Captures David Bowie's meticulous identity quest with all the frenetic energy (read: slop) of a wildlife documentary on drugs.

If only director Walter Hill and his coscreenwriter David Giler had scribbled a punch line for all these punches, this rage-in-the-cage redux would be more than merely a limp showcase of machismo so passé as to embarrass your average Australopithecus.

Will probably please hard-core action fans who have become inured to plot idiocies, but it remains a terrible waste of talent.

The film feels like a violation of the festival's philosophy of "participants only, no spectators": Who, after all, is going to sit in a theater to see this but a spectator? It is fun stuff to look at, though.

That Osmosis Jones plays like a sloppy hodgepodge is no surprise: The live-action scenes were done by the Farrellys, the animation by Sito and Kroon (whose names sounds like bodily functions), and the script was penned by another first-timer, Marc Hyman. Nobody seems to be on the same page.

There is more anxiety than loving humor in the proceedings, and a noticeable lack of charm.

It's refreshing and unusual to see clever strategy trumping ritual honor in a film of this genre, even if one of the tricks seems gratuitously brutal.

The film feels like what it is: an improvised comedy bit that two friends came up with.

Except for a few slow patches, the movie is compulsively watchable: You keep waiting to see just how sick things are going to get.

Sharp, smart and robustly engaging film.

What's somewhat ironic about Bread and Roses is that it's bound to be more interesting to people outside of L.A. than in it.

All manner of superstitions, religious conspiracies and insurrections are aired, resulting less in awe than bewilderment. However, taken as an exciting and expansive cultural bridge, the film is a roaring success.

Whatever Dark Blue World lacks in pyrotechnics it makes up for with richly drawn characters, high drama and pointed historical ironies.

Smart, wry and awesome, all at once.

You'll laugh a lot, but not without a sense of animal desperation.

As the story plows toward its finale, the cultural dislocation problems become worse, until by the end they almost defeat the whole film.

Thoughtful and somewhat languid adaptation of Anton Chekhov's 1904 play finds its beauty in the heady performance of Charlotte Rampling.

Startlingly, this is not the trite beer commercial one might expect.

It's a feel-good movie for people tired of paying to feel bad. Bring it on.

When it's all over, one is less compelled to applaud than to give each "character" a sympathetic hug.

For those partial to sublimely happy endings there won't be a peep of complaint. Only us recalcitrant souls will be left wishing Punks had just a tad more spunk.

At 75, Aranda can still make his actors sizzle on the screen as well as he did 10 years ago in "Lovers." The explicitly hot bits here may be few and far between, but what there is of them is choice.

The big-screen surround-sound effects are nice; too bad they're the only aspect of the film that's ready to rumble. And parents, be warned: There's an astonishing amount of bloodletting for a PG-13 film.

What do you get when you cross a passé "swinger" (Will Stewart), an exhausted "lost in L.A." setting, a sloppy "screenplay" and dull "direction" (by Paul Duran)? This!

The predominantly amateur cast is painful to watch, so stilted and unconvincing are the performances. Poor Roth has nobody to play against and flounders in trying to keep the ship upright. Herzog aims for a kind of operatic sweep that he fails to achieve.

As stirring as it is slight, as effective as it is familiar.

It's a feel-good movie that happens to have a lot of feel-bad in it. The gratuitous violence sucks, and the pat conclusion prompts one to shout don't believe the hope!.

The new documentary Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy shows, all is not quite as it seems.

Sometimes it bounces along, other times it feels forced. Kids and hardcore fans will love it regardless, and those who don't will nonetheless be talking about it for the next three years.

A visionary breakthrough for the young directors, a darkly alluring and largely successful attempt to crowd the territory of Roman Polanski and Dario Argento.

An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.

If you're a Basquiat fan, or were around in New York back then, you'll want to take a look. If not, this film has little to recommend.

Rock Star takes itself so seriously it becomes full-on parody -- "This Is Spinal Tap" as a sanctimonious cautionary tale. And how rock 'n' roll is that?

No B-movie fan, save perhaps the extremely obsessive for whom this is old hat, should miss it.

Despite a couple of low-budget, rookie-director rough spots, this fascinating look at Israel in ferment feels as immediate as the latest news footage from Gaza and, because of its heightened, well-shaped dramas, twice as powerful.

Weber uses Faye as base from which to branch out in bizarre directions.

Damon looks like a kid lost in the wrong neighborhood, and his acting manners underscore that impression--everything is a bit too fine, too neat...An intermittently interesting, intermittently foolish film.

The film was shot with six cameras simultaneously and the images are projected on six split screens, à la Mike Figgis' "Time Code." While the subject's appeal is limited and the film's 106-minute running time excessive, viewers who do respond to the pic will find it raw, real and cathartic.

In the end, The Fluffer is a film for the chastened romantic in us all -- gay, straight or "for pay."

A thoughtful, well-acted and well-observed (though bleak) look at what some people have to put up with to get through life.

The movie is beautiful to look at (lensed by Pierre Gill) as are the girls, but it takes its clunky message so seriously that it often verges on silliness.

Yes, the movie is obvious at time, banging you over the head with its message, and the use of shadows on a wall can seem overly broad. But these are small complaints when compared to the film's many strengths.

If only good intentions were enough to redeem a picture, perhaps ABCD would be worth a look.

It's a visually poetic style, and likely to find hardcore devotees, especially among the ranks of Terence Malick and Marc Forster fans. Others will just find it painfully slow.

The film generally looks like a TV special, with low production values and lots of closeups.

This nearly perfect confection never takes its action more seriously than its comedy.

Even Hartnett, designated Next Big Thing last year, seems like he's barely trying.

This thing's all in fun. It's just a perfect movie for people who like to shout at the screen, so have at it.

What saves the film from utter forgettability are the strong supporting performances, especially from Peter Caffrey as the town atheist, and Tony Doyle.

A thoroughly likable, if familiar, Woody Allen comedy -- not the most original or revealing tintype in the director's gallery, perhaps, but blessedly free of the self-conscious hand-wringing and tortured navel-gazing that impede the former Mr. Konigsberg's more sluggish efforts.

Just be advised guys, Blade II is as estrogen-free as movies get, so you might want to leave your date behind for this one, or she's gonna make you feel like you owe her big-time.

Enjoyable, if utterly stupid, upscale entry in the old Amityville Horror genre -- that is, a horror film allegedly based on spooky and inexplicable real-life events.

It's an exceptionally dreary and overwrought bit of work, every bit as imperious as Katzenberg's "The Prince of Egypt" from 1998.

The cold distance that LaBute brings to the material keeps the viewer at arms' length.

Serendipity already feels archaic, like some dusty relic that's been unearthed from an antique store's attic and polished off for display.

This innocuous, frothy fairy tale isn't so off-putting as you might imagine, thanks in large part to Andrews' ageless charm.

A thrilling tale smartly told, with an abundance of wit and invention. It's a classic.

A teen-anxiety movie that leaves no doubt where it stands on "family values" and moral absolutes: It approves. The shock troops of the Cinema Without Limits army are unlikely to buy many tickets, but those who do will probably see the thing as sanctimonious pabulum -- even for its target audience of adolescents.

The prettiest Dogme film to date may be the one that has the least to say.

It's basically your above-average nice drug movie.

There's nothing more enervating than a stupid film with only random, and perhaps accidental, flashes of smarts; the rare prescient moments only serve to highlight how banal and vacant the rest of the movie is, especially when it stoops to conquer the gross-out market bled dry by the Farrelly Brothers and their myriad acolytes.

After a few very funny early sequences, tricked up with grotesque, surreal editing and camerawork, the movie gets bogged down a bit during the first third.

Their (Tunney and Nelson) interplay is what saves the movie, and possibly should have been expanded upon to the exclusion of the other plot points.

The over-the-top sincerity that is so rewarding in "Face/Off" (1998), Woo's best American film, feels too clichéd in this more conventional context.

Distinguishes itself by its subtlety and good taste. Even if we catch a hint of gypsy music on the soundtrack -- or glimpse a disturbing American neighbor lady -- Gardos steadfastly guards us from caricature. She wants to keep it real.

The fleeting moments of dry wit are too sparse to hold the movie together, so instead McAbee takes the kitchen-sink approach, hitting us with whatever he's got.

It's just that this clunky, inane vehicle sputters barely a few feet down its quaint English highway before you want to bid it "do zvidániya, dumb-ass!"

If this all sounds masochistic, it most certainly is. But the filmmakers have rendered it with such grace and subtlety that the spectacle of three very intelligent people ruining each other's lives becomes irresistibly romantic.

Who wants to pay to see a movie so bad the actors and writer-director feel the need to keep reminding us of how bad it is?

This may not seem to be the stuff of comedy, but a comedy it is, and a compelling one too, laden with hot sex and standout performances.

What it offers at its shockingly sappy core is a familiar view of adolescent rebellion as a goofy but inevitable phase.

Originally, somebody may have wanted the film to be a serious exploration of the dark side of high school sports, but it ended up as just one more sports picture.

We so often hear the lament that Hollywood films don't have characters we can care about that it's a real pleasure to note that all the people in this one feel fully developed. It'd be nice if there were more of a plot to go along with them.

Thankfully, the final, long action set piece, which owes a debt to "The Manchurian Candidate" among others, is free of such problems. Shiri manages to go out on its most exciting sequence. There are worse ways to go.

Perfectly acceptable, deliriously charming...a goofy Bmovie dolled up like a square-jawed A-list blockbuster.

Where The Iron Ladies makes its mark, and holds our interest, is in the way it integrates old-fashioned "low" comedy with social observation.

The next time Irwin wants to make a feature, however, he should find a director who knows how.

Most obvious crime is first-degree dullness, giving us a thriller without thrills and a mystery devoid of urgent questions.

Solondz's singular game plan is to dangle profoundly obnoxious caricatures before us, then punish them mercilessly for their stupidity, which is amusing enough if you're in the mood for that sort of thing.

The film desperately wants to play like "Three Kings," a war film with a guilty conscience, but it's too pat and familiar to earn its high-minded stripes.

Any cassette of "Millennium" would serve up better thrills and chills.

Has a lot to offer as grand entertainment, from surprising battle sequences (plenty of terror, virtually no gore, brief and tasteful digital enhancement) to fine performances.

That's not to say Simone doesn't offer a good time. Shove aside its self-righteous agenda and it's a deft kick, a light comedy whenever it's not trying to play heavy. And it's bolstered by Al Pacino in a lively performance.

Where "Twin Falls" was slow, brooding and haunting in a manner that fit the subject matter -- the imminent death of one of the principal characters -- Jackpot is just slow and uneventful, like a cross-country Greyhound bus trip that never stops.

All in all, this is every inch a TV movie.

Too bad it isn't quite funny enough to be mistaken for "Jackass."

Spectacular entertainment.

Constantly touching, surprisingly funny, semi-surrealist exploration of the creative act.

Out of prison, Milani is still not allowed to leave Iran. Whether she will ever get the chance to make another film there is doubtful, all the more reason not to miss this one.

Toback has taken a distinctly '60s-ish personal experience and done his best to transplant it into the current, vastly different, cultural milieu. Harvard Man is a semi-throwback, a reminiscence without nostalgia or sentimentality.

These pandas, they're truly wondrous on the big screen, as no digital effect could ever recreate. Director Robert M. Young delivers a spry, richly detailed adventure for general audiences, truly a feat deserving acclaim.

The story's a trifle, but it's consistently edgy as the team stride straight into the middle of grisly violence so they can capture it on film.

Delivers a quick buzz, lots of stuff to look at, and a totally nonnutritious joy that can only be attained with the aid of artificial flavorings and Yellow #5. In a nutshell, it's the perfect summer movie.

The film is often moving and explores the discomfort inherent in the contacts between the American "hosts" and their "guests," but its effect is diluted by slow pacing and lengthiness.

Think "Basic Instinct" with brains, and you've got it.

While the whole is diverting, the ending's utter repudiation of reality seems like pissing on the audience; -- we feel like we've been suckers for bothering to care about the characters at all.

Ultimately, Hart's War can't decide what it is: treatise on racism, escape (and escapist) thriller or murder mystery. So it sits there -- and we sit there with it, waiting and waiting. And waiting.

Isn't quite as offensive as it sounds, nor is it in any way rousing; Spacey and Bridges are watchable, but nothing more.