Although Mansfield Park is an enjoyable film, you can't help but wish that it were as brave, feisty and unconventional as it keeps telling us its heroine is.

Levinson is at the top of his game with Liberty Heights, his instincts acutely cinematic, his purpose clear.

Perhaps the most remarkable documentary project ever undertaken, and certainly the longest, is Michael Apted's Up series, which he began shooting for the BBC in 1962.

A surprisingly adult exploration of religion refracted, as always, through (Smith's) insistently pop-culture kaleidoscope.

Egoyan and Hoskins fans will definitely want to see this film. Others will feel their fingernails grow as they watch it.

This relationship might be strong enough to carry an observational novel, but the movie feels like it's missing something.

Stretched too thin, looks cheap, and can't quite go the distance.

It's all overblown: too much music, too much cutting, too much zooming, too much computerized special effects, too much clanky symbolism that never works.

Look to the cast as the best reason to see this film.

There isn't a moment of wonder or poetry in its very long 69 minutes.

The true star of this film, funny and often breathtakingly lovely, Zellweger carries virtually every scene in which she appears -- which aren't nearly as plentiful as one might like.

This kind of film, in its various manifestations recurring through the decades, gives us confidence that cinema can ultimately get to the heart of things.

Sometimes star power alone can keep you from walking out of a movie, and this is one of those times.

Every bit as reverent as "Schindler's List," and no less successful.

If the current flood of pre-millennial tension movies teaches us nothing else, it demonstrates how desperate we've all become to see whether we could make our peace in the time provided, if forced to by circumstances beyond our control.

It's great that this movie exists.

The evidence Herzog serves up is impossible to dismiss.

Hilarious and often moving.

It's really too bad the film remains so resolutely flimsy, because the novice cast is so clearly delighted to be putting on a show, their glee is contagious enough to carry us along -- for a while.

A magic-realistic fable whose lows soon prove as infuriating as its highs are intoxicating.

Leaves almost no impression at all.

Like the melancholy remininces of an old relative who lived through an exciting, even harrowing time, but no longer possesses the mental faculties to really flesh out the tale they're spinning.

Wants to be many things, but ends up being not much of anything.

Streep delivers another of her chameleon-like transformations in appearance, accent, and manner.

The effects never really get ahead of the characters or the script's layered personality.

Much more mythic and risk-taking than the usual Hollywood product.

Surreal to the point of poeticism, amusing and tragic by turns.

Does have its share of bona fide chuckles, but it falls shy of its possibilities.

I haven't got the slightest idea whether these characters are meant as satirical targets or as a reasonably fair cross-section of Today's Youth.

Appears to be several different movies spliced together, with unfortunate results.

A class act, from top to bottom.

Certainly one of his (Scorsese's) most profound works.

Show Me Love has the pulse of teen life down-pat, shaming its many sleek and glossy American counterparts at every turn.

So campy...may be good for a few laughs.

Tries so hard to push all the pre-ordained buttons, and it's so anxious to be liked, nay, adored, that it left me sullen and uninvolved instead.

Has its clunky and wince-worthy moments, it does explore some new territory, and there are moments when it's quite fresh and moving.

An occasionally powerful, always heartfelt drama.

A wonderfully witty homage to the very king of disco movies -- "Saturday Night Fever."

Rung with numb inarticulateness.

Clear-eyed and open-hearted, The Straight Story (which is based on reality) tells a simple tale, and it does so with a rare, blessed simplicity.

It always surprises, never bores. It's also just damn good, on every possible level -- so go see it. Now.

Dreadful suspense piece that has "Mystery Science Theater" appeal written all over it.

Few movies this year have been quite so rewarding with their 11th hour epiphanies.

What we have here is a small story in an oversized setting.

Has a cute idea. Which it promptly runs into the ground.

Perhaps you have to have lived through the 1960s to relate.

This meeting of two giants of European cinema only briefly comes to life.

The film's light success really comes down to Shannon, though, the exuberant "SNL" star whose alter ego actually seems more real and sympathetic here than she does in brief TV skits.

To watch Sevigny's Lana slowly thaw to Brandon is to see the transformative, heartbreaking power of romance in a way that Hollywood is rarely able to capture anymore.

The film is simplicity itself.

What makes the film ultimately successful, though, is the outstanding comic talents that inhabit it, especially Zahn and Macy.

Drama, swift action, and low-key, character-driven comedy.

It doesn't really hang together. And waaay too much style. Pity.

Doesn't go the distance in either story or style, unwilling to liberate itself from real or presumed expectations about what it takes to sell a movie featuring teenagers.

A biting satire of military myopia and political double-dealing -- possibly the best wartime comedy since Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H."

A generally dumb movie with a smart, appealing, gutsy leading lady.

It has every element necessary to be a classic, and it never comes anywhere near achieving that potential.

It's witty, entertaining, often funny as hell and even, at times, surprisingly wise about the human condition.

The audience is ready for an unhappy ending -- and Hollywood should have the courage to provide it.

A good, though unremarkable, film.

If McCulloch can draw this much humanity out of his actors, and do it in comedies with a deceptively easygoing poignancy, he's definitely a director to watch.