Ferlinghetti’s home-brewed brand of anarchism is weirdly as American as apple pie.

It’s like an over-the-hill gang variant on “The Dirty Dozen,” except not as much fun as that sounds.

What it's mainly about is movie stars skittering from locale to locale while bullets whiz by and the plot thickens – or, more to the point, curdles.

It's a classic example of how a movie can be great without, strictly speaking, being good. But when something is this funny, who wants to speak strictly?

By making Nacho a do-gooder, Hess defuses Black's subversive energy. You could argue that Black also played a do-gooder in "School of Rock," but the kids in that film were a lot spunkier, and Black wasn't constantly playing for sympathy as he does here.

It boasts appealing performances, and it takes a reasonably tasteful approach to its subject, aside from a string of four-letter words that sound strangely out of place in this romantic comedy.

Director Chris Wedge falls into the common animator’s trap of making the “human” characters a lot duller than the nonhuman creepy-crawlies.

Inherently stale.

Isn't as funny as it wants to be, but it has a sheer pleasantness that stands out in this season of heavy-handed entertainments.

The real heroes are cinematographer Stephen H. Burum and editor Bill Pankow, who help the picture keep popping even when its plot and dialogue go into a slump.

The story's celebration of honesty is commendable, even if the treatment of homophobia is no deeper than the hero's swimming pool.

The slapstick is often clunky, but Robinson has a sweet jester’s disposition that keeps many of the gags from collapsing.

We see him (Brolin) whip up a first-class chili, but his specialty is peach pie, which we watch him prepare so lovingly that I was surprised Reitman didn’t include the recipe in the end credits.

Even if the film were sharper, even if it was made by satirists on the order of Stanley Kubrick and Terry Southern in their “Dr. Strangelove” days, I would still argue that greenlighting such a film is a blunder. The exercise of free speech does not exempt one from the consequences of stupidity.

It’s an only-in-America success story worth recounting.

A dash – only a dash – of Tim Burton ghoulishness might have helped.

The camera work is pretty, but the drama is flat and lifeless, more concerned with titillating its audience than illuminating its historical background. [20 Feb 1998, p.B2]

The Golden Compass is a blatant attempt to duplicate the success of the "Harry Potter" franchise. The only thing missing is richly imagined characters, a comprehensible story line, good acting, and satisfying special effects.

Pratt brings a wry derring-do to the mayhem, and the escape from Isla Nublar has its modicum of thrills.

Its ambitious aims are commendable in themselves, but regrettable since they overinflate what might have been a simpler and better film.

The hardy fools - I mean, visionary pioneers - in this movie are so gravity-defying that I had to look at the press notes afterward just to make sure no computerized special effects were used.

The message is plain: Men, especially rich men, have all the power. So be sure to do what they tell you, and maybe they'll treat you nicely… It's not one I like to hear. [27 Apr 1990, Arts, p.10]

This is a great subject for a movie, but Hollywood has squandered the opportunity, using it as a prop for warmed-over melodrama and the kind of choreographed mayhem that director John Woo has built his career on.

The remake of Unfaithfully Yours is just a shadow of its source, using the basic plot and characters, but diluting Sturges's ideas. [23 Feb 1984, p.21]

Gilliam has rarely been more inventive, energetic, or just plain funny.

Biopics about civil rights icons are usually staid affairs. Cesar Chavez, directed by Diego Luna, is no exception.

If Hollywood must have franchises, we could do worse than one highlighting people who have lived a long life and are not on altogether friendly terms with technology. But imagine what this cast could do with something less tutti-frutti!

Most of the love in Feast of Love is unrequited, untapped, or unfulfilled. The fine cast, which includes Jane Alexander, Selma Blair, and Radha Mitchell, is also somewhat underused.

There are enough pleasantries and good jests in this new film to make a meal.

The story is stylishly filmed and acted with high spirits, but there's not much going on in many of its colorful shots.

It's slobby, goony, and gross, also occasionally funny, but not occasionally enough.

For a movie about people with hugely complicated inner lives, this sadly unconvincing drama stays resolutely on the surface, rarely hinting at anything like an insight or idea.

Labors mightily to be a frolicsome entertainment, but the results are - well, labored. The dialogue isn't snappy, the story isn't surprising, there's little chemistry between the stars.

Not awful, not wonderful, Jack the Giant Slayer is a midrange fairy tale epic that’s a lot more ho-hum than fee-fi-fo-fum.

Patrick McGrath's novel provides a solid and suspenseful story, even if it loses much of its bite in Mackenzie's hands.

The story is hardly original, but this well-directed Taiwanese drama paints an intermittently vivid portrait of life on the Chinese mainland in the 1930s era.

No masterpiece, but that shouldn't dissuade moviegoers from giving it a whirl as a flavorful alternative to the summer's more gimmicky fare.

Julia Roberts is brighter and spunkier than usual, and Rupert Everett steals the show.

Poor Pierce Brosnan. Sport that he is, he does his level best to be a song-and-dance man but it's just not in him. He's touchingly awful. The same could probably be said for the entire movie.

This teenage "Pygmalion" is predictable and a bit gawky, and some won't like its flashes of gross-out humor. The cast is appealing, though, and there are a few hilarious jokes tucked in around the edges of the plot. [05 Feb 1999: 14]

Noe's despairing view of human nature is as thoughtful as it is grim, limning the most appalling aspects of earthly experience in terms recalling Dante and Bosh, among other apocalyptic artists.

This deliciously offbeat Canadian comedy gets its charm from marvelous acting and from a screenplay bursting with ideas. Great fun.

The drawn-out, lowbrow humor is either "love it" or "hate it," so it may not be your bag, baby.

The package would be more enticing if it didn't fall so squarely into overused Hollywood formulas.

The drama has compelling moments and touches of imagination, but it relies more on sentiment than sense in conveying its messages about faith, family, and tradition.

A few scenes indulge in overstated hokum or thriller clichés, but Pfeiffer is first-rate and several sequences are suspenseful enough to deserve that overused adjective, Hitchcockian.

Kevin Spacey gives a bravura performance as superlobbyist Jack Abramoff in George Hickenlooper's uneven but often loopily entertaining Casino Jack.

Contains extremely graphic sex and many twists that are unpredictable but not very compelling.

The latest entry in this dubious enterprise is “Dumbo,” a perfectly lovely 1941 animated movie that has been transformed by director Tim Burton into a cloddish fantasia that never soars.

Directed with deadpan flair by Barry Levinson and based on a memoir by Hollywood producer Art Linson, it's a pitch-perfect sendup of the movie colony with a marvelous cast.

What keeps The Mosquito Coast from being a great movie is too much caution.

The film would work better if its story unfolded more swiftly and if its twists were more unexpected. The acting is solid, though.

Where's the real 007 when we really need him? Or better yet -- Calling Inspector Clouseau!

The casting of both Riegert and Allen may sound like an "Animal House" reunion, but the two have no scenes together.

The film includes graphic omnisexual and incestuous couplings and has an air of free-floating dread but, especially given its subject matter, it's oddly vacuous – it rarely takes hold emotionally even when its people hit bottom with a resounding thud.

The film is never less than intelligent and never more than accomplished.

Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams do their best with a silly screenplay, and there are a few genuine laughs along the way. [20 Dec 1991]

If these talented people had worthwhile things to do, No Small Affair would be no small movie. But the action has many weak moments, and the subplots are trite, especially when the trendy bachelor-party scene arrives. Too bad the screenplay, by Charles Bolt and Terence Mulcahy, doesn't live up to the cast or to Vilmos Zsigmond's careful cinematography. [13 Nov 1984, p.47]

The only real acting in this movie comes from Janet McTeer and Charles Dance as Will’s aggrieved parents. They bring some ballast to this blubberfest.

Just because The Fountain is different doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it's borderline unwatchable, though this hasn't prevented the Oscar buzz from buzzing.

The best is "Equilibrium" by Soderbergh, about a man being analyzed by a distracted shrink.

Fantasy-style plot doesn't mesh easily with the unsettling psychological themes woven through it.

Een fans of Jay and Silent Bob may find the story too slender and the jokes too repetitive to be much fun.

The funny scenes are as far apart as oases in the Sahara. [22 May 1987]

If you are not already familiar with Williams’s best plays and film adaptations, this musty magnolia of a movie won’t encourage you to seek them out.

Director Gavin O’Connor and screenwriter Bill Dubuque have made a textbook example of the "what were they thinking?" movie genre. Judging from the befogged look on some of the actors’ faces, they must have been wondering the same thing.

It's all deliberately homemade and raggedy, and that's where its charm comes from, along with the delightful old-music score.

The Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai has an undeservedly high reputation as a master stylist. He's more like a master window dresser.

The computer-driven effects are impressive, but the adventure is hampered by a flat screenplay, dull acting, and just a hint as to why the dark side of the Force will eventually transform cute little Anakin into the evil Darth Vader.

The willingness to blend professionals and nonprofessionals is Duvall's most interesting directorial trademark. Most commercial filmmakers hesitate to use this technique, but he doesn't see it as risky.

His drug-smuggling underworld, specifically the Amsterdam-New York connection, is likewise drably depicted. Is this because director Kevin Asch and screenwriter Antonio Macia deliberately played it down, or are they just incompetent? I’ll be charitable and vote for the former, but sometimes sensationalism is preferable to being altogether unsensational.

The eerie tale is steeped in brooding atmosphere and psychological suspense thanks to Glazer's hugely imaginative visual style and creative use of music, sound, and silence.

Once around the block with these folks is more than enough.

The material is vivid and harrowing, although the movie provides little analysis or larger-scale context.

Gallo's earlier work suggests he has directorial talent, but here it's buried beneath too much ego to be detectible.

Something happens to Robin Williams in serious roles. He becomes so drab that it's almost as if he's trying to efface himself from the screen.

So why is everything so thuddingly fun-free?

Don't be taken in by Taken.

A high-class weepie for adults who disdain the lower forms of four-hankiedom.

Reilly is a good foil for Ferrell, but too many of their scenes together have the effect of improv night at the comedy club.

Frankly, if I'm going to be offered a heaping pile of revisionism about the greatest writer who ever lived, I'd rather it be from someone with more academic heft than the director of "Independence Day" and "Godzilla." I trust the teachers who receive this film's study guide have a shredder handy.

Werner Herzog, better known as one of the finest living directors, plays a bad guy with Teutonic relish. If he doesn't watch it, he'll have a whole other career for himself playing dead-eyed villains.

Gary Oldman and Lena Olin give energetic performances, ably supported by Annabella Sciorra and Roy Scheider as a long-suffering wife and a high-powered mobster. But the movie's main distinction is its increasingly lurid tone, reaching heights of mayhem so bizarre they're almost surrealistic. [4 Feb 1994, p.12]

Kevin Kline has some amusing moments, but Meg Ryan's acting runs out of energy, and Lawrence Kasdan's directing is too laid-back to help her out. [7 Jul 1995, p.13]

Always is a nice try for Spielberg, and the cast gives it a game try... The movie's generally dull effect makes it clear, however, that Spielberg still has some maturing to do before he's ready to scan the depths of human - not to mention cosmic - psychology.

Val Kilmer is fun as the mercurial hero, and Elisabeth Shue would be great as the physicist if she didn't waste so much time making googoo-eyes at her handsome new boyfriend.

The story is mildly entertaining in its hackneyed way, but there's no excusing the picture's exploitative treatment of almost all the female characters.

Frances McDormand and Patti LuPone are solid as his girlfriend and ex-wife, respectively, and James Franco is just right as his wayward son. They're a talented team. Too bad the movie doesn't live up to their abilities.

Laurence Fishburne and Tim Roth play the main characters with conviction, but Bill Duke's punchy filmmaking style banishes any hope of storytelling subtlety or psychological nuance.

Director Rupert Goold keeps things appropriately creepy, but True Story is no “Capote.” It’s all buildup with little payoff.

A hodgepodge of violent action, ostentatious effects, and lunkheaded jokes, stitched together by a hackneyed plot. [01 Jul 1994, p.13]

A sloggy, heartfelt piece of quasi-magical realist storytelling.

The film isn't helped by Kline's cameo, although his comic timing is impeccable. The problem is that what he's timing – the role of an aging ego-swelled roué – is very tired stuff.

The action is fast and involving until the three-quarter mark, when the David Himmelstein screenplay loses its focus and everything muddies up. [31 Jan 1986, p.23]

A long wallow in misery and, after a while, the pain morphs into polemic.

The story seems awfully far-fetched when real people play the characters, but the canines are cute and Glenn Close was born to play Cruella De Vil, the monstrous magnate who sets the plot in motion.

Freeheld is certainly timely, though, given its ponderous approach, less than invigorating.

What with the title and pedigree, no one would expect Eat Pray Love to be filled with thrilling action. But the word "movie" does imply movement, and almost nothing ever happens throughout the protracted two hours and 20 minutes.