If a year in the life of a university department head doesn't sound like the stuff of a riveting documentary, please allow this stirring film by husband and wife filmmakers Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson to change your mind.

Given his way with witty banter, Stoppard's obvious, even leaden, dialogue is especially disappointing; director Michael Apted's handling of the story's frequent flashbacks is equally infelicitous.

Sensitive, extraordinarily well-acted drama.

The few minutes of footage devoted to a performance by bona fide jazz artist "Little" Jimmy Scott, an eccentric cult favorite, is more genuinely evocative than anything else in the film

Funny without out ever making fun, Vardalos mixes elements of ethnic stand-up, Cinderella romance and Bridget Loves Bernie-style situation comedy, all grounded in something very real.

It's impossible to overstate how deeply dumb all of this is, but it skims along at a brisk clip and manages not to overdo the nudge-nudge, wink-wink humor.

There's nothing blatantly wrong with it (except perhaps the red-assed baboon ex machina), but it's 100% shock-free and coasts to a formulaic conclusion.

Bielinsky's feature debut is a smart, enormously entertaining thriller whose preposterous conclusion in no way diminishes the fun of getting there.

Freundlich's postmodern road movie contains several sharply observed scenes but doesn't really add up to much.

Nearly 75 years after the fact, the matter still hasn't given up all its secrets, but Denis' film comes close to a definitive, deeply disturbing account.

The general level of mayhem, the sudden transformations that are Plympton's trademark moves and the pervasive irreverence will no doubt delight Plympton's legion of fans; others may find 80 minutes of these shenanigans exhausting.

The film is sponsored by Lockheed Martin with the cooperation of NASA, both of which are deeply involved in the development of the ISS, so it's not surprising that none of the questions that have swirled around this project -- like, who'll foot the bill if any one country defaults on its contribution? -- are answered, or even addressed.

It's all surprisingly predictable. As for Sorvino, she can wear the clothes, but they don't necessarily make the man.

Feels forced and awkward, as though it's trying too hard to be weird, culty and profound.

The film isn't even enjoyably sleazy: It's just dumb and tacky.

Routine thriller.

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.

Bleak and complex moral thriller.

Paxton is impressively subtle and elicits remarkable performances from O'Leary and Sumpter.

Overall, the film feels a little stiff, perhaps because screenwriter Steven Peros adapted his own stage play. But the performances are a delight, especially Dunst's effervescent turn as Marion Davies.

It's hard to overstate just how awful this movie is, despite the efforts of the appealing cast.

The film looks great and makes sophisticated use of digital effects.

Run Ronnie Run! is an unfortunate mistake, but it's still better than actual reality programming.

Diop Gaï's performance is equally beguiling: She's both bold and mysterious, a femme fatale bursting with life.

This beautifully shot, 70-minute black-and-white film remains deliberately inconclusive.

Neither the appealing cast nor the bouncing, ska-inflected soundtrack can keep the party going.

Heartfelt but overly familiar film.

It's both funny and harrowing in the way that only a childhood nightmare come to life can be.

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.

Undermined by contrived suspense sequences, a pointless subplot involving Claire's flaky, trashy sister, and a formulaic thriller ending.

It's not the bomb on the plane that scuttles this film: It's the mugging, ham-fisted direction and total absence of comic timing.

Mehta says it all so articulately and with such good humor.

While not for every taste, this often very funny collegiate gross-out comedy goes a long way toward restoring the luster of the National Lampoon film franchise.

The movie's low budget shows, but the competent (many of them also sitcom veterans) cast keeps things moving smoothly.

MacDowell, Staunton and Chancellor are terrific, tearing into their juicy roles and reveling in first-time feature writer-director Jim McKay's sharp-tongued dialogue.

Too bad Australian actress Griffiths ("Hilary and Jackie," "Six Feet Under") is as underused as Amy Madigan was in "Field of Dreams": She mastered a realistic Texan twang for the role.

The film is little more than a stylish exercise in revisionism whose point -- we create, then destroy our own monsters in order to assure ourselves we're human -- is no doubt true, but serves as a rather thin moral to such a knowing fable.

Look carefully at that final scene; few happy endings have ever felt so downbeat.

This is a psychological study that rejects psychology, an erotic drama of surpassing coldness, and a story of amour fou in which the madness is calculated and the love frozen.

A misfire of spectacular proportions.

Although it looks like an action thriller with a sci-fi twist, the bad guys aren't scary (Biehn's soul patch notwithstanding), the sci-fi element is silly and the action is limited to some extreme bike riding and computer-generated zipping around.

A well-crafted exercise in urban paranoia that's so controlled it never achieves the reckless, visceral immediacy its subject matter demands.

It doesn't meet the minimum number of laughs to qualify as a comedy -- two would have clinched it -- and it's far too asinine to be taken seriously.

Ribisi is painfully intense without being histrionic.

The sequences are handsomely designed, but frankly, you might as well be watching someone play a video game.

Though overall an overwhelmingly positive portrayal, the film doesn't ignore the more problematic aspects of Brown's life.

All's well that ends well, and rest assured, the consciousness-raising lessons are cloaked in gross-out gags.

The cast is uniformly excellent -- Pryce in simultaneously utterly horrible and a real hoot as the wildly egomaniacal paterfamilias -- but the film itself is merely mildly charming.

Sensitive and expertly acted crowd-pleaser that isn't above a little broad comedy and a few unabashedly sentimental tears.

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.

The result is something truly special.

Insightful, Oscar-nominated documentary.

Captures the sleazy allure of Manhattan like no other film.

Raggedly produced, savagely funny movie.

Handsome and sometimes creepy, but formulaic in the extreme.

For what could easily have been a slickly vulgar variation on "American Pie" or "Porky's", this libidinous comedy explores some unusually complicated territory, and benefits greatly from Verdú's unpredictable performance as Luisa.

As Lord Peter Carrington, former mediator of the European Community, points out, a case can be made for all sides in this highly complicated civil war.

This one makes De Niro's recent film "15 Minutes" look like "Network." Even worse, aside from a few scenes with Shatner, it just isn't funny.

Making such a tragedy the backdrop to a love story risks trivializing it, though Chouraqui no doubt intended the film to affirm love's power to help people endure almost unimaginable horror.

No matter your age, this is one great AGE to be at.

These three films form a remarkably cohesive whole, both visually and thematically, through their consistently sensitive and often exciting treatment of an ignored people.

With its brisk pace, breezy dialogue and gently jaundiced view of the rites of filmmaking, this is one of Jaglom's most accessible and genuinely enjoyable films.

Meng's film, which uses a fairly sophisticated flashback structure to reveal the secrets of Ah Na's past in China, touches on a number of very serious subjects: the business of illegal immigration, the exploitation of "aliens" and the treatment of people with AIDS in China. But it's also filled with touches of humor.

They STILL didn't get it right this TIME.

Oddly, the most appealing thing about the movie is that in an age of ever-escalating special effects, it's refreshingly low-tech, more like a '70s action movie than a modern-day one.

Who these brave men were and why they fought disappears under the usual clichés, while the astounding acts of courage that occurred at Ia Drang are lost to the dust and din.

Ranks among the best films ever made about the acting profession.

Given the serious subject matter, this adaptation of Irish writer Brendan Behan's autobiographical novel is surprisingly light and exceedingly good-natured.

This is a smart and witty romantic farce that mixes sweet and sexy with surprising aplomb.

The film is shamelessly presented by Miramax as "The Project Greenlight Movie," and writer-director Pete Jones's big break may ultimately prove a liability.

The film's few saving graces include Dickinson's sardonic southern belle; Winger's welcome return to the screen after a five-year absence; and Howard's voice-over readings of Brown's powerful prose, which ultimately saves the film from itself.

This amiable picture talks tough, but it's all bluster -- in the end it's as sweet as "Greenfingers."

Moore's film is unusually sharp looking for this sort of documentary, and comes complete with a nice soundtrack. But most important, it's as comprehensible as any "Dummies" guide, something even non-techies can enjoy.

This slight slice of L.A. life is distinguished by two fine, subtle performances. Redgrave is quietly heartbreaking-- Penn accomplishes the daunting task of revealing the spine beneath Melanie's sweet-natured tolerance of her perpetually disagreeable husband.

As thrilling as they can be on stage, Chekhov's plays have never been the stuff of great movies -- there's simply nothing cinematic about them.

Rymer's film doesn't revitalize vampire clichés in any significant way and, frankly, "Velvet Goldmine" is a more seductive movie about sex, death and rock and roll -- and it's not even about vampires.

Its subject -- ethnic profiling during a time of international crisis -- could hardly be more contemporary.

Punjabi weddings are notorious for their lavishness, and Nair's intoxicating soap opera revels in the sights and sounds of this clamorous family ritual.

Though the film springs an okay twist at the very end, there's a good chance you won't be awake to see it.

Despite its admirable sobriety for most of its running time, the film's climax is a parade of ludicrous clichés.

The film's mealy-mouthed messages about feminine empowerment will almost certainly fall on deaf ears, since even 11-year-olds know Spears's power resides largely in her taut torso.

Ralston gets solid performances out of his cast, and the film has a surprisingly polished look. But in the end, there isn't much to it.

Throughout, the notion that hip-hop is much more than rapping is a persistent theme, and anyone seeking a solid introduction -- or re-introduction -- to that ever vibrant culture shouldn't miss it.

Fans of cheesy '70s TV shows will also be pleased by Wonder Woman Lynda Carter's brief cameo appearance as the governor of Vermont.

The movie's tone and plot twists are so ludicrously overwrought that even Washington's admirably restrained performance -- can't rescue it from its own excesses.

One of the greatest films of all time and one of the handful of masterpieces to emerge from the Italian neo-realist period, Umberto D is as cerebral as it is emotional, as bleak as it is warm.

Fessenden uses an unsettling mix of montage, time-lapse photography and animation to create an atmosphere of great, unknowable menace that closely approximates the haunted spirit of Algeron Blackwood's unforgettable tale "The Wendigo." These hills are indeed alive.

The story itself is uninteresting, and the songs are painfully undistinguished.

It's good fun, and the whole debate raises some interesting questions about larger questions of authorship and whether or not it ultimately matters who "Shakespeare" actually was.

Utterly predictable, noisy and stupid.

The all-too-vivid simulation of terrorist attacks, including a prolonged scene of a building collapse in which people are seen plummeting to their deaths and crushed under falling concrete, may strike a very different chord with post-9/11 American audiences.

Basically a one-joke film, but the joke is a good one.

Once LL Cool J, easily the film's most magnetic presence, is out of the game, the whole thing falls apart in a hazy, confusing mess.

Fresh-faced leads Muniz and Bynes are charmers, Giamatti makes Wolf into a splendidly loathsome adversary, and the film is refreshingly free of bodily function jokes.

What's most offensive isn't the waste of a good cast, but the film's denial of sincere grief and mourning in favor of bogus spiritualism. Only devotees of Ouija boards and TV's "Crossing Over" will find anything of merit here.

Kidman accomplishes a remarkable feat of transformation, adopting not only an accent, but a slightly seedy, faintly feral demeanor that almost makes you forget her icy good looks and fashion model's figure.

The gags are familiar collegiate stuff, involving horny young men, horny old whores -- horny young tramps -- silly foreigners, uptight authority figures, homosexuals and sassy fat women.

While maintaining the appearance of clinical objectivity, this sad, occasionally horrifying but often inspiring film is among Wiseman's warmest.