A sweat-slicked, near-abstract ballet of blood and sand.

Unfortunately, for all its credentials and the virtuoso performances of its three leads, this lengthy movie doesn't add up to much. It fails to explore its themes--love and hedonism, freedom and commitment (political and sexual)--in depth, floating haphazardly from scene to scene without emotional or intellectual development.

De Niro gives a miraculous character performance, much different from the intense brooding loners for which he is renowned. He seems to disappear into this oddball, somewhat repulsive, but ultimately rather touching character. Sandra Bernhard, in her film debut, is nearly as memorable as Rupert's outrageous partner in crime.

Taken as a whole, Robin and Marian is a spotty picture that's sometimes satirical, a trifle pretentious, occasionally exciting.

The first of the witty, well-produced sex comedies featuring Day and Hudson.

Béart and Berling are both superb, while Huppert -- imperious as a woman who turns her world into a moral prison to prove a point -- is magnificent.

Cornish's raw, nuanced performance and Shortland's sympathetic but unsentimental portrayal of Heidi's fumbling steps toward maturity are underscored by Sydney-based band Decoder Ring's catchy, angst-ridden score.

The intentionally artificial campiness of the story eventually becomes touching, as it's played out against the sound of The Platters singing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and The Great Pretender.

You'll feel lucky for such a comprehensive introduction to Turkish music.

The unrelenting tempo is bolstered by Rodriguez's camera work and editing: nearly every frame seems to have been shot with a careening, handheld camera, and they're cut together in a skillful, fluid fashion that enhances the tension and pace of the 80-minute chase.

It's a surprisingly uplifting experience, and in the end, unmistakably a Kiarostami film.

Solid, old-fashioned narrative moviemaking with just enough no-budget cachet to disguise its essential blandness.

Brilliantly edited from well over 100 hours of tape, the final two-hour film recalls Michael Apted's 7 UP series.

Michael Meeropol provides a far more eloquent statement of the song's enduring impact: "Until the last racist is dead, 'Strange Fruit' is relevant."

If this were a more mainstream film with a shot at a wider audience, we'd probably be talking Oscar nominations for Futterman and Ball.

For all its tongue-in-cheek toying with images, it doesn't reward attempts at serious intellectual analysis. It has the air of a surprisingly juvenile lark, a pop-influenced prank whose charms are immediately apparent and wear thin with repetition.

Wrenching documentary.

With a screenplay from first-time screenwriter E. Max Frye and superior performances from his principal cast, Demme has created a unique and likable film.

This film begins at mach one and gets somewhere near the speed of light by the time it finishes.

A wild, endlessly inventive romp set in a post-war world so full of machine-guns and hand-grenades that people barely flinch when one or the other goes off.

This is a funny, entertaining comedy that handles its touchy subject with great skill and sensitivity.

Hitchcock's most liberated and poetic film, Marnie is a masterpiece of psychological mystery that encompasses all of the director's obsessions.

This fast-paced entertainment is a surprisingly successful mix of spectacle and human-scale drama.

Henry James's novel of social-climbing, forbidden love, friendship and betrayal, given a lush treatment that neglects neither the elaborate period trappings nor the story's intensely contemporary emotional underpinnings.

The picture's uneasy but perfectly calibrated mix of brutal violence and goofy humor is pure Kitano -- the scenes in which Murakawa and his henchmen play a variation on "Rock'em Sock'em Robots" with paper sumo wrestlers is just too bizarre -- and its convulsively nihilistic ending is unforgettable.

Davaa's second fable of animals and the people who love them mixes aspects of ethnographic filmmaking with heart-grabbing story lines that wouldn't be too far out of place in a 1950s live-action Disney feature.

The engaging characters play out the action against elegantly designed backgrounds. The story is genuinely exciting, a well-told tale that is entertaining to both children and adults without compromising the expectations of either group. The voices are perfectly cast, particulary Price as the evil Ratigan.

What really lessens SADDLES is that its intentions aren't clear. Its humor provoked no thinking; insensitive moviegoers assumed the racial put-downs and cowboy crudeness were deliberate. The public loved the film--it stands as the highest grossing western in history--$45 million plus! But they loved it for all the wrong reasons.

Gypsy music is the music of pain, poverty and oppression, all of which she's experienced; it's their blues.

Both De Bouw and Decleir are superb.

An accomplished film that carries with it the unshakable feeling that we've seen it all before.

De Felitta's portrait of Paris -- who died in June 2004 -- isn't always flattering, but it is genuinely moving on many levels, none of which require knowledge of or even interest in jazz.

A major-league splatterfest, RE-ANIMATOR has a number of horrifying moments, made even more macabre by the grisly humor evident in almost every unforgettable scene (the most memorable and bizarre being the sex scene with a cadaver's detached head).

Seven Days in May smacks of realism, from its skillfully realized sets to its wholly believable supporting performances by O'Brien, Balsam, and John Houseman. Sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.

The gross-out factor is surprisingly low, and the combination of Stiller and De Niro is inspired.

This dazzling pop allegory is steeped in a dark, pulpy sensibility that transcends nostalgic pastiche and stands firmly on its own merits.

An illuminating depiction of Islamic women that is entirely at odds with what we are often lead to believe.

Belvaux is no Douglas Sirk, but the film is an admirable, if uneven, conclusion to an audacious project.

Every frame gleams and the camel -- a double-humped wonder whose unusual majesty and quiet mystery drives this wonderful film -- is magnificent to behold.

Salvatores draws strikingly unsentimental performances from his young actors, all making their film debuts, and juxtaposes the petty meanness of children with the calculated cruelty of desperate adults to haunting effect.

Slickly entertaining documentary.

Ratanaruang's simple willingness to tie different strands of melancholy melodramas and violent yakuza thrillers together with flashes of surreal mystery immediately sets him apart from the herd.

Director Laurent Cantet's fourth feature abandons the contentious French workplaces of "Human Resources" and "Time Out" for sunnier climes, but this Haitian idyll is an equally excoriating look at labor and exploitation.

The final confrontation is a slow-motion, De Palma-esque massacre in a hotel lobby that begins and ends in the amount of time it takes for a high-flying can of Red Bull to hit the floor. Breathtaking.

First-time director Lisa Cholodenko, who has made a powerful and modish film with a subtle and knowing script, is more than ably assisted by a spectacular cast.

An effective climax shows a stone eagle coming to life, proving once again that behind every great man, etc.

Powell is nothing less than magnificent as the mustached philosophizing patriarch, and Dunne casts a warm glow beside him. Elizabeth Taylor, Martin Milner, Jimmy Lydon, and Edmund Gwenn all contribute strong supporting performances; Michael Curtiz provides his usual sure-handed direction.

Carole Lombard's final film for Paramount was a charming screwball comedy that was entertaining, if lightweight.

Tarzan movies had been around for years when Road To Zanzibar, the second of the "Road" pictures, took the opportunity to satirize every jungle picture lensed up to that time. The script was funny, although much of the humor reportedly derived from on-set improvisations.

First-time writer-director Greg Mottola has a real feel for characters, a quality that's in disturbingly short supply among young filmmakers. The Malone family could easily be a one-dimensional collection of sitcom caricatures, but by the movie's end they feel like real people. He also pulls off a tricky shift of tone, from pleasant, mild comedy to something far more bitter and haunting.

The film is heavy on character and atmosphere and light on action, though what does happen is so bizarre as to verge on the ridiculous.

Allows the supporting cast to steal the movie.

For all its emphasis on working-class integrity, The Commitments is really Fame wrapped in streetwise packaging.

The camera never ventures outside, but remains fixed on the action at the table, gliding languidly past the same sepia-toned tableau: In the film's universe, people are indistinguishable and the setting never changes. Hou does succeed in one key respect: His films evokes opium addiction, a narcotic delirium fading into a dreamless sleep.

Through the hard-won experiences of these families, Karslake shows that Scripture and homosexuality are not mutually exclusive, and with the help of a number of academics and theologians, shows how the Bible has been misread, particularly during the 20th century.

Teenage angst and adolescent agony are the stuff of sharp, observant comedy this quirky, wonderfully dry first fiction feature from documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound).

Funny, touching, and ultimately tremendously buoyant--reflecting the optimism engendered by the short-lived 1980s economic boom—Working Girl is a "feel good" movie with some intelligence.

Though the plot is that of a simple revenge western, director George Miller infuses the film with a kinetic combination of visual style, amazing stunt work, creative costume design, and eccentric, detailed characterizations that practically jump out of the screen and grab the viewer by the throat.

Engrossing documentary about the life and times of publisher Barney Rosset, who spent much of his career advancing the cause of free expression, is a flawless match of style and subject.

A behind-the-scenes documentary that manages to be unabashedly sympathetic without being a puff piece.

Holding nothing back, Walters is, once again, remarkable.

Rough, breathless adaptation of Fernando Vallejo's ferociously sardonic novel.

This is much more than a typically one-dimensional message-movie -- it's obviously the work of a master filmmaker .

If only this amiable shaggy dog story...didn't degenerate into an implausible, second-rate thriller after takeoff.

The subject matter is certainly controversial -- it's not every day that we see a sympathetic portrayal of a pedophile -- but Cuesta avoids the taint of salaciousness, thanks in large part to a brilliant performance from Cox.

Bakan's arguments are buttressed by entertaining clips culled from commercials, industrial films and, appropriately, monster movies.

A superb, timeless film which can and should become part of the treasured trove of minimalist art films that live on in memory and experience.

The film's pared-down narrative is anything but aimless, and it pays off in a haunting final last scene scored with Gang of Four's "Damaged Goods."

The result is a beguiling mix of the familiar and the exotic, vivid proof that a good story can withstand endless variations without losing its fundamental vitality.

Fitzmaurice directs with great style here and makes the most of the lavish production techniques available to him.

The Lolita of the 1940s, and just as sexy. A sparkling farce that marked Wilder's American directorial debut after years of writing witty screenplays for other directors, The Major And The Minor sails along breezily from its very first scenes until its romantic ending.

It's the one movie so far this summer that demands to be seen on the big screen.

Entertaining -- if predictable.

If the ending isn't conventionally happy, it's certainly deeply satisfying.

Vividly photographed in shimmering colors and driven by a propulsive score.

Adults also are more likely than kids to snicker at jokes.

A smart, engrossing thriller in which you care as much about the characters as the crime.

Big is a winning, charming film, primarily because Hanks makes it work. He is extraordinarily convincing as an adolescent who suddenly finds himself dealing with a new, adult body, responsibilities, and a romantic relationship, while simultaneously trying to survive vicious corporate infighting.

So if you're looking for the next stop on the Shockingly Experimental Comedy train, don't get off here -- this ride is strictly for laughs.

A dry, thoroughly modern reminder that while mores change, human nature doesn't.

Aldrich was a master at presenting his distinctly cynical outlook in the context of crowd-pleasing entertainment, and The Dirty Dozen is one of his most effective and lasting efforts.

Although it begins promisingly enough, with a documentary-like look at the options available to young African-American men who grow up in the "ghetto life," this visually polished film stumbles when it comes to actually telling a story.

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON had many faults and yet, as the song goes, "with all it's faults, we love it still."

Stewart seems uncomfortable playing an intellectual; his dull performance never displays the disturbance or authority that it needs.

This generation's postpunk worldview is rooted in nihilism, detachment, and fear of nuclear annihilation--nothing matters to them except friends, rock 'n' roll, and getting stoned. River's Edge also boasts the best cast of unknowns since Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders. Reeves and Skye are superb as the moral centers of the film, Roebuck is great as the killer, and the supporting performances are also impressive. Glover and Hopper go over the top and get away with it.

A genuinely heartbreaking, romantic film based on a true story; frankly, if it doesn't make you cry, we don't want to know you.

Though the ballets themselves are beautifully shot, they lean heavily in the direction of gimmicky and prop-heavy pieces; they're visually interesting but, by and large, they're not great dance.

Foxx is the one standout in an otherwise overcrowded film.

The result is so intoxicating, it hardly matters that you've heard it all before.

While MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON is the most moral of films, it is so artfully filled with real emotion that it never becomes heavy-handed.

Hayley Mills plays twins in this innocent, fast-paced comedy, a favorite of countless youngsters in the 1960s. An enjoyable, corny Disney picture with a memorable soundtrack featuring tunes sung by Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello.

Mask is a good movie that could have been a great one with a little more restraint.

Although hardly believable, the story is effective, making its rather unwholesome characters sympathetic.

Pulp sci-fi classic.

The story's authenticity was enhanced by the real-life marriage of Grant and Drake and their resulting on-screen rapport.

THE SEA WOLF contains little of the prolixity of Jack London's philosophically oriented novel, yet it is true to the spirit of the book. The megalomania of the ship's master is wonderfully expressed in Edward G. Robinson's fine portrayal of the contemptuous captain.

Leigh is stunning in this second cinematic version of author Sherwood's hit play.

A keen satire, MANDABI is not only Sembene's first comedy and first film in color, but also his first in Wolof, the language spoken by most Senegalese people. Its critique of a postcolonial state is much more narrowly focused than those of his earlier short films, and, as the first Senegalese film to be distributed commercially in Senegal, it more than got its point across.