to induce shock.

Aesthetically, Insidious operates at the level of a decent high school video project.

Light years ahead of Randal Kleiser's 1978 original, this 1982 sequel employs the Shakespearean marriage plot so beloved of classic musicals, in which two mismatched couples are straightened out and the songs express the moral distinctions of love and sex.

This conceit works precisely because Thatcher's popular appeal was so deeply rooted in nostalgia for the days of empire, and Streep, no fan of Thatcher, nicely undercuts the poignancy of her current condition with flashbacks that reveal her brittle arrogance in office.

Trite transformation comedy.

The film is split down the middle, with many elegant symmetries and curling plotlines bridging the two halves: one part is a bracing, funny, almost Keaton-esque comedy starring Harry as a deadpan center of disaster; the other is a brooding, brutal film noir, starring Sondra Locke as a vengeful femme fatale.

A collection of shots and characters designed to circle the globe rather than to say anything much about either the filmmakers or the audience, a triumph of multinational capital at work rather than of people or ideas.

Equally as offensive as the movie's smorgasbord of smut and violence is the lingering whiff of colonial-era orientalism, a Western predilection for regarding Eastern cultures as innately idle, lascivious, and irrational, and thus ripe for intervention.

McBride's presentation of Richard Gere is frankly pornographic, perhaps the only way to handle this Victor Mature of the 80s; Valerie Kaprisky costars—meekly.

Gary Nelson's direction is very bad, the writing is weak, and the acting campy at best—but Peter Ellenshaw's production design strikes the right balance of vastness and seductive detail.

The camera goes limp during the climactic emotional blowout--unimaginative and static compositions leave the characters yelling at each other in a vacuum.

Visually imaginative and even persuasively spiritual.

This is the sort of funny, humane, honorable story that families need more of, though viewers of any age should be hooked by the mystery surrounding the brothers' riches.

Promises more than it delivers.

This anachronistic tale goes beyond Capracorn to evoke Depression-era fare like "One Hundred Men and a Girl" in which the charm is overtaken by mush. One wants to protect this, but it's hard not to gag on the cuteness.

Denzel Washington is admirable in the role of a dauntless detective investigating murders and metaphysics, but his sincerity can’t carry the outlandish plot—you just wonder what a guy like him is doing in a movie like this.

By common consent, this is 1939 drama is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s poorest and least personal works, though it has some compensations.

At least (John) Waters cares about most of his freaks; for Lynch they're basically exploitation fodder for a puritanical "dark vision of the universe" that seems to come straight out of junior high, complete with giggles.

If the project was intended to enlarge the comedian's audience, it may be a wash: for every prospective Ferrell fan who can't understand English, there must be an existing one who can't understand subtitles.

The disconnect between the human actors and the digital backgrounds is more pronounced here than in a futuristic adventure like "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," and because classic Hollywood cinema is so rich with epic images of antiquity, this can't help but seem chintzy.

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.

By the time the manic camera slows down to reveal the back stories of the characters, everyone's motives are either moot or redundant.

Amiably unvarnished... Much more successful than most other films that deal with daily life in the projects.

For torture and violence freaks, every clank and thud is duly and hyperbolically registered.

Only the engaging lightness of the two lead performances prevents the film from falling into utter treacliness.

Argento is admired for his voluptuous use of color and his operatic bloodletting; this is lovely to look at, if you can stand to.

Agresti has more on his mind than tugging at heartstrings.

Most of the confrontations are shot in close-up, dragging us into the melee as the grungy-looking actors spit out their venomous dialogue.

Instructive comedy, which is marvelously neutral toward a type of sexual and domestic relationship that's often exploited or overblown.

The burden of creative responsibility feels heavier here than in any of the previous installments, ditto the trauma of seeing teenagers get stabbed to death. As a result this is quite effective as horror filmmaking and more pungent than anything he's done in a while.

Features a credible and sympathetic performance from Robert Pattinson as an orphaned veterinary student who joins a traveling circus. Yet the film otherwise suffers from a lack of showmanship.

A shocking revelation near the end explains the soldier's nihilistic rage but simultaneously tears a gigantic hole in the plot, leaving little to admire but Considine's typically penetrating performance.

Bogdanovich is trying to do an interesting and commendable thing in dramatizing aesthetic passion; his failure is as noble as it is conspicuous.

It's almost worth seeing, though, for the incredible action set piece at the center.

Brooks's sweetness, innocence, and boundless love of the infantile inform everything from the brassy production numbers (capped by an homage to Jailhouse Rock) to the final credits.

Mike White contributed to the script, and though he shares with the Hesses an innocence that can be both sweet and slightly grotesque (e.g., Chuck and Buck), his influence is most evident here in the conventional plotting.

The lead performances, by Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen as two college friends who become competing novelists in later life, have the Cukor audacity without the Cukor grace, and his visual expressiveness is in evidence only sporadically. Yet the film stays in the mind for its dark asides on aging, loneliness, and the troubling survival of sexual needs.

The mixture of sincerity and sitcom phoniness is bewildering at times, but on some level, I guess, the film works.

A delightful script and an equally delightful performance by Collins.

The hinted romance, featuring Aaliyah, makes for some decent drama and some fine comedy.

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

Inspired, elaborately plotted, and unusually satisfying variable-speed chase comedy.

Rises only slightly above the level of a Harlequin romance.

Slapdash but good-natured romantic comedy.

For me, part of the fun of Snake Eyes is the genuine satisfaction of seeing Brian De Palma finally arriving at his own level.

While Cazeneuve's story is about gay love, it also charts universal truths about adolescent romance and high school politics with great aplomb.

The ugly, aggressive, proliferating effects were all I could begin to contend with, and trying to keep interested in them was like trying to remain interested in a loudmouth shouting in my ear.

Espinosa never conveys any sort of perspective on the material, as Scott does through his obsessive attention to production detail; the stylization feels empty, distracting from whatever simple pleasures the routine plot (involving double agents and stolen microchips) might have delivered.

The obsessive conjunction of lesbian sex and flowing blood suggests a deep-seated misogyny, but neither this nor any other theme is registered with enough clarity to offend.

Modestly engaging despite several improbable, cornball moments.

Some of the gags here are funny, but they aren't executed effectively enough to score.

More witty than laugh-out-loud funny.

No real film lover could help but muster some affection for this bedraggled action movie, shot in an extremely unpicturesque Yugoslavia on a budget that must number in the hundreds of dollars. The lead, Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas, is clearly a stranger to the thespian arts, but it's pointless to single him out in a cast that seems to have been assembled from all the expatriate American used-car salesmen living on the Adriatic coast.

Charming, if a bit claustrophobic.

Gene Kelly directed, a long way from Terpsichore apparently, though not, alas, from the Thanksgiving turkey.

An innocuous, passably entertaining effects extravaganza.

Though it's not unlikable, John Singleton's second feature ("Boyz N the Hood" was his first) is an unholy mess in almost every respect.

Proves that the Disney people can sell just about anything--including a misogynistic celebration of big business and prostitution.

Despite some of the sentimentality that is also Woo's stock-in-trade, I was moved and absorbed throughout.

Gardos -- treats it competently, though without much freshness or imagination.

The documentary bravely risks giving Zizek its own one-way hug.

Moodysson’s meticulous attention to surfaces allows him to draw a stark contrast between the Americans’ affluence and the Asians’ poverty, but his final observation--that somehow the rich will muddle through--is hardly a bold statement.