The cheerfully inane comedy Connie and Carla all but suffocates beneath a high-stepping, show-stopping, ear-splitting deluge of musical theater staples, from "Cats" to "Oklahoma!," "Jesus Christ Superstar" to "Fiddler on the Roof."

Travolta is terrific as a bad guy, making Saint almost sympathetic. His co-stars however, flounder in a sea of bad lines, with poor Romijn-Stamos getting stuck with the worst.

A depressingly predictable journey of self-discovery.

A murky and morbid dirge of a gay romance.

Besides terrific performances, it boasts terrific cinematography by Giles Nuttgens that contrasts stunningly beautiful and grimly ugly Scottish landscapes - complementing the hunky Joe's ugly soul, which manifests itself in a truly nasty sex scene involving pudding, catsup and Cathie.

Thornton lends gravity, focus and humor that are otherwise in short supply in this serious-minded but meandering, talky and action-deficient epic.

An ugly-looking mismash of a fairytale.

Though shamelessly derivative and amoral, The Girl Next Door is nevertheless funnier and smarter than most of the pathetic dreck aimed at the nation's teens.

Bereft of inspiration, the agonizingly witless screenplay - blamed by the credits on George Gallo - resorts to pathetic cheap jokes about flatulence and impotence, lame slapstick and that juvenile gag about the horror of two men waking up naked in the same bed.

This satisfying adaptation of a popular novel is mostly an artistic reflection on youthful loss of innocence.

Lethargically paced, badly edited and shot in hideous digital video.

At turns sexy, ultra-violent and sweet, it will infiltrate your brain long after you've seen it.

Surprisingly enjoyable, as adaptations of cult comic books go, thanks to a sense of humor all too rare in the genre, winning performances by Ron Perlman and Selma Blair, and a sweet romance of the kind that made "Spider-Man" a richer experience than its competitors.

So udderly mediocre.

May not set back Danish-American relations, but it's amusing to imagine how this schlock would have turned out under Denmark's most famous director, the American-hating Lars von Trier.

Exciting stuff in its primitive, predictable way.

Not only is Adored amateurish and mawkish even by the standards of American "gaysploitation" cinema, it's weirdly shy about showing nudity and sex.

The real star, however, is Michael Simmonds, whose manic black-and-white camerawork captures the unique vibrancy of New York City. He helps turn one woman's obsession into a valentine to Gotham.

The Outskirts, handsomely directed by Petr Lutsik, will grab people's emotions. The dark and bitter comedy deals with a corrupt, post-communist Russia.

Gives a harrowingly accurate portrait of the indignities sometimes suffered by hospitalized patients - and the sacrifices their families make.

In the end, inner peace is found by all - on screen and in the audience.

This bomb, which premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival, belongs in the same remainder bin as Spacey's "Pay It Forward," "K-Pax" and "The Life of David Gale."

Startlingly immature.

Hanks is terrific giving his first flat-out comic performance in years as a wildly eccentric criminal mastermind.

A stunning display of a filmmaker adventuring on the far side of what's possible.

What dooms Never Die Alone even as amoral pulp entertainment is the screenplay by neophyte James Gibson, which combines clichéd characters and a contrived plot with stale dialogue.

Documents the life of Rodney Bingenheimer, a teenage outcast who parlayed a youthful stint as double for Davy Jones of the Monkees into a 40-year run as a real-life Forrest Gump.

A leaden retelling of the legend of Australia's Jesse James that has understandably been sitting on the shelf for a couple of years.

Raja, which is basically a dark comedy about how this odd couple manipulate each other, is extremely well acted, though the direction by Jacques Doillon is on the leisurely side.

Best advice: Wait for Two Men Went to War to go to the small screen.

Little more than 91 minutes of cheesy special effects in search of a remotely coherent story.

Audacious, thought-provoking and ruefully funny.

Smarter than your average serial-killer movie, thanks to unusually fleshed-out characters inhabited by a high- pedigree cast.

It's mindless entertainment, so take it or leave it.

Frey's harrowing depiction of this milieu transcends the indifferent acting and contrived plot.

"Love, Actually" meets "Trainspotting" in Intermission, an edgy Irish romantic comedy that deftly juggles a dozen interconnected story lines.

Things move so swiftly and confusingly that there's little time to explore any of the people in depth. Less style and more substance is definitely called for.

You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Divan, an absolutely charming first-person documentary about a young ex-Hasidic woman determined to re-connect with her roots on her own terms.

Kari successfully meshes comedy, ennui and tragedy, much in the manner of Jim Jarmusch and Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki.

If "Starsky & Hutch" is your idea of art, keep your distance from Distant, the droll new movie from maverick Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. If, on the other hand, you're searching for something that will remain with you long after leaving the theater, run, don't walk, to Distant.

Should have been stopped at customs -- as family entertainment, it constitutes child abuse.

The film is ultimately a one-man show -- and when that man is the singularly crafty Depp, it's hard to look away.

Starts out promisingly, but quickly sinks under the weight of its own plot twists, ponderous pacing and Val Kilmer's monotonous performance as a ruthless special-ops agent.

There is much sadness in this finely wrought drama, winner of nine prizes at the Israeli Academy Awards, but the family's hard-won escape from emotional lock-down is ultimately uplifting.

Anybody involved in the underground scene might get a kick out of Maestro -- but others will likely be bored stiff.

It's hard to imagine hardened New Yorkers actually paying to see this totally uncritical, gee-whiz celebration of stock car racing, its fans and its history, breathlessly narrated by Kiefer Sutherland and perfunctorily directed by Simon Wincer.

In the end, "Wilbur"' manages to look death square in the face and walk away laughing.

It isn't entirely clear if Games People Play is a spot-on but longwinded and excessively campy spoof of those TV "reality" game shows... or just a particularly ingenious and sleazy example of the genre.

Horvath has a sensitive eye and ear, mixing good-looking shots of the barren landscape with portraits of the land's eccentric inhabitants. It's a world (scary at times) that most New Yorkers have no idea exists. [25 Aug 2004, p.40]

Its abundant laughs are heavily reliant on the chemistry of stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson - who show once again that they're as fine a comic team as Hollywood has ever produced.

While often diverting and physically impressive in an old-fashioned way, Hidalgo suffers from weird shifts in tone, offensively outdated stereotypes, a cumbersome subplot - and a supposedly fact-based story that bears only a nodding acquaintance with reality.

A parable about greed. But don't let that serious-sounding description keep you away. It also is funny, knowing and immensely enjoyable.

You have to hand it to Huppert. She doesn't let the hokey plot and syrupy cinematography (what's with those repeated shots of flowers blowing in the wind?) keep her from giving a profound performance.

So serious-minded it occasionally teeters on the brink of absurdity.

These candidly shaken macho guys recall scenes still haunting their nightmares two years after 9/11.

A verité collage of indelible images Sauret collected in and around Ground Zero, beginning moments after the planes hit the World Trade Center.

This genre-busting hybrid is a scattershot affair - bad jokes land with a thud that seems to echo, but the winning ones prompt hearty laughs.

About three-quarters of the way through, Havana Nights suddenly becomes laugh-out-loud awful, with dreadful, lame lines delivered painfully badly - as if a different screenwriter and director had taken over for the movie's final act.

So utterly devoid of suspense, energy or credibility it should have been shipped straight to the remainder bin at Blockbuster.

Gitai's characters are meant to represent the Israeli people as a whole. Just as they question their lives, the filmmaker questions 21st-century Israel.

Falls far short of capturing the hedonistic spirit of this ephemeral art community. It's more like a routine home video with arty pretensions.

There are many funny lines and situations, accompanied by strong performances all around. Sadly, Good Bye Lenin! falters at the end, when it loses its edge and lapses into sentimentality.

A quietly compelling documentary that is refreshing in both form and content.

Purposely amateurish.

A highly personal, provocative and in some ways riveting vision with an inspired performance by Jim Caviezel as Jesus.

Mostly a well-acted, expertly directed comedy with characters and situations of truly universal appeal.

Ryan spends much of the grubby-looking boxing drama Against the Ropes with her face screwed up in distaste, as if a dirty sock is being waved under her nose. Perhaps it's because the movie she's in stinks.

Shlocky, sloppy and crass adolescent comedy.

A lazy and uninspired knock-off of the hilarious 2002 movie "Road Trip."

Screenwriter Tom Schulman, who won an Oscar for "Dead Poets Society," gives us a narrative reminiscent of a pup chasing its tail, as characters struggle to catch up with inexplicably chopping and changing motives.

This modest little film out of Africa suffers from largely rudderless direction, relying for any sense of profundity on the breathtaking beauty of Abraham Haile Biru's cinematography.

Working from an unfinished script by the late, great Krzysztof Kieslowski, Stuhr directs in a laid-back, deadpan style that, at times, recalls Fellini.

There aren't many surprises as the story unfolds in soap-opera fashion, with a happy ending for all concerned.

It's muddled and shallow and obvious. Worse, it fails as entertainment, being so ineptly directed and written it often has the feel of a high school production by kids with more money and ambition than talent.

Little more than a supersized version of the popular PBS animated series that's stopping briefly in theaters en route to its natural habitat -- video.

Mylan and Shenk provide an engrossing look at these bright, clean-cut young men and the obstacles they faced in "the land of plenty." In doing so, the filmmakers also reveal a lot about the American character.

The very effectiveness of After the Life's depiction of its main characters makes its immediate predecessor seem that much more of a waste.

The film repeatedly disappoints because Sandler and his director...have so little faith in focusing on the two characters' plight that they interrupts the romance repeatedly for vulgar, Farrelly brothers-style sexual and ethnic jokes that are so relentlessly unfunny they may not even rouse Sandler's core constituency of 12-year-old males.

Horror-movie vets Harrington ("Wrong Turn") and Sagemiller ("Soul Survivors") struggle unsuccessfully with characters who are frequently more plastic than Nikki.

If you ever wondered how robots make love, here's your chance to find out.

More than a celebration of Chaplin's art; it is a thorough examination of what made this gifted artist, the world's first true celebrity, tick.

A boring and violent French crime thriller, is the sort of routine potboiler that generally goes straight to video in this country, if it's seen at all.

Seagulls is easy to take, insightful and darkly funny. The story sometimes seems forced and the characters stereotypical, but the engaging cast and surreal shots of the rugged landscape compensate.

That it is such a powerful and indeed beautiful film is simply extraordinary.

This second installment of Lucas Belvaux's acclaimed "Trilogy" is decidedly inferior to the first: a farce that simply isn't funny.

A calculating crowd-pleaser that sometimes feels like a movie equivalent of the corporate chains it's decrying.

The family at the center of "Catch" is likable and authentic, but the seriousness of their plight sits uneasily with the shoddily assembled escapist goof it generates.

The feel-good finale -- an ending even less in doubt than that of the most predictable Hollywood fare -- is as rousing as you'd hope and the fast-paced, on-ice action is satisfyingly authentic.

A miracle of badness, a kind of art- house "Showgirls" -- which actually exceeds "Showgirls" in its self-indulgence, shallowness and sheer stupidity.

A cheerfully trashy, dead-on spoof of the B-movie genre, boasts the kind of cheese-tastic effects, overcooked dialogue and rigid performances that would make Ed Wood proud.

Vladimir Garin and Ivan Dobronravov are amazingly natural as the boys, and Konstantin Lavronenko impresses as the taciturn father.

Much more rewarding than its earnest title or its very modest production values -- it's basically an ambitious home video -- would suggest.

Variously been described as a thriller, a muckraking exposé and even a satire -- and its refusal to fit neatly into a genre is only part of why it's so utterly disturbing.

The script, attributed to Mark Schwahn, Marc Hyman and Jon Zack, is as confused as it is confusing, and the aimless direction by Brian Robbins doesn't help. It was apparently edited with a roulette wheel.

Cliched, amateurish and feeble.

Seem to have spliced together two different concepts which, on paper, may have seemed complementary but wind up giving the film a schizophrenic feel.

A glossy gay soap opera that graphically illustrates new meanings for the term "missionary position."

Though On the Run is a welcome reminder that effective thrillers don't have to be noisy or dumb, the film does contain slightly jarring moments of inadvertent humor.