This might be as perfect a new-millennium Halloween creepshow as we can expect.

The result is a feast for the eyes but frequently a famine for the frontal lobes, a movie of towering imagination and middling rewards.

What's right as rain with Diary is the casting.

An enjoyable female buddy caper -- more "Outrageous Fortune" than "Thelma and Louise."

Too much of a locker-room melodrama to make for great tragedy.

The film has an unabashed romantic tone that's matched by Wenders' usual flair for visual drama.

It's the kind of flourish that makes you smile -- that makes you believe in the power of movies.

Simply a pleasant diversion rather the paean to crazy-in-love classics it would so like to be.

Like "Pollock," Nora is a convincing portrait of the intersection between creative genius and crazy, all-consuming love.

The voyage is never less than interesting, even when you have no idea where it could possibly go.

The material it does pull off is daring and sharp.

Arresting, visually accomplished documentary.

Repetitive, aimless, and as frustrating as you'd imagine any two-hour music video to be.

Come Undone is the quintessential gay date at the art house.

As amusing and sharply performed as it is, Lisa Picard quickly grows thin and dull. Perhaps it would have been better as a real documentary, with Kirk and DeWolf simply playing their pathetic selves.

Almost nothing happens for most of the movie.

A tepid and surprisingly dull farce stamped from the "About Mary" mold.

Glossy, gruesome police drama.

At once arch, derivative, and, in the end, bizarrely lyrical.

Just try not to smile while watching Jump Tomorrow.

Mild as satire and completely unconvincing as tragicomedy.

Makes for compulsive viewing.

Spacey and Bridges -- generally provide exactly the level of investment required for their characters to be convincing. Neither one showboats, and both make good use of the dry humor in Leavitt's script.

Wincer keeps the insubstantial story moving and the comedy light.

A smirky black comedy that, like its John Lurie score, is jazzy, dry, and light on its feet.

Packed with melodrama, and often it works in the passionate, easy-to-watch manner of an old-fashioned "woman's film."

The real reason to see it is Brian Cox, best known for being filmdom's other Hannibal Lecter (he played the role in Michael Mann's "Manhunter").

Strictly where the boys are: posing, posturing, and talking engine envy.

This is, recognizably, an indie film, in the best sense of the term.

Ultimately too slight and opaque to inspire much ardor.

What does it say that we have a closer relationship with the car than with the characters? It says Bruckheimer.

The overlapping dialogue and the comedy of famous people playing self-variations is pure Altman (Leigh, not surprisingly, has worked in three Altman films).

The ending is so absurd, in fact, that it feels like it was improvised by a committee of 6-year-olds. If the raptors truly were intelligent, they'd have eaten the final reel.

The rapper-ever-increasingly-turned actor -- is having the time of his life, big pimp styling in a flashy wardrobe as he guts and struts.

It's a coffee-table movie, but what saves it are a couple of performances.Rowlands puts a spin on every line reading, Harris quietly mines regret, and Shields, assured and sexy, has never been this good.

For some viewers, this will seem a trial of predictability and unrelenting sweetness; for others, it's more than enough.

A mess, bouncing nonsensically from one style of farce to another, leaving large vacuums and dead spots — which may themselves, of course, be deliberate.

Makes for compulsive viewing even though its noirish plot doesn't make a lick of sense.

Too much of a study in formalism to register deeply on an emotional level.

The more we realize that we're stuck in the company of a totally relentless loser, the drearier the entire experience becomes.

Families already know exactly what they're in for, and they're likely to leave the multiplex high on the hum of a charming cast, sunny San Francisco locations, and a suitably happy ending.

For the most part, it's when the women do the singing -- that Songcatcher really comes alive.

Sags, lollygags, and blusters too much to sustain the what-the-hell momentum that Kitano achieves in his best movies.

Quite handsomely produced, and there's a definite swashbuckling verve to it. Most of the characters have been contemporized, but the actors are engaging.

Too often, the movie is more forced and frantic than actually funny.

Pure, irrational, claustrophobic, gritty, unpretentious.

It's not a movie you could call dispassionate, however aimless and unfocused. It's a Molotov cocktail tossed in several directions at once.

Its emotional sweep is ultimately undercut by murky characterizations and generic plotting.

Has one of the most stupendously tasteless premises in cinema history, and much of the time when this movie tries to beckon a smile, the effect is closer to astonished nausea.

The movie's most glaring flaw is that the brothers and their screenwriters, Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias, don't manage to preserve the secret of the Ripper's identity for nearly as long as they intend to.

If you're looking for refuge from summer movie bombast, it's frequently intoxicating.

This fictionalized, frequently stomach-churning biography of Australian criminal Mark Chopper Read features the most bloody ear-severing scene since "Reservoir Dogs."

The cast is largely nonprofessional, and the story has the simplicity of myth.

It's a shame that Jeepers Creepers cops out -- as American genre movies have been doing for years -- and plays it safe with an F/X-heavy creature that no one would believe in a thousand years.

A modestly entertaining ride.

The naked, artless display of nerve and rebellious bile is altogether unique in modern movies.

This bed-swapping crime story is ultimately too protracted, but Piñeyro's direction is richly atmospheric, full of noir shadows and strong period detail.

The wrap-up's pretty charming, as are the performances, but the film's too heavy for its soufflé-ready ingredients.

Plays like "The Honeymooners" might have if Ralph Kramden were from Pakistan, but with less laughs and more ignorant spite.

All of the interviewees are compelling, whether proudly showing off bruises and bullet holes from on-the-job scuffles, or voicing their opinions about how the profession has changed.

While An Everlasting Piece is rife with engaging family moments and an undeniable charm, it never allows its characters to find the very thing they're seeking: peace.

Born Romantic feels less like it was born than assembled, in a kooky Britcom factory. It's no "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but it's certainly a happier conception than last month's "Maybe Baby."

Murphy's second outing as the M.D. who talks to the animals is surprisingly engaging.

But it's Lopez's movie, and its limitations are hers: Both actress and movie tackle emotional turmoil with a minimum of insight.

The watchability of Extreme Days can be mostly chalked up to Hannah's playful impulses -- and his cast's infectious camaraderie.

Good old-fashioned romantic entertainment, just restrained enough to skirt schmaltz.

Sunk by its own melodramatic falseness, and it stands as a well-meaning yet lacking tribute to a courageous man.

Hits the wall and runs off the rails. They should've stuck to shtick.

It's good enough, smart enough, and people will like it. It's also a high-concept cop-out, a convention-strangled genre movie that never zigs when your every instinct is screaming that it's about to zag.

It's Norton's movie, really, and he shines both as cocky Jack and as cerebral-palsied Brian.

Beautifully performed and filmed, but tiresomely schematic episodes like this one cause us to experience major sensory deprivation.

Billed cleverly as a comedy from the heart that goes for the throat. If only Brooks had had the guts to avoid the schmaltz.

Oh-so-tiresomely familiar.

Affectionately skewers the age of polyester pants.

An amiable but contrived bit of blarney.

A pleasant and surprisingly polished fish-out-of-water comedy.

Just isn't funny enough to sustain the lunacy.

The farce hits the fan, and you just wait for the thing to be over.

Engagingly silly sub-"Moonlighting"-style banter.

The first 15 minutes of Nowhere to Hide rock, and after that it's got nowhere to hide from its own excesses.

Despite good performances and moments of spectacle, it seems to go on longer than the Cultural Revolution.

Feels like it was pulled out of the freezer and hastily microwaved about 10 minutes before you arrived at the theater.

A bit too bloodless to howl about.

In its attempts to chart a young girl's journey from innocence to experience, The Invisible Circus ends up having all the heft of a Nancy Drew mystery decked out in a tie-dyed T-shirt and peasant skirt.

Shower isn't a bad movie -- just a baneful sign of things to come.

If Parker had aimed more at capturing the author's unique voice, and worried less about getting the details right, his movie might have been extraordinary as well.

It's a wonderful reminder of the importance of music in the movies.

A cute, clichéd, coming-of-age comedy.

The movie is a shambles, a rambling, disjointed love tragedy with a story that amounts to little more than a mess of fade-outs, sloppy montages, and dramatic sketches.

Fans starving for some song and dance celluloid may be satiated, but this movie version really shows the material's age.

As a portrait of a man barely qualifying for a cinematic portrait, Benjamin Smoke is a trifle, but when Sillen and Cohen turn their cameras on the weedy, workaday, hellhole America that Benjamin calls home, the movie comes alive.

Covers some bases, but it feels like the Cliffs Notes version of a grander epic.

Considerably less fun than a marathon of Star Search episodes.

It's amiable enough, but the only real opportunity here is to see Walken step out of the shadows.

For many, the enticement of seeing two old pros smartly step through their pressurized pas de deux might be reason enough to buy a ticket.

A seven-course melodrama.

For all its wit and sharp casting, State and Main is way too pleased with itself to be funny or endearing.

A detective story without a solution and a coming-of-ager without discernable characters.