Scorsese's most accomplished, most disciplined movie since GoodFellas. His most gorgeous, too, with the peaches'n'strawberries'n'cream palette of early Technicolor films.

A pessimistic chronicle that even optimistic 8-year-olds can love.

A pepperpot bubbling with pungent insights and sharp wit, Spanglish is about how people, like cultures, are more alike than not.

The film never gives you a real sense of what drove Darin on, fighting a heart ailment (from childhood rheumatic fever) and fighting an industry and press that wanted to pigeonhole him.

For the most part, the film stays steady-on, celebrating one man's crusade - and one family's heartbreak.

The gift of Imaginary Heroes is getting to know these anything-but-ordinary people.

This heartbreaking film, with its rich performances and simple eloquence, lays claim to greatness.

As soon as it's over, and you find yourself back in the harsh light of the workaday world, you'll be hard-pressed to remember what happened. Except that you'll remember enjoying yourself - immensely.

Like the old and creaky Belafonte, the film itself seems forever on the brink of drifting away. But it's the kind of drifting that's nothing but enjoyable. In fact, it's beyond enjoyable - heading into waters full of whimsy, mystery and odd, psychedelic fish.

What redeems the film...is that for every nonstop explosion, there's a hilarious burst of Reynolds' nonstop patter.

It shows how the energy, and innocence, of children can be found - and fostered - in even the bleakest spots on earth.

Closer, in the end, lacks a certain heft. The language and the actions of the characters are brutal and devastating. The movie itself, a little too nice.

It's action opera, sword-and-sorcery song-and-dance, and it's a heart-pumping, jaw-dropping thrill. OK, so I kind of like the thing.

A handsome Holocaust melodrama hobbled by a transparent and cartoonish script.

A Very Long Engagement is "Cold Mountain" with French people.

Both the sex and the battle sequences here look like football plays drawn by an NFL coach and shot by the wide receiver's mother. Usually, even when I don't like a Stone film I admire its frenzied energy, but the editing here is as lethargic as the compositions are perfunctory.

A lethargic, lurching holiday-themed comedy.

Like a piece of music, Godard structures his film in three movements.

Touching and inspiring.

An undeniable pleasure of National Treasure was watching a movie shot locally that wasn't haunted by a virus or by dead people.

The trippy creation of onetime marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg, SpongeBob is a cockeyed optimist toiling at the bottom of the fast-food chain.

A masterful epic charting love's labyrinths.

Amelie is utterly charming. And so, too, is the film.

The kind of glossy, Hollywood-forged waste of time that would depress even the most happily lackadaisical retiree.

A sappy excursion to Edwardian days.

Cute, cloying and catastrophically predictable.

Compared to "Ray," which takes Ray Charles' unique life story and manages to make it feel like a cliche, Kinsey is total sophistication and nuance.

Visually, taking its cues (mostly) from Van Allsburg's Hopperesque art, The Polar Express is eye-popping. Storywise, however, it can be eyelid-drooping.