So it's not only how they dance, or even what they dance, but why they dance. And that makes Tavernier's movie muddled, simplistic and more than a little pretentious.

What makes 8 Mile transcend the formulaic nature of its plot is the way it makes these rap competitions compelling even for those unfamiliar with rap music, and its scrupulous, loving rendition of a grim, wintry Detroit circa 1995.

You know exactly how this thing is going to turn out before it's even half over.

Overlong but telling look at three young misfits.

Perhaps the year's most daring and fully realized movie, is a pitch-perfect re-creation of '50s melodramas, showcasing a four-hankie performance by a peroxided Julianne Moore.

De Palma fools around with split screens and slo-mo, but no amount of cinematic artifice can varnish over the fact that this is simply a bad film.

While it is obvious that the filmmakers went into this project with an agenda, they did try to give each side a chance to have its say.

An absorbing documentary.

Amenta draws from the diary that Rita kept in the nine months before her death in 1991, interviews with survivors and news footage to tell a riveting and inspiring story right out of "The Godfather."

The animation is also a hybrid: almost quaint-looking, traditionally animated characters plopped into elaborate, sometimes quite stunning computer-animated backgrounds.

There's not a moment in it that feels fresh or authentic or inspired. But neither is it offensive.

An exercise in cynicism every bit as ugly as the shabby digital photography and muddy sound.

Contains much more prosaic ingredients. Like props and sound effects that could have been borrowed from an off-off-Broadway play, a host of painfully strained performances and a plot that's almost unbearably stupid.

The filmmakers' smug Bay Area bigotry is all too obvious in gratuitous, mocking swipes at Heidi's Southern background.

All the elements are in place for an entertaining murder mystery, but as Bigelow meanders aimlessly back and forth through time, the plot becomes increasingly water-logged.

A yawn-provoking little farm melodrama.

Hollywood's Thanksgiving turkey arrives today - 27 days early - in the gobbling guise of the heavily hyped, brain-dead comedy, I Spy.

It's not surprising to learn that the story -- which the press notes assert is loosely based on fact -- has been kicking around Hollywood for 15 years. It's that bad.

Thanks to Scott's charismatic Roger and Eisenberg's sweet nephew, Roger Dodger is one of the most compelling variations on "In the Company of Men."

Has a promising start. But it quickly becomes tiresome and cliché-ridden - not to mention depressing and pointless.

Does briefly sizzle in the scenes between Newton and French actress Christine Boisson, as the bisexual French police commander assigned to the case.

Some solid performances and pretty scenery don't do much to conceal that there's a whole heap of nothing at the core of this slight coming-of-age/coming-out tale.

The most effective moments in Taymor's gorgeous, surprisingly romantic Frida are those that evoke the visual world from which Kahlo's work was formed or the paintings themselves, often using clever animation and other special effects.

Despite a crafty premise and a clever kink in the tale that almost saves it, Connolly isn't dexterous enough to achieve the Hitchockian level of suspense the movie needs.

Apart from the slightly sanitized look of Reagan-era Harlem, this raw ghetto drama rings true, from the smooth dialogue to the unaffected performances of the central actors.

A big, incoherent bore, interesting only as an example of assembly-line movie-making gone awry.

To call Jackass: The Movie the worst movie of the year is practically a compliment. This plotless, crudely videotaped collection of moronic stunts is a movie in the same sense that those hideous, velvet depictions of Elvis are paintings.

Leigh's uncanny ability to mine emotional truth packs the usual punch. And the trademark flashes of humor sprinkled throughout ease the bleakness of the landscape.