An insightful time capsule.

Director Lou Ye, who gave us the lilting "Suzhou River," doesn't care much for dialogue. He lets Wang Yu's pulsating camerawork do the talking.

The game cast tries desperately to be funny, but Day hasn't provided them with the material.

As huge a travesty and a bore as 1956's "Alexander the Great," in which Richard Burton looked equally uncomfortable as a blond.

A loud, coarse and witless family comedy.

It's a long way from the carefree days of "Breathless" and "Band of Outsiders," but then the world has changed since Godard made those movies 40 years ago.

Director-writer Roger Stigliano used a tiny budget to fashion an endearing screwball comedy that brings to mind Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" (1986).

Sort of "The Da Vinci Code for Dummies."

Full of action and silliness that will delight rug rats, but it's still hip and absurd enough to entertain grown-ups, too.

From the Hitchcockian opening credits to the final frame, Almodovar has Hitch on his mind.

Hilarious from first frame to last.

Like an early Almodovar movie transported to Moscow.

Days of Being Wild is less accomplished than later Wong efforts like Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, but it's smart filmmaking nevertheless. [19 Nov 2004, p.46]

Not unpleasant, but you've seen it all before.

Pure magic.

Doesn't have nearly enough Hugh Grant and is a little short on laughs, but it gets by on Renée Zellweger's charms.

It's as purely entertaining as it is thought-provoking and timely.

Viewers are left wondering just why they should care about them and the rest of the film's one-dimensional characters.

Marchand capably builds suspense, thanks to a twisty script and nervy performances by Lucas and Quinton.

Excruciatingly maudlin.

Provides a few minor thrills, but overall is talky and implausible.

Devoid of 21st-century irony, this visually stunning, action-packed yuletide treat is sweet and, yes, magical in a way that will enchant kids and give older viewers a twinge of nostalgia.

Brutally funny documentary.

This is Ebiri's first feature after directing four shorts. He shows talent, but shouldn't give up his day job just yet.

This Alfie has been castrated.

If you're thinking of taking the kids to Bear Cub because the title sounds like something they'd enjoy -- don't!

Campy and clichéd.

An intelligent and entertaining exploration of racial and sexual politics that brings alive the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, and draws parallels with African-American identity crises of today.

This masturbatory exercise is the least revealing "documentary" since Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedian."

A spectacularly rendered tale of a family of superheroes, takes the art form to a whole new level.

Manages to entertain while saying something about loneliness and culture shock.

A thoughtful, old-school documentary.

Contains large helpings of Hollywood schmaltz, stereotype and clich‚, but it's also pretty impossible to resist.

Promoted as "the year's scariest movie," it's anything but.

Kidman gives an other stunning performance in Birth, but it is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma that ultimately reveals . . . not much.

Contains impeccable performances, especially by the frightening Ifans.

Has funny moments, but it also has a lot of drag time.

A surprisingly upbeat look at that Middle East hotspot.

A weird hybrid of cloning thriller and futuristic love story, with hints of "The Godfather" and "Ice Castles" - and it wears its disjointed nature like a badge of honor.

Shamelessly press viewers' emotional buttons. But the film is so well-made and the performances so accomplished that it doesn't matter.

A sublime variation on the buddy road movie, infusing the midlife crises of the two main protagonists with hope and poetry.

The Grudge offers a bit more exposition than did "Ju-On," but the plot is still wispy.

A crass, shrill and laughless disaster of a holiday comedy with a desperately mugging Ben Affleck that should be banned under the Geneva Convention.

A joyous, toe-tapping celebration of a musical style born of sorrow.

Anderson gives The Machinist a sickly noirish look that contributes to the creeping horror - but it's the emaciated Bale's spectral presence that leaves the imprint.

A sporadically amusing curiosity that falls short of effectively satirizing the public's fixation with the minutiae of celebrity lives.

Conforms to many of the tropes of a formula thriller but, aided by an evocative Philip Glass score and Tim Orr's beautifully naturalistic cinematography, it transcends the genre.

Never rises above the level of a second-rate TV sit-com.

See it - if you dare.

The first conservative documentary to join the bumper crop of liberal political films riding Michael Moore's coattails into theaters.

It's a simple tale of father-and-son bonding that director Huo Jianqi injects with a quiet power, and it benefits greatly from the gorgeous lushness of its backdrop.

If only its characters weren't such stereotypes.

It's a sweet and light-hearted endeavor that shows Breillat isn't a one-trick pony.

Who's going to love it? Anyone with a sense of humor: Team America: World Police is hands-down the funniest movie of the year.

The low point of the new Shall We Dance comes when Miss Paulina finally confesses why she's so sad.

A pleasantly diverting period romp that Annette Bening turns into a wickedly funny tour de force.

That Eulogy has any laughs is largely a testament to the understated Romano -- he and Deschanel are the only ones in the cast who aren't straining to be funny.

The story is so slight, a low-wattage hair dryer could blow it away.

All movies require suspension of disbelief to a certain degree, but p.s. really pushes the envelope.

A rousing indictment of a barbaric practice.

Wants to be an epic in the mold of "Saving Private Ryan," but it's hindered by its modest budget.

So over the top that it often plays like a parody.

It's not a bad premise for a movie, but writer-director Omar Naim, a 26-year-old Lebanese native making his feature debut, proves equally inept at handling plotting, actors and pacing.

The oft-told story of lust and deception isn't the reason to see Untold Scandal -- Rather, it's the look -- stunning costumes and art direction, lush landscapes, and beautifully framed and lighted sequences -- that make this worth seeking out.

Confirms Leigh's reputation as one of the world's master filmmakers - and showcases Staunton as one of its great actresses.

The last half hour devoted to the Big Game, staged by a crew from NFL films, is genuinely rousing and inspiring. That's where Friday Night Lights finally shines.

Overlong, blandly soporific.

The documentary takes no sides, but its bleak message is all too clear.

The longest 85-minute road trip you could imagine.

A real head-scratcher that somehow won the grand jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Goes down smoothly.

Sometimes teeters on the verge of going completely over the top, but it's mostly saved by its own self-awareness.

Has relevance in the world as we now know it.

A campy, brightly colored musical comedy.

Another repulsive, fetishistic trawl through the life and crimes of a serial killer.

Truth is, this story of the out-of-control director and his inexperienced, enabling studio heads -- who allowed Cimino to lock them out of the editing room, hoping he would deliver another Oscar winner like "The Deer Hunter" -- is more compelling than Cimino's long-winded epic.

Iraqi-Kurdish director-writer Hiner Saleem is in no hurry to tell the story, and viewers drawn in by the warm-hearted tale and charmingly eccentric characters will be in no hurry for the closing credits.

This witless action comedy begins to insult the audience's intelligence from the opening scene.

Caouette has used art, wit and a huge heart to forge his experiences into an unqualified masterpiece.

Argento keeps the suspense level high while throwing in trademark cringe-inducing moments.

Tedious and obnoxiously manipulative.

A shipwreck. They say a dead fish stinks from the head first - but the animated shipwreck Shark Tale arrives reeking all over.

The frantic nuttiness of the stylistically dynamic Huckabees is often laugh-out-loud funny, but amid the pandemonium there's a sense of truly rigorous soul-searching.

A hip eye-opener.

Butler's film still manages to accomplish what the candidate's foundering campaign has utterly failed to do.

An earnest undertaking that unfortunately plays like a trite Lifetime movie.

Sappy and simplistic.

The subject is worth exploring - unfortunately, de Seve does so in a cut-and-dried manner that never explains why these two couples were able to stay together for so long.

Eloquent testimony about the moral ambiguity of war from veterans, human rights officials and Iraqi refugees, several of whom worked as extras on "Three Kings."

The latest, and let's hope the last, in the raft of uninspired, quickie Bush-bashing documentaries churned out by producer Robert Greenwald

Sylvarnes, who scripted, directed, edited and photographed this amazing first feature, makes spectacular use of digital video.

Overflows with psychological intrigue, something often missing from such offerings.

Pegg and director/co-writer Edgar Wright mix numerous references to other zombie flicks with hilarious bits of their own. The best has Ed and Shaun deciding which LPs can be used as ammo.

Directed without wit or energy.

The worst crime perpetrated in the Swiss-cheese screenplay by Gerald Di Pego ("Angel Eyes") is the cynical use of a mother's love for her child as a plot device for an intelligence-insulting sci-fi dud.

A gorgeous, poetic and stirring epic.

Wildly uneven, but contains moments that are right up there with "The Player."

It'll mainly appeal to film-biz insiders.