As the wife, pixie-ish Kanako Higuchi provides the perfect accompaniment to Watanabe.

What "Rent" should have been, Once is: a Bohemian rhapsody.

The latest catastrophe from the Weinstein Co.

t's an exciting, well-directed thriller that, while providing more than enough action and gore to satisfy genre fans, also offers the political commentary that has characterized zombie movies going back at least as far as "Night of the Living Dead."

Larry the Cable Guy channels both Moe and Curly in the Three Stooges-go-to-war comedy Delta Farce.

WARNING: Do not take your mom to Georgia Rule unless she's Roseanne Barr. You may expect a three-generational chick flick, but what you get is a child-rape comedy.

IF you like rap, you'll probably enjoy The Hip Hop Project. I don't like rap.

A clueless Mundhra tackles the subject with a heavy hand and a contrived script. The result is a daytime soap mixed with a second-rate women-behind-bars flick.

A feeble dramedy about a Baltimore beauty shop where someone should come in to sweep up the clichés.

You'll have to look elsewhere than this love letter to the Great White Way to explain why "Wicked" and "Avenue Q" became huge hits, and why "Caroline, or Change" joined "Taboo" as a costly flop.

The indie film is funny and, at times, heartbreaking. Wisely, it avoids the happy ending that Hollywood would have insisted upon.

Why has She chosen to end her young life with a senseless act of mass murder? We never find out - which is a good thing. Too much information would only get in the way and lessen this compelling film's evocation of dread.

Not many people are making silent horror serials these days, but Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin pushes his love of lurid melodrama to the limit in his latest demented treat, Brand Upon the Brain!

This spring, boredom has a new name: Lucky You. In the poker flick, an announcer calling a climactic poker match uses a Texas hold 'em term frequently, saying, "And the flop. And the flop. And the flop." This movie reviews itself.

Julie Christie is simply astounding as a woman slipping into the ravages of Alzheimer's in Sarah Polley's deeply affecting and artfully crafted Away From Her.

Overly long and complicated, it's packed with crowd-pleasing moments and satisfactorily wraps up the trilogy - without quite capturing the magic of the first two installments.

Peter Krause, the fine actor from "Six Feet Under," gives a one-note performance that seriously undermines Civic Duty, a thriller mining minimal dramatic payoff from the potentially potent subject of post-9/11 paranoia.

Gordon and Abel (who delivers one of the longest yawns in screen history) are howls as husband and wife. Their long, lean buddies seem custom-made for slapstick humor. Keaton would approve.

A wan effort at "Annie Hall"-style comedy, has about as much Manhattan sophistication as a gas station in Chippewa Falls, Wis.

Too many cooks spoil the broth, and too many directors spoil the anthology film Paris Je T'aime.

Basically, this tale of a pregnant waitress looking for a way out of an unhappy marriage is a funny and touching riff on Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," not to mention its better-known sitcom spinoff, "Alice."

We also begin to suspect that Deraspe is putting us on - that this is a mockumentary, not a documentary. About the time that a bunch of grown men and women - stoned and drunk - start playing spin the bottle (spin the bottle!), we're certain that she's tricking us. Or is she? It's anybody's guess.

A depressing and tedious movie.

Sickeningly violent and inane movie.

A 12th-grade "Sixth Sense" with a third-rate plot.

A pathetically unfunny comedy that should have been shipped straight to video, if not recycled as guitar picks.

Next, which makes "National Treasure" look like a model of narrative logic, is almost beyond criticism.

Ken Marino of "Dawson's Creek," who wrote the somewhat autobiographical script, plays one of Rudd's pals.