Though it occasionally goes over the top with its melodrama and lacks some technical credibility, On The Beach remains a powerful, well-acted, deftly photographed film

Working from a screenplay that drew on scriptwriter Fusco's experience as an itinerant young blues man, Hill and cinematographer Bailey perfectly capture the look and feel of the Mississippi Delta, heretofore little seen on film.

The cast gives believable and realistic performances, with script and direction contributing a sleekness, although the underlying messages receive undue emphasis.

The bones of a great Western remain barely visible under the layer of mush he and screenwriter Ken Kaufman smooth over them, reminders of the viciously memorable film that might have been.

The trouble is that Turturro's reach considerably exceeds his grasp.

Unwilling to offend, Zwick whitewashes a culture in which brutality and contemplative beauty were inextricably intertwined and, afraid to alienate audiences, he shies away from the story's logical downbeat conclusion, replacing it with an "ambiguous" ending that recalls, of all things, "The Road Warrior."

Even though Kinnear is meant to be obvious love interest, it's the relationship between Kate and Angie that becomes the film's central story, making this comedy sweeter -- and more honest in its depiction of class difference -- than one might otherwise expect.

It's a back-to-basics, gore-and-gristle look at the no-frills nastiness of 1970s films, in which monsters, mutants and ghosts can't hold a candle to the sheer, unadulterated evil that lurks in the hearts of men.

Bean fills in some empty spaces with heady thoughts about the nature of power and beauty, but the movie's real appeal lies in the simple but by no means inconsiderable pleasure of watching Tim Robbins take a hammer to a parked car as it wails pointlessly, deep into the night.

Sadly, the only aspect of this well-intentioned film that doesn't feel completely formulaic is its refreshingly unromantic picture of an inner-city neighborhood in the early '70s: Life in Nicetown is hard and very, very poor.

Director Harold Ramis, star and co-writer of STRIPES (1981) and GHOST BUSTERS (1984), keeps this film moving and heightens the humor with his inclusion of comic cameos from a variety of actors.

Outrageous Fortune is an effort on the part of Disney to prove it can distribute adult films, but it only shows that it has no real perception of what such pictures are all about.

Although the concept of small dolls coming to bloodthirsty life sounds scary, its fear factor decreases rapidly after the initial shock.

The lives of three deeply unhappy New Yorkers crisscross in unexpected ways in writer-director Joe Maggio's uneven but strangely affecting film.

It quickly becomes clear that Nijinsky's disordered thoughts are simply the rantings of a man losing his grip on reality. They're sad and occasionally evocative, but they're not especially interesting in and of themselves, and do nothing to evoke or illuminate Nijinsky's genius.

All the segments are technically polished, but none offers much substance.

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.

The stripped-down production give a disturbing sense of immediacy to an otherwise fairly conventional story about boys being prepared for war.

Be warned: The end credits contain a particularly nauseating image you'll wish you could delete from memory.

When it's not wasting time with character, this deliberately dumb collegiate comedy is good for a few laughs of the big butts and sex variety, but not much else.

Takashi Miike's frenetic comic yakuza thriller embodies the best and worst this notorious Japanese genre auteur has to offer: It's endlessly inventive, consistently intelligent and sickeningly savage.

Carpenter is trying for a satire of advertising and consumerism under late capitalism, and although the film is great fun at first--especially when depicting the world through Nada's glasses--it rarely rises above the intellectual level of a comic book.

Barber's screenplay is mired in cliches that got old in 1935.

First-time writer-director Matthew Porterfield's small-scale, 16mm slice-of-life drama has the hazy, sticky rhythms of a hot summer day and the minimal narrative of a classic European art film.

This movie is a dreary endurance test.

For all its action, suspense, and intricate plotting, THE PACKAGE comes across as a mostly leaden entry in the political-paranoia thriller category.

It takes a certain genius to make butchered corpses, sociopathic lunacy and meth-fueled debauchery nerve-scrapingly dull, and German director Marc Schoelermann and screenwriters Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank) possess it.

Has a certain silly, kid-friendly charm.

As the Bond series moves deeper into the 1970s, the emphasis moves away from the inventive scripts that made the best Sean Connery films fine examples of the spy genre and toward the kind of feats of daring and visual spectacle that abound in The Spy Who Loved Me.

One hopes Koury will return to this interesting project to flush out the bigger story that continues to lurk just below the surface.

Though the script's twists and turns are fairly conventional and the Davis subplot is handled in an awkwardly obvious way, first-time feature filmmaker Robert Connolly understands the power of style.

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.

For all the "touched by an angel" sentimentality, the movie's eerie, slightly menacing vision of black-clad angels lurking in the shadowy corners of unsuspecting lives is genuinely haunting.

A risky, not entirely successful comedy about mental disability, based on the novel by Sherwood Kiraly.

Singleton gets points for exposing the hypocrisy of "politically correct" institutions, but stilted dialogue and cardboard characterizations undermine the message.

The entirely computer-generated Hulk is a surprisingly expressive creation — it certainly gives a better performance than Connelly — but the action is late in coming and feels like a long set-up for the inevitable sequel.

This sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's classic is surprisingly good. In Psycho II, Norman is a victim of crazed people who insist on persecuting him and, as a result, seems incredibly sane by comparison. Unfortunately the end to Psycho II contradicts this development, turning Norman into a leering loon in preparation for another sequel.

A very tough movie, Brubaker is not for the squeamish. Director Stuart Rosenberg, whose spotty career includes credits ranging from Move to The Amityville Horror, moved into a higher strata with this one, but no matter who's directing him, one can't escape the feeling that Redford is the man behind the man behind the camera.

The fun is in the mayhem, and there's plenty of it.

Some good gags and expert comedy performances.

An enjoyable but mindless hour and a half of car wrecks that span several states.

Bresson's vision of the miseries of 15th century life -- which was undeniably nasty, brutish and short -- comes dangerously close to the comic squalor of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

The characters are two-dimensional and the story is intensely formulaic.

When characters aren't quoting Alfred de Musset, they're speaking in aphorisms of their own, and the dialogue is stylized and stilted. Happily, Kaas, one of France's most popular jazz singers, has a sensuous, sonorous voice, and Lelouch uses it as often as possible; in many ways, the film is a musical.

Even if you think you know a little something about world music, Cuba's cultural riches may come as a surprise.

Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman imbue screenwriter Angela Pell's characters with a quiet authenticity that's surprisingly moving.

The result isn't exactly funny, just profoundly peculiar and even occasionally, unexpectedly poignant.

By no means a landmark, but it is a remarkably pleasant surprise -- so few movies aimed for the whole family show an understanding of why it's actually healthy to pretend.

Jon Poll's harmless, occasionally entertaining debut feature.

At a time when the images of Arab-Americans are already largely negative, do we really need more violently temperamental, bomb throwing men in turbans and beards?

A dismal misfire that attempts to make black comedy out of the adventures of war correspondents and the dirty business of international politics.

One isn't quite ready to forgive the miscasting of Gere, however, who is about as convincing a Kabbalistic scholar as Madonna.

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

Often funny, darker than you'd expect, and firmly grounded in Franken's extensive experience of the 12-Step worldview.

Affleck's gloomy, one-note performance exacerbates the problem, but the stellar supporting cast helps compensate.

Daniel Sullivan's earnest adaptation of Jon Robin Baitz's play is worth seeing for Ron Rifkin's performance alone.

A sweet-natured ode to rave culture saddled with a ridiculously clichéd plot line.

Parker's adaptation is meticulous, unsentimental, beautifully acted-- but nearly two and a half hours worth of dying babies, rain-spattered streets, ragged children and filthy, bug-infested rooms is a bit oppressive.

Though generally sympathetic, the film manages (without stooping to clichéd moralizing) to suggest that being Ron Jeremy isn't the non-stop paradise his fans imagine.

An almost unrelenting barrage of gore, Dead Alive is also a constant assault on the funnybone, a film in which the graphic blood-spilling is taken so far over the top that it becomes hilarious instead of disgusting.

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

Dull, derivative horror anthology.

And while it was always clear that Lucas cared more about special effects than acting, here his lack of interest has produced phenomenally wooden performances from newcomers and veterans alike: Only the imperious Christopher Lee, as baleful Count Dooku, emerges unscathed.

Ellis' slight film has its charms, and the backstory he concocted to lead into the original 18-minute short is effective. But the film lags badly in the middle.

What the film lacks in artistry it makes up for in commitment.

Though the effects work of Giannetto De Rossi is generally excellent and certainly stomach-churning, most of Zombie is slow and unintentionally funny. Fulci's work has its champions, but his films are mostly dim-witted and hold little interest for anyone other than hard-core gore fans.

It's the kind of film Hollywood doesn't make any more, and a pleasant retro diversion.

Seriously sexy stuff from -- surprise -- the former-Soviet Union.

Only die-hard and undemanding Chan fans need apply.

Sentimental and predictable, Meily's sweet-natured feature-film debut was hugely popular in the Philippines; its day-to-day details will be exotic to non-Filipino audiences but the characters' dilemmas are couched in the universal language of sitcom complications and fortuitous resolutions.

The supporting cast is a riot of stock exotic characters, verging on the offensively stereotypical.

It's filled with great footage of what must have been a wild time behind the Iron Curtain, and the music itself speaks volumes.

At best, Batman Forever is mildly diverting, brainless fun that feels like a long trailer for a better film.

Simultaneously gorgeous and forgettable, sentimental and prurient.

The good news is that Battle for Terra's moments of unbalance ultimately right themselves into a surprisingly earnest, engaging film.

Beautiful photography from Kovacs and an excellent acting job by Stallone.

All in all, Fritz is best observed as a cultural artifact, with its success allowing Bakshi to follow it up with more heartfelt projects such as Heavy Traffic (1973) and Coonskin (1975).

Boasting an inventive concept, with a nicely nuanced performance from Breaking Away's Christopher, Fade To Black is a creepy little film that, perhaps, doesn't go quite far enough.

Luckily the atmospheric photography and fine sets (Universal claimed it built an exact duplicate of the original Salem house) pull the sometimes melodramatic performances through.

Most of the superstars in this fascinating but offbeat production are thoroughly unrecognizable, buried under pounds of makeup or smothered in cumbersome costumes.

The only one of the Hammer Frankenstein films not directed by Terence Fisher, this is, consequently, one of the weakest entries in the series.

A funny, savvy, camp yet family-friendly look at the Generation-X TV icons.

Here, some striking ideas, themes, and symbols never quite gel; the main problem is the plot, which never overcomes the implausibility of its premise. Yet the performances are solidly above average for the genre and, while TRESPASS might have been more compelling, it still displays far more style and intelligence than the average contemporary action thriller.

This failure is especially surprising because Zwigoff not only reunited with "Ghost World's" writer, ingenious graphic artist Dan Clowes, but he aimed to satirize a rarefied sphere both know all too well: the art world.

Often annoyingly vulgar and crude, Life Stinks is partly redeemed by Brooks's good intentions. He and his associates have attempted, sometimes with great success, sometimes not, to illustrate the difference between decency and deceit as well as the painfully thin line that separates pleasure and happiness from degradation and despair.

Although Myers is a brilliant comic, any potential he has as a romantic lead remains unfulfilled.

Rob Zombie's pitch-perfect evocation of '70s horror films about monstrous families and the unfortunates who cross their path is one of a handful of sequels that both improve on their sources and play perfectly as stand-alones.

A little slow-moving but ultimately rewarding.

It all feels like an insubstantial short that's been stretched to the breaking point.

Half as interesting as a rerun of Falcon Crest and twice as long.

It's all very well to say that laughter and tears are just a heartbeat apart, but both variations on Melinda's story bear the unmistakable mark of Allen's morose sensibilities.

But fabulous though the allusions, sets and costumes are, Busch's performance is the movie's heart, and like the screen idols whose every gesture he's lovingly absorbed, Busch can pack a world of meaning into an arched eyebrow and a slight crack of the voice.

A star vehicle for rapper Ice Cube (who also cowrote and coproduced), Friday is a lighthearted, comedic presentation of the realities chronicled in dramas like "Boyz N the Hood."

The title duo serves up more idiocy, this time by dispensing drugs from an ice-cream truck--a concept that will appeal to few these days. The failure to come up with a strong script, character development, plot, authentic humor, or basic entertainment doesn't improve matters any.

The film is a pleasant breeze that refreshes, mostly because it's a rare, thoughtful comedy clearly intended for grown-ups.

The film gets off to a slow start and runs long, but Gold and Helfand effectively stake out their own piece of a large and complicated issue.

Song of the South's cartoon sequences are as fine as anything produced by the Disney animators.

Director Saks, who won a Tony for his stage direction, works in his typically fish-out-of-water fashion here, trying to put some air into a stagebound work, but much of the spontaneity of the theater version seems to have been supplanted by the mechanics of moviemaking. The acting by a very talented cast is generally quite good, even if Danner doesn't convince as an old-fashioned Jewish mother type. More of a nostalgic piece than a story, the film shows an attention to the specifics of the culture on display which has genuine if modest appeal.