Ivory's last minute decision to render his hero sightless may make certain symbolic sense, but creates an even greater distance between Jackson and the woman he must inevitably come to love; their dull self-restraint makes "The Remains of the Day" look like soft-core porn.

Though unrelentingly bleak, Judgment at Nuremberg is absorbing from beginning to end.

Twenty years ago, Li's film might have served as a warning; today, it rues a dehumanizing economic system run rampant that leaves one sad slave wife to muse, "It's easy to die. It's living that's hard."

A very entertaining, hugely neurotic romantic comedy.

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.

It sounds like an overfamiliar brand of Southern Gothic, but British director Terence Davies adds some distinctive touches of visual poetry.

Entertaining in spite its dubious accuracy.

Yes, it's sappy. It's also silly, utterly unironic, a sketch stretched out to feature length, and, if you're in the right mood, pretty darned cute.

Taut, if occasionally silly, the film is hampered by ideological confusion. Director Peter Hyams doesn't seem to know if he's making a reactionary Death Wish" clone or a liberal problem film.

The last entries of series are, as a rule, bad. This one breaks the mold and, while hardly in a league with the earlier films, can hold its own against any B movie mystery of the period.

Cool Runnings has a great premise: a movie based on the true story of the Jamaican bobsledders who amused the world at the 1988 Olympics. But this Disney film, a stale and out-of-date offering, is far less interesting than seeing the real athletes during the Olympic telecasts.

Visually, State of Grace joins Miller's Crossing as one of the best-looking movies in ages. But, as it nears its bloody ending, the film just gets dumber and dumber.

If there's a gay cliche who doesn't flounce through this feel-good German comedy, he must have been out of town when the casting call went out, but its fundamental good nature is tough to resist.

This is a film for hardcore film fans and Francophiles. Everyone else may find little to sustain them beyond the pastiche and shots of Paris.

Director/cowriter Adrian Garcia Bogliano's self-conscious throwback to the kind of gritty black-and-white gore films that used to play drive-in theaters and urban grind houses is a short, sharp shocker that gets surprising mileage out of the oldest formula in the book of the dead.

Fans of the first two films in the series may be a bit dismayed by Day of the Dead's deemphasis of gory action in favor of characterization, but the need to exploit the horror of the situation has passed and the film works by concentrating instead on its implications and possible solution. The standard 1950s sci-fi/horror film conflict between science and the military is also resurrected here, with distinct political overtones.

Ugly, stupid, loud, offensive, and pointlessly violent--let's not mince words--this film should be called "Total Reject."

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.

Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro's powerful documentary takes a microcosmic look at the war and its devastation by focusing on a single casualty.

It's hard to dislike so genial a picture about guys in gowns (although only Leguizamo would pass muster at a drag ball: Swayze seems to be doing a third-rate impression of Joan Crawford, while Snipes just comes off as a man in a dress); still, it's basically an elaborate denial of homophobia -- which is no help to anybody in a country where people get killed for cross-dressing.

Packs five films' worth of drama, crises and revelations into one, and often lapses into sitcom triteness.

The result is so overloaded with extra characters, tangled story lines, dance numbers, fantasies and flashbacks that the once-simple plot feels puffed-up and irritatingly self-important.

A sloppy, self-indulgent valentine to the theater, delivered with all the grace of a letter-bomb.

Under the candy coating and girl group soundtrack, the film acknowledges some hard truths about women and education that haven't changed much since the '60s. But it never loses sight of having a good time, and the girls are great.

A touching coming-of-age story from Sweden, made interesting by the fact that the protagonist is a lonely, middle-aged farmer rather than an adolescent.

It's wonderfully satisfying: Collette, MacLaine and Diaz are exceptional, and the mix of humor and heartbreak is perfectly calibrated.

Goldbacher's film is lovely to look at, but the blurry heart of the film only suffers by the comparison.

Days of Thunder delivers only the bare essentials. Boys, the reasoning seems to go, will be lured into the theater by the siren call of gasoline and super-charged engines, while their girl friends will tag along to get a look at Cruise in tight jeans.

Steeped in what may be the ultimate postmodern irony: Talen's impromptu, defiant piece of performance art with political undertones has actually taken on a spiritual dimension.

Three Belgian clowns wrote and directed this sly, winsome tale of one woman's quest for her destiny in the polar seas after an absurd but life-altering accident reveals the emptiness of her mundane, middle-class life.

Scanners is a memorable and absorbing genre entertainment.

The result is both deeply personal and maddeningly unfocused.

Not even Drew Barrymore's million-dollar smile can save this humiliating comedy.

That it feels so predictable is, ironically, a tribute to the universality of the experience it explores.

More shaggy dog story than a contribution to the ever-growing mountain of fact and fiction dealing with the Kennedy assassination, Neil Burger's feature film debut is a cleverly crafted but ultimately hollow mockumentary.

This sweet, lovingly passionate story is nonetheless a charmer. Anderson's technique -- jaggy, product-testimonial close-ups; eerie still-image insertions -- is arresting, but this is an actors' showcase.

The movie's captivating details are all in the performances, from Foreman's barking-mad Taylor to Thewlis's smoothly sinister Freddie and Bettany/McDowell's hard-eyed gangster, an amoral bottom-feeder with an expedient streak of sadism.

The film unfolds like a thriller: The plot moves so inexorably toward its tragic conclusion you can almost hear the clock ticking.

David Mamet's political thriller about the disappearance of the president's daughter is an unsatisfying slipknot of a film -- it looks tight and elaborate, but give it a tug and it goes flat.

That's not to say it isn't entertaining, only that the scenes which rely entirely on the fragile interplay between Jessica and Ryan suggest a more compelling movie that got lost in the welter of high-speed highway recklessness.

If you're in a triumph of the human spirit frame of mind, this is your cup of dark, sweet tea.

Sweet, goofy story.

THE BLUES BROTHERS is a monument to waste, noise and misplaced cool, but it does have its engagingly nutty moments.

An intriguing, suspenseful story is somewhat hampered by a dull cast.

An uneven, but generally well done and entertaining, potpourri of 10 cartoons set to disparate musical styles, ranging from jazz to classical, and performed by such artists as Benny Goodman, The Andrews Sisters, Dinah Shore, and Nelson Eddy.

Funny--but not that funny--western spoof.

Richards and Eisenmann are a pair of orphaned children with psychic powers who suffer from amnesia and cannot remember where they came from.

If you're looking for nonstop, no-holds-barred exploitation, look no further. Pam Grier's first solo starring role is an enormously entertaining black action classic.

Though not much about the film sticks with you, it's a reliable piece of fluff that delivers the goods.

Without the top-notch cast it would be indistinguishable from hundreds of pedestrian serial-killer pictures that clog video store shelves.

So crammed with plot twists that it's hard to follow, simultaneously ludicrous, sappy and casually dismissive of all the things Hollywood holds dear.

The film doesn't really go anywhere, other than outside for endless games of basketball, and the group-therapy environment allows for far too many young-actor monologues.

The caliber of the cast, led by Mirren and Walters, elevates the material above movie-of-the-week level, and viewers can relish seeing these fine actresses play against type.

The first feature for director-cowriter Fran Rubel Kuzui, TOKYO POP manages to be entertaining despite its thin story line, mainly because of its striking visuals and the kooky charm of the leads.

Is there no one in Allen's circle who dares to tell the master this ain't funny?

One of the most frustrating films of 1990, an epic without epic scope, a muted, strained, unnatural affair that never comes into dramatic focus.

The soundtrack includes great songs by Andre Williams and Shirley Ellis, and music by local R'n'B legend Ernie K-Doe and electronic organ freakazoid Quintron, who both appear in the film.

Actors Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss provide the frenzied fun that highlights What About Bob? a wacky slapstick comedy.

Thanks largely to Tabatabai's superb performance, it's on this level that Maccarone's film is most affecting.

COMA wastes a superb performance by Bujold on a simplistic, predictable series of cliched suspense scenes, seasoned with some last-minute moralizing about contemporary medicine.

The two stars have their comedy routine down to perfection, though Carvey, in a series of unflattering closeups, looks old enough to play Garth's father.

The world of professional golf gets the Martin and Lewis treatment in this mildly funny film.

Overall the mix of comedy and action is smooth and utterly enjoyable.

The oddest thing about this movie isn't that the familiar characters have been transformed into aliens, or that dogs and cats possess human traits: It's the odd sight of futuristic fantasy in 18th-century dress.

While Travolta and Gandolfini have the beefy, closed-off look of post-WWII era cops, they never FEEL: They look like actors playing dress up. Leto overcomes his delicate good looks to embody Fernandez's feral, faintly exotic charm, but Hayek is a standard-issue femme fatale, damaged on the inside but flawless on the surface.

The film is beautifully made and thought-provoking, but vacillates too much between the sentimental and the metaphysical.

Blends and recycles elements of scores of crime and road movies, from "Bonnie and Clyde" to "Badlands" but it does so with enough energy and verve to create something entirely fresh and infectiously entertaining.

Filled with unique special effects and delightful music.

It's an unexpectedly powerful little film that manages to say a lot of what, despite all the talk on the subject, isn't being said in the national debate on immigration.

Riveting from the word go. The acting is superb, the direction is excellent, and Moroder's score is exhilarating.

Unfortunately, this earnest but short-sighted documentary by New York-based painter-turned-filmmaker Stefan Roloff touches only the tip of a very large iceberg.

Expect lots of earsplitting music, garish visuals and badly staged martial arts action.

Like the original "Fantasia's" eight segments, the results are a mixed bag.

Overall, the book is a far more rewarding experience than the movie.

It aspires to a documentary realism and keeps the focus on the characters at all times. Though the results can't really be called enjoyable, the intensity that bleeds off the screen is undeniably effective.

Most of the music is as fine and fierce as you could want.

For a mountain of muscle [The Rock]'s a surprisingly charming screen presence. And his low-key appeal helps nudge Peter Berg's derivative but good-natured light action picture in the direction of breezy entertainment, rather than painfully noisy macho posturing.

Hawn makes the most of the script, written by Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer, and Harvey Miller, providing many funny moments in her performance.

First and foremost a showcase for the latest developments in motion-capture and 3-D technology.

An intelligent, imaginative children's adventure refreshingly free of rapping cartoon animals, fart jokes and mind-numbing special effects.

Jordan and McCabe's real triumph here, however, is the tenderness with which they imbues "Kitten," and the astonishing grace with which the extraordinary Murphy pulls it off.

Raimi and company deftly balance spectacle and character-based drama, occasionally tweaking the comic-book mythology but always respecting creator Stan Lee's idea that costumed crime-fighter Peter Parker's life as Spider-Man isn't all derring-do and public accolades.

It's actually sharper, less reverential and generally better than "Misson: Impossible."

Davis' tough, man-of-the-people narration is often annoying, but his words can't diminish the power of his story.

The superego gets bested by the id in Spanish director Joaquin Oristrell's curious period sex comedy, which mixes intellectual musings on psychoanalysis with vulgar guffaws of the basest sort.

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

Director John Glen is an old hand at James Bond films, having worked on three other 007 movies. He knows this popular spy well and does him great service in this well-paced film.

First-time feature filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel maintains a riveting sense of simmering brutality.

For a De Palma film, Obsession has much more suspense than violence, even if much of the premise and motivations are shamelessly culled from Hitchcock's Vertigo, as is composer Bernard Herrmann. The lack of originality, however, doesn't make Obsession any less effective, and the film has been generally overlooked in the spotty De Palma canon.

Characters are undermined by the inexpressive animation that mars the majority of animated films: Their haunted inner lives are clearly meant to take center stage, but their faces are blank and two-dimensional.

A tale of conscience lost and found becomes little more than a smart but tepid ghost story for idealists and '60s survivors, and not a terribly spooky one at that.

(Bassett's) finally been given another part worthy of her talents, and she makes the most of it.

Catches you with a creepy sucker punch.

A perfect example of how a top-flight cast can compensate for unimaginative filmmaking.

More music and less melodrama would serve audiences better.

The not-so-incredible story of two girls in love.

The film benefits from an appealing cast, though neither Slater, Tomei, nor Perez is called on to stretch very far. Though actor-turned-director Tony Bill has proved himself adept at character-driven dramas like MY BODYGUARD, the material he's working with here is simply not up to scratch.

Cruz's willingness to allow her appearance to be so degraded for cinema's sake doesn't really help.