If nothing else, Memento is a savvy comment on the queasy uncertainties of the postmodern condition, in which history goes no further back than yesterday's news, and knowledge is supplanted by "information" from a tumult of spin-controlled, unreliable narrators.

A dense and dazzling science-fiction mind-bender unassumingly dressed up in a tech geek’s short-sleeved oxford shirt, pocket protector and safety goggles.

Control honors its subject’s eternal self-doubt by honing in on that truth and leaving the legend to others.

For sheer urbane elegance coupled with technical mastery and lush, old-fashioned élan, no one working for the studios today comes close to the versatile Soderbergh.

The proceedings are leavened also with a carefree sense of humor -- including some clever, jokey camera work -- and given depth by a cache of marvelous performances.

Becomes one of those wonderfully weird adventure stories beloved of children who don't mind getting a good old-fashioned case of the heebie-jeebies. It's kind of a blast for adults too.

Filmed only with direct light and sound, Bush's stunning camerawork adroitly captures the majestic landscapes and icons of Buddhism: its murals and artworks, monks and nuns.

If Sayles had maneuvered these stories and performances into even a shade more sentimentality or gravitas, the weight would have collapsed them like a house of cards. As it is, they breathe easily, delicately into each other.

Even the “good” Holocaust stories are chased by heartbreak, as we learn from this straight-ahead documentary.

Just around the halfway point, something unexpected happens -- the movie actually gets good. You can chalk that up to the delightful Alan Rickman.

Mystery Men gives proof that satire isn't dead.

A labor of love hobbled by a stubborn desire to eke its delicate love story out of a premise that all but sits up and begs to be treated as a political thriller.

Leconte, as always, means to explore the gray areas between sexual espionage and love, and there remains something powerful about the fantasy of being listened to, without judgment.

Christine Lahti, making her directorial debut, wrings good laughs and strong emotion throughout, largely through the performances.

Visibly uninspired, Pacino gives a perfunctory performance -- though surely he must have looked over at Farrell and been reminded of himself 30 years ago, all jacked-up and beautiful, like a stallion at the gate.

When movie clichés are presented with rigor and feeling, they can pack a fresh punch.

The list of ills is endless, well-researched, and cross-referenced repeatedly for emphasis. That makes the film a bit of a slog at times, but the fury and grief of the folks interviewed propel it forward.

The film is a triumph of casting: In a role that is often about the sheer steamrolling force of his character’s personality, Abishek Bachchan’s attention to detail makes Guru accessible rather than intimidating, admirable but also plausible.

Waters directing, from a perky script by Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon, is bouncy and assured enough to give a cheeky lilt to what otherwise might have been an earnest PSA for intergenerational peace, love and understanding.

Where Lehane's novel seethes with emotionally charged subtext, Eastwood's workmanlike direction feels static -- fatally tasteful, embalmed in gravitas -- while his sporadic efforts at dramatic heightening come off as vulgar cliché.

Since the movie is in such a hurry, we’re not given much chance to soak in this strangeness. Making up for it: Black is paired with Blanchett, who plays a neighboring witch in smashing violet skirt ensembles; the two rat-a-tat insults at each other like a vaudevillian comedy duo.

It’s a shame we never get to know Andrew as well as Regina — arguably part of the moody teen persona — but it’s even more affecting when Andrew’s initially passive existence escalates due to white fear, and his mother is left to fight for his chance at life.

Storaro's gorgeous cinematography imbues every frame with an enthralling subjectivity.

Go for the dazzling, if repetitive, human stunt work. Endure the appallingly simplistic politics.

Especially wrenching are scenes of the Yazidi, torn from the land of their birth, separated from one another in camps, confronting the question of how to remain unified when scattered across the globe.

Engrossing.

While the film does take some twists and turns — some fairly contrived — it mostly drills down and explores her emotional conundrum without drawing symbolic conclusions about the world we live in.

A capable, if modest, charmer.

Delicious fun, indeed, but it doesn't really require a large screen. Please send me a copy of the DVD.

There's never been a movie director like Catherine Breillat, a fearless visionary and one hell of a woman.

Late Marriage, though hardly dispassionate, assiduously avoids passing judgment on any of its characters, all of whom are desperately trying to bend the world into conformity with their own narratives and superstitions.

Watching this well-behaved adaptation of one of Greene's most personal novels, you can't help but wish that the novelist had been around to write his own script.

It's a laudably complicated, if emotional and a little comic-book goofy, story of how a confluence of forces - industry skepticism, trained-seal lobbyists and, last but not least, consumer reluctance - undermined the future of a quiet little bean of mobile metal that the anointed few who could afford to lease it passionately adored.

Juvenile, sloppy and frequently, idiotically hilarious.

Grounded in the easy rhythms of daily life, this charming little film shows unexpected grit in sequences set in the white household where Lindiwe works, a place so oppressive that it suddenly seems way past time for South African movie characters - and their home audience - to experience a dose or two of Hollywood-style wish fulfillment.

Zippy, stylish fun.

The movie remains fragmented, elliptical and overplotted to the point of being hard to track. Still, it's worth hanging in for the finish, a birthday party for Gus (David Duchovny), the producer of the film and the one person they're all linked to. Then Soderbergh pulls off a delicious trick, a gesture of pure, tender, unabashed movie love that makes up for everything.

A rosy, hearthside fantasy of acceptance that's so assured in its writing and direction, it's nearly impossible not to believe.

Deftly blending disrespect and good nature, Fred Claus is a gas.

Charmingly irreverent.

The genuinely fascinating story is one of revolutionary intention and unrelenting grit, but while Mario is a competent enough filmmaker, he has neither the urgency nor, frankly, the chops to make his own movie fire up.

Screenwriter Vincent Molina and director Fabrice Cazaneuve are wonderfully calm about the tumult of teen life.

Refreshingly quirky comedy.

Doesn't even come close to being a good movie, but it is a lot of fun.

As a director of melodramatic peak moments, Karan Johar has no peer: He stages a chance encounter on a New York street between an adulterous husband and the two women in his life with the slow-motion virtuosity of a soap-opera De Palma.

A deft exercise in atmospheric horror and insanity. Which is why it's unfortunate that, ultimately, Anderson steps back from the brink.

Eric Eason's assured debut succeeds in the way Larry Clark's “Kids” succeeded -- through a feel for the rhythms of street life, and some extraordinary casting.

The story subtly evokes Rand and scripture, colliding secular and spiritual values, and, as such, appeals to the blue- and red-minded alike.

Subtlety was never Taylor Hackford's long suit, but that's an asset in this mischievously fortissimo poke at lawyering and capitalist competition.

Beowulf may ultimately be viewed as a failure, but it’s a fascinating one.

A funny summer frolic.

Genuinely touching.

Brilliant, goofy, vindictive, incoherent and compassionate, Summer of Sam begins as a work of startling ambition, spins out of control, and finally limps to a bland halt.

A great goof of a film...However daftly amusing, and periodically inspired, Men in Black is distinctly short on character and plot, even for a cartoon.

What seduces most about Ask the Dust isn't its verisimilitude, but its gloriously old-fashioned backlot sheen - the L.A. of old Hollywood movies and of our collective fantasies.

Wilding's genuine curiosity about the monks' beliefs and daily routines, as well as her willingness to ask questions that sometimes make her look like a bit of a dip, gives the film a homespun honesty and sincerity that make it a surprisingly pleasant trip.

Mercifully, the supporting cast saves the day by grasping clearly that in a comedy of manners you have to act mannered, though not to the point of situation comedy.

How Miike gets us from amiable point A to debilitating point B is a remarkable act of manipulation and control that may leave you feeling sucker-punched, even brutalized, but you won't forget the experience anytime soon.

With her ductile physicality and undeniable charm, Witherspoon remains acutely present even when everyone else -- director, writers and cast -- has checked out.

Zellweger looks like a big movie star roughing it à la Paris Hilton, and as if this weren't distracting enough, the hills are alive with big acting names from both sides of the Atlantic who pop up as help or hindrance to Inman's pilgrim's progress while straining, with variable success, for credible Southern twangs.

The picture's deepest strength, however, is the fire Fernán-Gómez conjures from deep within himself, as if "honor" were an extinct volcano he could will into exploding, given enough anger and time.

A couple of unexpected revelations in the final act pack an emotional wallop that shifts the film (shot in clean, uncluttered takes) into the realm of old-fashioned tearjerker, but the tears are wholly earned.

Teems with ideas both literary and existential, which might make it unbearably precious, were it not redeemed by woozy charm and some serious acting from Will Ferrell.

Breaks in the film's otherwise smooth continuum, however, are bridged by Hutchins' soulful performance, and by Chaiken's excellent feel for the grace notes and steady tempo of native New York life, the sacredness of female friendship, and the precarious balance between love for oneself and for others.

When all is said and done, Roos treats his characters and his audience to an unblushingly sentimental, conciliatory ending of the kind that ordinarily makes me feel as though I'm being played for a sucker. I wept on demand and went home happy.

A film in which the mechanics of the plot are far less interesting, and vital, then the interior landscape of men who exist outside the law.

And though at over two hours the movie is too long and too slow, de Caunes sustains a sense of mystery and ambiguity to the end of what is both a satisfying character study and a stately quasi-thriller for amateur historians.

Malkovich and Dafoe play off each other with a devilish hamminess.

Full of last-minute surprises, this willfully slippery movie seems to make the case both for mixing it up and sticking to your own kind. Which is all of a piece with the sensibility of this wonderfully ambiguous filmmaker, a visionary of our changing times.

This ode to wrestling one's way out of youth's shell holds up surprisingly well.

Worms is one of those rare kiddie flicks that successfully adopt a child’s-eye view of the world, where nothing is more important than saving face on the playground and where parents are as distant and clueless as storybook giants.

The flawed, fascinating Land of Plenty is easily Wenders' most vital work in more than a decade -- a troubling meditation on terrorism paranoia, poverty and homelessness.

It’s the captured conversations about everyday lives and struggles that pin you to your seat.

A one-joke movie if ever there was, but the joke happens to be a good one -- a Tracy-and-Hepburn-style battle of the sexes in which Kate can fly and blast through walls -- and director Ivan Reitman (who made Ghostbusters) feels at home with the mix of screwball and supernatural.

Green is essentially a poet of moods rather than a teller of tales, and he adorns the movie with stylistic touches influenced by Terrence Malick.

This film puts a pained human face on the cost of the corporate status quo.

There's so little going on with either the film's story or its characters, however, that there is plenty of time to get lost in cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's eerily beautiful visuals.

Precisely observed, charming and - for better and worse - light as air.

For all the vampires and blown-up cars, you'll see no sadism for the hell of it, only an oddly sweet-tempered mix of hyperbole, understatement and profoundly Slavic philosophizing about guilt, freedom and responsibility.

Despite a midfilm lull of his own, Eisner stages a series of nifty action sequences, nearly all of which feature a moment of surprise, as well as gruesome wit.

Maglietta, whose soulful countenance and offhand grace are soothing to behold, and Ganz, who says more with a shrug and sigh than most poets do with a sonnet.

Writer-director David Jacobson has an excitingly clear-eyed, unsentimental feel for the intensity of adolescent passion.

An illuminating, infuriating document that paints McKinney as a true American heroine and patriot and confirms your worst fears about just how rotten our "democratic" process is at its core.

Drake draws us in, digging deep to track the occasionally divine, always ridiculous journey that is big-city gay life.

The only player in this tawdry round-robin game who moved or seduced me in any way was Andy’s poor, hapless Gina. Tomei’s an ordinary beauty... But she has real screen presence and range, and her neglected wife is an artful inversion of her Oscar-winning role as Danny DeVito’s pert squeeze in "My Cousin Vinny."

Charming, animated retelling of stories from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books.

Hatamikia isn't just a button pusher; he's a skilled craftsman with a dynamic wide-screen shooting style, who draws us into the story with visceral devices such as speedy tracking shots and gliding slow motion -- flashy elements the fastidious new wavers wouldn't touch.

The cast is uniformly good, but Isabelle Blais especially stands out as Natalie.

Harris and Heche are simply electric together, and "Hill Street Blues'" Charles Haid is wonderfully brash as the venal bishop.

Uncomfortable fun.

Catches the volatile beauty of what it was to be alive and politically aware in the early '70s with a rare accuracy and depth.

The result is (no pun intended) a powerful wake-up call, not just for Hollywood but for a nation that once fought passionately for the eight-hour workday and now, ever more willingly, works itself to death.

Fleming's more than passable, often extremely funny remake.

The film's plainness, and the understated force of van der Groen and Petersen's performances, sharpen its complexity of feeling until all mawkishness is cut away.

What's fun is that the road to that climactic Capitol showdown is paved with one ridiculous and relentlessly edited set piece after another.

Although they’re not revealing in a "Barbara Walters gets the guest to cry" sense, the interview segments are queasily fascinating.

Moments of genuine insight alternate freely with those of banal psychologizing, but even then there can be no denying that the filmmaker has an ear for a certain brand of self-absorbed discourse often overheard in restaurants and bars in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. And given the choice, I’ll take Henry’s home movies over Jonathan Demme’s any day of the week.

Unexpectedly gripping horror movie.