Undiluted Jackie Chan, not the watered-down stuff he's been doing stateside.

Like the political turmoil which inspired it, Shadow Dancer is fueled by the fire to do the right thing and the sacrifice that must follow, and for 100 minutes, it’s a crackerjack ordeal to behold.

Despite the frivolous feel, it's clear the director intends for Bossa Nova to be a love letter to his two passions: Brazil and his leading lady (who's also his real-life wife). Neither lets him down.

Like other aspects of this film, the image may be a little too perfect, a little too careful.

A wry, rambling, smart comedy.

Quite a spicy brew.

You'll feel moved and uplifted after watching this well-written, funny movie.

Even though it delivers on frights and special effects, and is well-acted and gorgeous to look at, never really surprises us.

Simple but charming.

Has moments that are haunting, and it stays with you long after the lights have come back up.

Unbreakable shows Shyamalan as a rapidly maturing filmmaker, taking risks and making them pay off.

The textures are detailed, the movements are realistic and the three-dimensional feel even improves on the humor -- you may think you've seen every good "Matrix" parody, but you haven't until you see this.

It's Lathan -- with her passionate performance, physical grace and drop-dead-gorgeous looks -- who makes Love and Basketball so entertaining.

Richard Farnsworth shines as Alvin Straight, a role, one gets the feeling, that he has been preparing for all his life.

A tiny slice of bleak, black near-perfection.

In a sterling ensemble cast, (Elfman) just about walks off with the movie.

A quiet film, certainly, but it's filled with small touches that manage to get deeply under your skin by the time the final credits roll.

Script, setting, attitude, and especially casting add up to a smart exercise in dark comedy that's never over-the-top funny, but always engaging for its clever details.

A huge surprise: a startlingly resonant yet unabashedly entertaining slice of American history, a popcorn movie with complex observations about, of all things, racism.

The design of the film is wonderful, the animation everything one comes to expect from a Disney picture, and the jokes fly by so fast.

A heartfelt documentary.

If Her is ultimately better at considering the future than it is at taking us there, it resonates as an insightful reminder that love isn’t obsolete quite yet.

A sleeper that's well worth hunting down. Its rewards sneak up on you, but then linger long afterwards.

It's not a profound film, but it is heartfelt, and Burns has done his best to keep it clear and emotionally direct.

It's epic in every sense of the word, and like most of Chen's historical dramas, not easy to follow.

It gives the audience something serious to ponder. That's rare these days.

The animation is beautiful, the music is catchy and the lyrics are clever.

A surprisingly vital film.

A gripping, fascinating and visually arresting memoir.

A terrific feature-length cartoon.

With Muppets Most Wanted, the vaudevillian pandaemonium is alive and well.

It is one of the better dumbass sci-fi action movies to come down the pike in quite some time.

Held together by strong writing, insightful direction, and a stunning turn by newcomer Rodriguez, who is not only a gorgeous young woman but a fiercely charismatic screen presence.

Strangely enough, this movie provides a lot of the James Bond veneer that has been missing from recent James Bond movies.

The insider's view of celebrity in The Insider grabs the spotlight from the real story of Wigand's courage.

Stays with you, though, not because of its political content, but because of the unexpected emotional punch that's thrown near the end.

This is independent acting (and movie-making) at its best -- true, tight, anything but trite.

It's got both the sweeping spectacle and the keen, tactile sense of human intimacy.

This is a story told in shards; Wong is so obsessed with visual details – faces refracted as if in a broken mirror, or fragile arcs of blood being traced out on the pavement by the feet of two feuding kung fu masters – that the story he’s trying to tell is partly obscured by them.

An exceptionally intense movie whose sheer filmmaking power ultimately transcends all its (many) limitations.

Highly enjoyable.

A smart, engaging movie.

As a writer, LaBute is capable of creating long dialogue scenes that never seem stagey or artificial. As a director, he has the confidence to stay with those words.

Wan has marshaled his crack sense of supernatural menace into making his most satisfying scare story yet.

A very moving and surprisingly funny experience.

I was so taken by the film's sublime visual poetry, its telling silences, its finely orchestrated editing rhythms.

Grass is often closer to the sobering tone of the PBS show than it is to the silly "Weed," with its stoned, barely literate potheads discussing the quality of their dope.

The kind of college movie people will be quoting for years.

Most important, the film is suffused with a light touch and a kind of begrudged humor that feels perfectly natural and unforced and that keeps you involved in the characters' plight.

Stick with the film, accept the rules of the time and the meditative rhythm of the language that Davies has woven into his story, and you won't be disappointed. Then read the novel. It's even better.

Has the edge of black comedy that defines Maclean's sensibility, but it also has a mature new sweetness. And it's certainly one of the best films about the life of an addict since "Drugstore Cowboy."

Its series of quiet but moving realizations of the utter ubiquity of the Nazi horror in every single aspect of life, even something as hidden as a sexual sub-culture, is powerful indeed.

The picture has an appropriately grungy sense of place.

It's a testimony to Tammy Faye's own integrity and enormous charisma that the film holds our attention as tightly as it does, and doesn't become an insufferable exercise in weak filmmaking.

Lots of laughs, lots of fisticuffs, lots of cool toys, lots of stuff getting blown up: Who could ask for anything more from a summer movie?

Darabont follows King's book fairly closely, allowing the audience to steep itself in the setting and characters slowly, like reading a good novel.

This is a film like no other this year, and on that grounds alone you should see it.

A fitting tribute to an era, a writer, and an unapologetic eccentric.

Mehta's latest release, combines a similarly intoxicating visual immediacy and delight with a sobering outsider's long view.

A breathless, exciting family movie with a couple of truly memorable sequences, and just enough in the way of story and character to keep the franchise going for another 20 years.

It plays lots of cool mind games with the audience -- if in an occasionally incoherent way -- and ends up providing a surprising amount of fun.

Lets Jackie Chan have some fun, ride a horse and frolic in the American West. And when Jackie's having fun, at least some of it trickles down to us.

Part of the appeal of John Irving's writing is its sense of bounty, the way the world is offered up as a horn of plenty. The Cider House Rules movie, by contrast, feels narrowed down to small slices of experience.

It's a high-wire act without a net, and Benigni pulls it off with astounding grace and sensitivity.

What director Aviva Kempner has done is shine a light into the past and recover a classic American hero, one with all the integrity, decency and largeness of spirit that we have been taught makes up the American character.

A careful, intelligent, and seamless design that makes room for a couple of unexpected twists.

An imaginative and disturbing work; well worth a look.

The film is very theatrical and admittedly "staged," but always purposefully.

Works so beautifully because Davis doesn't try to turn Eads and his friends into walking soapboxes for transgendered people.

Definitely worth a chance: although everyone in this fog-shrouded setting makes grand sacrifices, all you'll lose are a few tears.

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

There are some cheap shots, and there's an argument to be made about whether the film is sending up stereotypes or simply perpetuating them. But for every dubious moment, there are plenty that connect.

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

This is a franchise entirely comfortable with what it is, what it’s not, and what it has to offer. It has a whole mess of “Fast” for us all, and woe be the souls who enter this film hoping to go slow.

Its final scenes and sublimely framed last, lingering shot are extraordinary.

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

A satisfying love story about two very different people with a common cause, people who endure trials of trust and faith in each other.

A highly recommended treat.

The script also happens to be quite literate and laceratingly funny, and Damon -- no big surprise here -- turns out to be the perfect actor to deliver Will's zingers.

The first live-action endeavor from director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant), Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is filled with the verve and clarity of his animated action sequences while lending just enough gravity and remote plausibility to the stunts and gadgetry to keep it from becoming a glorified cartoon in and of itself.

An unusually clear, compassionate, and grownup satire about a rare subject: the true psychological underpinnings of young manhood.

The Taste of Others takes regular (but not ordinary) people and knocks them out of their usual zones of activity. The resulting collisions leave behind a very pleasing flavor.

Battling back with droll seriousness, Murray imbues his sad-sack loner with a touching, funny dignity, and comes up with his best work in a very long time.

Don't let Croupier go by without a look.

A hilariously entertaining movie.

Accomplished, ambitious, and great-looking.

A gorgeous and enduring piece of work.

Despite a cheap, Hollywood ending and despite Kaye's kooky campaign, X is a killer.

It's a very funny film, one of the most enjoyable of the summer.

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.

An exhilarating piece of popular entertainment.

Horror presented without restraint or apology, as a full-bore, blood-soaked load of nomad nastiness caught in constant forward motion.

The point of this film is the spell it weaves and, by and large, it is successful. It’s the music, it’s the cinematography, it’s the score, it’s Casey Affleck’s hollow speaking voice — they all add up to something that resembles a fever dream facsimile of an eventful movie.

Hilarious and often moving.

A Melancholy Delight. Its pacing will undoubtedly seem too deliberate to some, but I found first-time director Deborah Warner's The Last September a delight from beginning to end.

Unlikely to draw the audience it deserves, but those who do see it will have a hard time shaking its gentle, ghostly echoes.

An insistent, insinuating film -- both in terms of its plot and characters, and in its impact on the viewer -- Harry's effects are small-scale but so perfectly pitched that they never seem small.

Armitage, Cusack and his Evanston chums have their work cut out for them to turn a stone killer into a sympathetic romantic character. That they succeed in such a shrewdly funny way is downright amazing.

It's so good, so jam-packed with delights, that it leaves you gorged -- and bemoaning the fatty glop that passes for moviemaking these days.

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.

Never less than dazzling to look at, and the scorching humor keeps it alive from scene to scene.

Charming and imaginative.

A deliciously romantic story, in all senses of the word.

Puts the Bond film series (this one makes number 19)-- back on track by stressing the fundamentals and applying a bit of authentic drama for a change.

Borgman‘s crafty, trickster-ish screenplay, always two steps ahead of you, keeps you rooting for clues, enough to put your ethics on temporary hold.

Morris seduces us into stepping into Leuchter's world of delusion and ego.

A very small film, as they say in the movie business, but its stylish suspensefulness is nicely leavened by Connell's obvious, and welcome, love for his hapless characters.

Bateman could have been much more interesting if he'd been played by someone who wouldn't need to work quite so hard (Charlie Sheen or Rob Lowe might have been fascinating here).

Human Resources resonates because it restores the humanity to that dehumanizing title phrase.

Carrey is an actor possessed. He's brilliant.

May be Hitchcock on holiday, but that's a perfectly enjoyable vacation.

A.C.O.D. proves to be both a solid debut for Zicherman and a worthy vehicle for Scott and company, one that provides plenty of awkward laughs and generally gives the American farce a good name again.

[Ritchie] cranks up the laughs and tension with equal aplomb, throwing wrenches in the plot so that the audience has no idea what to expect next -- and that's part of the film's thrill.

This mordant, macabre look at the American obsession with fast food, television and murder is icily funny.

A Hijacking isn’t boring, but it is not an adventure film – it is a frustratingly realistic take on the unfortunate modern threat of piracy, and a bit of an emotional workout.

Kate Hudson's accent is spot-on, and she brings her megawattage to good use on the Gershwin standard, "The Man I Love."

This long, sometimes hard-to-watch movie is a challenge, but it has authority and raw power.

It's a pleasant surprise to note how good Scream 3 really is.

The risk pays off for Clooney and the Coens, as O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a nicely off-kilter exploration of American gumption.

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

This is a movie that proposes a genuine, intelligent solution, both for the main character and for us. It comes at you kinda quickly (and economically, in about three wordless shots), but it hit me like a bag of dumpster-dived apples to the gut.

It's provocative and very moving, filled with some of the strongest performances of the year.

Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, the film not only gets up on wobbly legs but learns to dance by the closing credits.

Ferociously inventive.

Fascinating noir, which will long be remembered for its extraordinary lead performance by Catherine Deneuve.

The result is a movie that turns the financial phenomenon of Web startups -- the crazy kids with ideas, and the crazier bankers with more money than sense -- into a moving human drama.

What makes A Simple Plan an exciting, thoughtful thriller isn't the plot twists, but the twists and turns of Hank's tortured conscience as one lie leads to bigger and deadlier deceits.

The most exuberantly funny and smartest teen movie this summer, which is something to cheer about.

All of it is vital and involving, and some of it is hilarious...I've rarely seen a group of people in a darkened theater react as viscerally as they do to Reservoir Dogs.

What ensues is never exactly unpredictable, but always witty, fresh and fun.

A completely different order of cinematic existence than any other film you're likely to see in the near or distant future.

It's very funny and - at times - even witty in a crude, drunken frat-boy-with-an-epiphany kind of way.

I liked this film better the second time around.

A kicky little comedy that shows Quentin Tarantino's influence is alive and well in Japan.

The film version of this civilized beauty, captures the amusing gloss of the story but not the sense that something grave is going on beneath it all.

Hanks gives possibly the most compelling performance of his career.

(Cusack)'s genius, however, is in his continual ability to be the most likeable of everymen.

A pulsing, wooshing, visceral experience that amounts to great fun and an entirely disposable movie.

Typically low-key and lovely.

If Unforgiven occasionally overstates its case, this is the best work Eastwood has done as a director since The Outlaw Josey Wales 16 years ago.

By turns amusing, touching and horrifying, A Room For Romeo Brass is a film that defies expectation at every turn.

It's a sweet and wise film - neither groundbreaking nor revolutionary save for the fact that it places narrative and character arc at the center of its concerns.

A bawdy and belligerent comedy, meant mostly for folks looking for nothing more than to enjoy a few laughs.

The Trip to Italy is plenty enjoyable for fans of the first one and these two, but by the end, it also has the consistency of reheated comfort food.

The film has enough charm and humor to keep it appealing to a wide audience, and dumbing things down doesn’t feel particularly smart or canny, and proves to be a minor distraction to an otherwise majorly entertaining feature.

In a season stuffed with empty eye candy, 2 Guns comes along as something of a welcome burrito — plenty satisfying and hardly nutritious.

An emotionally punishing experience.

There’s charm and delight here, to be sure, but it is occasionally obscured by attempts to make it somehow darker, deeper, and more dramatic.

Steady-handed action is enough to elevate this film above its predecessor.

The most gut-wrenching 'making of' documentary ever made.

Swanberg’s most mature and satisfying film yet.

Occupies an odd middle ground between their Apatow-produced bromances, the giddy gruesomeness of the recent “Aftershock” and the confined social abrasiveness of “It’s a Disaster.”

Might be the single most beautiful documentary of the year.

Fiennes and writer Abi Morgan mercifully forsake the gee-golly traditions of similar fame-minded fare...in constructing a narrative as emotionally repressed as its subjects must have been, with each character existing within their own arena of personal and social compromise.

An efficient and effectively exciting globe-spanning zombie thriller.

Philomena honors its namesake by valuing potent understatement over potential hysterics.

The Double taps into a deep reservoir of psychic turmoil even as it navigates the script’s abundant jokes, and the nightmare of the heart of the film is doubtless universal.

In the House is crafty and juicy and ought to delight anyone whose ever thumped their chest about being a storyteller. I must confess, however, that somewhere in the third act the air started to leak from the balloon.

Strong, stirring, triumphant and tragic, The Imitation Game may be about a man who changed the world, but it’s also about the world that destroyed a man.

Irresistibly entertaining and beautiful to look at it, the film is pleasant at worst, and – at best – wisely defies its slapped-on American title, a warm reminder that love isn’t a solution so much as it’s a brilliant way of embracing life’s problems.

The franchise is sent off in style, a reminder of why it earned such praise and affection in the first place, the wolfpack giving us one final howl at the moon.

Not as touching or boldly transgressive as its ultra-violent peers.

It isn’t surprising how warm and enjoyable Life Itself is – James is a singularly talented documentarian who literally owes his career to Ebert, and Ebert approached the facts of being filmed the same way he faced films, or for that matter faced anything: With honesty and good humor.

If Tom at the Farm is occasionally impenetrable as a drama, it’s seldom less than gripping as an exercise in suspense, especially when Dolan’s precise sense of timing revitalizes otherwise familiar moments.

Gambardella’s world-weary look back at his sweet life, eclipsed by his turning sixty-five, is a dizzying fantasia of flash and filigree, and what it lacks in direct narrative is well patched-over with frenetic and emotion-rich sequences. This movie is a sight and sound workout.

Jason Reitman’s adaptation of Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day is as consistently assured a piece of filmmaking as any we’ve seen from the filmmaker and very much in keeping with the decreasingly glib nature of his output.

An essential entry in the cinematic canon of Spider-Man, complete with new villains, new questions, and new heartaches.

A closer, richer examination of a slice of time as specific as it is short.

A more than worthy (and weird) holiday diversion for the whole family.

If the Favreau-written “Swingers” concerned itself with the pursuit of meaningful romance and the Favreau-directed “Made” tackled the pursuit of a better living, then the slight if continually amusing Chef is clearly his paean to rekindling one’s passions, whether as an artist, a husband or a father.

This tiny friends-and-family production has the vibe of a project done on weekends and after school. That’s no knock. It is vibrant and bubbly and just clever enough to engage people who wouldn’t normally watch a black-and-white micro-budget Shakespeare adaptation without any big movie stars.

The humor and drama don’t neutralize each other; in what’s perhaps Stewart’s most successful achievement as a director, the changes in tone work in a harmony, not at cross-purposes.

Far-fetched, absurd and hopelessly schticky, but if you can get past its boring initial set-up, it’s actually quite funny.

Despite being clever and crafty it can’t break out of the curiosity shop. It’s the finest diorama in there, but something to admire, linger over then move past.

Despite its apparent compromises to noble finger-wagging (initially) and requisite fist-pumping (eventually), Waugh has fashioned a sturdy character-first entertainment out of Snitch at a time of year when those are all too rare to behold.

The downright gnarliest mainstream horror release in recent memory, Evil Dead is certainly a considerable and occasionally commendable dose of the ol’ ultra-violence, but Fede Alvarez’ Raimi-sanctioned update of 1981’s cult favorite only really has that demented determination going for it.

This film could have gone horribly wrong, but the characters and chemistry are strong, and as such Beautiful Creatures should be lauded for elegantly delivering a tale that at least feels fresh and vibrant.

John Dies at the End is easily funnier than it is scary, and much like the drug at the center of the story, it offers one hell of a trip.

Lengthy passages are unrelated to any discernible narrative, and seem to exist in that interzone your mind travels through just before it goes to sleep.

The Purge: Anarchy expands on its predecessor, but the excellent news is that the sequel isn’t just bigger and badder and bleaker; it’s also better, smarter, stranger and tougher.

S-VHS isn’t as pants-pooping scary as the first, but it is funnier, tighter and slicker.

Wrong is more absurd and more laugh-out-loud silly than “Rubber;” it’s also less focused and more pointless.

It is a rather sly affair, slipping in some genuine food for thought amongst its snickering.

There is true beauty in the despair that pervades The Place Beyond the Pines, a film plotted out in triptych, a treatise on the moral compromises we all make to protect and provide for our loved ones.

A kind and decent film, but doesn't add to Robinson's legacy.

The beats and trappings are all standard-issue, but the gags are funny enough, often enough, to offset such routine proceedings.

This Chris Sanders fellow knows how to craft a heart-warming animation, and if not for a few minor problems this would have had a legitimate shot at the best animated movie of 2013.

Faxon and Rush’s screenplay doesn’t deviate too far from formula, but their sturdy direction, bolstered by handsome production values, evokes a wistful sense of carefree summers and conjures up a potent amount of simmering teenage angst beneath the frequent chuckles.

The remarkable storytelling that eventually emerges in Eden is something you should see, providing you feel that you can stomach it.

A funny, sly directorial debut

Raimi manages to keep things engaging, which is a very real act of wizardry in and of itself.

This funny and touching film could do with a bit of editing. It tends to drag a bit, especially near the end, and though we’re privy to the thoughts and feelings of Polley’s family, we’re given scant verbalized insight into her own thinking.

It never quite elevates itself above something like a really well produced behind-the-scenes featurette on a high end Blu-ray. But if you’ve got that Jodorowsky T-shirt aping the Judas Priest logo, you may as well start lining up now.

Snowpiercer is bold and brutal and committed, but no setting, no matter how inventive or beautiful, can compensate for storytelling that strains plausibility even as it batters your senses and sensibilities.

Two Buckleys for the price of one, but the real star here is Penn Badgley.

This portrait of the actor winds up being a parable about all of us.

It’s not exceedingly original, it is well-made and a solid entry into the subgenre.

While hardly insightful as a character study, Tracks can’t help but flourish as an Aussie travelogue, with cinematographer Mandy Walker doing justice to these vast and harsh environments.

A relatively high-flying adventure, injecting the always-entertaining airplane-set thriller with some fresh thrills and a cadre of characters worth getting invested in.

A truly entertaining and dizzyingly wild horror film.

For a genre that so often sacrifices character development and smaller narrative developments, the majority of The Maze Runner feels quite refreshing and worth the navigation.

Even when it seems mercenary and muddled, X-Men Days of Future Past is enjoyable and well-made and actually about character, a necessary shot of adrenaline born of both inspiration and desperation for a franchise that desperately needed one.

The film itself is sly and smug in kind, fleetingly enjoyable for all of its old-school showmanship and high-tech hokiness.

The film’s finely tuned middle act, a fast-paced and quick-witted journey into (possible) madness, eventually gives way to an unsettlingly over the top final section that relies far too much on larger setpieces and supposed “big scares” that are never as good as the smaller, weirder stuff.

The Fog of War is the superior film, but The Unknown Known is more unsettling.

The F Word would be commendable on the strength of its unusual wit and warmth alone, but it becomes a far more satisfying (even somewhat illuminating) experience because it doesn’t shy away from the often ugly psychology engendered by cross-gendered friendships.

While American Hustle succeeds when it comes to casting and characters, it’s dragged down by a murky and poorly-paced narrative.

The sequel quadruples the recipe, with gags on top of gags on top of gags in a way only animation could achieve. Like a foodie “Jurassic Park” conjured up by Tex Avery, “Cloudy 2″ is a sight to behold … as long as your brain hasn’t turned to mush by the halfway point.

The nuanced performances by Maud Forget and Lou Doillon help give Bad Company its extraordinary credibility.

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.

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

Tender souls who don't like a lot of noise and violence should probably stay away from this very in-your-face film.

The warm humanizing element in all the cool stuff is Crowe.

It's a great ride, gorgeous, silly and deeply intellectual by turns, but, for all its inventive fireworks, sad to say, it finally doesn't quite work.

The gravity-defying harness maneuvers popularized in the U.S. with "The Matrix" -- ... look really cool, but seem out of place in a realistic gang-style action movie.

Has a warm and intimate feel that helps push it a little deeper than its cable movie-of-the-week blueprint.

Questions loom heavily over this entertaining but not-too-deep film, making it more a commercial than real exploration.

One of those hybrid projects: a major studio film, big star, homely storyline, but tempered by an indie director working in his own idiosyncratic style.

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

Its own, tough-minded antidote to the grab-the-brass-ring whimsy of its premise.

Love it or hate it -- and I suspect, frankly, most people are going to hate it -- this is like no other film you've ever seen.

A fascinating portrayal.

The darkly comic tone is often just right, and the casting occasionally pays off.

While The Messenger feeds our appetite for visual panache, it starves the soul.

Funny, immediately and consistently engaging, and -- well done on almost every level.

Someone should confiscate Mann's synthesizer. Just when a scene starts rolling along, this synth beat fades in and destroys the mood.

More whimsical than gloomy, for all the horrors it alludes to or depicts.

There's something thin about the picture-both in its ideas and its visual texture.

An absurdist Eastern European version of "The Godfather," starring the Marx Brothers (and sisters and nephews and...).

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

Cronenberg’s map doesn’t lead to a satisfying destination in a typical story sense, but it is a remarkable quest. For a movie that has so many problems, it is one of the more watchable ones.

All these years later, the film is far more infuriating than it is exciting.

Quills -- like the Marquis himself--is a posey, pungent, ultra-theatrical yet weirdly seductive mess which wants to have its cake, eat it too and discuss the whole concept and context of its meal (constantly, contradictorily) while it does so.

For the most part, a delight.

Barrymore's sunny energy pushes the movie along, but halfway through you realize there just isn't that much to push.

Best of all is a Halloween party where the Falls are complimented on their "costume," then outed.

Glover and Bassett ground the film, in the flashbacks and in the body of the film, and lessen the riskiness of maintaining the play's theatricality.

The filmmaker has given us two films for the price of one. Unfortunately, the second film, a gripping thriller which occupies the last 45 minutes of Space Cowboys, is much better and more involving than the first film.

Were the casting stronger, the film -- would have had a better chance of transcending its lack of subtlety.

Worth seeing.

Xiaoshuai isn't really interested in glamorizing or even exploring the gangster lifestyle; nor is he interested in conventional dramatic arcs.

Aerves up so much visual wizardry and thought-provoking ideas that even the inevitable Silver touch -- a finale with more bullets than the opening of "Saving Private Ryan" -- can't destroy the magic.

Like it or hate it, Titanic lives and breathes as a piece of pure cinema.

At its core is a feminine realm (the beauty parlor) through which modern issues of alienation and casual-sex-as-a-drug are coupled with timeless questions about the natures of love and desire.

This might have been a very good movie if it had lost about one of its three hours.

Well worth the price of admission.

If you're in the mood for fairy tales, you've come to the right place.

I'm not even sure the movie makes sense at times, yet Campion's offbeat rhythms and eye for startling images always made me happy to be looking at the screen.

The great power of the film lies in its simplicity, in the slow-building tension and psychological melt-downs that are the result of stark, bare-bones film-making.

It goes without saying that the film is worth seeing simply for Bill Murray's Polonius.

A funny, frenetic and surprising comedy.

The jokes fly so furiously that it'd be impossible for a single weak performance (Graham) to unravel this very funny film.

A movie that keeps you wondering about its characters' true feelings and motives long after you've left the theater.

The kind of minor work that may very well speak greater volumes about (Stone's) thoughts and feelings right now than another masterpiece would.

A sweet, funny exercise in nostalgia, though it's also self-congratulatory and awfully calculating.

Nothing less than stunning: a slapstick ballet of choreographed buffoonery.

If it is never really as profound as it seems to think it is, American Beauty is consistently entertaining, and it earns points simply for acknowledging that all may not be perfect in the current boom years.

Blanchett projects a wounded dignity that anchors her character even when the film slips into silly hokum; she's never less than fantastic, and as such manages to keep the film on course.

An often affecting, if standard-issue, Hollywood biopic.

LL Cool J... is downright scary -- a mix of coiled charm and underlying menace.

A nice enough reminder that as time goes forward, we have to as well.

Closer to "M*A*S*H" than "Dr. Strangelove," which in itself wouldn't be a bad thing. But for all its engaging qualities, Three Kings doesn't seem to know what kind of beast it is.

Scott Thomas and Penn finally develop a bit of unlikely chemistry, aided by the Hitchcockian atmosphere. I found myself rooting for these foolish, pampered, naïve people, and rooting for the movie as well.

Best of all are the supporting players. Everett (who played the Prince of Wales in "The Madness of King George") is smartly urbane, giving a polished refinement to the stereotypical "gay best buddy'' role.

Beyond the fantastic contrivances of Gods and Monsters, these performances are startlingly human.

A small, scruffy, but agreeably energized comedy.