Mahieux, who is superb, methodically paint Peppino as a man for whom solitude is torture.

Love him or loathe him, Avrich proposes, Wasserman mattered -- which is a lot more than can be said for most of the multinationals and their MBA-bearing surrogates who came to run the studios in his wake.

This is as corny as it sounds, and yet not half as cloying and sentimental as you expect. At the end of the day, the horse may win the race, but the fate of the American heartland looms large and unresolved.

Gaily seduces you into its fantasy life, then whacks you over the head with a finale that, intentionally or not, functions as a rebuke to the mad optimism of Benigni's pandering film

Mixing light magical realism with a more familiar brand of working-class gloom, Loach's warm, comic touch elevates the story of an aging man cracking up in plain sight.

Part of the fun of Joshua is the skill with which Ratliff juggles horror and realism, feeding one into the other until we become part of the unraveling of the Cairns' perfect life.

Murray honors his buddy by presenting him as a sympathetic enigma - the puzzling center of this very human suspense thriller.

Braff is bright and has a quick ear for vernacular dialogue, and he's caught the look and the sound of his blitzed, prematurely disillusioned generation, which has had to live with more lack of definition than most.

Its overall view of 12-year-old life is essentially one of high-spirited fun.

A peppy if uneven charmer with a fetchingly wistful edge.

No one does dissolute hubris with as much charm as Grant, and his ebullience is the perfect foil to the misanthropic McCarthy.

It's fair to assume that most viewers likely to see the film, whose title is the very definition of truth in advertising, already own the knowledge being sold.

This is wall-to-wall mayhem that dashes from one stylish, splattery, nonsensical set-piece to the next, while the star attacks her silly role with the carnivorous brio of an ocelot clawing a side of ham.

Has surprising depth and charm, descriptors never before ascribed to a movie starring Ashton Kutcher.

Sean's grandfather was the colorful longshore Communist Archie Brown, and part of the film's charm lies in its evocation of a generational mural that includes old Marxists, flower children and the progeny of red-diaper babies.

The Hulk is a beautiful movie, but it's unlikely to win points as a monster flick -- it's too elegant, too whimsical.

The small-town Irish feel of the movie is infectious, and McGrath uncovers some great supporting players.

Why Capote liked the movie so much (or said he did) isn't entirely clear, for though it's a gripping piece of American Gothic, it's as thematically timid as it is formally flamboyant.

These hunks of greased lightning tell how a gearhead SoCal teen got wind of the post-World War II hot-rodding craze, crossed paths with a pinstriper named von Dutch and ended up as the automotive visionary whom Tom Wolfe famously called “a genius of the only uniquely American art form.”

Ultimately a wiser and truer film than its crass and cartoony beginnings would have us believe.

There's something refreshing about a film set in Los Angeles that gets its L.A.-ness right -- the difference in vibe between Silver Lake and the Hollywood Hills, or the types of people at CityWalk versus Saks. It is that sense of specificity, both geographic and emotional, that gives Shopgirl its pull.

Although the hinges connecting the film's elements -- slapstick, political satire, thriller, gross-out shots -- sometimes squeak loudly, they hold the movie together nicely.

The good news is that this off-the-wall ensemble comedy may just be the summer's happiest surprise.

This Southern Gothic Alice in Wonderland is not for the faint-hearted, to be sure, yet amid the swaying chaff there are moments of piercing grace and beauty when we'e reminded of the lost, lonely child at the heart of this tale. If nothing else, it's liberating to see one of cinema's unrepentant fantasists going out on a limb like this and cutting loose.

While your personal estimation of this conservative counterprogrammer will depend largely on your politics, Chetwynd and company at least attempt to score their points honestly.

Rozema seems determined to defrill the Austen trend and charge it with a fiercer sort of femininity.

Solid and inspiring will do nicely for Christmas, but it ought not to be good enough for the Oscar nominations that will almost certainly rain upon this movie's adequate head.

The love that grows between Fish and Poinsettia could have turned treacly in the wrong hands, but director Charles Burnett -- has the direct observational style of the silent masters.

Andrucha Waddington's admirably pretentious epic of woman in nature makes the rare attempt to impart a purely visual experience

The stadiums and performance halls of Pyongyang become staging grounds for massive, highly choreographed political pageants that make the Nuremberg rallies look like dinner theater. You’ve never seen anything quite like these dazzling displays of groupthink.

The filmmaking is actually quite polished, and Ribisi is fascinating to watch -- his fluttery weirdness has never seemed more grounded and resonant, turning Gray's self-destructive egoism into near tragedy.

It's not really original stuff, and there are few genuine surprises, but Painter skillfully layers visual details and off-the-cuff dialogue into a smart, condescension-free piece on small towns and the complicated lives they contain. The standout here is the always-wonderful Seymour (Hotel Rwanda, Birth).

Refreshingly complex teen drama.

Sumptuous, clever and cold.

Shot on digital and layered with animated segments, performance footage and clips from Smith family home movies, Family Movie unfolds with a gentle, justified confidence in the power of its subject.

Sweetly mocking comedy about the perils of reaching 30 with little to show for one's avant-gardeness except crazy hair and an ossifying attitude.

A heartbreaking reminder of all the wars whose frontlines are currently held by the very young, wars that have robbed them not only of family and friends, but of their childhoods as well.

Memorable, if not fully satisfying, film.

Kline, Debbie Reynolds (as his mom) and Tom Selleck are all wonderful. But it's the always amazing Cusack, playing the baffled Emily, who steals the film in a smooth transition from wide-eyed fiancée to possibly wronged woman, a role she essays with a perfect balance of wounded-ness and comedic aplomb.

A snappy, delightfully balanced bit of historic whimsy.

Bose does a good job of keeping his melancholy tales loose with wry humor, and while not all of the episodes are successful, at their best they show real empathy for the complex lives of India's modern middle class.

It's Boyar who’s the find here, though, a gently magnetic presence who's all the more impressive for being thoroughly riveting despite spending most of the movie face-down on a counter.

Although Harrelson displays the right balance of sweetness and quiet instability, Defendor’s genial spirit fails to mesh with the filmmaker’s exploration of darker emotional terrain.

Even amid all the campy, uneven creepiness The Fog unleashes, you have to give it up to Carpenter for continuing his knack of making women just as ready as men to get into heroic, survival mode whenever some strange shit goes down.

Filled with brilliant filmmaking and features outstanding performances, but it's neither profound enough nor pop enough to be great -- it's mournful, serious, beautiful and, finally, pointless.

The movie gives every cheerful appearance of having been shot with no time and less money, and it doesn't have much on its mind, unless you count the moral integrity supplied by local Apaches more by way of Mel Brooks than Howard Hawks.

There is much clattering and clanking plus a couple of songs; some of the gothic-inspired, neo-Victorian visuals are quite arresting; and the corpse bride herself is, dare one say, surprisingly hot. But the whole thing just isn’t much fun.

Patriot reflects on nothing, except perhaps that the American Revolution was a golden opportunity for Mel Gibson to go postal.

Corsini's insight into the psyche of this contemporary woman doesn't have much of a point because it tells us nothing new.

It's good -- when it's not adrift in an absence of meaning.

Engages on a narrative level; however, Chokling’s direction fails to give the story any period texture or visceral emotion.

While I don't doubt that Howard's done the best he can, it's sad to see a beautiful mind whittled down by such a plain one.

In the final act, the movie dons a more human face and commits to an absorbing tale of crime and punishment, albeit pushing the fatigued message that you can't always tell light from dark these days.

Audiences are destined to debate the film's final scenes, where Hanley piles on plot twists, leading to a coda that turns a creepily ambiguous story about God and the terrifying power of paternal love into something closer to an X-File.

In his capable, yet only mildly exciting, adaptation of Charles Dickens’ third novel, Douglas McGrath (Emma) keeps reminding us that what we’re seeing is theater. This feels gratuitous.

At once a heartfelt story about a family undone by violence and an overburdened allegory of fascism.

It's the spark and surprise of good sketch comedy that makes this film really work--the laugh-out-loud moments are worth the wait.

If nothing else, Chuck & Larry should open up a whole new career path for the ineffably funny, unselfconsciously buck-naked Ving Rhames as an übermacho firefighter who’s been sitting on a little secret of his own.

Mercifully free of excess mania, sexual innuendo and fart jokes, this sweet-natured comedy, ably directed by John Whitesell (Malibu's Most Wanted), has some nice bits of business.

Southland Tales pilfers large chunks of its plot and visual style from Alex Cox’s "Repo Man," Kathryn Bigelow’s "Strange Days" and Shane Carruth’s Sundance-winning "Primer," and unlike the makers of those films, Kelly hasn’t digested his influences and made them his own -- he’s more like the slacker college kid who’s just enough of an intellectual poseur to bluff his way to an A. That said, Southland Tales isn’t entirely without its pleasures, chiefly The Rock.

But for all Bening’s high emoting and her trademark giggle, here overused to the point of annoyance, for most of its length Being Julia offers little insight into a woman whose life is ruled by theatrics.

The direction rarely rises above acceptable, but anytime the camera’s pointed at Grant, it doesn’t matter. Like the currently ubiquitous pop song of the same name says, sometimes it’s a good hurt.

Peterson and her longtime writing partner, John Paragon, as well as director Sam Irvin, clearly worship the Poe-inspired Roger Corman/Vincent Price films of the 1960s, so of course there’s a pit and a pendulum in that dungeon, but who’d have expected it to be so beautifully designed?

The Shapiros, whose film is intercut with hilarious clips from vintage TV interviews with Mike Douglas and Charlie Rose, ultimately reveal a frail but mentally robust old man.

[Proyas] hasn't yet learned how to enliven his characters as fully as his sets. Part of this is structural (somnolence is built into the script), but the greater fault lies with Proyas' direction of his performers, most of whom deliver their lines in a strangulated whisper.

What feels genuine in the film -- mother-son bonds, the wedding party -- is surrounded by overdetermined and formulaic scenes lifted from other films.

The less rosy message of Catch a Fire is that aggression breeds aggression.

Throughout God Spoke, Franken comes off as passionate and funny, with an impressive ability to muster facts and an absence of smugness.

McKinnon's direction is nothing if not atmospheric -- his best scenes unfold with a pungent languor that suggests the power of the backwoods to turn hours into days and days into years. If only the sum total were a movie more "In the Bedroom" than it is everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.

There's so much that's right in it that its blunders are all the more frustrating.

Against the odds of this wheezy material and Michael Browning's fitfully funny script, director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Dave), a master of timing, contrives to spin a likable romantic comedy.

The movie lover in you will recoil; your inner sophomore will rejoice.

Williams is a great clown, and Oedekirk and Shadyac give him room to really cut loose, and cure the movie. That’s as it should be.

Not especially lively filmmaking, but Zilberman has unearthed some terrific footage of the club in its heyday.

This shaggy-dog sequel is ultimately satisfying for the most low-tech of reasons: The competitive bond between the two central characters.

Con Air is entertaining in an extravagantly decadent sort of way. It just isn't a movie.

It's this trip home that lifts this unpolished, homegrown documentary above the ordinary.

(Cage's) performance feels embalmed in the accumulated shtick of an actor trapped in excess.

Pretty good going for a ton of moisture.

It would all be too obviously feel-good if Ducastel and Martineau weren't also tuned in to the liberating drift of the open highway and a sharp native humor that adds needed flesh and blood to their walking metaphors.

Gorier, meaner and uglier than anything Sylvester Stallone has made before, and as such damnably effective in rousing your blood lust, this wind-up groin kicker of a movie seems initially as wary of being pulled back into a dirty job as its reluctant hero.

Though hardly a major work, The Burial Society has going for it something that many of the snickering noir comedies currently littering the field lack. Underneath its cheeky amorality, there beats a heart.

Precious little history of any kind shows its face in Marie Antoinette. The omission is strategic.

Though engaging from beginning to end, be warned that this is also harrowing, utterly depressing stuff.

In the end, Curse also looks alarmingly like a dry run for the opening and closing ceremonies Zhang has been hired to direct for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

Things could be worse. At the end of the day, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is nothing if not consistent -- taking care of business solidly, professionally and without a lick of the genuine wonderment or inspiration that you can find in surplus in Jon Favreau's Spielberg-influenced "Iron Man."

Less outright terrifying than under-the-skin shivery, this psychological thriller from sui generis Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa breaks nearly all the rules -- including those of narrative logic.

Swank's character and her performance are good enough to merit a movie of their own, instead of serving as fourth wheel to this lifeless ménage à trois.

Clichéd though it may be, this movie was clearly made with love.

It's the disease of Hollywood remakes that they nearly always lose sight of what made the original good in the first place. Where Alexander Mackendrick's film offered a delicately diabolical blend of the ordinary and the brutal -- the new Ladykillers bludgeons you with cartoonish gags about stupid football players, irritable-bowel syndrome and somebody accidentally shooting himself in the head.

The overall vibe is druggy and self-indulgent, like a spring-break orgy for pretentious arts majors.

A happy vulgarity still reigns.

Helped along by news clips, the filmmakers do better with the crash-and-burn business story than with the actuality of the Studio experience.

Compared to the glib, pandering rosiness of most current chick-flicks, Anywhere but Here is a class act.

West delivers the emotional goods when tragedy strikes in the final reel. If 17-year-old pop star Moore isn't a skilled actress, she's at least unassuming.

A cleverly plotted, cleanly crafted matinee item -- pure entertainment on a romping continuum with Frankenheimer's "Ronin."

Came alive only in the presence of a supposed dead man -- specifically, the nefarious Lord Voldemort.

What starts out as a lively reconsidering of the thug-life mentality ends up having as much depth as, well, one of Robinson's videos.