Has its heart in the right place -- and in a season filled with somber or goopy Oscar contenders, it makes a perfectly decent date movie.

Aimed squarely at the under-6 crowd, is basically the pilot for a Nickelodeon series with an already heavily merchandised character.

This mess was directed with no skill whatsoever by Jesse Dylan, whose father, Bob, once urged us all to get stoned.

This slow-moving Swedish film offers not even a hint of joy, preferring to focus on the humiliation of Martin as he defecates in bed and urinates on the plants at his own birthday party.

Gripping, smart and moving, without falling prey to sentimentality, it shows what can be achieved when mainstream filmmakers like Howard and Goldsman are genuinely inspired and determined to be honest.

Might have been more successful if Darabont and his pal had attempted a Preston Sturges-like farce. Instead, it's played totally without any kind of edge - a fantasy that makes "The Lord of the Rings" look realistic by comparison.

The demands of formula eventually stifle anything that even looks like inspiration or honesty.

Subversively funny, it's a welcome alternative to the big-budget movies flooding into theaters at this time of year.

So consistently involving because the excellent cast delivers their lines with the kind of utter conviction not seen in this kind of movie since the first "Star Wars."

Though Iris is extremely well-acted and beautifully photographed, some audience members may find themselves agreeing with Bayley's frustrated complaint: "I've never known who you are."

This isn't a mystery except in the most general sense. It's a dense, Altman-esque psychological drama centering on 10 characters whose lives become as tangled as the lantana.

You'll laugh, you'll cry -- the year's best movie.

Unfortunately, you are often distractingly aware that you are watching re-enactments of real events.

Toomuch of the humor in Not Another Teen Movie is either lame (the school in the movie is called "John Hughes High") or lamely disgusting.

Has moments that are eerily beautiful and genuinely moving -- and some that are surprisingly vulgar.

A gorgeously photographed, sun-baked fable.

Director Bolton could easily have exploited the film's unsettling issues, but he takes a nonsensationalized approach that leaves viewers to decide the moral questions for themselves.

You might be tempted to walk out. Don't.

But by the time events unfold, viewers will most likely have given up on this melodramatic.

A far more impressive and affecting piece of filmmaking and storytelling than most movies put out by Hollywood this year, and offers, as a bonus, a glimpse into a fascinating, contradictory society.

Features abundant sex and nudity, yet it manages to tell its story (based on a real character) with great sensitivity.

A ho-hum male weepie/road comedy that's worth watching mostly because of a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of England's greatest working-class actors.

An absorbing, deeply affecting, well-acted --and remarkably evenhanded -- antiwar statement. It's also incredibly suspenseful and very blackly funny.

Soderbergh -- helms a much tighter and arguably cooler film -- even if the only thing audiences are likely to remember about this Ocean's Eleven is that, while they were watching it, they enjoyed it tremendously

Never less than breezily entertaining.

I'm not generally a huge fan of movies with two-or three-person casts -- they tend to resemble filmed plays -- but The Business of Strangers is a knockout.

It's hard to imagine how Shyer and script writer John Sweet could have brought this tale to the screen in a cruder, cornier or less interesting way.

Epic waste of celluloid.