Getting Irving's characteristic blend of quirky comedy and sorrow just right on screen has always been tricky, and writer-director Tod Williams' best efforts aren't enough to make the mix gel.

So while the facts of Frank's actual political career tend to fall by the wayside, Everly treats us to an insightful look at a remarkable public figure who first became famous for what he does in private.

Hopkins possesses a Candide-like equanimity in the face of bizarre happenstance that is thoroughly charming and keeps the story's excesses from becoming exasperating.

The film is wickedly funny and a first-rate showcase for Ferrell.

The only memorable moments in the entire film come courtesy of three supporting characters, dopey skateboarders (Evan Peters, Shane Hunter, Hunter Parrish) who blindly follow Julie around.

It's cool and spare, but there's an essential lightness to the film's tone despite the heavy material, and Deborah Eve Lewis' glistening B&W cinematography is simply luscious.

Fly's striking, often suspenseful drama has all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy: an insecure young prince who must prove his mettle and loses his soul; a cruel, manipulative queen who cares only for power; a close adviser whose motives aren't always clear.

No matter how you spin Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's chronicle of headbangers on the couch, it sounds like a pitch-perfect parody in "Beyond Spinal Tap" mode. If anything, knowing it's no joke makes it harder not to giggle.

Peralta includes amazing archival footage to demonstrate just how far surfing in general permeated American popular culture, but also narrows his focus to follow the evolution of the surfboard itself.

An Arthurian tale minus everything the average person knows or cares about Arthur and his knights.

The resulting awkward, earthbound mishmash thoroughly overshadows Judd and Kline's authentically moving performances.

This sweet film is a genuine treat, even if there's little plot, no antic mayhem and its 90-minute running time is mostly consumed by nonstop, sometimes pretentious dialogue.

This anti-thriller radiates dread rather than suspense; it delivers creeping apprehension rather than adrenaline-pumping kicks, and the uniformly strong and finely calibrated performances more than compensate for the absence of technical razzle-dazzle.

It's all beautifully photographed and Schwartzberg tries to capture the country's diversity despite notable omissions, as there always will be in any movie that attempts to "define" America.

There's nothing unique about Zarhin's plot -- it's a standard coming-of-age tale with traces of "Good Will Hunting" -- but she portrays the intra-family dynamics with unusual honesty and accuracy.

The rare sequel that actually improves on the original, this robust entertainment's intelligence and emotional impact belie conventional wisdom that summer movie spectaculars are by nature brainless nonsense and only a stupid snob would complain about their cynical insubstantiality.

Cassavetes' film is unusually well-acted and lovely to look at, but his wholehearted embrace of saccharine melodrama and tendency to let scenes ramble on long after their point has been expressed makes for some slow going.

Some of the film's more violent scenes may be inappropriate for young and/or sensitive children.

Has the distinctive Heavy Metal magazine meets "The Neverending Story" (1984) vibe of Euro-science-fiction comics, complete with ponderous philosophical noodling, weirdly whimsical aliens and seriously creepy creature sex.

Although phenomenally well-acted, the film's leisurely pace ultimately makes it feel as oppressive as the tropical heat and humidity that gradually turn the characters into slow-moving heaps of damp, dirty rags.

Moviegoers expecting a conventional sci-fi fantasy will be disappointed; Haneke never explains the vague disaster, nor does he offer any definitive solution.

The mere sight of strapping men in micro-mini skirts suffering the indignities of thong underwear, catcalls and pushy pick-up artists is good for a couple of lowbrow laughs, but they're buried pretty deep in dreck.

It's hard to imagine anyone who isn't familiar with Graham and her place in 20th-century dance history getting drawn into Move and Herrmann's hall of Martha mirrors, but for the right viewer it's a fascinating exercise in self-reflexive mythmaking.

Moore's desperate need for attention is irritating, but it's also his strength as a gadfly; it drives him to needle sacred cows and received wisdom that would otherwise go unchallenged.

Be warned: The end credits contain a particularly nauseating image you'll wish you could delete from memory.

There's a thin line between fable and twaddle, and this feel-good trifle veers dangerously close to the latter.

This gripping documentary contends that some shockingly sleazy efforts to undermine Clinton's character and authority were very real.

Hypnotic film.

The best thing about the whole sorry enterprise is the soundtrack, which features choice tunes by Bruce Springsteen, Starsailor and, of course, Parsons himself.

Director Mike Hodges and screenwriter Trevor Preston's dark revenge tale strips its crime-story cliches of their hopped-up energy and seedy glamour, leaving nothing but sordid sadness.

Would be as tedious as a home movie if the couple, Edward DeBonis and Vincent Maniscalco, weren't gay men and their nuptials not colored by the clash between their personal faith and their rejection by the mainstream church.

Screenwriter Vincent Molina takes into account changing attitudes towards homosexuality and the resulting film never feels like the kind of thing we've seen time and again in the '80s and '90s.

Any similarities to "Northern Exposure" are undoubtedly coincidental, but the comparison is entirely apt.

Why would anyone who wanted his or her film to be taken seriously saddle it with a cutesy title like this?

Blends history and mystery into an entertaining, if somewhat slight, romance.

A leaden excuse for family entertainment, loosely inspired by Jules Verne's 1873 novel, coarsened almost beyond recognition and dominated by Jackie Chan's comic martial-arts schtick.

Where "Pitch Black" relied on shadowy threats and sharply drawn relationships between a small group of stranded victims-to-be, Twohy's bloated space opera is an eye-popping three-ring circus of fabulously freaky costumes, over-ripe declaiming and computer-generated spectacle.

The movie takes a desperately wrong turn about 45 minutes in, and you can almost hear the great sucking sound as the whole thing churns down the drain in a swirl of narrative contradictions.

The CGI is well-done, but Garfield's presence among the otherwise live cast is a constant distraction.

Both Hesses and a surprisingly large number of their very talented cast and crew are graduates of Brigham Young University's film program: Could BYU one day join the esteemed ranks of USC and NYU?

What could easily have been a sentimental, fannish exercise in musty nostalgia is in fact a lovely tribute to an era of feverish creativity that seemed as though it would never end yet now lives only in memory.

If the idea of playing Scrabble conjures up dreary images of dull evenings with aged family relatives, you haven't met the subjects of Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo's irresistible documentary.

When she's not babbling about the weird symbological system that rules her personal cosmos Imelda is an entertaining storyteller, vividly describing a life that became a national embarrassment and a camp legend.

Cuaron lets his enthusiasms show.

Unfortunately, this flawed but interesting film will be Wassel's only legacy; the director was murdered in 2001 by Nathan C. Powell, who helped finance this film.

For many, the soundtrack to this beautifully shot film will probably mark their first encounter with Traore and the intoxicating sounds of his unique brand of Malian blues. Chances are it won't be their last.

Davaa and Falorni's film does suggest that camels have inner lives as rich and complicated as the human beings with whom they live in such intimate proximity. But they're also wholly camels, matted, goopy-eyed, gritty with sand and quick to knee an adorable calf in the snout when its demands become annoying.

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

Rarely has the argument against the death penalty been made so articulately, or so poignantly.

Marred by lack of a clear strategy and an over-reliance on audio-visual trickery.

Like its seven subjects, it can't see past the immediate demands of addiction, and the film becomes a seemingly endless string of scenes depicting shooting up, nodding out and waiting around for the next fix.

The generally competent B-list actors are hobbled by cliché-ridden dialogue but do their best to react in remotely plausible ways each time the script nails them with some new melodramatic contrivance.

While this flight should have been permanently delayed due to extraordinarily offensive conditions, there are no signs instructing you to remain seated should you decide to discreetly exit before your tour of the unfriendly skies is over.

The movie is at its best when it's most straightforward. Flights of fancy like the child angel perched on Melvin's ceiling or his conversations with the black-clad Sweetback, who appears to undermine his confidence at crucial junctures, seem forced and pointless.

By turns profane, vulgar, unpredictable, scabrous and perpetually somewhere between buzzed and three sheets to the wind, Bukowski opened a window onto a fringe world of blue-collar drudgery and alcoholic self-obliteration with his blistering, bleakly comic dispatches from the gutter.

The film is marvelously acted all around, and the fact that there isn't a false note in the entire film is especially impressive given Kureishi's melodramatic contrivances and the fact that his characters are clichés whose behaviors are predictable at nearly every turn.

The first 45 minutes of this wickedly clever comedy features the smartest, tartest high-school satire since Alexander Payne's "Election."

Writer-director Henry LeRoy Finch's ripely overwrought exercise in Southern Gothic psychodrama, which happens to unfold in a picturesquely decaying house in Maine.

The kids, especially the Breslin siblings, are cute. Cusack is underused, but makes her annoying, potpourri-loving suburban mom seem sympathetic. And Corbett is well-cast as an eminently suitable, if slightly dull, life mate for the newly grown-up Helen.

Even those who dismiss Von Trier as a talented sadist might reconsider after seeing this revealing and ultimately poignant documentary -- and the funny thing is, on the surface it's not even about him.

It may be a simple matter of cultural dissonance, or maybe just a bad translation, but it's hard to see why this obnoxious romantic comedy about a lifetime-long relationship between two mischievous adults locked in an ongoing game of "Dares" was such a huge hit in its native France.

If any film can be considered required viewing as the conflict in Iraq continues to drag on and be reported, surely this among them.

The results are quite frightening and far superior to the lengthy gloom and doom that fill many earlier Bergman films. A magical movie, Fanny and Alexander is likely to be the achievement for which Bergman will be most remembered. (Review of Original Release)

In fact it ends, as all good romantic comedies do, with a wedding, though the identities of the newly married couple might be the least predictable thing about this cheerfully ham-fisted celebration of love and family in modern-day Madrid.

Freighted with far more serious issues than most movies of its kind but neglects or glosses over most of them.

Tierney's so-serious script lacks any trace of humor, which might actually have made this depressing film feel a bit more real.

Ratnam, known for integrating controversial cultural and political themes into popular melodramas, bundles a multitude of coming-of-age traumas into the kind of juicy, overwrought narrative that was once a Hollywood staple.

Awash in pop-culture jokes that will fly over the heads of tots and delight their parents, this vividly colored romp is a worthy sequel to the 1991 Oscar winner.

Shattering documentary.

This tepid romantic comedy not only fails to break the rules, but it follows them to the letter.

Even the dramatic heavy hitters, who include Cox, Gleeson, O'Toole and Julie Christie, as Achilles' mother, are powerless in the face of Pitt's yawning hollowness.

Not since Larry Clark's "Kids" (1995) has the threat of HIV infection been used so gratuitously, driving a narrative that ultimately has nothing to do with the AIDS crisis.

This film's rhythms suggest nothing so much as a weirdly macho telenovela, full of family drama, isn't-it-ironic humor and maudlin twists of cruel fate.

While sometimes evocative, they don't add up to a satisfying movie any more than, as several characters are cautioned, coffee and cigarettes constitute a healthy lunch.

For the first hour director Arau and his co-writer and wife, actress Arizmendi, negotiate the story's tricky mix of comedy, social satire and science fiction with surprising aplomb.

Pearce can sing, but Drum's trademark "speaking out" -- free-associative ramblings that recall Jim Morrison of the Doors at his most embarrassingly pretentious -- falls far short of the hypnotic effect Tyler describes.

A beautiful, slow-motion melodrama.

Long expert at unforgettable characterizations, Techine turns his talents toward creating an evocative sense of time and mood.

The film's saddest contention is that five decades later American public schools remain economically segregated by economics, which too often produces classrooms whose complexions have changed little since the pre-Brown era.

While there's little to be gained from over-critiquing a child's performance, it must be said that director Alejandro Agresti badly miscalculates the appeal of his young star; the fact he not only dominates each scene but provides the film's narration means there's not getting away from young Noya.

Director Dennie Gordon keeps the pace brisk, and between makeovers and pratfalls, the girls deliver an easy-to-swallow dose of girl power.

A hokey monster mish-mash that plunders the richly textured histories of Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein's monster.

The combination of Lee's discomforting subject matter and distancing style -- calculating artlessness punctuated by occasional flights of lyrical fantasy -- makes this slow-moving drama a challenge that doesn't seem entirely worth the effort.

This amateurish picture was built around surfing footage that Mikelson shot for a Compaq computer ad and developed with an eye for accommodating a series of lush tropical locations: It's no wonder the plot and characters feel like afterthoughts.

It's not only sexy, clever and well-acted by a fine cast of mostly TV actors, but it's also a grown-up comedyabout honest-to-God grown ups.

It's a lovely tribute to an extraordinary talent whose music might have been forgotten, and you really couldn't ask for a more beautiful soundtrack.

Slickly entertaining documentary.

Narrated by Lily Tomlin and featuring a bevy of in-the-know interviews, this exceptionally entertaining documentary from filmmaker Craig Highberger shines the footlights on Jackie Curtis, an Andy Warhol superstar who transcended the Factory scene and proved to be rather exceptional himself.

Levinson, who has directed enough films to know better, should recognize a stinker of a script when he smells one: Instead clever laughs he serves up sloppy schtick, dead spots filled with lame ad-libbing and Walken crooning "The Happy Wanderer."

Despite its provocative premise, this throwback to deliberately paced, low-tech chillers of the pre-CGI era is a dreary slog through haunted-child movie cliches -- portentous dreams, glassy-eyed stares, cryptic pronouncements.

Objection! Actors of Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan's caliber should not be subjected to playing bland and distasteful characters in mediocre romantic comedies.

Strikes a carefully calibrated balance between the film's darkly malicious sense of humor and its pastel sets and costumes.

Ultimately, the more intensely you buy into the notion that golf is a complex metaphor for the human condition, the more susceptible you'll be to the film's insipid blandishments.

Bertuccelli's heartfelt film affords a unique peek into the hearts and minds of a generation who, after having been awakened from the lie they'd been living all their lives, must now face the aftermath of an entire nation's failure.

De la Iglesia's years of filmmaking experience are obvious in the film's formal touches -- his transitions between scenes and time frames are smooth and very stylish.

The film draws careful parallels between orthodoxies and in his own quiet way, Masud, a devout Muslim, level his critique at repressive political regimes and religious doctrines, and those who dangerously confuse one with the other.

Rarely has mental illness been depicted so subjectively and seemed so immediate: John's daily struggle to determine what's real and what isn't becomes as palpable as it is poignant. It's also a touching testament to the love and dedication of John's family.

You won't see anything quite like it from any other filmmaker working today.