Lightweight, thoroughly charming fluff.

The ensemble is a tight one that places the audience right in the middle of the nightmare.

Troche has bitten off quite a bit here, and it's too much for her to chew properly.

Has honorable aspirations, even as it becomes mired in mainstream movie conventions.

With his sure handling of this thriller's switchback plot and hairpin turns, Hideo Nakata confirms his mastery of genre material in the wake of his phenomenally successful "Ring."

Beautifully shot on location in Kenya and filled with touching, almost magical moments, Link's film has been nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

The story is less a sustained narrative than a series of scenes. But personal dynamics are the main event, and McDormand's powerhouse performance alone compensates for many minor deficiencies.

A series of outrageous situations and generally manages to walk the thin line between poking fun at racial stereotypes and reinforcing them.

Whether you take the film as a deliberately vile act of filmmaking that unpacks rape-revenge scenarios while making a point about male desire, or simply as a deliberately vile piece of filmmaking, one thing is certain: It's about as close to a physical assault on viewers as movies get.

Inexpensively shot on digital video, it's an invaluable work of art.

Unfortunately, the mystery isn't mysterious and the characters are caricatures; the wintery New England landscape is the most striking thing about the film, but it's not interesting enough to justify watching it for 100 minutes.

Good intentions can't compensate for crude technique or lack of insight, but Israeli director Dan Wolman's deserves credit for broaching a serious subject.

Brassy and energetic, first-time director Mars Callahan's vividly photographed ode to the seductive allure of professional sharking succeeds in making the game seem genuinely kinetic and thrilling.

Soulless, sleekly executed product.

While not particularly dramatically compelling, the film is carefully constructed and exposes both the economic and sexual exploitation of illegal workers.

Despite its leisurely pace, this unpretentious, character-driven picture is a low-key charmer.

In the film's most audacious break with the ultra-realism of the Dogme program, Bier inserts grainy visualizations of what Cecilie wishes for at a given moment -- a caress from the paralyzed Joachim, or a wave goodbye -- directly into the action.

This package of three short films originally produced for German television is sex-themed without being especially sexy.

If this brutal tale of crime and corruption within the upper ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department feels like an updated retelling of "L.A. Confidential," there's good reason. Both stories spring from the dark mind of American crime writer James Ellroy.

The frat brothers have some surprisingly touching moments, and their diverse but perfectly matched personalities generate a fairly steady stream of laugh-out-loud moments.

The film's greatest asset is Linney, whose prickly, finely calibrated performance as the doomed Harraway makes her loss resonate more powerfully than any of the point-counterpoint rhetoric.

By the film's finale the descent into unintentional parody is all but complete, with a big death scene for Jackson complete with an angelic choir on the soundtrack -- the surprise is that they aren't singing "Dixie."

Though it clearly explicates the problem, the film is by no means a straightforward documentary.

Though filmmaker Nina Gilden Seavy followed Bering Strait for the better part of two years, their story is in no way over at the film's conclusion.

Though overlong and repetitive, Hirsch's film is vitalized by the same music that helped keep the revolutionary spirit alive.

Well intentioned but unfocused, director John Henry Davis's debut feature tries to tackle two serious subjects at once: maintaining one's faith in a universe that's seemingly without meaning, and the ways in which scripture is used to justify anti-gay violence.

The always charming Deschanel manages to rise above most of the film's logy pretensions, but the usually excellent Clarkson isn't so lucky.

A crudely executed affair that doesn't play well to Western sensibilities.

Long takes do not a masterpiece make, and the suspicion that the whole thing is a lark is only bolstered by Damon and Affleck's inability to contain their giggles.

Im distinguishes what might have otherwise been a standard Hollywood biopic through his use of exquisitely composed shots that could have been imagined by Jang himself.

It may be nearly 40 years past due, but it was worth the wait.

The movie's physical violence isn't gratuitous -- it's the emotional violence that makes this a movie for grown-ups, not kids.

The trouble with director and co-writer Laetitia Colombani's debut feature is that the story isn't really interesting enough to be told twice, let alone dragged out another 20 minutes after that.

An unexpectedly warm valentine to the solitary joy of reading in an increasingly post-literate age. It's also a gripping mystery yarn involving obsession, a long-forgotten book and a shadowy author who appears to have vanished off the face of the Earth.

Gitai uses fictionalized characters to dramatize historical reality, and while minimalist in its presentation, the film becomes nearly operatic in its intensity.

Most of the film's humor derives from smug anachronisms (the Brit-pop soundtrack, Wang and Roy's use of modern slang) and jokes about bad English food, teeth and weather that were old when Victoria was a girl.

It would have been nice if Hardwick had a bigger budget for retakes to work out some of the supporting actors' stiffness, but he does keep the story moving, finding the humor in characters caught up in their own machinations rather than cheap wisecracks.

This winning comedy joyfully embraces every possible permutation of love; cupid, it turns out, is indeed blind, and doesn't care much about gender either.

The talented Bettis works her heart out, but McKee apparently directed her to play May as a quivering crazy from the start.

Though something less than a masterpiece of the genre, this good-natured skirmish in the war between men and women benefits from Hudson's thoroughly charming performance.

A paralyzingly beautiful documentary with a global vision: an odyssey through landscape and time, which is an attempt to capture the essence of life.

The jabs at the expense of self-centered New Yorkers with more money than sense are so mild they're pointless -- if satire doesn't hurt, what's the point?

The film should be required viewing for all aspiring filmmakers, but the story's road-accident appeal is universal.

The bad news is that the racing scenes are repetitive and it takes some serious concentration to figure out which character belongs to what club.

Spare, sleek and coolly entertaining, even if there's less to this game of true lies than meets the eye.

If this is your idea of fun, step right up.

Serrau effortlessly navigates the tricky transition from ruefully comic chick flick to gritty crime picture.

Informative documentary.

While this extraordinary, 90-minute film -- culled from over 10 hours of footage -- offers few revelations about Hitler's private life, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the psychology of a follower who remained blindly obedient until the bitter end.

About as subtle as a hammer blow to the skull and marred by a heedless mixture of fact and fiction.

Its real problem is that Matilda Dixon, apparently conceived as a cross between the Blair Witch and Freddy Krueger, is an oddly characterless bogeyman, perhaps because she's 100 percent special effects technology with no actor underneath.

An unvarnished look at the emotional havoc that ensues when middle-class housewife Kira (Stine Stengade) returns home after a lengthy stay in a mental hospital, anchored by devastating performances.

The formulaic mechanical plot machinations benefit greatly from the presence of the vivacious Stiles, gravely beautiful Blair and personable Lee, who radiates fundamental decency without seeming like a sap.

The cliched plot and unconvincing action sequences -- don't blend well with the comic scenes and make the film look painfully cheap.

This fish-out-of-water buddy/action comedy is aimed squarely at undiscriminating 10-year-olds, and that demographic may well enjoy it.

This hilariously low-key film is punctuated by inspired wish-fulfillment fantasy sequences filled with pro-Palestinian imagery that would be taboo in a western film.

Boyar's best efforts -- which are quite good -- can't begin to compensate for Guttenberg's grotesque excesses or make the weirdly warm relationship that develops between them convincing, let alone appealing.

A tightly woven tapestry of extraordinary breadth, and director Fernando Meirelles's control over the material is extraordinary.

Though it unfolds like a thriller, it's ultimately a tragedy.

The backgrounds are handsome and moody, and the character animation is less distractingly cartoonish than that of films like the otherwise breathtaking Metropolis (2001).

The results are a harrowingly intimate connection with a torn, tormented father, and an uncommonly powerful film.

The film's only sparks are generated by Tom's last-ditch attempt to win back Sarah's affections, but they come too late to redeem the picture from its surfeit of over-the-top physical comedy and low-brow jokes.

The film's real strength lies in two excellent performances, from veteran Morse and up-and-comer Gosling.

It's tremendously clever, but ultimately pointless.

The tone is inconsistent -- sometimes it seems to be straining for black comedy, other times it seems dead serious.

Non-musical scenes that move the narrative forward are staged realistically, while the lavish production numbers reflect the star-struck imagination of one-time chorine Roxie, for whom all the world ought to be a stage.

It's just plain lurid when it isn't downright silly, and that "drunk cam," a blurred, cockeyed lens through which Sonny's soused point-of-view is shown, is just a terrible idea.

Polanski's film is an unqualified success both dramatically and artistically.

A clear, unbiased documentary examining of the UNSCOM debacle would benefit anyone attempting to make sense of the dire situation. This, unfortunately, is not that documentary.

What does make the film disturbing is the way in which it positions Hitler as a mere mouthpiece for what was already in the air, a role he was convinced to play after suffering one disappointment too many at the hands of Jews like Rothman.

On the whole, it all goes down rather smoothly. Those left wanting more are referred to the RSC's monumental production, now available on DVD, or better yet, to Dickens's original novel.

It's sometimes hard to breath for the sheer volume of acting sucking the air out of the room, and keeping three narratives movie without muddling them all is a hugely ambitious undertaking for any director, let alone one on his second film.

The whole lighter-than-air lark whizzes by like a brisk, kandy-kolored dream of the 1960s, flavored by a Saul Bass inspired credit sequence; a slinky, Henry Mancini-esque score; and a stunning array of period sets and evocative locales.

There's no getting past the shockingly poorly dubbed voice work of the English speaking cast; Meyer's voice is particularly shrill and grating.

The film is a gorgeous nocturne of surprisingly little substance, a sleek advert for youthful anomie that never quite equals the sum of its pretensions.

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

Ramsay's second feature is an extraordinary adaptation of fellow-Scot Alan Warner's acclaimed novel.

Coarse, cliched and clunky.

Familiar story, electrifying execution.

Epic, meticulously researched and ultimately disappointing, Martin Scorsese's bloody valentine to the birth of his beloved city is less than the sum of its parts.

Its minutely detailed revelations work their way under the skin like slivers of glass.

But there's a vaguely self-congratulatory tone to the screenplay that's a bit off-putting.

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.

Jiang draws a great deal of humor from the situation, but the film inevitably explodes in terrible violence.

This second installment is heavy on battle sequences, which will thrill some viewers more than others.

A sober, earnest drama about child abuse.

Simply and eloquently articulates the tangled feelings of particular New Yorkers deeply touched by an unprecedented tragedy.

To say that the film is unenjoyable would be an overstatement; a good time can be had counting the number of reassuringly stock characters it offers up.

If you pitch your expectations at an all time low, you could do worse than this oddly cheerful -- but not particularly funny -- body-switching farce.

While Brosnan, an Irishman by birth, lays it on bit thick, his performance is surprisingly effective.

The writing is sharp and often blithely cynical, although not above using a shooting star to put a lump in the throat. The tone, however, is at times dangerously uncertain.

Whaley's determination to immerse you in sheer, unrelenting wretchedness is exhausting.

Who knew marching bands could be so sexy?

Fresnadillo's film is little more than a gloomy and attenuated Twilight Zone episode, reminiscent of Alex Cox's portentous "The Winner" (1997) without the truly breathtaking conclusion.

Collapsed into the black hole of its own mythology.

A fascinating allegory of life in Iranian Kurdistan, a remote borderland still deeply scarred by years of war with Iraq.

This tale has been told and retold; the races and rackets change, but the song remains the same.

The annoying Reg Rogers, on the other hand, who plays Little Caesar creator Raoul Berman, delivers his lines like a stoned Pee-wee Herman, and the scene in which Billy Crystal mutters and drools in a restaurant is just disturbing for anyone who admired his work in the past.