It handles a sports movie the way Billie Holiday handled a trashy song, by finding the love and pain beneath the story.

It's a movie without a brain. Charlie's Angels is like the trailer for a video game movie, lacking only the video game, and the movie.

Like Malick's "Days of Heaven," it is not about plot, but about memory and regret. It remembers a summer that was not a happy summer, but there will never again be a summer so intensely felt, so alive, so valuable.

Effortless in the way it insinuates itself into these families, touching in the way it shows how fiercely Romeo and Knocks are, despite everything, their own little men.

The movie remains an actor's exercise--too much dialogue, too much time in the room, too much happening offstage, or in the past, or in memory, or in imagination.

Because the stories are so skillfully threaded together, the movie doesn't feel like an exercise: Each of the stories stands on its own.

The plot becomes a juggling act just when it should be a sprint. And there's another problem: Is it intended as a comedy, or not?

Brief, spare and heartbreaking.

A dim-witted but visually intriguing movie.

The movie's problem is a fundamental lack of substance.

It's a muddled, sometimes-atmospheric effort.

Walking out of the screening, I was thinking: Elizabeth Hurley for girlfriend, Courtney Love for Satan.

Simply amazing.

It's that ambiguity that makes the film interesting.

With a cleaner story line, the basic idea could have been free to deliver. As it is, we get a better movie than we might have, because the performances are so good.

Altman would never admit this, but I believe Dr. T, the gynecologist in his latest film, is an autobiographical character.

Desperately unfunny.

As much parable and fantasy as it is realistic.

Possesses the art and craft of a good movie, but not the story.

One of those rare movies where you leave the theater having been surprised and entertained, and then start arguing.

A touching and effective film.

The point is to show us what can be done with recycled traditional animation in the IMAX 3-D process, and the demonstration is impressive.

Only rarely is a film this observant and tender about the ups and downs of daily existence.

Oshima, directing his first film in 14 years, has found an actor with the physical attributes to play the character and seems content to leave it at that; his camera regards Sozaburo as an object of beauty but hardly seems to engage him.

Spike Lee misjudged his material and audience. He doesn't find a successful way to express his feelings, angers and satirical points.

Directed by Jay Roach, who made the "Austin Powers" movies and here shows he can dial down from farce into a comedy of (bad) manners. His movie is funnier because it never tries too hard.

Aronofsky brings a new urgency to the drug movie by trying to reproduce, through his subjective camera, how his characters feel, or want to feel, or fear to feel.

Bootmen is the story of a young dancer and his friends who revisit the cliches of countless other dance movies in order to bring forth a dance performance of clanging unloveliness.

It's always about more than boxing.

So likable, we go with it on its chosen level.

While most band documentaries wade through sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, this one has no sex, no drugs, and the kind of rock 'n' roll that reminds one of their fans of "something I'd hear at a dorm party."

Has the outer form of a brave statement about the races in America, but the soul of a sports movie in which everything is settled by the obligatory last play in the last seconds of the championship game.

It's a movie with so many inconsistencies, improbabilities, unanswered questions and unfinished characters that we have to suspend not only disbelief but also intelligence.

Wickedly funny.

Has slick production credits and performances that are quite adequate given the (narrow) opportunities of the genre.

This is the kind of movie you sort of like, and yet even while you're liking it, you're thinking how much better these characters and this situation could have been with a little more imagination and daring.

It is a bold, reckless gesture.

One of those movies where the audience knows the message before the film begins and the characters are still learning it when the film ends.

A valuable, heartbreaking film about the way those resources are plugged into a system, drained of their usefulness and discarded.

Never comes alive.

A messy but hungry film like this is more interesting than cool technical perfection.

It's over the top, an exercise in action comedy that cuts loose from logic and enjoys itself.

Has little islands of humor and even perfection, floating in a sea of missed marks and murky intentions.

Oh, what a lovely film. I was almost hugging myself while I watched it.

There's a good story buried somewhere in this melee.

I would rather see one movie like this than a thousand "Bring It Ons."

A tender and passionate protest, not without laughter, by Bertrand Tavernier -- a director who is not only gifted but honorable.

One of those films where you don't know whether to laugh or cringe, and find yourself doing both. It's a challenge: How do we respond to this loaded material?

The actors cannot be faulted. They bring more to the story than it really deserves.

Very seriously confused in its objectives.

Portrait of men and a few women who stubbornly try to maintain some dignity in the face of personal disaster.

A strange mutant beast, half Nickelodeon movie, half R-rated comedy. It's like kids with potty-mouth playing grownup.

With Solomon & Gaenor, it is hard to overlook the folly of the characters. Does it count as a tragedy when the characters get more or less what they were asking for?

Has a freshness and charm, a winning way with its not terrifically original material.

Chalk is not the kind of movie many people will appreciate at first viewing. You have to understand who Nilsson and his actors are, and give some thought to the style, to appreciate it.

Might be fun for younger teenagers who want to be reassured that people in their 30s still behave like younger teenagers.

The Crew is all contrivance and we don't believe a minute of it.

This human level is always there beneath the thriller elements. The screenplay takes care to bring the crime story and the personal histories together, so that even the crossed lines of romance work as plot points, not just sentiment.

Hovers intriguingly between homage and revenge.

Doesn't have the theatrical subtext or, let it be said, the genius of Richard Pryor.

Provides an untidy and frustrating but never boring look at his life and times.

It's one of the best films of the year.

Even with Cecil B. Demented, which fails on just about every level, you've got to hand it to him (Waters): The idea for the film is kind of inspired.

Slap-happy entertainment painted in broad strokes, two coats thick.

He (Walken) is a gifted classical actor...and here he understands Victor Kelly from the inside out.

It is about the desiring itself, not about what they desire. That makes it more intriguing than if we knew their secret--and sexier.

This is the kind of story that has to be true; as fiction, it would not be believable.

One of the things I like about the movie is the wit of its dialogue, the way sentences and conversations coil with confidence up to a conclusion that is totally unexpected.

We're left with a promising idea for a comedy, which arrives at some laughs but never finds its destination.

The stuff in outer space is unexpected, the surprise waiting out there is genuine, and meanwhile, there's an abundance of charm and screen presence from the four veteran actors.

There is a reason to see the movie, and that reason is Piper Perabo.

Hollow Man can think of nothing more interesting to do than spy on his girlfriend and assault his neighbor.Too bad. Really too bad, because the movie is supported by some of the most intriguing special effects I've seen.

Eight different characters, all played by Murphy, all convincing, each with its own personality. This is not just a stunt. It is some kind of brilliance.

What's best about the movie is its playfulness.

Movies like Wonderland invite me into the screen with them. I am curious. I begin to care.

A first draft for a movie that could have been extraordinary.

Watching it, you feel like an eyewitness to injustice.

An inept assembly of ill-matched plot points, meandering through a production that has attractive art direction (despite the immobile mouths).

Love is blind, and movies about that blindness can be maddening.

She is also, we sense, a woman of great generosity of spirit, and a TV natural: The star she most reminds me of is Lucille Ball.

Lacking a smarter screenplay, it milks the genuine skills of its actors and director for more than it deserves, and then runs off the rails in an ending more laughable than scary.

A story like Five Senses sounds like a gimmick, but Podeswa has a light touch when dealing with the senses and a sure one when telling his stories.

I started out liking this movie, while waiting for something really interesting to happen. When nothing did, I still didn't dislike it; I assume the X-Men will further develop their personalities if there is a sequel.

A fascinating study of behavior that violates the rules.

Warm-hearted and effective.

Although it has some contrived plot devices (including the looming deadline of the city's threat to the bathhouse), it is warm and observant, and its ending is surprisingly true to the material.

Not a great, breakout comedy, but more the kind of movie that might eventually become a regular on the midnight cult circuit.

Is it funny? Yes, it is.

A well-crafted example of a film of pure sensation. I do not mind admitting I was enthralled.

Has the same mixture of dumb puns, corny sight gags and sly, even sophisticated in-jokes. It's a lot of fun.

This is not the sort of movie you make it your business to see in a theater. But if you're ever surfing cable TV and come across it, you'll linger.

It is rousing and entertaining, and you get your money's worth.

A labored and sour comedy.

Not only funny and wicked, clever and visually inventive, but . . . kind and sweet. Tender and touching.

Pure slam-bam space opera.

Is this a good movie? Not exactly; too much of it is on automatic pilot, as it must be, to satisfy the fans of the original Shaft. Is it better than I expected? Yes.

Jesus' Son surprises me with moments of wry humor, poignancy, sorrow and wildness. It has a sequence as funny as any I've seen this year.

It is not about memories but memory. Yours, mine, Proust's. Memory makes us human.