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.

Where "Silverado" swaggered, Open Range sulks; it's no fun at all.

It's a melodrama more than a drama, a light thriller –- which is not to say that it is not wonderfully entertaining and satisfying. In fact, it is both.

Rea hits just the right balance of sympathy and self-interest.

Garden State charms with ease and moves with grace; it's warm but never mushy, languorous but never groggy, rueful but never despondent. It's like a perfect pop song--that thing that makes you smile and tear up at the same time.

Schultze has a spare style, deliberately slow pace, and so little dialogue that to say it's in German with English subtitles seems to be stretching the truth.

Neither pandering nor dull, Zathura plays exactly like a no-limits replica of the kind of space adventure that imaginative kids left to their own devices might enact.

As is common in a Frankenheimer picture, the plot lines get a bit tangled in Ronin, but the atmosphere is tense, the style impeccable.

Jack's odyssey, despite some clunky writing and predictable first-movie missteps, gives off a flavor and a flair that stick with you.

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

For all its flaws, though, Solaris is a good try, and a definite improvement over the dull remakes Soderbergh has been sleepwalking through lately.

Experiencing this movie is a little like watching a manic-depressive's medication wear off.

Fight Club is to intelligent men what Catherine Breillat's "Romance" is to intelligent women -- an insult.

More bonkers Jackson-at-work moments would’ve helped, but mostly we just see the kid from Gary, Indiana, dispensing hugs and God-bless-you's to an awed cast and crew. Watching various dancers and guitarists grin irrepressibly during their one-on-one run-throughs with the man is one of This Is It’s few pleasures.

Braugher does much to hold this show together, because without him, the reality gets muddled. He's a terrific balancing agent for both Caviezel and Quaid; kudos to casting.

Through hilarious and charming interviews with the kids, extended chat sessions with Green, a few words from parents, and a healthy dose of performance footage, we get a sense of what sort of community Green has created, for better and worse.

Whatever else it may be, this movie is not like anything you've seen this year, and those weary of Hollywood norms owe it to themselves to seek it out.

There's too much self-congratulatory showbiz overkill, and one is forced to wonder exactly who is getting paid, and how much, for leading this parade in his honor. Otherwise, this project makes it easy for anyone to understand the sanctified, semi-crazed star and the elements that created and destroyed him.

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

Without being too glib about it, World Trade Center is a most improbable thing: an upbeat film about September 11, one of the few stories to emerge from that day to come with a happy ending.

This vivid exploration of the human animal creates a romantic alchemy that's raw, unsettling, and touching.

The film is ultimately so extraordinary because it deals with something so ordinary: the desire to be better than we are, without knowing how to do it.

Overall it's reasonably thrilling anyway. If you're hoping for a brilliant revisionist take on the franchise, forget it.

Connoisseurs of horror are bound to play favorites here (this amateur votes for Box), but there's one more thing that connects these three films--the brilliant cinematography of Christopher Doyle.

As a date-night movie for women of 50 or thereabouts, chances are it'll do the trick.

Alternately heartrending and buoyant, tragic and sweetly humorous, the film leaves an indelible impression on the heart and mind. It's among the best of the year.

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

This film about sex is so joyless, so astonishingly unsexy, it's like watching porn with your grandfather going tsk-tsk-tsk over your shoulder for two hours.