It punishes rather than entertains; it condescends, it offends, it loathes its audience.

Hardball is not as bad as it sounds, and at its best it's charming.

While Brother may be the perfect introduction for Kitano newcomers, longtime fans may find it superfluous and even a step down from the likes of Hana-Bi (1997) and Sonatine (1993).

An antiadvertisement for itself.

While the movie tries to make the connection between the rough but sensitive lad we see on screen and the notorious carouser of later years, there's little here to suggest whatever torment led Behan to drunkenness and an absurdly early death at 41.

Neither sensuously sizzling nor daftly off-beat, Better Than Sex occasionally rises to its own modest occasion by gently reversing our expectations.

Schnitzler's film has a great hook, some clever bits and well-drawn, if standard issue, characters, but is still only partly satisfying. The problem may very well be one of cultural translation.

Like its namesake, this Simon Mágus is wise and elemental, sure to leave you pensive afterward.

Any story's a good story if it's told well, and this one is, with chuckles to spare.

It's composed of really long scenes that are mostly dialogue, with transition action imagined or implied only. Couldn't we go outside for at least one scene?

Hallström has leavened the story's bleakness with great warmth, fashioning one of the finest films of the year.

At best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement.

I liked when they had the paint fights and the pillow fights.

Feels like an in-joke, a party where everyone on the screen's having a better time than anyone in the theater, and they all couldn't care less. And that's just no fun at all.

At its best, Cats & Dogs plays like a live-action Tex Avery cartoon, down to the exploding ACME dog bone; it's slapstick and slapdash, full of silly and violent nonsense worth a chuckle or two as dogs slam into glass doors and cats play dead on suburban streets.

Just barely diverting, even at under 80 minutes -- a TV episode inflated past its natural length.

Maybe Baby is Elton's stab at romantic comedy, and it's a strong feature debut, spiffy, quick-witted and more than a little shocking in its unflinching acknowledgement of English people having sex.

Festival in Cannes is an amused indictment of Jaglom's own profession; he doesn't seem to be making excuses for anybody's compromised (or even downright immoral) behavior here.

At 145 minutes it's a bit of a stretch, but the cinematographer is the great Eric Gautier ("Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train," "Pola X") and the score by Howard Shore is far superior to his Oscar-winning "Lord of the Rings."

While this production from Michael Douglas is being touted as a sexy romantic comedy, it's more precise to think of it as big loud fun for when you're feelin' dumb.

Since we know most of this cast is capable of acting, one must assume they received little instruction. Even if they did, who could blame them for not listening? After all, they are dealing with a script that tries to play scenes featuring drunken ghosts with silly accents for tragedy.

Full of fresh and unexpected observations about the cross-culturally complex lives of second-generation Indians living in the U.S.

What's particularly scary about Hollywood Ending, however, is that its flaws are exactly the sort of problems that often afflict aging directors, flaws that we've never seen in Allen before -- bad comic timing, slack pacing, an unsteady control of tone, a reliance on jokes that have long since become clichés.

The redeeming features of All Over the Guy are the consistently engaging performances and some genuinely funny dialogue.

Ultimately, the film amounts to being lectured to by tech-geeks, if you're up for that sort of thing.

For all its brilliantly brazen sequences and energetic supporting players (as the young lovers' mothers, Brenda Blethyn and Lisa Banes are terrific), Pumpkin's abrupt shifts of mood and needlessly complicated ending(s) render its latter third a bit of a chore.

Proves a lovely, sweet alternative for audiences fed up with the latest hell-on-wheels action thriller or the newest horror film comedy spoof.

Like the recent "Baise-moi," Bully is a whole lot of shock and titillation trying to pretend it's saying something. Unlike the French import, however, there's no awareness of its own absurdity, nor anything for the audience to care about in the slightest.