It's all mindless, absurdly complex and hopelessly hip in that 1960s sort of way, but an agreeable way to pass the time with gorgeous Sophia.

Cage creates a homey and thoroughly likable character who earns the respect of the audience, but Hunter is the real surprise. Appearing in her first starring role, the stage veteran displays so much energy that she forces the audience to pay attention.

The result is undeniably gorgeous, but it's all busy surface, beautiful bodies and ironically absurd plot contrivance, occasionally awkward references to political events in '70s Spain notwithstanding.

While Edward Norton convincingly portrays both the good and bad side of his conflicted man, a great deal of the insight into his character comes from the strong supporting cast.

An exciting mix of science fiction, cop thriller, and buddy film, The Hidden is one of the most exciting and unique genre hybrids.

Knightriders is overlong and at times fairly undramatic, but for viewers who stick with it and accept the premise, there is much of interest to be found here.

Although not as powerful, impressive, or exciting as Suspiria, Inferno is still intriguing, effective, and stylish enough to make the narrative unimportant.

Zentropa is as muddled as it is stylized.

The situation in these former republics may indeed be dire, but it's a breeding ground for exciting cinema.

A perverse mixed-martial arts film in which talk trumps action.

Unfortunately, the script leaves something to be desired--namely, dramatic impetus. Yet Hard Times is still an enjoyable film, and the depression-era settings are painstakingly captured.

This is a crude, shapeless talkie, a technically unsophisticated film in which the sound is static and the camera immobile, with the comedians leaping into the set scenes. Yet the boys are there in all their frenetic glory.

It's a thoughtful and ultimately chilling take on a tragedy that still has the power to disturb and divide.

Everything about this big, beautiful movie smacks of authenticity, excitement, and massive showmanship.

Marketing-minded folks may be quick to position Guncrazy as a 90s take on Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and its title is certainly meant to evoke Joseph H. Lewis's 1949 classic Gun Crazy. But this film is by no means as brash, startling, or iconoclastic as either. Its quieter character-study nature has more in common with They Live by Night (1949), its remake Thieves Like us (1974), and Badlands (1973). Compared to these three landmarks, Guncrazy comes up lacking in lyricism and resonance, but it does give ample pleasures thanks to a subtly self-aware sense of humor and fine performances by itstwo leads.

The film presents its characters in a series of vignettes rather than in a traditional story. While it gives evidence of cinematic skill, it has a tendency to draw attention to its film-school parentage.

This unashamedly old-fashioned coming-of-age story is nothing new, but remains highly watchable nevertheless.

The defendants – especially Hoffman and Rubin – baited elderly Judge Julius J. Hoffman, who never failed to take the bait; Seale was so obstreperous that Hoffman had him gagged and bound to a chair, another indelible image.

Refreshingly serious look at young women whose relative freedom doesn't mean they're particularly free.

None of this is funny, the surreal touches are ridiculous and the final fantasy sequence, in which the nameless ghosts of the murdered Wiener family smile on Josef, is simply nauseating.

The soundtrack, thick with catchy tunes by artists ranging from P.Diddy to Paul Simon, is a fine counterpoint to the story and visuals.

His epic reworking of their lurid conventions proved so long that it was divided into two parts, and this one ends on a hell of a cliff-hanger.

Terminal illness, depression, suicide and one very angry young man: If there's such a thing as a kitchen-sink comedy, writer-director Lone Scherfig's sad but often very funny film is it.

Caustic, vivid, and without question the best major film about recent conflicts in Latin America.

Siegel develops some interesting themes that he would later explore in John Wayne's outstanding final film, The Shootist.

For all her own frustrations, Davenport is honest enough not to gloss over the fact that what Muthana's adventures in the screen trade taught him was to hustle, toady and ingratiate himself to useful people. And she helped.

A cute, slight tale.

This sequel to the terrific The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, is great fun--with a minimum of plot and a maximum of wonderful Ray Harryhausen special effects.

Of the long list of couples who have loved neither wisely nor particularly well, few have such power to disturb as Burton Pugach and the love of his life, Linda Riss.

While at times overly familiar, the film never feels self-mocking.

Robert Waller's inexplicably colossal bestseller is transferred to the screen with more art than it deserves, but neither old-fashioned Hollywood craftsmanship nor the massive star power of Eastwood and Streep can compensate for the story's intellectual slightness and emotional implausibility.

Filmmaker AJ Schnack's hauntingly beautiful film is a bold and successful attempt to recover the human being who disappeared under the heavy mantle of "face and voice of a lost generation," and whose life has been increasingly overshadowed by his sensational early death in 1994.

Powerfully acted, intensely carnal drama.

What begins as a gripping adventure, thrillingly told with virtually no dialogue, eventually becomes a rather routine parable despite the unique setting and circumstances.

It's an old story, but at a time when high-school-aged athletes are wooed away from real-life with staggering, multi-million dollar endorsement deals, it's one that bears repeating.

Bleak and complex moral thriller.

Boulanger is completely captivating as the kind of kid Truffaut would have adored, but it's Sharif's show. Next to his portrayal of Yuri in "Dr. Zhivago", this may be role for which he'll be best remembered.

Supremely silly on the surface but full of sophisticated sight gags and deadpan humor.

The meat of the matter is fight sequences, and rather than being goosed with now-common digital effects and Hong Kong-style wirework, it's all real and all breathtaking.

Palcy, in what amounts to the casting coup of the year, enlisted the reclusive Brando to make his brief but memorable cameo appearance--his first film role since 1980--for union scale. His performance alone is worth the price of admission to this earnest, somewhat predictable, but moving and significant film.

Adapted from an award-winning novella by science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison, A Boy And His Dog has won a cult following of its own for its offbeat, sardonic look into the future.

Overall, McGrath's film has superior star power (including Gwyneth Paltrow in a one-scene role as a Peggy Lee-like chanteuse), is franker about the sexual nature of Capote's fascination with the murderous Smith and his sad, strangled dreams, and spends more time establishing Capote's glittering New York life before setting him adrift in the heartland.

Martin is a shocking, thoughtful reworking of the vampire myth set in a dying American steel town. Well worth a look for anyone with even a passing interest in horror, and essential viewing for serious fright fans.

Exquisitely shot and the dark poetry of Levi's words, read at intervals throughout the film, is brought to haunting life by a suitably weary-sounding Chris Cooper.

Under the masterful direction of husband John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands delivers a gutsy, spellbinding performance in this excellent crime film.

What should have been an important addition to popular films about women's rights winds up being the most insulting courtroom drama since "Ally McBeal" was put out of its misery.

It's a serious and well-researched consideration of natural childbearing vs. hospital delivery that explores the larger social conditions and assumptions that shape women's choices.

Lavish, interesting, evocative but strained and self-conscious, The Cotton Club is all watchable curiosity.

Actor Tim Roth's austere directing debut is one of the most difficult, emotionally wrenching experiences you're likely to have in a movie theater any time soon.

The film, beautifully shot in widescreen by Luca Bigazzi, is surprisingly accessible and always engaging, if ultimately tragic.

What's surprising is how bright and engaging these kids are, and for once you're left wanting more.

Delightful mix of swinging '60s style, road movie conventions and age-old romantic comedy tropes that coasts along on little more than charm, and does it delightfully.

It may be an old story, but Berri draws fresh poignancy from this December-May romance by identifying so empathetically with Jacques.

A truly trangressive film as unsettling as it is psychologically acute.

Not to be missed.

At least as much science fiction as horror, Horror Express has become a favorite in both genres and deservedly so. It's fast-paced, inventive, and wholly entertaining.

Cast mostly with Russians in all the Hispanic roles, this glamourfest is Hollywood politics at its most apolitical, lacking even the energy of a good B movie.

An example of how star power can compensate plot, this is the least electric of the Bogart-Bacall pairings; luckily, there's Agnes Moorehead, the screen's best hornet, to intervene whenever the going gets too lackadasical.

Douglas's Chief Executive is no vote-getter; he's a charmless, irritating boob who can't even order flowers for a woman. With friends like Douglas and Reiner, Clinton doesn't need Rush Limbaugh.

There was little room for Hitchcock's usual humor here, nor is there even much suspense.

Julie Christie is glorious, and that's most of what you need to know about this slight, loosely structured and self-consciously ironic soap opera in which two couples -- one young and troubled, the other older but hardly wiser -- get themselves into a series of fine messes.

The powerful movement of the movie is exhilarating, but it's all action with little characterization or plot. There is a moral here about mankind's lust for power, but it never clearly emerges from the spectacle of destruction and violence. Ultimately, AKIRA is really all about the animation.

A massive, sweaty, frequently silly epic that nevertheless delivers enough brute pleasure to pass a rainy afternoon.

British actor Timothy Spall gives a shattering performance as Albert Pierrepoint.

Finney and Keaton each have their heavy dramatic moments, but there is nothing in writer Bo Goldman's script that hasn't been seen and heard in a thousand other films.

There's an argument to be made that the film's ending is the logical conclusion of its notion that everyone's trapped in a limbo of disappointment, uncertainty and paralyzing fear of change. But it feels like a cheap cop out: The cast, and the audience, deserve better.

Barbarously beautiful and gut-wrenchingly (literally) violent, it's a mesmerizing vision of the past refracted through the dark obsessions of the present.

Directed by Muppet manipulator-actor-director Oz, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is an amusing comedy whose strengths and weaknesses both stem from the broad treatment of the material. In going for easy, lowest-common-denominator laughs, Oz loses much of the subtlety and occasionally dark humor of the orginal.

It was really no bigger than a beach ball, weighed about as much as a full-grown man and it beeped. And aside from transmitting a radio signal and accidentally opening a few automatic garage doors, it didn't really do anything except orbit the globe once every 96 minutes.

Sensitive, extraordinarily well-acted drama.

The most affecting parts of this film are its quieter, character-driven moments, and it's beautifully acted; if there is indeed an "Argentinean New Wave" afoot, Brédice might be its Anna Karina.

That Techine manages to coax a somewhat happy ending from this staid, somber film is heartening proof that what doesn't kill us might indeed make us stronger.

Imbued with great atmosphere by director Jack Arnold, the film is genuinely frightening, but also elicits a certain amount of pathos for the creature, reminiscent of that that goes out to the unfortunate King Kong.

An interesting, often absorbing offbeat western with excellent production values.

Bana's performance is nothing short of electrifying.

Bopha!'s intentions are all good, but it preaches (and that is the operative word) to the converted.

Rarely do movies portray the elderly with such admiration and respect.

Less a sequel than a variation on a haunting theme -- the nature and origins of humanity.

This film captures the disillusionment of returning WWII vets, and brilliantly addresses itself to many of the director's characteristic concerns--masculine fear of domestication and attendant resentment of women; the tensions of masculine friendship; women's complicity in their own oppression; the compromises demanded of artists functioning under capitalism.

Ryan has a wonderful way with Hartley's often difficult dialogue, and is engaging even when the rest of the film is not

Before director-writer Bob Zemeckis found success with blockbuster hits ROMANCING THE STONE and BACK TO THE FUTURE, he directed this raunchy, hysterically funny comedy. Kurt Russell turns in a brilliant performance.

The talents of the wonderful Jonathan Pryce are wasted in this poor adaptation of Ray Bradbury's tale of fantasy and the supernatural.

The accolades are typically gushing - Bono likens Cohen to Byron and Shelley.

Director Tim Burton and his screenwriters bring a heavy-handed, plodding realism to bear on what should be pop-mythic material.

Surprisingly enough, puberty-stricken J.D. and Chowder actually sound like real teenagers, but the cartoony look will probably alienate real-life kids that age, and the man-eating house might be downright terrifying to younger kids.

The shame of it all is that Kane somehow managed to assemble an extraordinary cast, whose fine performances can't surmount the tedium of his script.

One of the many terrible ironies laid out in vivid detail by Justman and her subjects is that many of those accused were among the Party's most ardent members: Jews who wholeheartedly embraced Communism.

Warm and thoughtful tale.

Exciting, suspenseful drama.

This is as powerful a set of evidence as you'll ever find of why art matters, and how it can resonate far beyond museum walls and through to the most painfully marginal lives.

Patwardhan offers no solutions, but poses disturbing questions.

The film's much-vaunted stunts are deliberately unrealistic, from over-the-top wire-work to CGI-soccer balls that streak through the air like flaming cannon balls.

The film flawlessly captures the directionless alienation of youngsters whose families are in no shape to guide them through the turbulence of their teenage years.

Perry's careful juxtaposition of images showing the town's sad present with footage of what it's long ceased to be is positively haunting.

Marvelously entertaining, and occasionally brilliant, political satire.

A powerful piece of documentary filmmaking.

Dong shows how intolerance has the power to deform families, then tear them apart. At 75 minutes, the film is too short; each story deserves a full hour of its own.

Unpredictable and hugely entertaining.