Whether or not you like this film may depend on how much interest (or patience) you have for the antics of a self-proclaimed prophet.

Inside Man is irrelevant, another semi-high-tech mega-heist movie, the rhythms and tropes of which we are all as familiar with as we are with the wallpaper facing our toilets.

Makes good use of its actors.

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

A true killing comedy would require a great deal more sophistication than first-time writer-director Peter Duncan brings to the party. He hasn't made a black comedy, really; it's more like a black spoof.

Good, goofy fun, but given the attendant hype, there may be a danger of excessively high expectations from horror fans.

Gaghan's a filmmaker for the gamer who doesn't need to have the plot follow a neat, linear path. Besides, you don't need to know precisely what's going on; no one else in the film does either. Which is Gaghan's point.

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.

The result is nothing but allusive and memorial. And boring. This film is boring, at least partly because it is trying desperately to be big.

Arteta and White manage to bring off both the comedy and the tenderness in this tale of a jilted friend who sticks to his passions like chewing gum on a shoe.

A beautifully acted, graceful, and intelligent film that usefully dramatizes the gulf between Fortress Bush and the relativist politics of Western Europe.

As an actress, she (July) is annoying as hell, with a quirkiness so labored, she seems to be begging for our affection. As a director she is much better.

A very dull movie.

The film is bound together around the oral tradition and the act of storytelling, and this is where the filmmakers shine.

If there's a flaw with the film, it's that Justman doesn't trust his narrators enough; too often he'll stage a re-enactment while someone's talking, as if he's afraid the mere tales themselves won't hold our interest. But they will, as long as there's a kid slapping a bass, a sampler swiping a groove or some middle-aged couple slow dancing to Marvin Gaye or the Miracles.

Though we know the story's final outcome, the trial scene and its aftermath are no less shocking and affecting.

Numbs as much as it unnerves.

Just as you feel the numbing, clammy clench of paranoia on your neck, you realize, nope, the grip is just the director's attempt at tickling you to death. Demme's movie had no right to work. It does, and then some.

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.

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

This is probably the funniest Mamet piece to date (but not the weightiest), and it might be destined to take a seat alongside "The Player" and "Sunset Boulevard" in the front row of movieland satires.

Tokyo Godfathers just might be the equivalent of "It's a Wonderful Life" or, to be hip and new-millennium about it, "Elf."

Both actors are marvelous, and the film, low-key but heartfelt, is a gem.

Broken Wings' great strength is that it doesn't overreach. These characters undergo no enormous sea changes, no crazy upheavals. Instead, they find themselves trying to roll with the punches--trying to maintain and survive.

Takes roughly a third of its length to really get going, but, once it does, it's a devilishly clever, engaging piece of work that milks every cent of value from its tiny budget.

The most liberating thing about this funny, touching, heartfelt little movie is the way it defies the rules and, in the end, begins to set its heroines free. They've earned it.

Rich in story, character, and design, The Cider House Rules is obviously a collaborative effort, but above all it is a triumph for director Hallström.

This elegant vision of sexual roles is certain to make a lasting impression and is likely to provoke explosive dialogues in Denny's and sidewalk cafés from here to Monaco.

For those with a taste for epics that integrate the historical and the intimate.

An ideal film for movie buffs, who are bound to delight in each new misfortune even as they sympathize with the documentarians' sometimes inflated vision of a tortured genius at work.

A character study, the film succeeds in large measure due to the kinetically charged performance of Romain Duris.

One beautiful piece of work--as alert and aware a survey of interpersonal relations as you're likely to find at the movies this year.

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.

This roaring crowd-pleaser also boasts hilarious bits of business, insightful observations into the human condition, and geysers of kitschy computer-generated blood.

It's a powerfully ersatz experience, but at least it's powerful. There's a lot to like here: At three hours and 14 minutes, the film takes longer to watch than the Titanic took to sink.

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

It can't compare to what might have been: a full-scale performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as an Irish raging bull--a rebel with a cause. There are still traces of greatness in what he attempts, and it's more than enough to make the movie worth a lingering look.

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

Rookie writer-director Dylan Kidd, late of NYU film school, knows how to get the best out of jittery, handheld camera shots, and he knows how to go for the jugular. Roger is the bleakest comic portrait of misogynist self-delusion we've seen in a long time.

If you're in the mood for a quiet, beautifully acted little drama, liberally spiked with comedy, about the universal desires of the human heart, this may be the obscure gem you're looking for.

Breezy and easy to swallow. Its maker, Steven Spielberg, hasn't had so much fun in two decades.

As frantic and frenzied as its source material.

The charismatic Jamal has the spirit of a young Antoine Doinel, and Winterbottom shoots him to evoke the memory of Truffaut's young hero.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated has a refreshingly snotty sense of humor.

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.

Sly and corrosively funny political black comedy.

Fashion photographer David LaChapelle expands upon his award-winning short film "Krumped," introducing us to the new dance forms popular in South Central Los Angeles via the charismatic "ghetto celebrity" known as Tommy the Clown.

A flawed film worth seeing.

It's but a witty, engaging hodgepodge of archetypes and clichés; it retreads not only the TV show's story lines, but also those of every "Star Trek" and "Gunsmoke" episode. It needed the room of a big screen just to fit all of its influences into a single place.

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.

One of the powerful things about After Innocence is that, no matter what your position on punitive justice, you can't argue with the film's position.

A vivid double portrait of the artistic sensibility in its many weathers -- expressed by two fine actors clearly engaged in a labor of love.

What the books suggest, the movie reveals and revels in--the songs, in other words, those brilliant, backbreakingly fast anthems.

It plays like a parody of suspense movies, then occasionally becomes serious, then boring, then makes a jarring 180, then frustrates, then gets vaguely interesting again.

As detached and unfocused as a college pothead. And about as much fun.

Mostly, Mysterious Skin creeps you out, and not in any kind of fun way. There's an artfulness to it, but it's hard to imagine many viewers actually using the term "enjoyed" or "entertained" in conjunction with it.

The acting is remarkable across the board, undoubtedly a combination of a strong script, gifted actors and exceptional direction.

I wanted to be transported by this movie; I wasn't quite. But I respect it.

It's too turgid and redundant to have any real impact. As a thriller, it barely thrills; as a lecture, it has nothing new to say.

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 six-year-old masterpiece, never-before widely seen in the U.S., is still a masterpiece.

Philosophy imbues this inescapably self-reflexive movie with a rare compassion.

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.

This chamber drama is a deeply felt and oddly moving reverie on death and the process of taking stock of one's life.

Yu's approach to the material is brilliant.

(Washington's) performance is halfhearted, soft.

Can be as howlingly funny as it is touching.

My Kid Could Paint That's about art—and it IS art, among the best documentaries ever made about that elusive process of manufacturing something out of nothing. But it's also a must-see for every single parent who believes their children are special, when all they want to be is your children.

Director Barry Levinson has given this swift, sure-footed film a matter-of-fact, improvisational look and feel. To appreciate its brisk, confident, wild comedy, all you need is a funny bone and a BS meter.

Rodriguez clearly assumes Sin City to be his "Pulp Fiction," his rambling portmanteau--a blending of disparate tales to form a complete, overwhelming epic.

The entire cast is right on the money, a special word must be said about Seth.

Zhang deftly and quickly draws a half-dozen supporting characters, and his pacing never flags.

That he (Hetfield), and his band, still lives is astonishing enough; that you get to see how and why in a movie so painfully intimate is nothing short of extraordinary.

The musical numbers are energetic and fun.

Hilary Birmingham -- makes an impressive feature directorial debut with this rural drama. She gets first-rate performances.

Bigger, Longer & Uncut delivers: It's never less than funny, and at its best, it's truly hysterical.

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

Pretentious yet devoid of poetry, left-of-center yet artless, this well-intentioned trudge does not exist to be enjoyed or appreciated so much as to be coddled and patronized as one would a retarded child.

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.)

A perfectly entertaining little French comedy that doesn't quite lodge in your brain in the way you hope it would.

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.

Mostly it's just a sweet and lightly funny piece of highbrow piffle, as enjoyable as it is forgettable. There's no harm done, but there's not much else either.

Plot matters more here than spectacle; the film's real climax involves no demolition, but rather two characters in a room quietly discussing devastating events in their past.

Conversation is as meaningless as anything else in this barbarist take on "The Searchers."

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

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.

If you're one of those people who complained that "Memento" could just as well have been told in chronological order, The Memory of a Killer may be your cup of tea.

It has just enough "comedy" to qualify as crowd-pleaser.

This full-tilt visual and aural bombardment is simply a lot of fun. It never lets up. Nor does it ever want to.

The young actors, all first-timers chosen in auditions in Puglia and Basilicata, are completely natural.

As enormously entertaining as it is appalling.

With more angst than you can shake a stick at, High Art sets a new course for the indie American film. Instead of the usual Scorsese-esque buddy confab, we have something closer to the funky Fassbinder world of marginalized, pansexual depressives.

In the end, what Minghella has wrought is a nearly perfect drama of love and war (still the great subjects, after all), an epic that's fluent, frightening and beautiful all at once, that lifts the heart and dashes our dreams in about equal measure.

It's hard to know just how much to trust Titanic Town.

Eastwood provides more than an hour of easygoing fun, followed by 45 minutes of action and suspense.

As a clear, exhaustive and highly intelligent discussion of one of the most pressing issues of our time, it's a success. As a work of documentary, however, it's flawed by its failure to limit its scope (or at least pare down its material), by its strangely stylized narration and by its lack of a story.

This is a Julia Roberts Movie about only one thing: being a Julia Roberts Movie.

What's wonderful about director Claude Miller's adaptation of Ruth Rendell's novel "The Tree of Hands" is its grand capacity for compassion and complexity.