There is a lot of finger-pointing. Assertions are made, theories offered, but not much in the way of certainty.

What's touching about Rocky Balboa, the sixth chapter in the saga of Philadelphia's lord of the ring, is the small-scale stuff. Not the spectacle of the has-been, now 60, connecting with a punch. But the sight of an actor connecting with a character.

An improbably entertaining, if overlong, adventure that brings new meaning to the term "summer camp." Doubloons! Ripped bodices! Unbuckled swash! Rum galore!

There's humanity here, on all sides, and a gentle wisdom beneath the raging rhetoric.

In the wake of the Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker" - a far better film, and one with a less strident, less obvious agenda - Green Zone arrives looking strangely anachronistic.

A downer of a drama.

The treasure of the film is the unearthing of the family bond, magically played by Douglas and Wood.

Boasts rich texture, sly vision and rueful humor.

The Chamber of Secrets -- darker, scarier and somewhat better than "Sorcerer's Stone."

The River Wild is not a picture that tries to break new ground or even part fresh waters. Yet it is a crisp and exciting exercise, and while it may not be a watershed in Streep's career, she shows that you can take the plunge into an action movie and go swimming without going slumming. [30 Sep 1994, p.03]

A jubilee for McDormand and jolly good fun for most everyone else.

Undertow has the plain, stark, disturbing quality that marked the original "Cape Fear" and "In Cold Blood."

Simplistic and corny, this adaptation by director (and co-writer) Stephen Sommers nonetheless delivers the goods: exciting animal stunts, breathtaking subtropical scenery (India and a jungle-ized Tennessee and South Carolina) and a likable if not exactly three-dimensional cast of characters. [23 Dec 1994, p.03]

Am I crazy, or are Spring Breakers and "Oz the Great and Powerful" essentially the same movie? James Franco stars in both - a tattooed, gun-totin' gangsta in one, a charlatan magician in the other (you figure out which is which), and, in both, he's encircled by a bevy of Hollywood babes determined either to get witchy on him, or get that other witchy-rhyming word on him.

The film is better on mood than on message, sharply etching the professional desperation behind the forced gaiety.

Without doubt one of the scariest, creepiest, gut-churningly unsettling pictures to come along in ages.

Give Saldanha's film an A-plus for visuals and a B-minus for story.

Like Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler," Malkovich plays a star long past his glory days in The Great Buck Howard, but continuing to do the only thing he knows. The tone of the two films couldn't be less alike, but the story arc of the central characters graphs the same.

Feels more like a postscript than a probing, provocative documentary.

Although its low-key realism is admirable, Eden doesn't really work: the long silences, the aching stares, the telling props, Breda's quivering blues, Billy's drunkenness, his distraction. There might as well be a sign stuck to the Farrells' front door: Dysfunctional family lives here.

Susanne Bier is a bomb thrower. The explosives in the films by the Danish director are emotional and provoke torrents of tears, richly earned.

In many ways, City of Men is like a Portuguese-language version of David Simon's "The Wire."

Forster and his team have also mastered the discreet edit, leaving a lot of the blood, gore, and zombie slime to the imagination. (It's still a pretty convincingly creepy affair.)

A running joke about hipster clichés is tiresome, and the movie's plot threads are uneven. But watching Field work her magic is so delightful.

A deadpan, dead-on comedy.

A remarkably weird and wonderful exercise in psychological terror featuring a virtuoso performance by Scottish actor James McAvoy.

Poignant, funny and clear-eyed about some tough topics: homophobia, racism, AIDS.

Sadly too often (and I'm unsure whether this is the result of voices that echo when bounced off stone walls or because the acting is all over the place), the characters create the impression that English is their second language.