If Sayles had persuaded me he knew anything about Bush, his background, or his entourage that isn't already well-known, I might have felt more like laughing.

Tries to break free of formula but finally succumbs to the warm glow of predictability.

That rare sequel that surpasses the original.

For all its minimalism, Tsai Ming-liang's 81-minute masterpiece manages to be many things at once.

Turns out to be surprisingly layered.

Nothing's quite so painful as failed comedy, and this atrocity is equivalent to a compound fracture.

Cohen and a crew of script doctors have thrown in some of the oldest cliches in the book.

Not a fraction as scary as George Romero's low-budget "Night of the Living Dead." Fans of the first installment will probably like this too--it's essentially the same movie, plus helicopters and lots of flying glass.

The filmmakers have lovingly retained and expanded on that film's only flaws, some implausible plot details. But even without the same cultural significance, it's still a good story, and the interesting cast.

It's ultimately hamstrung by storytelling that seems both underdeveloped and overdetermined.

Directed with confidence, but it's extremely pretentious--the boy-meets-girl equivalent of Lars von Trier's “The Element of Crime”.

All the male pulchritude can't make up for a muddled script.

Slapdash plot, paper-thin characters, misogynist undertones, and mechanical crosscutting are all soft-core standbys.

The sanitized content clashes with the narrative style, which mimics true-crime TV like “American Justice.”

In essence this is a celebrity revenge fantasy, something few of us can relate to, but director Paul Abascal has the sense to keep the homilies short and the pacing fast.

I was haunted afterward by its seething rage at the malicious paternalism and sexual hypocrisy of fundamentalist Christians.

There are some striking visuals and Hartnett is a magnetic presence.

The facts of their grim treatment, often exacerbated by their estrangement from their countries of origin, sometimes recall the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

This is one dull party.

The cloying score aside, this is a searing depiction of war in all its savagery, waste, and folly, with artfully choreographed sequences that surpass the conventions of the genre.

Never gets around to explaining how he (Michael Morra) picked up the moniker Rockets Redglare. In fact, the intimacy of this portrait may be a disadvantage.

The first half is better than average for an opulent Classics Illustrated film, thanks to realistic period detail, brisk storytelling, and Reese Witherspoon as the saucy rags-to-riches Becky Sharp. Then the whole lumbering weight of the production catches up with the filmmakers, slowing the proceedings to an interminable crawl.

Only in the last third, when he gets down to the business of telling a story, does The Brown Bunny become a porn movie -- though not in the sense you'd expect.

The result is both thrilling and thoughtful.

Funny, suspenseful, and well paced, this is definitely the summer's best time waster.

This excruciating sequel tries to squeeze a few more bucks from the "Spy Kids" espionage formula.

A novel twist in the second half succeeds in distinguishing this from the pack but also wrenches it away from the meager characters.

Distributors are clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel with this flimsy exposé of presidential adviser Karl Rove.