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.