Green's odd little movie is clever -- too clever, as it turns out.

The lazy story takes on a passion and urgency that peaks in an emotional finale.

I've seen Demonlover twice and still find the plot a challenge. I'd try again if I thought it would help.

This relentlessly mediocre romantic comedy is basically a pretty arthritic third-generation Xerox of "Annie Hall," with Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci in the old Allen and Keaton parts in a probably quixotic attempt to court the youth market.

Richard Jeffries' script tosses together bits of plot borrowed from such "bad things happen when you leave the city" classics as "Straw Dogs" and "Deliverance" without any awareness of how or why genre conventions work.

Diva du jour Beyoncé Knowles may be the draw, but the real star of The Fighting Temptations is the sensational gospel soundtrack.

Osment, playing a fatherless 14-year-old, has entered the sort of awkward adolescence that afflicts so many male child stars - and seems utterly intimidated by his esteemed co-stars.

Though it sometimes feels as if it's four hours long, Underworld has going for it an intriguing fantasy premise, an eventful plot and a look that is diverting, if finally a bit monotonous.

A typically well-acted, if ultimately minor, effort by John Sayles, the socially conscious indie icon who's unafraid to take on unfashionable subjects.

Thanks to the amateurish, spectacularly talent-free quality of its cinematography, direction, writing and acting, Emerald Cowboy is simply impossible to sit through.

Winterbottom's bold film, its gritty visuals offset by Dario Marianelli's lavish score, makes real the desperate lengths that refugees -- those running from poverty as well as dange -- will go to.

You don't have to be gay or Italian or live in Canada to enjoy Mambo Italiano, but a tolerance for ethnic mugging helps.

Part political thriller, part National Geographic travelogue, Tom Peosay's documentary is a distressing look at China's 50-year repression of the people of Tibet.

One of the year's most engaging films.

Anyone who regularly watches caper flicks will likely quickly figure out what's wrong with this picture, though the twist ending is likely to be a surprise for the less jaded.

It's the addition of Depp's corrupt CIA agent, Sands, that really makes this violent, over-the-top action film, with its maze-like plot, sing.

What could have been a biting dark comedy is, instead, uninspired and generic. The contrived, everybody's-happy finale just makes things worse.

It's impossible to conceive of this ruefully funny entertainment without Bill Murray, who is nothing less than brilliant.

It manages to be both kinetic and dream-like at the same time -- "Run Lola Run" by way of David Lynch.

If it weren't for the estrogen-fueled action scenes -- choreographed by director Cory Yuen with wit and style -- So Close would be as disposable as the shampoo ad it all too often resembles.

Heartbreaking.

Only marginally interesting.

The majority of Dickie Roberts winds up looking like a tame episode of the "Brady Bunch" -- spiked with Spade-esque crudity.

The screenplay is packed with so many hilariously bad lines (it's hard to believe that writer-director Helgeland won an Oscar for co-writing "L.A. Confidential") that the movie would be perfect material for a resurrected version of the TV spoof "Mystery Science Theater."

Ryan's heart is definitely in the right place and his film has good performances and flashes of talent. But, overall, it plays like the world's longest — over two hours -- after-school special.

Devotes most of its energy to its costumes and makeup, which are fabulous. But that and a tabloid-worthy star just aren't enough to revisit this sordid tale as a kind of twisted comedy.

A compelling look at a vexa tious question, Taking Sides is, at times, hamstrung by its own ambiguity.

Essentially an hour-long monologue, but this talking head is so engaging that you can't blame director Lech Kowalski's camera for not wanting to stray from the late Dee Dee Ramone's party-ravaged face.