Black Book is Verhoeven's best film since "RoboCop": audacious, smart, shamelessly entertaining.

As forceful as its title suggests, and sometimes unbelievably ballsy.

The Descent is bloody, disturbing, and genuinely frightening--you'll be very happy to leave that dark theater.

This unlikely pairing of relentless U.S. pollsters and a Bolivian election is a fascinating glimpse of the Americanized marketing of international politics (and vice versa).

It's a slight story to be sure, but the pleasures of Mrs. Henderson Presents lie less with the narrative and more with the film's tone and the dynamic duo of Dench and Hoskins.

Although director Eytan Fox focuses on Yossi and Jagger's specific situation, he also casts a critical eye on the responsibility military service puts on all young people who are still in the process of discovering themselves.

Year of the Dog would have benefited from a stronger hand behind the camera (White's general aesthetic basically involves cribbing heavily from Wes Anderson and Jared Hess), but as a showcase for Shannon, it ends up being strangely moving.

Not bad for summer jollies, au contraire, but -- "Holy Raised Bar, Batman!" -- let's pray that the next installment measures up to the sequel summits of "Spider-Man 2" and "X2."

It's distinctly Morrisean, as it were, and seeing his style applied to subject matter with which one is already somewhat familiar makes one... well, question the style a bit.

This movie was absolutely hilarious, and proved that dating might be easy, but making friends is much harder.

Girard gives feisty life to the battle-weary professor, but Rousseau just follows the drill--he is glass-eyed to the point of distraction. And for all its intellectual maneuvering, the film never regains the simple power of its opening salvo.

It’s worth seeing twice just for the privilege of watching Rampling and Sagnier match each other stroke for stroke.

Allen does craft a fairly observant account of human behavior, so that the solemn aspects don't put a damper on the humor, or vice versa.

This is better than your average bio-pic. The dynamic established between the motivation of Bale’s and Depp’s characters is really what makes this film. Kudos also go out to Channing Tatum as Pretty Boy Floyd.

Hood's film, with its bold, beautiful cinematography and hard-thumping kwaito music, brings us into a different world, and then helps us to understand it.

Naturally, Pitt and Blanchett are outstanding. Fincher's meticulous attention to detail is unerring, down to the light fixtures.

At its best, Mahowny is intricate, engrossing, wryly funny, and strangely poetic.

There are some very funny parts but this isn’t a typical sports comedy.

Sandy, Danny, and their sexier counterparts Rizzo and Kenickie are spectacular fun to watch, especially in their non-TV-edited glory. Though it's virtually impossible to forget, and stay quiet during, the film's many songs, it's also surprising to remember all of the racy dialogue and double entendres in the original. Or maybe it's just that we never got them when we were ten.

The result is a disturbing look into the so-called Wonder Years of adolescence, with convincing, award-worthy performances from each of its key players: Hunter, Wood, and Reed.

Joyeux Noel is no gritty war film; this is more of a Christmas miracle movie, full of melodrama. Carion juggles a large, multicultural cast, and few of the characters stand out; most are there to represent the types who pop up in your standard war-movie battalions.

Action fans might find the film's first half somewhat of a slog to sit through because of its carefully honed exposition, while those used to Zhang's dialogue-heavy dramas are sure to be surprised by the film's brutal second half where blood spurts more than the words.

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

I haven't been crazy about a lot of Van Sant's recent work, but what he does here is simply astonishing. [November 2003, p. 25]

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

Wheeler's script is a buzzing contrivance, and Hallström's direction is brisker than almost anything he's ever done. So by all means enjoy The Hoax -- it's smart fun. Just don't buy it.

By the end of the film, you actually come to mourn the passing of the EV1, a well-intentioned soul that was in the right place at the right time, but was surrounded by the wrong people.

Too-laborious meditation on life and death.