With Bruno, Baron Cohen essentially turns a carnival mirror on society, and some people simply aren't going to like what they see. This is satire at its most confrontational and incisive.

Compelling on a personal level.

Even though the screen is often divided into a Mondrian-like grid, each individual box containing its own discreet moving image, McDonald's film is surprisingly fluid and easy to follow.

Ira Levin is an eclectic writer who has done comedy-drama (Sleuth), adventure (The Boys from Brazil), thrillers (Rosemary's Baby), and science fiction such as The Stepford Wives. But Goldman's screenplay and Forbes's ponderous direction slow his exciting novel to a laborious pace.

There's also precious little chemistry between the players. Only Mol has any charm of which to speak, and, frankly, she deserves much better.

It's a light, silly instantly forgettable comedy peppered with action set-pieces and affectionate nods to its fondly remembered predecessor, including a gracious end-credits dedication to the late Don Adams and Edward Platt.

This is an extremely faithful film adaptation of Ira Levin's gimmicky stage play.

Doesn’t break any new documentary ground, but it does exactly what it sets out to do: Preserve a live event and make it available to a broader audience.

Essentially a romantic comedy with a heavier-than-usual dramatic component.

An astonishing act of synthesis, bringing together disparate Ripper theories and a fiercely idiosyncratic version of London's history, architecture, policing and social structure.

Juvenile and pointless.

Director Jesse Peretz, onetime bassist for The Lemonheads, cut his teeth on music videos and appears to have embraced the austere aesthetics of Dogme 95 filmmakers without comprehending that an interesting story and well-developed characters are supposed to be part of the package.

Director Nancy Savoca's no-frills record of a show forged in still-raw emotions captures the unsettled tenor of that post 9-11 period far better than a more measured or polished production ever could.

The film is filled with the kind of choreographed carnage that became synonymous with Hong Kong action during the genre's heyday, but there's an elegiac self-consciousness to it all that acknowledges that while the best is behind us, there's still something to be said about its passing.

Performances are really what count in a character-driven romantic comedy like this, and each is well above the indie average.

So while the facts of Frank's actual political career tend to fall by the wayside, Everly treats us to an insightful look at a remarkable public figure who first became famous for what he does in private.

Even with all its flaws, Johnny Dangerously has many genuinely funny moments, and if you're in the mood for silliness, you won't stop laughing.

Interestingly, the real heart of the film is in the finely drawn adult characters.

A good concept fails to become a good movie in this predictable tale of corruption in college basketball, featuring the ubiquitous superstar and corporate pitchman Shaquille O'Neal.

Not even the always reliable Diane Lane can save this one.

The primary difference between the original and the remake is that the latter is in color, though a deliberately subdued color. In addition, the zombies created by Everett Burrell and John Vulich, are far more elaborate than those in the first film.

Good, dirty, escapist fun.

The movie almost seems the same as the Bride herself--begun with all the correct parts, but eventually self-destructing. Before it falls apart, however, The Bride of Re-Animator does still have time for a number of clever, outrageous bits.

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.

Though Estevez's achievement doesn't quite live up to his ambitions -- the climax of Altman's "Nashville" (1975) evokes the same brutal loss of innocence to more shattering effect -- it still contains enough powerful moments to balance the weaker sections.

It's basically a one-joke comedy that spins out of control once the joke's over, but the cast is likable, the women smart, and one can't argue with the important safe-sex message.

This film exposes a more insidious kind of exploitation, one far more difficult to detect.

A sensitive, thought-provoking story involving a man forced to look at himself as youth gives way to middle age. Elliott is outstanding as the title character, an old-timer in the profession at age 30.

Sadly, this inane vehicle was not worthy of the talents of the two great vets.

This is a poignant if predictable take on the English class system, buoyed by an effervescent performance from Walters.

Like "Secret Things," the film is ultimately infuriating, subtle, self-indulgent, astute and disingenuous, which makes for great -- if divisive -- conversation.

With this perceptive, however bloody, film, Ishii makes it disturbingly clear that a culturally instilled sense of shame and fear of being shunned mean that women like Chihiro are doubly victimized, both by their attackers and the society that should protect them.

It's all pretty entertaining in a shallow sort of way.

It differs from American films about the period in its evocation of day-to-day passion. The power of beauty is often dealt with in films, but not so often its powerful curse.

Thoroughly old-fashioned entertainment.

One promising note, however, was that the character of Freddy Krueger had recovered some of the evil edge he lost in previous installments.

Suicide, child molestation, corruption, insanity and the faintest implication of incest are wound around the film's suggestion that the cure for modern-day alienation and anomie lies in embracing traditional Japanese culture, like ritual tattooing.

Although Brown (Endless Summer) captured the beauty and fun of his favorite sport in his "surfumentaries," Milius, whose work always seems underlain with weighty symbolic intent, infuses Big Wednesday with heavy-handed philosophy and all-around stupidity.

The parade of eccentrics never ends, and Stone's near-miraculous achievement is to drain the life right out of material so sordid you'd think it couldn't help but be interesting. A must to avoid.

For all its talk about sex, incest, insanity and the gory details of the Kennedy assassination, Mark Waters' adaptation of Wendy MacLeod's play doesn't really amount to much more than a lurid, thoroughly enjoyable little pot-boiler.

The pre-credits sequence, featuring a variety of old-school snack treats performing a speed-metal number about courteous movie-theater behavior, is flat-out hilarious and deserves to be played before all R-rated films.

As a piece of cinematic art, this meandering, shambolic film isn't much to speak of, but as a time capsule, it's priceless.

Perry certainly loves his divas -- the best parts are written for Scott and the wonderful Smith.

Dramatically simple but emotionally complex.

Blue Steel's greatest pleasure is its smashing cinematography, courtesy of Amir Mokri, but also owing much to Bigelow's distinctive pop aesthetics. The dependable Curtis adds depth to what might have been a stock character; Silver is convincingly vicious and seductive.

It all seems terribly familiar.

Long takes do not a masterpiece make, and the suspicion that the whole thing is a lark is only bolstered by Damon and Affleck's inability to contain their giggles.

The success of this picture (perhaps Moore's best in the Bond series) can be attributed to the marvelous direction of Glen, who had previously worked as a second-unit director on earlier Bond movies. Not surprisingly, the stunts are some of the best in the series.

Some movies strive to give you that warm, fuzzy feeling, and some strive to make you bawl your eyes out, but Observe and Report strives to make you feel ambivalent, confused, and a little bit dirty, and whether or not you find that enjoyable, it's not something you likely feel very often.

Efficient if uninspired documentary.

Gives off an air of clammy desperation that feels all too authentic without being especially funny and bogs down early in repetitive shtick. (review of re-release)

Though the performances are surprisingly good - the characters are drawn with a broad brush, but the actors, almost all professional comics, hit all the right notes - the material just isn't funny enough to justify the film's length.

Herek does capture the rush and crush of a stadium concert, and the music (more Leppard than Priest) isn't half bad -- in a disposable, arena-rock sort of way.

Daniel is so hopelessly immature, and played with such puppy-dog overkill by Williams, that it's impossible to root for him--until you meet his wife, whom Sally Field makes even less appealing.

This candy-colored animated fable is an awkward mix of corny bee puns, clever sight gags, kid-friendly action, adult-centric workplace angst and Seinfeld's distinctive navel-gazing wit. And what's up with those four-legged bees?

Shane West does a pretty impressive impersonation of the on-stage antics of Darby Crash...Unfortunately, little else in this clunky, half-baked biopic rings very true.

While not very original or even very skillful, THRASHIN' (a skateboarding term for aggressive, gutsy skating) isn't nearly as bad as it sounds.

Crammed into 130 minutes of screen time, Le Carre's story loses much of its motivation, and although there is plenty of action and suspense, often it seems that the action is happening in the wrong places to the wrong people.

Ho-hum country-music saga stars Quaid as an aspiring singer and McNichol as his pesky, ambitious younger sister, who drags him kicking and screaming (for what seems interminably longer than 110 minutes) to fame and fortune in Nashville.

A disappointing attempt at comedy, considering the names of the creators and the adroitness of the stars.

It was the first time that homosexuality and cannibalism had ever been handled by a mainstream studio as a commercial venture. Let's hope that it remains the last time those two practices will be presented in tandem.

Disney does it again in this delightful comedy.

A slicked up, perfectly watchable update of a movie that was just about perfect on its own bleakly seedy terms.

A sweet film with no big action moments may be a hard sell to young male audiences, but it's nevertheless a quality story that the whole family can watch together.

The performances are passable: Tandy and Cronyn are talented enough to avoid looking foolish. The special effects team has created some truly convincing sequences that give the saucers more personality than the human characters.

Stylish and surprisingly effective thriller.

Aside from some effective suspense sequences, the film's strengths lie in the relationship between the heroines, which is well developed and plausible by genre standards.

Writers Jon Connelly and David Loucka have fashioned a script that works largely because of the efforts of the four capable and credible actors who comprise The Dream Team: Christopher LLoyd, Stephen Furst, Peter Boyle, and Michael Keaton.

The story delivers enough twists and turns to be engaging without feeling like work, and the overall vibe is dangerous and flirty rather than brutal or excessively graphic.

Brimming with fun and a few great ideas, it's little more than a foggy memory the minute it's over.

A film for fans of this alternate universe of movies that flourished as soon as the 1934 Production Code effectively excised most prurient, violent and otherwise titillating material from Hollywood films and withered in the '70s as mainstream movies finally caught up with the indies.

Pacino's no-holds-barred performance is either the reason to see this tepid thriller or the reason to avoid it. His evocation of a Sidney Falco-style flack worn to a nub by decades of trying to spin this dirty town is nothing if not bravura.

A breezy romantic comedy in which opposites attract against all the reasonable odds, this slight but thoroughly charming film benefits immeasurably from the assured performances of leads Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno.

The filmmakers seem to have meant to offer up a spiritual message about community and faith, but it's muddled and hard to find with romance, comedy and phenomenal gospel performances all fighting for the spotlight.

Cassavetes' film is unusually well-acted and lovely to look at, but his wholehearted embrace of saccharine melodrama and tendency to let scenes ramble on long after their point has been expressed makes for some slow going.

This gripping documentary contends that some shockingly sleazy efforts to undermine Clinton's character and authority were very real.

A Time to Kill seems to argue that America's racial problems aren't so bad because, even in the heart of bigoted Mississippi, a black man can get away with murder.

As a standard science-fiction film, 2010 is fine. It has all the right plot elements, dramatic tension, and eye-popping special effects. The performances are uniformly good, the space-adventure scenes are excitingly handled, and the reappearance of HAL 9000 and Dullea is downright eerie. Yet it's hard to get over the fact that the purpose of this film is to tear down all the awe-inspiring effects of 2001. The sequel simply fails to fascinate and awe us like the original did.

Offers a rare glimpse into the hermetic world of the Satmars.

Another infantile right-wing fantasy from writer-director John Milius, this cinematic embodiment of the paranoid delusions of militarists, survivalists, and television evangelists is definitely a film for the Reagan era. Red Dawn is simply too simplistic and inept to be taken seriously.

Director Joan Freeman, who cowrote the screenplay with her husband, Robert Alden, shows a remarkable talent for capturing the sights and sounds of this seamy world. Freeman works a gritty realism into the formula story, creating an always-fascinating tale from an ugly subject.

A perfect fairytale, adhering to The Princess Bride's standards of fighting, fencing, torture, and true love, without the ham-fisted moral element of so many of its fairy-tale predecessors.

The film is visually stunning, and Peckinpah makes great use of his Durango, Mexico, locations.

Under the direction of veteran Fleischer, this superior sequel to the plodding Conan The Barbarian boasts much more speed, skill, and ingenuity than its predecessor.

We're more likely to snicker at this marauding monster than scream.

The picture is long, beautiful, and dull.

Cassavetes' instincts are spot-on, particularly when it comes to casting Timberlake in what turns out to be the most important role in the film. He manages to be both reprehensible and deeply charismatic, and winds up stealing the picture.

Neither a buddy-buddy action-comedy nor a pyrotechnical showcase of explosions and stunts, NEXT OF KIN--an intelligently made and moodily atmospheric action melodrama--provides solid, satisfying entertainment while demonstrating just how effective a fully realized genre film can be.

The film is really little more than an array of sometimes imaginative images.

The rogue feminism of "Thelma and Louise," mix in some of "Rock 'N' Roll High School" punk-rock energy.

If you're charmed from the outset, this is an enjoyable trifle; if you're not, it never gets any less mannered and convinced of its own wit.

The set-up revolves around a draggy love triangle, while the climax -- slo-mo leap through the air and all -- could have come out of any direct-to-video action flick.

Amid the clutter, Weber -- who narrates but never appears in front of the camera -- occasionally allows a glimpse into his own mind.

An utterly formulaic, teen-oriented romance whose greatest asset is charming leads Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas.

Audiences, especially preteens, will be enchanted by Ella.

John Cleese supplies the voice of George's brainy and terrifically tolerant sidekick, a very unconvincing animatronic gorilla named Ape, but even he can't raise the level of humor above the harmlessly goofy.

Aimed squarely at little leaguers and their doting parents, Rookie of the Year is a modest fantasy that makes its comic fable appealing despite sporadic slapstick missteps.

Director Abrahams, working on his own for the first time, has some problems with pacing and with sustaining an essentially one-joke premise that never arrives at its big payoff.