Chris Smith, codirector of the indie sleeper "American Movie," dreamed up this funny one-hour documentary, about five freaky homes and the people who live in them.

This premise may sound all right on paper, but on-screen it doesn't really wash: if the girl had been half as committed to music as she now is to revenge, she would have overcome her disappointment.

Dumont is much more confident when he sticks to the title town and the young woman the men left behind; his habit of alternating close shots with extreme long shots and his singularly unsentimental way of showing sex are as distinctive as ever.

The unvarnished quality of some of the acting limits this effort in spots, but the quirky originality of the story, characters, and filmmaking keeps one alert and curious.

This is worth seeing, but only if you think you can tolerate the precious voice-over narration from the couple's wounded cat, delivered by July in a high, scratchy voice.

North Face also deals with actual events, offering plenty of thrills and spectacular vistas.

John Zorn wrote the percussive score, which is compelling throughout.

Despite the title, this is less a soccer documentary than a corporate hagiography along the lines of "The Last Mogul" or "The Kid Stays in the Picture"; its real hero isn't Cosmos star Pele (who wisely declined to be interviewed), but Steve Ross, CEO of Warner Communications, which owned the team.

Engrossing and frequently hilarious.

Parts of it are colorful and imaginative, but the film flattens out toward the end.

It's gripping and provocative, making effective use of Charles Berling and the music of Sonic Youth, though I wish it were a little less indebted to David Cronenberg's "Videodrome."

Norman Jewison's literal-mindedness actually helps squeeze some of the goo from the material.

2005 French feature by the highly uneven Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool, Under the Sand), who doesn't have much to say about his subject that's fresh.

Making Shakur the narrator works pretty well at first...But once he becomes an overnight star at age 20, his relentless self-articulation to Tabitha Soren begins to sound like the usual white noise of celebrity, his ideas about race and power in America potent but undeveloped.

Writer-director James Toback must believe his audience is hopelessly prudish if he thinks this pedantic story, which takes place over several hours in a Manhattan loft, is provocative.

The witty title aside, this is a miserably dull exercise in stingy-Jew humor and post-Jarmusch nonreaction.

This smart and rocking video documentary by Tim Irwin follows the trio from its origins in suburban San Pedro, California, in 1979 to the death of singer-guitarist D. Boon in a 1985 car crash, which ended his deep and creatively fruitful friendship with bassist Mike Watt.

It's not very special, but it's nice to see a Disney film that follows the rules of the family-film genre as Walt laid them down, rather than trying to emulate Spielberg's empty, high-tech grandiosity.

I don't question the legitimacy of celebrating the courage of these individuals and their families, and I can even tolerate the hokey nostalgia for World War II epics. But I'm troubled that the filmmakers have elided so much else of what happened on that day, as if it were some kind of neutral backdrop.

Comes to the comforting conclusion that they're just as alienated, idealistic, and vulnerable as the baby boomers of the 1960s.

The plot is standard fantasy-adventure pulp, though director Joe Dante (Gremlins, Explorers) has so many screwball things going on in it that the comedy all but overwhelms the formulaic line of action.

Anticapitalist propaganda that persuades and uplifts is in short supply these days.

Director Daniel Alfredson grounds the mystery in a real sense of place: his Stockholm looks and feels like a major city where corruption lurks behind attractive facades. The reporter character is better developed than in the first movie, but most of the supporting characters from the book have been shrunk to little more than walk-ons.

Effective advocacy film about the genocide in Darfur.

Redford's inability to suggest any irony about himself finally sinks it—it's the only sanctimonious satire you'll ever see.

I don't care for Benjamin's way of using death to validate his sentimental themes, but at this point any American movie that can get past the "I love you”s without audience snickers has to be counted a success.

Jennings's film, with its missing fathers, sometimes threatens to become cloying, but it's almost always righted by a healthy dose of slapstick or the spectacle of little kids posing as muscle-bound killers.

A missed opportunity, though as usual Quaid is dazzling.