Although perhaps not as mind-blowing in its uniqueness as RE-ANIMATOR, this is definitely one of the best horror films of the 1980s.

By far the silliest and most self-mocking of the series, with the interplay between Spock and Kirk veering somewhere between Hope and Crosby and Cheech and Chong, but also one of the most successful.

Peddle captures a vital and increasingly visible community that's easily misunderstood, and his film will undoubtedly help novices further understand the complex differences separating gays, transsexuals and the transgendered.

Odd but never dull.

While not easy to watch, and at times even harder to follow, Haas' film is an important attempt to accurately capture the confusing reality of contemporary Iraq.

It's not earthshaking or life-changing, but it's cute, occasionally predictable and only requires ACTUAL idiots, like Barry, to act like idiots. As formula entertainment goes, that's a pretty sweet deal.

Scanners is a memorable and absorbing genre entertainment.

A romantic victim to the end, this Ian Curtis is all that worshipful fans could ever hope for.

What does work in Coming Home are the small, human, unguarded moments. The performances, undeniably appealing, were deservedly praised, Dern and Voight coming off best.

The film boasts fewer guest-star cameo appearances than the first time around but those who are here do a good job, and Miss Piggy's Busby Berkeley-type dance and the water ballet are fun to watch.

Superbly acted, beautifully photographed, and resolutely warm and fuzzy, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is a romantic treat.

Exorcist III may not have the visceral impact of the first film, but it gives viewers far more than they had any reason to expect.

With his ersatz-gangsta swagger, the once-again buff Bale gives it his all -- he's got to be the most committed actor in Hollywood -- but the real surprise here is Rodriguez, who has all the talent and charisma of a major star.

A charming comedy-drama that's surprising true to the events that inspired it.

It's sad that HOMICIDE goes so drastically off the rails, because the first half of the film is a positive joy.

With an often very funny story line that eventually touches on parental disappointment and suicide, it's clear that, his debt to Hess and Wes Anderson notwithstanding, Waititi has learned a thing or two from fellow antipodean Jane Campion as well.

Red Rock West is the tale of a hapless drifter caught in a web of corruption in a remote western town. It offers suspense, wit, genuine surprises, and a trio of top-notch performances.

A visually inventive and energetic pop musical.

The laughs are plentiful and the acting by Fox, Thompson, and Glover is superb. Robert Zemeckis's direction, like the technical contributions, is first-rate, and after an ambling start takes off into frenetic, non-stop fun.

Real Life delivers a pointed critique of the influence of media on our lives; it is also one of the funniest looks at filmmaking ever put on screen.

Simultaneously shocking and deeply religious, Carlos Reygadas' follow-up to his acclaimed 2002 debut, "Japon," tells the story of one man's battle for spiritual redemption through a series of explicit images rarely seen by even the most jaded art-house audiences.

A funny, successful, and very derivative crime-comedy.

With its fades to blinding white and its atmosphere of testosterone-fueled paranoia, Carpenter's remake hews more closely to the source material — John W. Campbell, Jr.'s 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" — than THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and is a masterful exercise in claustrophobic suspense.

This is family entertainment at its best: Intelligent and surprisingly unsentimental. And anyone who doesn't fall in love with those goslings has a heart of stone.

The cast is uniformly excellent - particularly the relentlessly effervescent Posey and the imperious Sasha von Scherler, the director's mother - and the modern take on old-fashioned romantic comedy is surprisingly effective.

It's lighter, funnier and violent, and it's not entirely without hope, making this tale of survival under horrendous conditions far more suitable for younger, more impressionable audiences.

Character-driven thriller, which plays out against a backdrop of desperation, self-loathing and grinding poverty.

It's all good fun, and Ustinov is very amusing as Blackbeard.

The premise is ordinary, but the film is distinguished by funny gags and excellent performances by Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall.

Compared to D.A. Pennebaker's previous feature DON'T LOOK BACK (1967), the warts-and-all portrait of Bob Dylan, MONTEREY POP seems very much an authorized presentation of its subject.

How about something a little nasty for the holidays?

What's Up Tiger Lily? is cleverly devised, hinging on a well-developed sense of the absurd. Allen and his cohorts make good use of the source movie's situations, turning its obvious cliches into some wonderful parodic gems.

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.

Director and cowriter Niall Johnson's black comedy falters at the end, but until then it manages to wring gentle humor from murder most well bred.

The film doesn't dwell on bad feelings, and anyone looking for lurid details won't find them. But fans will love the live footage of this still-powerful band ripping through a virtual greatest-hits set.

The standout in the cast is Julie Andrews, whose quality of sexy chill has never been used as effectively.

Busey did all his own singing and playing, as did Martin and Stroud as The Crickets, providing a welcome sense of realism. Busey's performance is terrific.

This superbly played film, directed with remarkable skill for a first-time feature filmmaker, is truly an adult drama.

Exciting, suspenseful drama.

It's an engaging diversion from a master director who, at the ripe age of 78, appears to be once again at the top of his game.

An even sweeter and lighter whipped confection than "Legally Blonde," this hugely enjoyable sequel serves up a generous second helping of the ingredient that made the original such an irresistible hit.

Fine ensemble acting (Alda and Huston are outstanding), evocative composition and design, intelligent writing, and spritely musical score.

Intelligent and engaging, this documentary about rave culture overcomes the challenge inherent in its subject; rave's appeal is by nature nonanalytical and experiential, while documentary films play to the intellectual observer.

Marvelously entertaining.

Though meticulously researched, well acted and filled with striking moments, the movie ultimately feels oddly disconnected.

The film's potshots are perfectly aimed.

A tabloid slice of tabloid life, ragged, vivid, awkward and punchy all at once.

Damon, an underrated comic actor, is particularly good as an ultra-rationalist who'll scream like a girl and run from anything he can't immediately explain.

The drawn-out effect is deliberate -- director Babak Payami wants his audience to concentrate on the characters' inner development and their isolation -- but his strategy slows the film down to a crawl.

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

There's a telling disjunction between the dismal lives of Jia's characters and the optimism of China's officially sunny advance into the 21st century, and their helplessness often becomes a pathetic pantomime.

Often fascinating.

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.

It's lavish, clever entertainment, a welcome opportunity to laugh without shame.

One is left with an unsettling ambivalence about the night's awful events -- there are no absolute villains here, just as there are no total victims -- and much of the credit is due to the performances.

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.

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.

The atmosphere is once again black, creepy and unsettlingly elegant, lending this twisted tale of psychological dominance and submission a patina of anxiety and dread.

A creepy, clever, film buff's delight of a fantasy.

Without slavishly imitating the photographer's distinctive style, Almereyda also manages to connect his own images to all that's "Egglestonian" in the photographer's world.

Ribisi is painfully intense without being histrionic.

Flawed, but fascinating, this somber adaptation of David Guterson's award-winning novel is sometimes sluggish and difficult to follow, but it's also unexpectedly poetic.

A very sweet, very funny coming-of-age story, featuring Kiss as the Great White Whale of adolescence.

If he were a more subtle director, it would be a great film; as it is, it's an extremely good one, anchored by the subtly devastating performances of Penn, Robbins and Bacon. The supporting cast is equally good, and blue collar Boston's mean streets take on a beaten-down life of their own.

MacGregor demonstrates just how far he's come as an actor. Swinton, meanwhile, adds another notch to a resume already crowded with good performances.

cinematographer Mo-gai Li's keen sense of color balance and composition make this freaky fairy tale the most beautiful - if not the scariest - horror movie in ages.

Propelled by a soundtrack as diverse as its international gallery of thieves, Jordan's cheerfully scruffy neo-noir caprice even lays on the religious imagery with a palette knife and sweetens Melville's ending without seeming terminally sappy.

An extremely funny, ultimately heartbreaking look at life in contemporary China.

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

The film's uniformly excellent performances are a delight, and fans of Irish actor Farrell (whose pitch-perfect American accent has served him well in Hollywood) can hear both his natural inflections and his singing voice.

Fascinating on a number of levels, and deeply disturbing through and through.

Wrenching documentary.

Further proof that so-so books often make better movies than good ones.

The result is an interesting, if slightly unbalanced, hybrid: a social problem film with the warm heart of a deeply felt love story.

Slick and surprisingly emotional documentary is really a rare, optimistic critique of globalization.

With this perceptive, however bloody, film, Ishii makes it disturbingly clear that a culturally instilled sense of shame and fear of being shunned mean that women like Chihiro are doubly victimized, both by their attackers and the society that should protect them.

Their doomed fling is oddly hypnotic and ultimately haunting.

Quirky, sometimes brilliant, and mostly ice-cold.

This touching documentary is many things at once: a fascinating biography, a gorgeously shot travelogue, a provocative disquisition on the relevance of architecture and, above all, the record of a son's poignant search for a father.

Seductive, funny, whip-smart and ultimately tragic.

Best of all is Tsugumi's wild performance.

It's the kind of film Hollywood doesn't make any more, and a pleasant retro diversion.

Jonathan Demme gets personal with this affectionate tribute to courageously outspoken radio broadcaster Jean Dominique, the pro-democracy advocate whose unflagging support for president Jean-Bertrand Aristide eventually cost him his life.

Levinson brings it all back home to Baltimore and delivers his funniest and most heartfelt film since "Diner."

The film becomes a complex tissue of intersecting lives, but Gleize handles each developing story with amazing ease, and the fabulist touches are the icing on a very tasty cake.

Seriously sexy stuff from -- surprise -- the former-Soviet Union.

An entertaining, insightful and handsomely illustrated "Freud for Dummies."

Beautifully acted, minutely observed story.

Compared with most of what passes for scary movies these days, this is golden: It's not stupid, it's not wussy and it pulls off a couple of pretty nasty jolts.

A riveting account of one of the most extraordinary events in U.S. immigration history.

A touching examination of the ravages of Alzheimer's disease, made even more so by the extraordinary chemistry between Swedish actor Sven Wollter and his real-life wife, Viveka Seldahl, who died shortly after the film was completed.

Negrin's film is a well-deserved tribute to a principled man who dared to act when principles no longer counted for anything.

The film is an original work by a filmmaker who throughout his career has absorbed the best of what Ozu had to teach, and as such it stands as beautiful tribute from one master to another.

This hockey movie scores, thanks to director Gavin O'Connor's ability to skate that fine line between inspirational and melodramatic and achieve a satisfying balance.

Presents the salient points of this troubling case with gripping concision.

The constant flow of background images can be distracting, but this is nonetheless a fascinating film that offers an unexpected and valuable perspective on the on-going Arab-Israeli conflict.

The film's ensemble portrait of women caught between nostalgia for the tough and free-spirited babes they were (however much that freedom may have been illusory) and uncertainty about what their futures hold is almost painfully on target.

Thoroughly dotty and surprisingly endearing.