Like being jacked directly into Linklater's alpha waves, and the experience is bracingly new to movies.

Confident, mature, deeply conceived, and convincingly inhabited, it's a surprisingly humane film -- despite the close-range shotgun spray.

It's Zahn's heartbreaking performance that drives Riding in Cars with Boys.

Something of a featherweight, but it's also a positively divine comedy.

What matters is that the movie's a blast, right up until its protracted climax.

A teenage movie that trusts its audience -- it sounds crazy, but it's actually quite beautiful.

A wide-eyed, action-adventure throwback to the era of Disney's magnificent adaptation of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

The results are both savagely funny and poignant for anyone who's ever had a friendship that felt like their only connection to the outside world.

Mesmerizing entertainment, but it's also a cop-out.

High drama this ain't. And yet, anyone looking for a hearty banquet of gymnastic, kung-fu tomfoolery won't walk away hungry.

Oy, it's such a pleasure that you'll be begging for Rush Hour 3.

The casting is sublime.

The results are far more real than MTV's The Real World.

The bubble-kid moms can whine all they want, but Bubble Boy is a liberated movie --liberated from tastefulness, of course, but also from logic, suffering, consequence, and temperance.

Marred by an unconvincing love triangle and an insincere dénouement, it's a story that nonetheless resonates as much as "Saving Private Ryan does."

Best of all is the supporting performance of The Jackie Robinson Steppers Marching Band, a real group of high-school musicians in which the three girls all perform.

The Spy Who Shagged Me is impossible-to-resist summer fun that left me feeling, dare I say, randy for more? Oh, behave.

The real revelation, however, is Keanu Reeves. His character is something of a caricature — a violent, white-trash wife-beater — but Reeves' portrayal is joltingly authentic.

Dares to substitute wit and warmth for the standard gay indie tropes in tackling its tale of an unconventional couple.

Liam is mostly an emotionally devastating chronicle of the disintegration of a family. The entire cast is superb, but Frears has cast two screen naturals in the lead roles.

It's such a sensory experience; in its best moments, the film washes over you like a fever dream.

Nolan's engrossing, backwards-ticking noir will run you so thoroughly in circles that you'll need to see it at least twice for maximum enjoyment.

"Trek"-heads will laugh hardest, but there are plenty of yuks for the uninitiated as well.

The politicizing is intense, but the actual game footage is even more engrossing; Carlson uses both digital video and 16mm film to put us squarely in the midst of the gridiron brouhaha.

This isn't a crowd-pleaser in terms of subject matter -- you've got a convict and a nun, with no love scenes -- but Robbins keeps it interesting.

In spirit, 101 Reykjavík is so Almodóvar that it could melt the polar icecap.

Optimistically explores how vastly different people can come together, and how any journey is more about what happens along the way than simply getting from one place to another.

It's a pleasure to watch these unhurried, character-driven vignettes when such great actors are anchoring them.