Borderline unwatchable, although, as is true of all Gilliam movies, it certainly is different.

By turns jokey, portentous, and pretentious, the movie immediately sizes up each of its protagonists and never budges from that assessment.

DiCaprio's performance is a revelation only for those who have underestimated him. In Scorsese's previous films, "The Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator," he seemed callow and miscast, but here he has the presence of a full-bodied adult. He's grown into his emotions.

The passage of time has rarely been more forcefully conveyed in a movie, as we see clips of the interviewees not only from today but also at seven-year intervals from the past.

Kushner's proactive stance on gay rights is prominently aired and, to a lesser extent, so are his musings on the Arab-Israeli situation. His participation in the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's controversial "Munich" did not make it into the film.

The movie confirms what most of us have known all along: Electability is all about staying on message.

Helen Mirren gives the mostly subtly expressive performance based on a living historical figure that I've ever seen.

The only performance worth watching is Costner's. Now that he seems resigned to being something less than an A-list luminary, he is often modest and affecting.

Whitaker is terrifying in a way that we recognize not from old movies but from life.

As the corrupt, populist Louisiana governor Willie Stark, Crawford was such a swaggering behemoth that it would take Godzilla to upstage him. Sean Penn isn't quite that.

Very difficult to characterize and that's why I like it. The best I can do is to call it a sunny tragedy.

There are some virtuoso moments (the discovery of the mutilated corpse is extremely well done and blessedly ungraphic), but overall the result is much less than prime De Palma.

Less a documentary than a love fest for Al Franken, this scattershot movie, shot over two years, follows the zigzag trail of political satirist Al Franken as he feuds with Bill O'Reilly, campaigns against George W. Bush, and helps establish Air America.

This movie might have been better if it hadn't fashioned itself as a cross between "Citizen Kane" and "Chinatown," and instead had used Reeves's story to dramatize the transitional state of 1950s Hollywood.

In Gyllenhaal's all-out performance, it reminded me most of Judy Davis in "High Tide," another movie directed by a woman (Gillian Armstrong) about a misfit mother and her daughter. It has the same fierce honesty.

Nathalie Baye is remarkable in Le Petit Lieutenant where she plays Caroline Vaudieu, a Parisian police inspector who returns to her post after a bout with alcoholism following her child's death.

More of a testimonial than a documentary, but it weaves together a portrait of a remarkable Irish-American friar, who was gay and a recovering alcoholic, and the many lives he inspired.

When class conflict stirs the viewer's attention as much as a canine hero's homecoming, it's clear that this isn't the usual (read: mindless) family entertainment.

This is not storytelling by a confident artist. Even Zhang's former mastery of visual form has become shaky, with a pedestrian handling of dramatic scenes and a surfeit of picture-postcard landscape shots.

Cumulatively, the everyday voices of those who waited in vain for help that never came, mingled with the concern of prominent national figures, presents a poignant picture of official blunders and personal loss, and provides important national lessons if another threat this size hits an American city.

An overly stately affair that often substitutes production values for imagination.

Factotum is so sly and low-key hilarious that anybody can be in on the joke.

If a movie that uses the word "relationship" 7,000 times puts your teeth on edge, stay away.

The actors, who portray a reunion that is more sparring match than love fest, strike occasional sparks.

Best where it counts the most - in its recognition of how difficult it will be for Dan and Drey to turn their lives around.

Montenegro, the star of "Central Station," and her daughter make a remarkable pair. They hold your attention even when the emptily portentous story does not.

At its best it shares with Stone's finest work a feeling for the imminence of death and salvation.

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.