I wasn't bored at all by this, and Angela Bassett's action-hero charisma often blew me away, but fans of Bigelow at her best (e.g., Near Dark) may be put off by the movie's calculation, which doesn't always fit with its intellectual pretensions.

Truly compelling, however, is the material about Gould's innovative studio recordings and radio documentaries.

Coppola does a fair job of capturing the fish-tank ambience of nocturnal, upscale Tokyo and showing how it feels to be a stranger in that world, and an excellent job of getting the most from her lead actors. Unfortunately, I'm not sure she accomplishes anything else.

Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) gives a quietly focused performance in the title role, ably assisted by Brett Rice as Jones's father, Jeremy Northam as golf rival Walter Hagen, and Malcolm McDowell as sportswriter O.D. Keeler.

Here his (Bale's) physicality is repellent, yet he carries the occasionally creaky plot of Scott Kosar's unsettling screenplay to a resonant finish.

Rudely funny splatter comedy.

Butler deftly intercuts real footage with CGI, heightening the drama, and the film becomes especially compelling once the robots are launched into space.

An odd cross between "Mad Max" and "Dragonheart," this movie is all borrowed ideas, but it's still trashy fun.

Director David Barker creates tension by crosscutting between shots of the sun-drenched landscape and charged close-ups of the cloistered characters before delivering a bloody climax.

Combines a delayed-gratification romance and rumblings of war.

The shocking, ambiguous ending might have been better served by the film's original, ambiguous title, "To My Sister."

The story has its corny aspects, but thanks to Scott's skill as an image maker and as a storyteller--proceeding from the very blue and very abstract water seen behind the credits to the climactic, extended storm--this is superior to both "Dead Poets Society" (as a tale about a boys' school and its charismatic teacher) and "Apollo 13" (as a true-life action adventure).

In a nation that's stripped arts instruction from the public schools, the Hip Hop Project seems like a godsend.

The movie manages to push buttons without seeming formulaic.

The gags come fast and furious, and though some are a little stale, Rock and cowriter Ali LeRoi strive for wit over crudity.

Cattaneo proceeds gamely, though without much spark, through this familiar fare, but at least Nesbitt, with his sly, oddball charm, is fun to watch.

This narrative feature debut by Emmanuel Carrere, based on his own novel, is deliberately open-ended, but however one interprets the outcome, the film reminds us how fragile intimacy is.

Occasionally a movie's subject outweighs any aesthetic flaws, as it does in this unsettling thriller about the extraordinary rendition of terror suspects.

Extraordinary.

Given recent similar incidents of young con artists posing as journalists, this is a timely and compelling film, but I wish the filmmakers had widened their focus to address the kinds of journalistic corruption that go beyond simple fibbing.

Less suspenseful than the original but more ethically nuanced, politically pointed, and violent.

"Bill & Ted's Aurora Adventures" might almost serve as the subtitle for this very silly but enjoyable 1992 comedy, developed from characters introduced on Saturday Night Live--heavy-metal fans (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) with a cable access show in Aurora, Illinois.

Dazat coscripted, felicitously blending elements of documentary and travelogue much as he did in Himalaya. The resulting portrait sidesteps ethnography yet conveys the essence of a magnificent people.

It's a classic fight movie, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as an honorable martial arts instructor...But nesting inside is a sour little 70s-style David Mamet play about the lies, calculations, and ice-cold politics of Hollywood, as the fighter is befriended and then discarded by a callow movie star.

Julianne Moore proves game for anything in this pitch-black true-crime reconstruction.

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

An elaboration of the concept of Annie Get Your Gun—not to mention Doris Day’s tomboy image in On Moonlight Bay—this 1953 western musical is perhaps best remembered for its Oscar-winning tune “Secret Love”; otherwise there’s Howard Keel as Wild Bill Hickok, direction by David Butler, and all that kinky cross-dressing.

Better than it might have been, given the limitations of this kind of brand-name filmmaking. Hodges doesn't shirk his duties, and though the film lapses too often into easy facetiousness, much of it feels surprisingly substantial. The action moves smoothly and logically, finding a rhythm that engages your attention despite the patent lack of inspiration and genuine commitment.