Mined for comedy and milked for drama, though what results is diminished by the very framing device contrived to punch it up.

Corky never becomes sympathetic, and without this fundamental irony the movie doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Scenes of ingenious slapstick violence.

Watts and Harring even turn out to be the hottest Hollywood couple of 2001. The plot slides along agreeably as a tantalizing mystery before becoming almost completely inexplicable, though no less thrilling, in the closing stretches--but that's what Lynch is famous for. It looks great too.

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.

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

The writers must have racked their brains for the formula: two parts other movies to one part childhood revenge fantasies

A euphemism for the right of anyone to make movies just as awful as those of big studios.

Grisman presents, with a sense of humor, the apparent contradictions of a complex personality.

It's a pleasing but shallow hodgepodge.

At some point in this endless thriller the suspense turns into an extremely unpleasant ordeal that Dahl doesn't know when to stop.

A hackneyed coming-of-age drama.

A blandly twisting plot with no meaningful revelations or substantial themes.

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

Every frame is dense with life, with children and animals running in and out, yet it's not messy. Instead it's highly focused--and something of a small masterpiece.

Lacks the scariness, the mystery, and even much of the curiosity of Rivette's better work.

This may not have gotten much publicity, but it's a lot more engaging than most movies that have; Forster alone makes it unforgettable.

This all-day sucker put me to sleep -- though it's possible I retreated out of self-defense.

Isn't absurd enough to be funny.

Where other King stories and hundreds of other movies simplistically exploit the archetype, this tale intricately relates the actions of its young evildoer to the more abstract forces bearing down on the adults.

A nicely shaped script by Chicagoans Rick Shaughnessy and Brian Kalata makes this independent comedy drama a pleasure to watch.

Dark fantasy triumphs in this gorgeously animated surrealist adventure.

Without becoming manipulative, sensational, or trite, the movie lets us know what became of the animals -- many dogs and one stowaway cat -- on the ill-fated ship.

A realist mode that strains credibility; it's tenuous and inflexible -- and easily ruptured by the contrived irony in Jimmy McGovern's screenplay.

Takes too long to get its themes and characters out on the field.

A watchable but not very memorable comedy-drama.

Chillingly beautiful cinematography makes the state's landscapes appear timeless as it sets the stage for a grim history told with archival portraits.

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