A rather crude affair that feels like a student film, due to performances that often lack conviction and would-be "street" dialogue that rings false.

Moves at a leisurely pace, and it cries out for a narrator or even just an organizing principle.

The performances are so solid - and newcomer Jon Dichter's direction (he also wrote the script) is so utterly assured - that the rather contrived ending barely seems to detract from the film's entertainment value.

While some of this white guy's humor is juvenile and in questionable taste, Hoch, for the most part, is able to pull it off and supply a frequent number of laughs.

Good value for the money, a funny, character-driven action comedy with three disparate stars -- who have great chemistry together.

May well be the first film ever to show people having sex while wearing gas masks.

This is a lazy, careless film that feels strangely unfinished.

No "Crouching Tiger." It lacks the richness of theme and performance that made Ang Lee's film so emotionally satisfying. In fact, watching Iron Monkey makes you realize just how Western and literary the sensibility of "Crouching Tiger" was.

No classic like "The Big Sleep," another famously impossible-to-follow Los Angeles thriller. But for those willing to hang on for dear life, Lynch makes it worth their while.

So unsparingly honest in the way it treats human cruelty and resilience that it makes fashionably bleak films like "In the Company of Men" and even "Boys Don't Cry" seem unforgivably trite or exploitative.

While My First Mister has considerable charm, it suffers somewhat from comparison with "Ghost World."

It's a slow, exhaustive and exhausting process that takes a toll on the viewer, despite the intrinsic power of the underlying material.

While Tarr's newest epic, Werckmeister Harmonies, isn't intended for the shopping-mall crowd, it is more viewer-friendly and will please adventurous moviegoers.

So daring and unsparing in its depiction of the psyche and experience of adolescent girls that it's hard to imagine an audience that wouldn't find it deeply provocative despite a slow pace.

Bland, occasionally funny.

It would have been funnier at half that length.

Though there are moderately interesting interviews interspersed throughout, Deadheads will want to see the numbers, in which Grisman's more formal style complements Garcia's looser approach to his music.

Chop Suey is, in the end, as much a tease as Weber's photographs -- not much substance, but rather sweet and with style to burn.

Some of the plot twists don't really stand up to close scrutiny, but the sometimes over-the-top Joy Ride plows through them with such joyful glee, you don't really care.

Earnest and predictable.

Be warned: Though it's entirely justified by the story, there's a level of violence and brutality in Training Day -- that some terror-weary audience members may not care to cope with these days.

Honestly, it's still pretty hard to resist as a guilty pleasure: A fluffy date-night movie that wrung a tear or two from more than one hardened male critic's eyes, chick flick or no.

It may take a scorecard to keep track of the complicated relationships in this sorry clan.

Before the slightly surreal (self-consciously so) climax, there are some fine set pieces, including a disastrous dinner party that amply showcases Rivette's wonderfully light directorial touch.

Only sporadically entertaining.

After a promising start, writer-director Daniel M. Cohen pours on schmaltz straight out of the similarly themed "Diamonds," including the proverbial hookers -- with hearts of gold.

Can't overcome the familiar, soapy script.

Kelemer doesn't offer anything that hasn't been done before in documentaries of this type. Still, Won't Anybody Listen makes for interesting viewing as a study of true-life underdogs.