Abandoning the gritty realism of his first two films, BLUE COLLAR and HARDCORE, screenwriter-turned-director Schrader here adopted a sleek and stylish approach. The result was one of his most satisfying attempts to mesh a European sensibility and his own obsession with moral drift and emotional alienation.

This is a surprisingly heartfelt film from Marin, miles away from the mindless drug humor that infected his efforts with Tommy Chong. The film offers some genuinely tender moments as Marin uses Robles situation to explore the plight of Mexicans who long for a better life.

Has a giddy silliness that's thoroughly endearing.

If ever anyone earned the title "diva," it was the late singer Amalia Rodrigues.

Serious stuff indeed, but the film is also rich with humor -- most of it courtesy of the always-excellent Greene -- and ends with an act of vandalism as shocking as it is exhilarating.

Beautifully encapsulates the film's sensibility, a bizarre mix of reverse cool and childishness.

Though it's not as satisfying as it might have been, it still boasts great stars and catchy songs in addition to a love story, and is a perennial holiday favorite.

Shot in the Italian Alps, the cinematography is striking.

Not unlike her first film, True Love, director Nancy Savoca's big-studio follow-up is more an actor's piece than a fully formed film, its subject yet another rambling contemplation of the rocky relations between the sexes. But it's also no less enjoyable and no less deeply felt.

The film's sweetness derives primarily from the relationship between Ashmol and his unusual sister, and draws much of its richness from the unfamiliar and fascinating world of opal prospecting.

Most of Wood's films have this strangely direct feel to them, but Plan 9 From Outer Space is definitely the tightest synthesis of the man's personal idiosyncrasies and his deep desire to tell a story that everyone would love.

Aduaka's comprehensive account of an African nightmare covers a lot of important ground, making this flawed film worth seeing.

Peter Berg's fast-talking and unnecessarily complicated tale of Middle East terrorism is more smoke and mirrors than meat. It may come on like Syriana, but it boils down to little more than a diverting episode of "CSI: Riyadh."

A solid performance by the often underrated Judith Light lends considerable weight to this melodrama's controversial subject.

It's also pretty funny -- certainly more so than the first film.

The brouhaha aside, this chronicle of SNAFUs foretold doesn't have much new to say but says it with biting precision, and Phoenix's sharp, sneakily sympathetic performance is a pleasure to watch.

A likable but forgettable bit of fluff about mistaken identity.

The film, though admirably ambitious, is resolutely earthbound, mired in ick and slime and never more wooden than in the delirious climax.

A triumph of style over content. Like BLADE RUNNER, the film grafts a fiercely modernist feel onto characters and themes right out of a 1940s film noir--an impressive achievement that more than makes up for a ponderous storyline.

Give this Japanese import points for originality, but not much else.

Fans may be disappointed that some of the show's secondary characters, like Lizzie's pal Miranda, are AWOL from this Prince and the Pauper-style escapade, and some of the scenes involving Gellman are disappointingly flat.

A move that would be hilariously absurd if it weren't so scary.

While director John Hough (Twins of Evil) does a fine job with the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night aspects of the material, he fails to breathe any life into Richard Matheson's woefully underdeveloped screenplay, which he adapted from his own novel.

It aspires to greater moral ambiguity than the average crime thriller, and if it doesn't entirely succeed it nevertheless avoids the lazy moral bankruptcy of movies like "Lethal Weapon 4."

The non-action scenes are so pedestrian that one suspects the good stuff is less due to workmanlike director Lee Tamahori than to one of the best second-unit crews in the biz.

Excalibur is a grand, clanky, brooding fantasy.

The sparse story of the struggle of the two men with their obsessions, and with each other, skillfully creates a mood that is hard to shake after the ending credits. The car chases are breathtaking.

The widescreen photography is, however, quite beautiful, and the scenes of aerial combat thrillingly staged.

Despite the success of the movie, we turn thumbs way down on this melange of cheap thrills and flat jokes, saved only by the performance of Hanks and some good work by pal Zmed. Hanks is the only oasis in this Sahara of smut.

Amateurish, badly acted and shot on the cheap (many sequences don't even have sync sound), this cult item features a 40-minute car chase (almost half the film's running time) that's nothing short of breathtaking, particularly in light of the obvious budgetary constraints.

It's got turns, it's got an attractive cast that gets shish-kabobed with ruthless regularity. It's just tired.

A bit of whimsy.

While certainly not as interesting or accomplished as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Funhouse is a cut above the average slasher film.

The typical "invisible" special effects are employed, though this time with a little more humor.

Derivative and utterly implausible, ERASER is big-budget action filmmaking at its dullest.

Though Keaton is convincing as a smarmy narcissist who secretly thinks he deserves to fail because writing plays isn't REAL work, he's also thoroughly unlikable -- a problematic trait in a protagonist.

If you're rooting for Barrymore and Fallon, then why not their team? In the movies, there are enough happy endings for everyone.

Awful disaster movie that combined the worst elements of soap opera with special effects (bad matte paintings and the ridiculous Sensurround)--featuring an all-star cast that should have stayed home and waited for a real earthquake.

Rapp's theatrical past is evident throughout: His strongest scenes tend to be those purely character-driven moments when his sharp dialogue takes precedence over any cinematic action. Harris gives another strong performance and Ferrell is great in a comic but low-key role, but this is Deschanel's movie.

Gimmick or no, the film is really rather silly and not particularly scary.

The results are mildly comical and occasionally poignant. HEART AND SOULS was Downey's first film after his Oscar-nominated performance in CHAPLIN, but he refrains, thankfully, from pulling a star turn. Instead, HEART AND SOULS remains largely an ensemble effort, with skilled performances by all five of the lead actors.

And yes, that is Salma Hayek in the chorus line of sexily sinister nurses, perhaps repaying Taymor for lending her dramatic credibility with "Frida."

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.

The main attractions here are Greenaway's densely textured compositions, each one a triumph of symmetry and design.

This brazen mix of old and new is undermined by the predictable story, shallow characterizations and a dopey sense of humor.

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

This lushly produced, lightweight romance embraces every cliche of the genre without so much as an ironic shrug.

It can hardly help but outrage at least some of the people some of the time.

This is first-rate comedy of discomfort, so don't sample it with a date unless you're looking for a very queasy evening.

What it lacks are the dramatic underpinnings and emotional core that made the original film an engrossing mystery as well as a cinema classic.

These adventures would be offensive if you could take them seriously, so it's probably good that you can't. Despite a nicely understated performance from Robert Duvall as a cop on Douglas's trail, Falling Down fails to convince on any level.

Its mediocrity guarantees this lavish, soggy retread of futuristic Australian action classic "The Road Warrior" a place in the ranks of forgotten extravaganzas.

Exceedingly well-shot (by Jack Cardiff) action film that will evaporate from the memory shortly after the end credits roll.

Despite solid performances from the leads, it comes shrouded in a heavy cloud of ethics-class complications that makes it feel like a "dilemma of the week" TV movie.

POSSE remains no more than a pleasant genre diversion with unrealized ambitions.

Solid, expert "town" Western, but lacking the fuel of passion. Still it's a landmark Western--more than any other of its era, it gave the genre major film status.

If not precisely charismatic, Statham brings authentic athleticism and a certain cheeky presence to his lightly written role.

Creepy, beautifully designed horror yarn about mutant roaches that delivers both artfully eerie atmosphere and some boffo shocks.

For a few flickering moments, we care a bit about the people, but then it's gone. There's little plot, and the picture is far too long and fraught with allegory. Director Hector Babenco's sense of style is evident, but a sharper editing eye would have helped.

Indie director Bezucha has held on to just enough individuality to breathe a little life into the cliches.

Although Rabid is full of interesting ideas, they are not particularly well developed or presented by Cronenberg's unfocused script.

It seems that with Part 4, Freddy Krueger has just about run out of gas. Getting further and further away from creator Wes Craven's original concept, the series has declined into a plotless series of special-effects set pieces featuring Freddy slicing and dicing a variety of teenagers in their dreams. What the films lack in narrative, however, they make up for with pure cinematic panache, and the latest installment is no exception.

So pleased is this film with its own sanctimony that children forced to sit through it may end up joining gangs, defacing the walls at Bible school, and questioning their parents' sincerity.

The film is flat-out gorgeous and contains moments of sheer lunacy.

Touching, if cliched.

Shattering in its own quiet way.

The story is painfully familiar, and McIlhenney regularly stops it in its tracks by indulging the actors in arty monologues that sap the movie of any suspense or sense of momentum.

While many films of this kind are undermined by amateurish performances, the main cast is solid and some of the supporting performances (many from non-professionals) are small gems.

Director Mike Hodges and screenwriter Trevor Preston's dark revenge tale strips its crime-story cliches of their hopped-up energy and seedy glamour, leaving nothing but sordid sadness.

Hate the holidays? You're in luck: Here's a bottomed-out Santa story.

The battle scenes are impressive, though underpopulated, and the camerawork is fluid.

Stranded somewhere between exuberantly bad and merely boring, THE INDIAN RUNNER is a bloated resume film hobbled by a script as slight as the Bruce Springsteen song upon which it's based.

Shrewder than you'd think and not half as dumb as it looks.

It may not include every nuance of the graphic novel, but it captures as much as any adaptation could -- which may not satisfy the fanboys, but it's probably more than enough for everyone else.

Badly dated and clumsily allegorical, The Omega Man has some fairly interesting moments, the most memorable being the view of a devastated, empty downtown Los Angeles.

That the film seems willing to erect a simple religious parable on such a moral morass is bewildering. That it should do so without accurately depicting the nightmare of Hitler's Europe is unconscionable.

Barratier has assembled an unforgettable gallery of faces both young and old, and prolific character actor Berleand plays the perfect villain.

Sadly, the film had all the elements to be a very captivating experience, but it fails to bring those elements together into a strong whole.

The skating photography is excellent and, like the documentary's soundtrack, songs from the Stooges, Blue Oyster Cult and the Weirdos set the proper mood. But this dramatization does nothing Peralta's documentary didn't do better.

All the tongue-in-cheek humor, film-buff jokes, and special effects in the world can't save this mess.

Feels less like a movie than a lost episode of the old Steve Allen or Jack Paar late-night chat shows.

While changes have been made to the book in the interest of compressing the story and emphasizing certain life lessons, the 33-year-old premise is still perfectly in sync with the sensibilities of preteen boys everywhere.

This very effective thriller features a chilling performance by Hauer as the emotionless killing machine. Stallone and Williams are also credible, and the film makes good use of its New York locations.

A screwball comedy without a charismatic, smart-talking dame is no screwball comedy at all.

It's a chamber piece that probably should have stayed where it started, in regional theater.

A self-consciously arty ensemble piece that's alternately exploitative, implausible and cliche ridden.

(Salerno-Sonnenberg's) determination and resilience should speak to a broader audience.

It's tremendous fun, thanks largely to a smarter-than-average script and some fierce casting.

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.

Banderas inhabits the role of the mariachi with a feral grace undimished by the seven-year gap between films.

The darker hues of Amis's story, though frequently discernible beneath the gloss, are ultimately submerged beneath the usual set of artistic compromises.

The plot is mindless and only an excuse for lots of music video-styled dance sequences.

Quick Change unfolds cleverly, keeping the audience in the dark on the robbery plot throughout the film's opening reel.

Hackman's role requires him to spend so little time on screen that it's virtually an above-the-title cameo, and Grant trots out his trademark charming mannerisms, which look a bit fresher than usual by virtue of the darker than usual context. Be warned: Director Michael Apted does not resist the temptation to preach.

That this deceptively quiet crime thriller about an ex con's troubled homecoming sat on the shelf for four years before finding commercial distribution speaks volumes about both the voracious appetite for sand/surf/summer-break cliches and Hollywood's willingness to pander to it.

This entertaining spoof of western movie cliches features Garner as a stranger who stops off at a small town en route to Australia, a running joke that works well through the rest of the film.

Long, lumpy and sadly charmless, this adaptation of John Berendt's nonfiction portrait of Savannah, GA, refracted through the prism of a scandalous true-crime story, tramples all over the silkily seductive voice that makes the book so compulsively readable and eerily haunting.

Reiner does one of his best directing jobs and never resorts to some of the silliness he's demonstrated in other films. Denver is very affable and could have had a good movie career given the right material.