The film is as lively as a cricket and often very funny, but it's not for the cyberpunk crowd.

A modest pleasure, driven by a jumble of Old West signifiers and goofball modern flourishes.

The film quickly becomes a vortex of father-son bonding and rivalry, and what could have been a mere travelogue becomes a bumpy exploration of male identity and communication.

To call Shine a Light a documentary doesn’t quite nail it; it’s more of a macro-mentary, shot in such tight close-up that you can see the fillings in Mick’s teeth and the sweat stains in the armpits of his sequined magenta top.

Too long by about 20 minutes, the film drags a bit, but the acting--fine throughout--carries the whole thing.

This gifted actress (Charlize Theron), who hasn't always chosen her roles well, treats this as her big chance to show what she can do, and she's convincing enough that you're not constantly looking for a Hollywood star of more than average pulchritude under all the cosmetic baggage.

Neither Waters' funniest film nor, by a long chalk, his most radical. But it is, as promised, a passing of the torch and an article of suitably perverse faith in the next generation of nutso cinéastes.

For a movie conceived and executed in the mainstream Hollywood idiom, it has uncommon depth and honesty.

Columbus' sequel is faster, livelier and a good deal funnier than his original, due to the presence of some new characters.

The film is being sold as a comedy, and it is amusing. Secretly, though, it's a romance, with Merchant's roving camera discerning the tempestuous love triangle at the heart of Naipaul's novel.

Even as the psychological interdependencies of the two boys take the foreground, the movie gets more and more crowded with fun-house surprises and cliffhanging set pieces.

The main body of the film earns comparison with the military parables of John Ford, particularly "The Long Gray Line" and "The Wings of Eagles."

Worth it, though, for the conviction and ramrod-erect bearing that pros Jackson and Jones bring to their roles.

In this lovely film, writer-director Khientse Norbu (The Cup) shifts smoothly between a kind of Buddhist "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and depicting the bonds that form among Dondup and his companions.

The film's jarring shifts in tone ultimately serve well the complexity of the film's narrative entanglements; they feel more honest than similar Hollywood offerings.

Mamet's fixation on language is, nonetheless, more effective onstage than onscreen, where the technical and visual requirements distract from the sounds of the words -- the heart of Mamet's work.

Absorbing tale of coming of age in a multi-ethnic Paris suburb.

Looks like no other recent release...certainly rich enough to warrant more than one viewing.

For viewers counting the minutes until opening day, Game 6 provides a quirky cinematic alternative to next week's "Benchwarmers."

Paying off a somewhat laborious buildup in the first act with an escalating series of revelations and reunions in the final reel, Krrish is hearty pulp cinema that really sticks to your ribs.

The bigger-than-big, rambunctious spectacle is way too much of a questionably good thing.

Still, the big-show musical payoff is good fun, and Black and his little doppelgangers have it all over "Daddy Day Care."

May lack any transcendent point that would make it exceptional, but it is certainly a worthy start, and worth catching.

Some critics are badly selling the film short, when the story it tells, measured strictly in terms of emotional power and overall fun, is as moving and pleasurable as any matinee item by Ford, Hawks or Raoul Walsh.

Smith has created the raunchiest romantic comedy in recent American film, and one of the most good-natured.

An involving new documentary by Hilari Scarl, uncovers an interesting entertainment subculture of deaf comedians, actors and musicians.

The strength of One Bright Shining Moment lies in its reminder of McGovern's critical role in reforming the way his party chose its convention delegates, and how prescient he had always been about the looming disaster of Vietnam.

Surprisingly moving -- prompting lumps in the throat over what was, after all, a historic moment of the most luminous hope.

Why 3-D?

Gabrielle, a quietly insidious tale of domestic warfare that makes the protagonists of Bergman's "Scenes From a Marriage" look like pussycats, will exasperate and satisfy in roughly equal measure.

A remake of the 2003 Korean horror film "A Tale of Two Sisters," The Uninvited is a Hand That Rocks the Cradle–type thriller that's been dressed up as a horror movie.

A diabolically enjoyable documentary on unearned self-esteem.

A serious work of analysis, rooting the resistance to reform in Third World government corruption and Western profiteering.

The ghost story is not half as satisfying as the lovely indie mood piece tucked inside it about a community tending to itself in the wake of a recent wound.

Lyrical and funny, Full Grown Men is a tough-minded film about the need to grow up.

As with most of Toback's films, there are Big Ideas being bandied about that never quite coalesce, a failing that, this time at least, mirrors his hero's own hyped-out search for meaning.

Filled with great archival footage from throughout Hancock's five-decade career, and with elder-statesman words of wisdom from the man himself, Possibilities celebrates an impulse that's too rare in modern music: the love behind the labor of creation.

Although not quite as uproarious or as wickedly subversive as Pedro Almodóvar's more substantial body of work, Queens is content to scamper gaily in the wake of his achievements -- and to offer one more reason for old Franco to roll anew in his grave.

The movie has a rambunctious and likable energy that compensates for its unsteady, only intermittently amusing narrative.

So daring, well-made and tirelessly inventive that I kept asking myself, “Why isn't this even better? Why isn't it moving me?” One huge problem is the hero... he's played by 42-year-old Jim Carrey, whose still-bottomless need to be loved invariably smacks of desperation and self-pity.

Pretty good as pretty good goes, with Jude Law turning in an efficiently chipper, if palpably less dark, performance than the one that earned Michael Caine his first Oscar nomination.

Director Chuck Russell ("The Mask") keeps the computer effects to a minimum, emphasizing instead the essential ingredients of a Saturday-afternoon serial, namely, venom-tipped arrows, pissed-off cobras and a buxom babe.

The romance that ensues between Macy and Bello (both of whom are terrific) is exactly the kind of mature, sexy adult relationship that people complain doesn’t exist in movies anymore.

Slow-starting but ultimately invigorating debut film by Craig Highberger.

Brother is a solid return to gangster form for Kitano, who knows how to transcend the most overly familiar genre clichés without betraying the rules of engagement.

This is exceedingly earnest stuff, dolloped with Christian goodness and solid production values.

A film free of political fury, but full of activist optimism, this tame but heartfelt documentary is a fine companion piece to a day at the science museum.

As Future untangles the many ways in which our food supply has been co-opted and tainted in pursuit of a booming bottom line, you realize that beneath its tasteful façade, Garcia's documentary is actually nothing short of a pure horror film.

There's much to be said for a film that, however cheesily realized, sticks in memory for four decades.

We may not fully grasp what Nora saw in Joyce, but what he saw in her is made unmistakable, and worth seeing.

Albeit a tad repetitive, Shakespeare Behind Bars succeeds in humanizing men we might too easily label as monsters, and provides a solid argument in favor of prisons that place rehabilitation above retribution.

If one were to parody Iranian cinema, packing into one film its common tropes and themes to the point of bursting, it would probably be a lot like Iraj Karimi’s Going By.

Greenwald's sense of indignation carries the day: He preaches to the choir -- and apparently passes the collection plate -- with evangelical furor.

The fun here is not so much in the solid if stolid performances from Bale and co-stars Taye Diggs and Emily Watson (gussied up to resemble the Jefferson Airplane–era Grace Slick) or in Wimmer's overpolished plot devices as it is in the production values.

The film’s beauty is that, like any good novel, it refuses to sew up its meanings for the audience.

When conventional answers arrive, Where the Truth Lies seems as cheesy as its title -- but its disorienting layers of narrative make the double-entendre almost profound.

A well-chewed gumbo of every lawyer flick you’ve ever seen.

Rousing, quietly outraged documentary.

There's no use griping about the superfluous white-on-white romance that generates so much dead space in Zwick's movie, for without it Blood Diamond would never have been made. Which would be a pity, for as liberal hand-wringing goes, it's a winner.

Constantine, which opts in the end for what I can only describe as a kind of supernatural humanism, is not without its spiritual satisfactions.

The imperfect yet affecting new film Beautiful Boy, based on memoirs by the real-life Nic and David, examines addiction and its effects on one family. But it’s also a meditation on memory and the difficulty of reconciling the happiness of the past with a present that’s become too sad to bear.

Zoe is lively and an astonishing athlete, but it's Jeannie who gives this film resonance.

It's true, of course, that Trier still hasn't set foot on U.S. soil, but it may be that he sees us, in all our virtue and victimhood, that much more clearly for it.

Johnson pulls us into his world and keeps things oddly plausible, despite the intense stylization

The Cave of the Yellow Dog has an abundance of gentle humor, much of it provided by an adorably scruffy toddler, but there's also impressive strength and wisdom in the family's uncomplaining, shoulder-to-the-wheel approach to the world.

Even if Signs suffers a little from uneven pacing and mismatched tones of reverent homage (to "The Birds" and "War of the Worlds"), soul-searching and silly comedy, the jokes are clever, the tension continual and expertly calibrated, and the performances -- are both deep and moving.

The old hands still seem to be having a good time, so why the hell shouldnít we?

But by film's end, no one is looking good. If Wranovics is somewhat too noncommittal in his presentation, he still shows a great eye for detail.

Unlike the zippy American medical dramas it apes, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is paid out with the deliberate slowness of a dray horse straining up a mountain path. With every painstaking turn of the screw that seals Lazarescu's sorry fate, Puiu flirts with tedium, but tedium is the point of this hyperrealist tale, paced in what feels like real time.

There's great charm, and also discomfort, in watching these highly motivated, excited women learn the tricks of a trade practiced very differently from their own, and casually swap horror stories of life under the Taliban.

I'm thankful No Greater Love is around to make people realize how much war heroes need our love, help and support once they come back home. Just telling them "thank you for your service" ain't gonna cut it.

This is a heartfelt endeavor, given weight by Shimono's extraordinary performance, in which the actor uses the subtlest flicks of his weary brow to call forth torrents of sorrow and minefields of regret.

Even more than the invasive procedures of her day job, or the casual humiliation by the raging misogynists drawn to this business, there's a virulent self-hatred on display that is palpably painful to watch.

The most pleasant surprise here isn't just watching these masters perform their craft - though it is quite a treat - but rather how eloquent and thoughtful they are when discussing it: each and every one of them emphasizes the importance of simple hard work and lack of any catch-all technique or "secret" to what they do.

It weaves its familiar story with some fresh textures and even manages to invest the conflict on the field with a resonance that transcends the tick-tock turnover of the numerals on the scoreboard.

Places Greenberg in historical context -- as a pioneering Jew and as an all-American sports hero.

Writer Sam Catlin and director Danny Leiner have fashioned an alert, shrewdly observed portrait of a moment in time.

Although what ensues is generally unsurprising and as pro forma down-and-dirty as the genre dictates, it's also on occasion rather affecting.

Cherot (who also co-wrote the script with Charles E. Drew Jr.) has made that rare hip-hop movie that doesn't fetishize lurid ghetto clichés.

A lovely wallow in the sweaty pains and joys of mostly gay adolescent love.

There's nothing profound going on here, and this pristine example of cinéma de qualité must later have driven ardent French New Wavers round the bend. But as a breezy populist comedy, more farce than satire, it remains infectious, and the case made for love and sex over tyranny and death takes us back to an age when romantic leads were less self-serious and more willing to double up as buffoons.

Far and away the strongest performance in Shattered Glass is Peter Sarsgaard’s.

The Terminal perfectly captures Spielberg's ambivalent worship of capitalism. His big boy's love of gadgetry is everywhere apparent in the security cameras, blinking computer screens and one-way glass walls.

Shallow Hal is "Shrek" for grown-ups, a fairy tale right down to its reverse-Cinderella plot.

It's the brilliance of The X-Files to have turned Mulder's paranoid style into a function of cool. Mulder and Scully aren't just beautiful, smart, well-armed and seemingly impervious to the banalities of everyday life, such as cheap haircuts and ruinous love affairs--they're cool.

There's something magical about seeing a packed house of 300 Taveuni locals laugh equally uproariously, and, without a nanosecond’s worth of culture shock, at Queen Latifah in "Bringing Down the House" and Buster Keaton in "Steamboat Bill, Jr."

This is one of the few treatments of the macabre in animation that is authentically unnerving, rather than merely gross or campy.

There's no denying that Fry's movie is all the livelier for its gay embellishment.

It's Tobey Maguire, doing fine, subtle work, who holds it all together -- he puts a human touch to what is otherwise expertly wrought hokum.

Madea's a riot, but what makes this richer, more textured follow-up to "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" so fascinating is the way Perry - a first-time director adapting his own hit play - shifts on a dime from a silly fart joke scene to one of intense, Sirkian melodrama.

A nicely contemplative documentary about actors and their ambivalent relationship with that intimidating space.

It's dirty and delightful, if a tad on the slight side.

An easygoing work of unforced humor built on gags that should be stupid, but are ultimately too ridiculous to resist.

An absorbing extension of Cantet's abiding obsession with the seeding of political inequality in intimate relations.

It may be a stretch to call this mugging moron sympathetic, but it’s surprising how enjoyable Mr. Bean can be when he’s actually given a hint of humanity.

An enjoyable, sneaky-smart fable about the collision between innocence and experience.

When most filmmakers want to say something important about cultural conflicts, they labor to bring tears to our eyes. Dabis, by contrast, makes us laugh at ourselves and, in turn, each other.

But its quiet, solid center is Forster's Eddie, a man who can keep his cool under pressure and, with the merest twitch of a facial muscle, reveal a capacity for change.