Ought to gain some viewers here with its dark sense of humor and stylish cinematography by Jan Malir. Director Jan Hrebejk names Mike Leigh as an influence, but frankly he's way cooler.

Not a great film, but a good one.

Mostly, Wild Parrots is a great, important, and unforgettable movie.

If you're a fan of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, all you need to know is this: Disney has done right by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's impossible to imagine it done much better, in fact.

This lovely movie, simply and beautifully shot in Brazil's northeastern countryside by cinematographer Breno Silveira, is satisfying from start to finish.

Pure joy to watch -- and an invaluable documentary record of a bygone era.

It is that rare find: a film that is as emotionally truthful as it is satisfying.

Because of the supremely artful way Shear and Reitz have pitched the story, it reaches into places few films, gay or straight, have gone.

A delicious little thriller about an uptight, ill-humored English mystery writer who becomes enmeshed in murder, Swimming Pool is at once comical, contrary, resourceful and ambiguous.

Yes, yes--The Incredibles is beautiful to look at, but even more lovely beneath the computer-generated surfaces.

The work of an obsessive who has developed a light touch--though some of his more outright themes and pronouncements can be heavy-going.

By boiling the characters down to the most basic emotions and eliminating lifestyle-specific idiosyncrasies, we can enter the world of the story with ease.

Part homage and part demolition job, Mars Attacks! is perhaps the funniest piece of giddy schlock heartlessness ever committed to film.

An unpretentious, funky, fast-moving work every bit as enchanting as the book.

Emotionally gripping from start to finish, the movie presents an electrifying and unforgettable look at life in a place that God has all but forgotten.

Easily the scariest horror picture of the '90s, a movie that can take a place among the most potent and inexorable of modern shockers.

It's vibrant and verdant and heartbreakingly inviting, begging you to escape into a lovely tale in which children, through a simple act of faith, find their own heaven on earth.

A big gob of fun.

Seductive from the start, the film grows more stimulating and involving as it goes along because these three are original people who mate and recombine unpredictably.

The film, from its deadpan start to its languorous finish, provides the most joyous moviegoing experience in years.

Davies has nailed Wharton's bitter satire of the flights and follies of New York society in the Gilded Age, and leading lady Gillian Anderson shows dazzling range in her portrayal of the book's doomed heroine.

Dead Man Walking drops a massive, writhing knot of sorrow in your lap and then doesn't tell you what to do with it. If that doesn't sound like entertainment to you, you're right. It does something far more profound: It finds the tragic universal core of a contentious issue.

An animated extravaganza of Gallic wit and soul that delivers more wild humanity than many of the year's live-action features. In a word: go.

Yu's approach to the material is brilliant.

What a breath of fresh air this stifling, claustrophobic, boldly uningratiating vision of an American subculture's last gasp imparts to its contrarian core audience. (Call me a hopeless addict: I've seen it three times.)

The documentary is, in essence, not much more than a record of what happened in Zaire, but it has been assembled with a real feeling for the historical moment. It's literally a blast from the past.

There's something more REAL about this version, more human, more lived-in; though their words may have been penned 200 years ago, when Austen was a young woman writing about her idealized self, this cast and crew nudge the material into the now.

Waking Ned Devine works up enough feel-good momentum that in the end it's irresistible.

Vera Drake is so patient, assiduous and attentive to emotional accuracy that it betrays the utter sloth of most of what we see when we go to the movies.

It's definitely an enchanting spectacular for Potter fans anxious to ride the Hogwarts Express toward a new year of magic and mischief.

As surreal as it is obscene, as clever as it is crude. It plays like some raw offspring of underground comix and the comedies of the 1920s.

This is a powerhouse of a film, but not for the obvious reasons that it's about a female serial killer, scampering lesbians and whatever. The project's strength instead emerges from a sense of nobility and purpose in honoring its characters.

Funny, sad, moving and, above all, astute, making I Capture the Castle a fabulous film. Even the cars are tasty.

Engaging and revelatory, turning forgotten footnotes and discarded minutiae into the stuff of riveting drama and poignant laughs.

Karen Moncrieff makes an extraordinary debut as a feature film writer and director with this observant drama about a budding teenage poet who, amid many traumas, finds the courage to become herself and set out as an artist.

A fascinating, frequently hilarious meditation on delusion, self-loathing and personal salesmanship

While Sollett provided cast members with a detailed breakdown of the story--a kind of narrative guide--he wanted them to improvise their own dialogue based on how they would react to a similar situation in their own lives....The result is quite extraordinary.

So thoughtful and provocative that we cannot help but become engrossed.

This is anything but pleasant stuff, but it's a must-see for anyone interested in men and women, fathers and sons, and the kind of murder mystery in which the real casualty is the human soul.

Singleton may spend the rest of his career chasing the kind of critical and commercial success he won at an early age with "Boyz N the Hood". But even if Rosewood fails to meet that standard, it is a film that reaffirms that depth of his talents.

Identity is an outright blast, so fun it's--pardon--scary.

The bittersweet charm of this extraordinary film is trumped only by its wisdom. Without resorting to schmaltz or sticky pathos, director Vladimír Michálek (a child of 49) fashions an allegory about aging, friendship and love that equals (and often surpasses) the best American movies on those tricky subjects, from "Cocoon" to "On Golden Pond."

It takes an especially fine-tuned director and an inventive actor to cut as close to the bone as Spider does.

Fry establishes himself as an inspired, world-class talent behind the camera and delivers my favorite film of the year thus far.

Baby may not be quite as compelling as Mystic River or Unforgiven, but there's something so stirring, and disquieting, too, in his quest that we cannot help but pay close attention to him. In the middle of his long career's third act, he's still searching for the secrets in things with striking resolve. You certainly can't ask more than that of any 75-year-old ex-gunslinger.

A diverting mix of insight and spectacle, human and superhuman. This machine is built for kids, but rarely do words like "noble," "Hollywood" and "rawkin'" all apply to one movie.

A thoroughly professional, frequently spectacular piece of muckraking.

This engaging film proves a total pleasure, suitable for moviegoers who like their films a bit old-fashioned but still mainstream.

So inventive, confident, and accomplished is the production that it's a shock to learn Sliding Doors is the work of a first-time director-screenwriter.

Deeply engrossing and deep in numerous other ways that one scarcely encounters at the movies anymore.

This may sound an eensy bit hyperbolic, but dig: Mayor of the Sunset Strip is the greatest rock-and-roll movie of all time.

Unless you're deeply familiar with Korean culture, you've truly never seen anything like it.

Gleefully blurs the line between species. Vive la révolution!

The makers of this film are clearly fans, and they've put more heart and genuine humor into this piece than Paramount has into the original franchise in years.

Bubble is a strong film with a gorgeously minimal script by Coleman Hough. Soderbergh has directed his actors to perfection, rendering them indistinguishable from their roles. And, though the story resorts to sensationalism for its conflict, the film is eloquent in its portrayal of silence, depression, repression, denial and the woes of the Midwestern white working class.

This is a brilliant and unpretentious movie to raise the bar for contemporary popular entertainment, designed for the upper-tier thinkers at the multiplex.

The result is a mood movie that sweeps you into its infatuation and holds you there.

This uncommonly clever, surprisingly poignant fairy tale packs a social wallop that we're not quite prepared for.

The first relevant film about rock and roll and the music industry, the first film that lets you in on the secret.

Bottom line: It's hilarious, vicious, offensive, thoroughly profane and a joy to watch, just like you'd expect. Be sure to sit through the end credits for a bonus song from Kim Jong-il to Alec Baldwin.

Impeccably acted by a fine ensemble cast, it's a sheer pleasure to behold.

The year's greatest adventure, and Jackson's limited but enthusiastic adaptation has made literature literal without killing its soul.

Even when Conspiracy Theory is jammed or rushed or overly jittery, Gibson's command--of Jerry's fractured psyche, his freak perceptions, and his ardor--gives the picture blue-eyed soul.

Pecker is a satire, but an incredibly good-natured one, which is not quite the contradiction in terms it might seem.

A gentle, frank, and often hysterical love story about two people destined, and occasionally doomed, to be together forever. Some of us should be as lucky, as blessed, as Harvey Pekar.

The movie resonates precisely because it serves as documentary only pretending to be fiction: It's set in a real place recovering from real pain, which Lee makes tangible.

The first great film of 2005.

The film is so much like the book, it might as well come with a bookmark to hold your place when you step outside to use the restroom.

An ethereal, creepy, almost breathtaking meditation on the life of a mind snapped in two.

Clooney has become a movie star, and the Coens have given him his very own "It Happened One Night." The man, and the movie, are downright bona fide.

One of Void's great strengths is that it doesn't say much about "voids." It simply shows us, in incredibly vivid detail, heart-stopping danger and the raw will to survive.

Provides a smart, insightful prologue to the career of the man who continues to inspire countless people around the world.

A fine entertainment value. It's beautifully made, drenched in deep, rich emerald, with sinuous tracking visuals driven forward by pleasantly African-flavored songs from Phil Collins.

It's charming. It's hilarious. It is perhaps the most beautifully crafted, lovingly rendered portrait of extreme geekitude ever to grace the screen. It's Napoleon Dynamite.

There is some meandering, episodic raggedness to the plotting, but Khan-Din's dialogue has a fine, naturalistic flow, and the young, debuting director O'Donnell, who's neither English nor Pakistani but Irish, skillfully keeps the material from showing too clearly its theatrical origins.

Finally, the man (Hanks) has delivered a moving, slightly unhappy, and ultimately hopeful story in which squishy love takes a backseat to the wondrous whirlwind of life. The season's most delightful surprise.

Fast-paced, riveting and affecting.

His (Pawlikowski) love story, which is by turns sensuous, charming, and uniquely moving.

A solid, well-crafted drama, with a tight script, sharp editing, and strong performances by the leads. Beware, however: This is no comedy.

Far more than a mere visual feast.

An unabashed flag-waver and one of the best feel-good sports movies ever, this authentic charmer does for its young hockey players what John Wayne used to do for the U.S. Marines, and it lifts us, too, onto the boys' cloud of belief.

No matter how restrained the direction or unsentimental the performances -- and White Oleander scores points for both -- there is no escaping the semi-trashy but oh-so-life-affirming ring of the plot.

This intriguing jigsaw puzzle is visually arresting, narratively inventive, and psychologically enigmatic.

If Hallström has a problem with tone, it lies in his almost supernatural niceness. Thus, what arrives on-screen is purely a man's feminism, simple and trite and beautiful and vital.

This brutal film borders on the brilliant. Beautifully structured and edited, with a chilling central performance by Ian McKellen and an exceptional score by John Ottman, who also edited the picture, it churns up emotions and leaves the viewer feeling stunned and depleted.

Scott and Olds' is an essential movie, and one of the year's very best.

At first glance, Schizopolis may seem like no more than a grab-bag of tricks and gimmicks, but repeat viewings reveal a more coherent pattern.

More involving and intriguing than any by-the-numbers studio thriller. In large part, it holds our interest because of its stylistic boldness, not despite it.

Neither a mock-heroic cockeyed success story like "Ed Wood" nor a "Walk the Line"-style hagiography, Mary Harron's facile but hugely entertaining black-and-white biopic seems most interested in its subject--a studious southern girl who became the world's most celebrated fetish pinup--as an object.

Those seeking a spiritual counterpart to the yin of Lynne Ramsay's masterfully moody "Morvern Callar" will find their yang in David Mackenzie's exquisitely sorrowful Young Adam.

A disarmingly funny, clear-eyed, and affectionate memory piece.

The story is just as funny and touching. The only problem is the inevitable one: The freshness -- the novel delight -- is a little faded now.

The deep thematic concerns are never fully developed, but the characters are, and the story compels. Also, the movie's pretty scary.

A celebration of the naughty joke and the courage it takes to tell one.

If you're after some family-friendly classic lit at the multiplex, here 'tis.

This Shrek is both funnier and warmer than its predecessor; it's better-looking, too, no longer as clunky and junky as video-game graphics.

Sentimental, overbearing, flag-waving--and a crowd-pleaser.

The filmmaker who once aimed to enchant his audiences with cheerful stories of beatific visitors from outer space now wants only to scare the hell out of us. E.T., as it turns out, is a mass murderer after all, and we are his Reese's Pieces.