While this sort of thing can easily devolve into bourgeois comfort food, Thompson, a veteran of the genre, knows how to serve it up just about right.

It's a handsome film, but the pace is continually gummy and the set-ups stiff and artificial. Most crucially, nothing in it vanquishes the sensation that we're being sold something superfluous -- like a service contract for a carton of eggs.

Norbit might have worked if it had fully committed to being over the top or made Rasputia the lead character and found the human inside the cartoon. Instead, the movie doesn't give us anyone to care about.

Among the many documentaries about the Iraq war, this one stands our for its intelligence, variety and measured emotionalism. [06 Apr 2007, p.26]

A worthy and compelling look at a unique and essentially American figure.

An unfunny, undramatic comedy-drama that asks us to care about lying idiots making implausible choices.

There are movies that reach for the top. There are movies that go over the top. And then there is Smokin' Aces, a slick, shallow and sometimes quite enjoyable action film that is so far beyond over-the-top that it likely mistook the top for the bottom as it burst through it on its way to who knows where.

Seraphim isn't totally satisfying, even if you're prepared for an arty Western. It's pokey and odd in a distant, slightly self-conscious way.

O'Toole just keeps turning up the volume, and it's thrilling to watch.

The juvenile performances are impressive, as they usually are in foreign films, and Spiridonov handles some grueling material with impressive maturity. But the movie comes undone with an abrupt and preposterous finale.

The film combines farcical and sinister tones, as well as textures of high polish and captured-in-the-raw neorealism, and it simply brims with energy and surprises.

In 1960, British director Michael Powell made "Peeping Tom," the definitive exploration of voyeurism in the movies. The shocking thriller also practically ruined the career of the veteran filmmaker. Although the stalker-centric Alone With Her doesn't quite rank with Powell's masterpiece, it shows enough promise that one hopes writer/director Eric Nicholas doesn't share his fate.

Had the film been more tempered in its textures, had Cassavetes chosen a surer attitude toward his subjects, it might have been devastating. As it stands, though, it's far more showy than substantial.

Fortunately, their story is just as compelling here, and the film's subjects display impressive adaptability, as well as a desire not to forget those they've left behind.

What makes Freedom Writers work is the very thing that makes it seem like a drag: predictable inspiration.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers failed to replace sex, splatter and cursing with sharp dialogue, characters and plotting.

Del Toro presents one dazzling visual spectacle after another.

Whishaw's oddly charismatic performance makes the despicable Grenouille into an almost sympathetic antihero. The rather astonishing finale will likely have audiences either howling in derision or ardently dissecting afterward. And it must have given the bluenoses at the MPAA fits.

Moncrieff manages to get beneath the skin of several of these characters, a nifty trick considering what a crowded world she's created. In all, it's a grueling, emotionally taxing, discomfiting film.

Factory Girl lives fast and dies young, but the corpse it leaves isn't really all that good-looking.

Oacks more heat, acid, danger and drama into its brief running time than most films of nearly double the length.

Children of Men has some magnificent moments of moviemaking and is thoroughly infused with just the atmosphere Cuaron has aimed for. But it's so streamlined in its storytelling and unvarying in its tone that it's more deadening than transporting.

It's the type of film that may be forgiven its imperfections when they are compared with the vastness of its accomplishments.

Night at the Museum ends up being a pretty fun all-ages comedy -- if you can survive its first 20 minutes.

Often as not, the movie works. Here and there, it works kind of beautifully.

A man can be a treasure just as a work of art can be, and O'Toole is one of the handful of living film actors worthy of a museum of his own. Venus would make a brilliant final exhibit.

There are fine actors at work here. Chow is quiet and cunning, Gong Li is haughty and cold-eyed, Chen Jin is sturdy as a ghost who appears out of the past, and Gin Junjie is vividly bratty as the youngest, and most underappreciated, prince.

Letters isn't a fun night at the picture show. It's slow and gloomy and achingly tragic. But it's a truly impressive achievement both in moviemaking and in its understanding of history.