It's surefire entertainment: loopy and predictable, but tremendously likable.

The story may be scattered and sagging and the picture may have little emotional impact -- certainly nothing to justify the epic running time -- but Garcia at least succeeds in making Havana in the 1950s seem like a vibrant, special place. He doesn't exactly make the audience care, but he does make the audience understand why he cares, and that's something.

Mehta has created the perfect guide to this strange female world.

Unlike the previous two installments, Lady Vengeance generates on odd feeling: hope.

Everything Melville shows us, he shows us for a reason, and these reasons are never obscure but are rather pertinent to the action and to the moral movement of the world and the characters.

A bizarre original from the bizarrely original director.

The movie is a stunner, so hypnotic that the length hardly matters.

One of the best films of the year.

The rare case of a movie that gets better as it goes along.

A well-constructed and genuinely tense thriller.

Silent Hill has plenty of bad acting, bad dialogue and a confusing plot -- all of which become exponentially more painful when the movie goes on forever.

This is the kind of small filmmaking that leaves a big impression.

Hao doesn't seem to have a point of view. Mongolian Ping-Pong is episodic and meandering, with several tedious stretches.

The cruelty of his methods aside -- and Polanski wasn't the first director to terrorize an actor for the sake of a performance -- Repulsion is a frightening, fiercely entertaining experience that holds up to time. (Review of May 1998 revival)

A big disappointment.

Stolen owes its persuasiveness less to its substance than to the visual craft of Dreyfus and her celebrated cinematographer, Albert Maysles. In telling the story of an unsolved crime, they use every trick available to awaken and prolong suspense before a payoff that never comes.

About five times as funny as "Scary Movie 3."

A decent-looking and harmless computer animated film that is notable mostly because it doesn't appear to contain a single original idea.

Really, the only thing kinky about this movie is its title.

With Hard Candy, the innocent are tortured along with the guilty -- the innocent, in this case, being the audience.

Floats on the charm and the labors of its lead actress, Gretchen Mol, who single-handedly makes the picture worth seeing.

An endearingly quirky independent film from Australia, with very likable characters and an intriguing premise.

Other than raising awareness for endangered wildlife, Mountain Patrol: Kekexili doesn't have anything profound to say, but it has a lot to show.

Repressed desire! A sultry soap-opera star! Incest! Gay politics! "La Mujer de Mi Hermano" has it all. Now if it only had a decent plot.

Intelligent, observant entertainment designed for an adult audience.

This is a serious film, but it is also entertaining. Ngassa and Ntuba should be galvanizing figures for a nation stuck on "Judge Judy" and "Jerry Springer."

For the most part, though, it works as a clever thriller that entertains through purposeful misdirection.

It's a movie packed with so many idiot characters that Rob Schneider is cast as the cool guy -- and sort of pulls it off.