Seeks to shock and to outrage, and so far it's done both quite nicely.

Writer and first-time director Thomas Bezucha certainly knows how to create warmth, ambience and situation.

Not quite a masterpiece perhaps, but a visually stunning mountain drama, and an absorbing look at a dying culture.

Shines with the kind of honesty that's very scarce in today's ultra-manipulative cinema.

The cast is engaging, the overall visual effects are tremendous and I found myself fairly swept away for most of the fast-moving, three-hour running time.

It's a strange and strangely unaffecting little drama -- but played very flat, with no particular emotional impact sought or achieved.

Director Jean Stewart isn't merely clumsy with character; she hasn't the chops to show us the joy and exhilaration Christine feels in the freedom of solo runs.

The three stars communicate the fears and dreams and frustrations of teenage girls with subtlety, sensitivity and dignity.

Overly familiar, poorly cast and often annoyingly crude New York comedy that never finds its groove.

Has all the telltale signs of desperate re-editing: mismatched shots, clumsy transitions and a devastating car wreck that occurred either on a dry sunlit day or in the midst of a nighttime downpour, depending on the flashback.

While Shrek may trek into that dark territory and has some questionable values simmering beneath the surface, its characters are delightful enough and the film is just sweet-natured and visually sophiscated enough to avoid sinking into the swamp.

It doesn't, as they say, really work -- but it's enjoyable enough in spots to leave one feeling passably entertained.

Always absorbing.

Upbeat but generic songs (one performed by Little Richard) and jazz lines add a little energy but the film feels less like a feature than an expensive ad for the upcoming video.

It's a passionate film powered by the righteous anger of injustice.

Isn't very pretty despite its extraordinary look. In fact, the film is downright queasy and unsettling.

The film's one saving grace is Ledger (Mel Gibson's son in "The Patriot").

Surprisingly sweet and infectious.

Aoyama's monochrome images are filled with a simple shadowy beauty and his scenes are rich in tender sensitivity and empathy.

Ultimately feels hollow and slapdash.

Fascinating, visually gorgeous cinematic study that will frustrate some viewers by its ambiguity.

Sommers is a pure pop Steven Spielberg who's put his deft technical skills in the service of the ultimate rollercoaster movie ride. It's sometimes more exhausting than exciting.

In its best moments, resembles a bad high school production of "Grease," without benefit of song.

A spirited, screwball crime-thriller with a sly heart.

What it doesn't have is a script that has anything original, cohesive, or, gasp -- funny -- to say.

The restraint so magnificently applied in "The Remains of the Day" has simply fallen into disconnection.

Between Stallone's soap opera of a script and Renny Harlin's speed-obsessed visuals, we're never really shown much more than fast cars and obsessed drivers.

From Harry's perspective, it's a grotesque life, a dead end for his new protege Michel, but Moll also shows the sensitivity beneath the sniping and that's where With a Friend Like Harry ... really scores

Refreshingly old-fashioned.

I can't think of another movie that more fluently communicates the special agony and ecstasy of the game of chess.

Covers this exact same territory, but does it with such refreshing, clearheaded honesty and skill it seems like a revelation.

Sober and serious and downright glum, ultimately an all-too-familiar portrait of lonely souls unable to break through their own isolation.

The most pure of Mamet's works to come to the screen.

A good-faith effort, if not completely successful.

An endearing comedy that could well end up being one of the year's big hits.

A mix of the poetic and the polemic, the film is oddly abstract and untethered.

A new millennium version of "A Hard Day's Night" without any wit to balance the silliness.

Cranks up the hysteria to screechy sitcom levels.

Much ado about very little because it takes no stand and gives little insight into the Chopper's psyche.

Melancholy, haunting and riveting true-crime saga.

It's a superior film in every way to its predecessor "Kiss the Girls."

Pitches itself somewhere between "Bound" and "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," trying to add a feminist twist to the spate of Britain's bloody gangster thrillers and never quite succeeding.

Achieves its social commentary through passion and poetry.

It rolls in waves over the sedentary crowd until there's not a single soul left who's not keeping the beat.

Not as funny as the original, not nearly as funny.

Never quite builds the compulsive emotional power it needs to be an unforgettable personal drama.

Energetic and inventive, it's a satirical, smart, grown-up thriller.

One lousy little movie -- utterly devoid of any real originality or charm.

So witless, sit-com shallow and bad in every way that it's just not worthy of much discussion.

Oddly fresh and naively chipper.

It's a sorry specimen if ever there was one, and could even stand as an argument for how the movies have deteriorated in recent years.

A one-joke, one-note turkey.

A fairly depressing experience.

It's a sporadically thrilling visual epic and a gruesome reminder that war is hell.

A delicious one-time treat.

Works well as a metaphor for a more innocent time.

Something doesn't quite gel in the end.

There's still enough of Doyle's hilariously foul dialogue and outrageous, culture-shocked Irish characters for the film to be a good bit of fun.

For all it's warmth and wonder, it carries little more power than a storybook fable.

A fairly hypocritical exercise -- and one that's so flamboyant and overbearing that it comes perilously close to being a classic awful.

Varda sees herself as a gleaner as she searches for the people and cultural activities missed by the rest of the media.

Never quite shakes itself free of the tired cliche that street people are quirky, sometimes cute, and somehow privy to a spiritual purity lost to us social folk.

A satisfyingly nasty piece of work so black and cruel it's often more sick than funny.

Develops its own unique charm.

It's hard to believe that five different writers took credit for this feeble story and script. Who says failure is an orphan?

Predictable and agonizingly politically correct.

Together, the two of them (Pitt, Roberts) are cute as a bug.

So violent and junky it seems to have been designed as evidence for the growing congressional movement to censor Hollywood.

Selick proves a clumsy director of live-action scenes and never overcomes the muddled, half-baked script or the scatological gags.

The new movie year's poignant love story to beat.

Ppaque and not hugely satisfying.

This journey is clunkily rendered, clouded by an avalanche of murky symbolism.

Rock, who seems to have studied every nuance of Beatty's Oscar-nominated comic performance -- is surprisingly appealing in what is often a straight role.

At its best, Company Man hums from one piece to the next, a harmless, good-natured, often silly spoof with a few cutting barbs and a comic showman's love of the well-executed gag.

Pretty silly stuff, designed to appeal more to older kids and adults than the toddler brigade.

Anyone in the market for a bittersweet romantic comedy could do worse.

It's a nicely crafted little ensemble piece, but -- like so many films that have become the rage in France in recent years -- it's surprisingly light and forgettable.

Though Signs & Wonders loses its bubbles and runs flat in its anticlimactic final moments, it's far more inventive and demanding than any movie of recent memory.

The film is a shapeless mess and about as convincing as a cartoon, the usual mix of slapstick, doofus humor and raunchy sex jokes lacking even the bite or attitude to make it adventurous.

Has almost none of the nail-biting suspense and fascinating character interplay that made the original so authentically terrifying.

There may be no more sensual director in the world today than Hong Kong's Wong Kar-Wai.

Diaz is quite believable in the part, and gets solid support from Brewster, who is even more appealing as the adoring, wounded and somewhat vacuous younger sister.

Rambling and easygoing, Nico and Dani is a modest but frank look at adolescent lust, both heterosexual and homosexual.

The script is soggy and sloppy and Waters is no master of suspense, but he does have a pair of engaging stars flirting in a world of chic New York glamour.

Shooting with a respectful remove that captures an intimacy by sheer doggedness, Finkiel creates a rich atmosphere by simply looking, listening and peering past the surfaces.

Ullmann has honed a too-long and sometimes relentless film that delves into the selfishness of passion but also captures the elusiveness and unpredictability of love.

In the end, it trivializes the psychological complexity of the girl's post-traumatic stress and betrays a game group of actors who struggle to find balance between the alternately dark drama and the silly, over-the-top melodrama.

As weak a star vehicle as Hollywood has cranked out this millennium.

It's unspeakably morbid, and never adds up to be something special.

Plays like a series of well-done but disconnected acting-class sketches, filled with a huge cast of first-rate actors whose careers have all gone into decline.

Belongs to that distinctly '90s genre of sadistic crime comedy whose time has clearly come and gone.

A nifty little neo-film noir that's a lot more intriguing and watchable than half the films that make it to the multiplexes.

A bafflingly unfunny comedy.

It's phony and forced, but mostly it's just silly. If there was once a satirical edge to this thriller, it's been programmed right out.

Beautifully acted and conceived -- even if the final vision is not always totally satisfying.

The second-class status of women in Korean society is a reminder of Confucianism's dark side. For all its pretty cinematic images and well-meaning bows to a vanishing literary tradition, this movie is a celebration of that dark side.

Hypnotic and fun.

There's not a smarter, more demanding American film from the past year.