What's admirable about Save Me is that it grounds its religious and cultural debate not in vilifying one side but in sympathizing with both.

A Very Brady Sequel isn't quite as successful as its big-screen forerunner. The contrast between the time-warped Bradys and the '90s world around them seems a little forced here, and the sexual double entendres - and there are lots of them - are almost painfully arch. But the cast is dead-on in its impersonations of the original Brady gang, great pains have been taken to re-create the cheesy pop furnishings and fashions of the 1970s, and the writers have crafted some inspired bits of lunacy, even if more than a few of the gags are destined to rocket right over the heads of non-aficionados. [23 Aug 1996, p.03]

Crafty, cutting movie.

There are sniff movies and there are snuff movies, but Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is both. It has the bouquet of balm and blood. Imagine "Fragrance of the Lambs."

Hip, stylish, funny.

Lizzie McGuire is an old-fashioned, harmless dolce, made all the more charming by Duff's winning appeal.

Not even Halle Berry, emerging from the blue Caribbean in an orange two-piece -- can bring this thing to life.

Dark Blue World is "Pearl Harbor" without the product placements, without the Hollywood bombast, and certainly without the $100-million-plus budget.

At 116 minutes, this third installment lumbers along like a serial killer in shackles.

Fever Pitch works. At times, it works brilliantly.

Represents a brave undertaking on Jolie's part. It's impressively steady filmmaking for a first-timer, and a powerful, powerfully disturbing subject to take on.

A mopey meditation on family and its dysfunctions, Winter Passing is in fact of more than passing interest.

A bizarre counterculture jukebox musical.

Bale brings intense energy (and a convincing American accent) to the proceedings, and the film manages to make this borderline Travis Bickle into a sympathetic character - with a sweetheart, and a sweeter life, beckoning from south of the border. Strong stuff.

A bewildering but never boring yarn.

Raunchily entertaining farce.

For high-speed action, eye-popping locales, and chopsocky fight-fests galore, watch The Transporter - on video.

A torn-from-the-headlines tale of institutional racism and injustice in the Lone Star State of not-so-long-ago, American Violet might not be subtle, but it's certainly powerful.

While even believers can support Maher's skepticism, when he denounces the faithful in sweeping absolutes at film's end, he sounds as absolutely certain as those he has mocked for the previous 100 minutes.

This buoyant, multigenerational comedy that takes its title from the African American wedding ritual has other distinctions as well. It's relatively raunch-free, it has a sparkling cast that reunites "Waiting to Exhale" stars Angela Bassett and Loretta Devine as combative matriarchs, and it likes its characters well enough to forgive them their faults.

The slapstick weeper The Family Stone is a lump of coal brightened by four diamond-sharp performances.

Well-written, gorgeously shot, and expertly edited, the film is also an exasperating exercise in good intentions gone wrong. For all its strengths, Genius often trades in tiresome clichés.

Olyphant has a cool, amiable vibe, kind of postmodern Jimmy Stewart, while Mitchell brings intelligence and quietude to yet another role that doesn't deserve such consideration.

It can be argued that Adam uses Asperger's as a kind of metaphor for the barriers that people erect to fend off strangers, to guard against intimacy. It can also be argued that writer/director Mayer is shamelessly manipulative.

Roth, who has taken more than a few cues from Raimi, David Lynch (whom Roth worked with), and George Romero (Night of the Living Dead), is working in a horror tradition that goes way back -- and he's working it with nasty glee.

Despite its visual beauty and Rahim's extraordinary, and silent, performance, the film never quite manages to connect on an emotional level.

The film delivers what it promises - an education and a thrill.

On the Road is an honorable homage to the bennies-and-booze-and-bebop-driven hegiras undertaken by the fiercely dedicated anti-establishment duo. But in Salles, screenwriter Jose Rivera and company's effort to get the details right, they only get so far. And it's not quite far enough.