While I have no problem enthusiastically recommending writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy, I'd also heartily discourage all but the most rabid crime-movie nuts from consuming the whole thing in one afternoon or evening.

A model of economic storytelling....It raised the bar for movie action to a bionic level. [1 Dec 2003, p.13]

Rock the Bells doesn't just delve behind the scenes; it makes a showstopping guest-MC out of each crazy new obstacle.

In the annals of Mediterranean island love stories, Respiro reflects the effortless charm of a film like "Il Postino," rather than the untidy manufactured romance of another "Captain Corelli's Mandolin."

Guaranteed to deliver more innovative eye candy and smarter fun-per-second than most of this summer's fare, and that one-two punch ought to knock you off your seat.

In the end, it's not the answer to the kitchen mystery that matters but the revelation that there's ultimately no difference between this bachelor scientist and his bachelor subject.

Duvall delivers a bravura, Oscar-quality performance....The Apostle is a profoundly humane movie that crackles with the joy and sorrow of an old blues record.

The perfect antidote to the post-holiday blues. It's exciting, well-acted, touching, and genuine.

This is not a perfect picture, but it’s a soulful one that offers a lot of pleasure and even a kind of wisdom.

A brilliant little exercise. As a horror movie, it packs one genuine scare after another, right up to the moment of its inconceivably ghastly end. As a mystery, it unfolds with an almost supernatural elegance. And as a metaphor for the movies themselves, it's truly exceptional.

A rough-and-tumble magnum opus of digital filmmaking that thrillingly basks in the sick, slick, sexy and quick-witted excesses of its imaginatively mutant stylizations.

It's not likely you'll see a film more visually exhilarating until, well, Gondry's next.

In this sequel, as Elle uses her good-hearted pluck to work toward her goal, Witherspoon is a sheer delight, all charm and light and loveliness; you just want her to win.

Mafioso isn't a straight black satire of Sicilian culture so much as a suspenseful near-tragedy leavened by the zesty, irreverent wit that helped define the golden age of Italian comedies.

At turns as neurotic and nebbishy as any Woody Allen flick, as creepy and disorienting as your favorite "Twilight Zone" episode, and as steeped in magical realism as the most moving Márquez novel, Synecdoche may not be the feel-good date movie of the year. But for viewers up for the challenge, it may be the film most likely to stick with you.

The reason to see Dreamgirls is what hasn't been advertised - a film that in spite of its shiny veneer actually hits all the high notes through its underlying rawness.

While Bartley and O'Briain flat-out lucked out with this felicitous endeavor, their fearlessness, unobtrusive narration, and lack of Michael Moore man-and-microphone pandering is to be saluted.

Lars's attraction to Bianca is like an audience's to an actor onscreen -- the object is fake, an approximation, but for some that's better than flesh and blood. Bianca is a work of art. And so is Lars and the Real Girl.

Refusing to dumb down for a mass market, Primer is "Mullholland Dr." for math geeks, "Memento" for mad geniuses, or simply one of the most inventive films ever made for pennies on the Hollywood dollar.

Think of how M. Night Shyamalan redefined the ghost story (The Sixth Sense), the superhero creation myth (Unbreakable), and the alien-invasion epic (Signs)--and you may get a sense of the genius behind this fascinating new horror film.

If you don't play at all, you may find yourself enjoying this film more than anyone, because you'll at least get all the laughs with none of the cringing self-recognition.

We actually had the urge to dodge the sea snakes swimming right at us.

Where "Elizabethtown" pretends to have the meaning of life, Shopgirl hones in on a few telling details, then allows audiences to fill in the rest.

The film is punctuated by a literal knock down, drag out affair that has all the perverse curiosity of watching a "late career" Mike Tyson bout. But by the end, the real knockout is the discovery of this comic gem.

Until the point that changes everything, Manito is more a portrait of a neighborhood and its various characters--and this is the even more impressive part of the film. Once the disasters start to domino, the story becomes a bit familiar, a bit manipulative.

Exceptionally strong performances from the entire cast draw you into the movie's deliberately provocative world, a "Lord of the Flies"–like realm where parents are noticeably absent.

This is one movie that's guaranteed to linger in your mind after you leave the theater, whether you want it to or not.

Cheaper entertains a broad audience by recalling an age of family filmmaking when that term wasn’t synonymous with crap.