It's Jagger's bone-dry, mournfully brittle delivery that gives the film its bittersweet bite. Michael Des Barres and Anjelica Huston make the most of their supporting roles.

For anyone unfamiliar with pentacostal practices in general and theatrical phenomenon of Hell Houses in particular, it's an eye-opener.

If nothing else, this utterly charming -- if ultimately inconsequential -- road picture proves that there is such a thing as German romantic comedy.

Originally an off-Broadway play, EXTREMITIES projects the powerful rancor of the play, but the film also retains some deadening theatricality that doesn't work on screen.

Whereas the first half of the movie concentrates nicely on the developing friendship between the young Holmes and Watson, the storm of roller-coaster thrills and Industrial Light and Magic special effects soon takes over, blowing the nicely drawn characters away.

This is a movie nasty enough to kill off the major characters twice and still manage to serve up a happy ending.

A superb performance from Torreton, easily one of the finest actors working in France today.

The lanky, wide-eyed Tautou is so phenomenally charming -- her smile could sweeten vinegar -- as to make Amelie irresistible.

Superbly acted by everyone involved (Rhames does his best work since "Pulp Fiction"), the film is really more about character than plot, though frankly, at more than two hours, it could have used a bit more of the latter.

This potent drama might be dismissed as therapy in the guise of filmmaking if it weren't so clear-eyed. At its core are three remarkable performances.

Genuinely gripping, balancing the travails of constructing the tunnel against the characters' stories with considerable skill.

Buoyed by a distinguished cast of horror veterans, Bloch's well-written script, and Baker's deft direction, Asylum is the most satisfying of the horror anthologies of the 1970s.

A rare sequel that's better than the original.

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

The real stars of the film are Francois Emmanuelli's vibrant production design, Klapisch's flair with inventive optical effects and above all Barcelona itself, captured here in all its baroque brilliance.

Stony and statuesque, Michelini is an excellent casting choice: Her impassive face and dispassionate voice serve as a carefully constructed protective mask that hides her pain, and which she rarely lets slip.

The plot unfolds exactly as you expect, but Gedeck imbues Martha with a remarkably subtlety of spirit.

The pressure often shows: For all its charm, the dramatic moments are awkward and the final act feels rushed and under rehearsed.

Narrated by NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, the film's form is measured, but its message is incendiary.

It's an uncommonly mature and intelligent chiller, particularly in a period when the genre has devolved into wisecracking fiends and empty special effects showcases.

A technically accomplished but dramatically uneven futuristic action film.

Fluffy, candy-colored and aimed directly at tweens -- girls between the ages of 10 and 12.

Stunningly beautiful scenery and the nearly unbelievable true story of a mountain-climbing expedition gone awry to chilling effect.

The truly creepy thing is that there's no bizarre, COMA-like conspiracy behind the malfeasance, just an awful betrayal of trust -- the kind of thing that sends an icy, paranoid chill through the blood just as the anesthetic takes hold.

Though the movie is clearly meant to work on its own, the relationship between Starling and Lecter plays best if you're familiar with "Lambs."

The sequence in which the crew acquires press credentials to the Republican National Convention by helping organizers desperate to book a rock band (they deliver Leitch's scruffy pals the Interpreters USSA) is priceless.

Pointed, unsubtle political satire.

Literally, a slice of life.

Virgil's naïveté isn't entirely believable, but his essential goodness is, thanks to a solid performance by Jordan, and that's really what makes this modern urban tragedy unusually affecting.

The film is graphic without being lurid, and the naked emotions onscreen are far more shocking than the naked bodies -- though there are plenty of those, in all shapes and sizes.

Adventurous viewers will find this unusual genre hybrid an intriguing experience, and Donnie Yen's fight choreography is breathtaking.

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.

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

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.

Blends history and mystery into an entertaining, if somewhat slight, romance.

An engaging bit of entertainment.

More subtlety or quiet introspection might have lent greater credibility to the role, though Grant and Robinson unquestionably have made their point.

Salvatores draws strikingly unsentimental performances from his young actors, all making their film debuts, and juxtaposes the petty meanness of children with the calculated cruelty of desperate adults to haunting effect.

As a treatment of yet another unexplored corner of the Nazi nightmare, the film is revelatory; needless to say it's also heartbreaking.

Touched with eerie dream sequences, the film casts a strange spell that's enhanced by the rhythmic, almost sensual depiction of the painstaking art of embroidery.

It's amusing more often than it isn't, largely because the cast is so nonchalant and, well, French about everything.

The laughs are low -- very low -- and the comedy often flags. But two elaborate sequences involving a bad-tempered little ankle-biter are standouts.

Even if it doesn't up live to its inspired beginning, Mike Judge scores something with all the marks of a workplace cult classic with his first big-screen, live-action outing.

The plot is a recycled mess, the dialog is awful, and the character motivation is nil, but thanks to Konchalovsky (and a strong performance by Russell), Tango and Cash is not only bearable, it's likable. Responsible for some of the finest films of the 80s, the Soviet-born director brings an insane, kinetic energy to the film that makes for effective action sequences and potent satire. A very smart "dumb" movie.

Francis Ford Coppola has turned John Grisham's pulpy bestseller into surprisingly creditable -- if morally muddled -- movie.

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

Spader is most effective here, and Lowe has finally found his niche as a junior league Richard Gere. The tension between the two is well handled and yet never quite explained, which adds to the mysterious feel of the movie and gives the characters a sexually ambiguous edge.

Surprisingly, it works: The overwhelming natural expanse of the New Mexico desert is perfectly balanced by the psychic space Charley and Arlene create - the space where all the real action takes place.

A sassy romantic battle of the sexes with a refreshing African-American slant.

Compulsively watchable.

Atkinson's painfully unfunny turn as an insensitive gynecologist is eclipsed by Hollander's scathingly funny portrayal of belligerent auteur Proclaimer, whose wears his pretenses with such scabby aplomb that they achieve high style.

The film is slow and somber during the windup but pretty scary in the follow-through.

A sweet-natured and refreshingly uncartoonlike look at the trials of an unworldly Midwestern college boy negotiating his freshman year at NYU.

An above-average thriller, offering a fresh hero based on "The Destroyer" series of novels (at least 120 of which are currently available).

Supremely silly on the surface but full of sophisticated sight gags and deadpan humor.

The folks at Jim Henson Pictures have wisely opted not to mess with the late Jim Henson's winning formula; the crowd-pleasing soundtrack features hot '70s funk classics, the Muppets are as cute as ever and there are more than a few flashes of adult humor to keep grown-ups laughing right along with the kiddies.

Things take an unexpected turn into far grimmer territory when the wormy Robert finally turns.

More ambitious than the usual low-budget horror item, SOCIETY doesn't develop its provocative idea--when the rich feed off the lower classes, they do so literally--to the fullest, but has its share of intriguing and chilly moments along the way.

Spooky and character-driven, this stylish ghost story owes a great deal to contemporary Japanese ghost movies in general and M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" (1999) in particular but weaves a creepy spell all its own.

Unquestionably formulaic but mercifully free of the flat dialogue and arch one-liners that undermine so many action films. And while it lacks "El Mariachi's" naive charm, it's far funnier.

This kind of gloomy razzle-dazzle isn't everyone's cup of mind-altering tea, but strong performances make it worth the effort to keep the time-tripping shenanigans straight until the surprisingly satisfying payoff.

A good premise spins out of control in the hectic final hour.

While the story is thin, Clouzot uses his immense skills to raise the picture above the standard for the genre.

Steel Magnolias is an old-fashioned "klatsch" film, a prefeminist relic in which a group of women eschew the public world of men in favor of the community of the coffee table. Their world is shown as inferior to men's in terms of power but superior to it in emotion and insight into the things that "really matter."

Beneath the heavy accents, wild gesticulating, slaps to the head and garish flocked wallpaper, there's an awful lot of heart.

The scene transitions are sometimes jarring, but the story unfolds like a particularly juicy bit of small-town gossip, one that's told by a particularly vivid storyteller.

The Thunderdome sequence is an amazing display of imagination and technical skill, but the film falls apart with the climactic chase scene.

It's informative as far as it goes, but the film's raison d'etre is the simple sight of large wildlife up close and personal, and it's mesmerizing.

The story of the business is historically interesting, but the story of a friendship tested to the breaking point is timeless.

A wonderful premise that delivers solid laughs and has a heart as big as the state in which this farce unfolds.

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.

THE STAR would have been a much better film if all its loose ends had been gathered. As it is, the ending is too curt and too convenient to bring the tale to a close with a ring of truth.

The outlandish premise and greasy title may be a little hard to swallow, but Danny Leiner's proudly moronic film embraces its boneheadedness so cheerfully that its lowbrow charms are nearly irresistible.

A big sweet hit, tingly and glycerined in a phony way, but diverting.

Grim tale of good and evil.

Despite a few dull spots and a certain amount of predictability, The Gods Must Be Crazy II delivers enough laughs and does it with enough charm to be worthwhile viewing, especially for fans of the first film.

A spectacular natural disaster spiraling out of control, a crime gone wrong and a poor jerk caught in the middle: Yes, it's a standard action-picture recipe. But what a difference a cast makes.

Rises above its low-budget limitations by pandering to the most outrageously paranoid fantasies of unhappy office drones.

In the Kill the Bitch tradition of FATAL ATTRACTION, this adaptation of Stephen King's misogynist fable about a serious (male) author trapped by his own frivolous (female) commercial creation isn't quite satisfying either as a flat-out horror screamer or a psychological thriller.

A virtuoso experiment in animation that combines traditional anime aesthetics style with a variety of Western animation styles.

A lovely homage to a charismatic star.

It's funny stuff, though most of the pimps seem like such buffoons it's hard to imagine how they actually make a living.

Beautifully animated epic is never dull.

Unpretentious social satire that manages to poke a few deserved jabs at modern man's ego. The laughs are a bit sparse, but the witty cast helps carry it along.

Surprisingly, it's not bad on the whole (in an Afterschool Special kind of way), and the young stars are uniformly appealing, especially Schuyler Fisk (Sissy Spacek's daughter) and CROOKLYN's Zelda Harris.

It's overtly about provocation, set in a tony Danish suburb where a group of men and women living commune-style in an empty house are discovering their "inner idiots" by pretending to be developmentally challenged.

If this new film seems less prescient than its predecessor, it's only because reality is rapidly catching up with Cronenberg's warped imagination.

It's funny when it shouldn't be, sentimental to a fault and has one of the goriest scenes ever shot.

Although Zach Braff's promising writing-directing debut is a bit affected, few actors with behind-the-camera aspirations succeed as well as the Scrubs star does with this melancholy romantic comedy.

Often clever but fundamentally shallow, this shaggy-dog story is greatly enriched by its extraordinary bluegrass soundtrack, supervised by T Bone Burnett and performed by a phenomenal collection of artists.

Tthough it comes wrapped in a stylish French mantle of feminist rage and sexual empowerment, the picture ultimately belongs squarely in the tradition of rape revenge pictures.

Informative documentary.

If not an entirely successful film, it's a bold and haunting one.

That Techine manages to coax a somewhat happy ending from this staid, somber film is heartening proof that what doesn't kill us might indeed make us stronger.

Not as good as other Christie adaptations such as MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS or DEATH ON THE NILE, but still fun.

Based on screenwriter Susan Isaacs' first novel, the film is nearly undone by Frank Perry's lazy direction. Good performances from the entire cast, especially Sarandon, save the movie.

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.

[An] effective but uneven work, which chronicles a woman's search for self.