Whether you conclude that this project is a brilliant hoax that exposes how the rapid transition from communism to a free market economy has created an ad addicted, consumer-mad culture in the Czech Republic, or simply a cruel joke, one thing is undeniable. It's a fascinating account.

The famous soliloquies are heard in voice-over -- a risky idea that works -- and Wright has found clever ways of naturalizing the play's more supernatural elements.

It's a handsome production, and a pleasure to watch. With a shadowy palette and a set design reminiscent of Edward Hopper's nocturnes, a soundtrack hearkening back to the sounds of vintage rock 'n' roll, and a cast of characters straight out of a James M. Cain novel.

Neither a prequel nor a sequel. Nor is it really much of a horror movie: It's a bizarre, bloody family drama that puts its predecessor into a larger social context.

Sleek, stylish and ephemeral as a fireworks display, Ocean's Thirteen is the definition of light, but not totally brainless, entertainment.

Given its premise, it's hard for any Hostel sequel to be little more than a rehash.

A cut above the noisy, pop-culture joke-larded norm, and it's much more than a "Happy Feet" knockoff.

It's sometimes wrenching to watch, but it's too gripping to turn away from.

It's a forgotten piece of history worth recounting. One only regrets it wasn't better recounted than it is here.

Remarkable and evenhanded film.

Wonderfully droll, Cannes Camera d'Or winner.

The occasional eerie moment can't elevate this routine piece of by-the-numbers J-horror above the pack.

The New Jersey locations and soundtrack help ground the story in a particular time and place, and Schroeder delivers a terrific performance.

Apatow's clever comedy is a romance in reverse, and it works.

There's no meat on this film's borrowed bones: They're polished to an exquisitely tasteful shine, but efforts to class up exploitation are pointless.

Of the long list of couples who have loved neither wisely nor particularly well, few have such power to disturb as Burton Pugach and the love of his life, Linda Riss.

It's a high-energy blast.

In an age when special effects and flashy cinematography often trump narrative, there's a particular charm to the plain-Jane story of self-discovery.

British actor Timothy Spall gives a shattering performance as Albert Pierrepoint.

Funny, perceptive, bawdy, tragic and philosophical, pretty much everything a viewer -- or a listener -- could ask for.

Jim Brown and Gary Burns hang a powerful antisuburban diatribe in the form of statistics, expert opinions and pictures worth a thousand words on the experiences of the Moss family.

A ludicrous foray into psychological horror.

It's almost three hours long, and that's a lot of time to invest in what is, essentially, a theme-park attraction you can't ride.

Compelling on a personal level.

There's always been a wide streak of the tediously naughty little boy in Besson, and all the seductively stylized images in the world can't hide it.

Sicilian-born filmmaker Emanuele Crialese takes a huge leap forward from his pretty but simplistic "Respiro" with this highly original, startlingly beautiful and emotionally resonant film.

It's a great place to visit, even if you wouldn't want to live there.

In the end, Haar's powerful and terribly sad film speaks volumes, not just about life in contemporary Israel, but in the U.S. as well.

Cynical, misanthropic and embittered.

Ukraine-born, American-based filmmaker Andrei Zagdansky's deeply frustrating "documentary essay" examines the Orange Revolution.

It's both very funny and very scary, and never descends to the level of spoof.

The real trouble is that the filmmakers consistently choose gags over character.

Grabsky's meticulous and frequently monotonous documentary about the life and music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart comes to vivid life whenever one of the many world-class musicians who sat for interviews simultaneously describes and demonstrates exactly what's so special about particular compositions.

Clever, fast-paced and surprisingly moving.

Baldwin dominates the screen with his slick, beefy swagger, and if Prinze is less than convincing as a kid from Brooklyn, Caan and Ferrara nail Carmine and Bobby with such assured economy that it hardly matters they're one-note roles.

Despite a terribly conceived coda, Luke and his brothers have mostly succeeded, thanks in large part to sharp dialogue, a solid vintage soundtrack (Rick Nelson's "Garden Party" features prominently) and some great older actors -- Cassel is a particular standout -- from the heyday of American cinema.

A high-profile cast can't save this multi-narrative drama about gambling addiction from its wildly uneven tone, which veers from high melodrama to hard-boiled pastiche so overwrought that it's unintentionally funny.

With very little dialogue and lingering shots of the landscape -- always a very important visual trope in Dumont's deep-psyche explorations -- the film is nevertheless tighter and, clocking in at under 90 minutes, relatively brief.

Lafosse's razor sharp dissection of relationships strained to the breaking point is hypnotic in a road-accident kind of way.

Once again brushing aside critical drubbings and public indifference, determined independent auteur Henry Jaglom follows up the abysmal "Let's Go Shopping" with something far better: an old-school Hollywood cautionary tale about -- what else? -- Hollywood.

The result is a little bit nutty and pretty entertaining in a thoroughly unconvincing way. And watch out for that 11th-hour twist -- it's a head snapper.

Veers regularly into disease-of-the-week territory but is rescued by the powerhouse performances of Ken Watanabe (who was instrumental in getting the film made) and Kanako Higuchi.

Overall, it's an interesting experiment, but the idea is stronger than the end result.

Focusing strictly on stripped-down performances of great music and the charming chemistry between the two leads, it's a perfectly realized yet unassuming movie that deserves to find a big audience.

Braff and Bateman have a good, darkly comic chemistry, but there aren't nearly enough moments like the brutally funny, "Murderball"-style wheelchair basketball game to sustain the entire film.

28 Weeks Later is flawed -- the constant reappearance of one key character verges on the absurd -- but it knows where it's going, and it gets there in a chilling blaze of fire, blood and poisonous fog.

Overall the movie is too stupid to offend any but the most sensitive viewer.

Spin it however they like, the troubled but talented Lohan isn't what's wrong with this misbegotten mess.

Filmmaker Barry Hershey's impressionistic documentary about the casting process is the antidote to years of comic "audition montages," those guaranteed laugh-getting freak-show parades of no-talents mangling monologues and pulling nutty stunts in hopes of standing out from the crowd.

The story is compelling enough that even glib phrases like "healing through hip-hop" can't drag it down.

For all the gushy feelings, the plight of women like Kiranjit, bound not only by domineering, often physically abusive husbands but by racism and oppressive cultural traditions as well, is poignantly portrayed.

Though rooted in broad stereotypes and sassy platitudes, the film's feisty cast and generally sunny outlook make for warm and reassuring comfort viewing, the equivalent of a straight-from-the-box dish of mac and cheese.

It's riveting to watch the shows' respective creators work, clash, whine, celebrate and commiserate as the season and their stories unfold.

The movie opens with the dismal statistic that most teachers quit after three years. Akel and Mass see the humor in the situation, but the laughs are small and sad.

Spare, elegant and tailor-made for intense discussions over dark coffee, Boe's film is a slily bold and delightfully inventive variation on an age-old theme.

In the end, despite Williams' extraordinary, nearly wordless performance, it's impossible to fathom what this young woman is experiencing at her moment of crisis, because we never knew what could have brought her to such a desperate pass in the first place.

Tsai finds great beauty in streets of Kuala Lumpur particularly at night, making this gorgeous film one that should be seen on a large screen in the total darkness of a theater.

Audacious, hypnotic and utterly breathtaking.

A well-acted character piece.

A sad and sometimes funny tale of Alzheimer's, love and loss.

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.

Director Jeff Renfroe and screenwriter Andrew Joiner's flashy psychological thriller wants to say something important about the dangers of a fear-mongering media and resultant ethnic profiling in an age of terrorism, but their warnings are undone by a tricky plot that tries to have it both ways while leaving the audience arguing among themselves as to what it all means.

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.

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

As is always the case with compilation films, some segments are far better than others. But they're all so brief that the least of them passes quickly and the best are small miracles of economical storytelling.

Shelly was murdered before she could continue developing as a writer and director, and while this, her last film, is extremely uneven and undermined by an excess of quirk, Keri Russell's performance as a pregnant pie-guru is a charmer with a bracing streak convincingly desperate determination.

Deraspe's film begins as a mystery and becomes a razor-sharp dissection of the self-promotion, pretension and deeply cynical inner workings of the art world. But her greatest achievement is painting the business of art as venal, corrupt, mendacious and built on false surfaces without suggesting that art itself is a form of glorious deception.

Lawrence delves deep into the moral dilemma at the heart of Carver's deceptively simple tale. By deliberately making the young woman in the river aboriginal, the film also opens up yet another dimension in the reaction to the men's inaction: Would they have acted any differently had the murder victim been white?

Steve Austin is conspicuously inarticulate and uncharismatic. Former soccer lout Vinnie Jones, whom no one will ever mistake for Laurence Olivier, acts rings around him.

A textbook illustration of the American movie industry's ability to take an offbeat foreign film and systematically alter or soften every provocative and original thing about it.

Some of the humor is pretty raunchy (there are quite a few sex-related scenes and jokes) and tasteless. Adults old enough to appreciate the choice electro-boogaloo soundtrack and get the "Mr. Roboto" jokes will doubtless find the rest of it painfully dumb.

Misbegotten mess.

Likably low-key, character-driven dramatic comedy.

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

This sly, subtle and very French psychological drama dissects the relationship between three insecure Sorbonne students and their deeply flawed idol.

The boys' laddish catchphrase -- "Shut up!" -- is particularly irritating, especially since they never do.

Heartfelt but only intermittently interesting documentary.

Despite its failings, Wind Chill represents a road rarely taken by 21st-century American horror films: Original (in the non-remake sense of the term), subtle and restrained.

The mix of rollicking, family-friendly action and backwoods mysticism is odd, as is the story's progress from larky escapades to increasingly grim consequences, and Craven never quite manages to make it all seem a smoothly integrated piece.

The "cute" kids are insufferable, but leads Ali Khan and Mukerji radiate the unabashed star quality that's all but gone from American movies -- poverty and desperation haven't looked so glamorous since the glory days of Joan Crawford.

Bold and unforgettable meditation on a truly bizarre incident that pokes at the very heart of one of our culture's biggest taboos.

It's as laceratingly entertaining as its predecessor.

Stylish and surprisingly effective thriller.

The best thing about Fracture is the way in which it defies genre cliches and turns all Hopkins' mannerisms into assets.

If you can get past the lips, Ryan gives a touching performance as a woman determined to battle her cancer while knowing life offers no guarantees except death -- an understanding no doubt sharpened by Kasdan's own experience battling Hodgkin's disease as a teenager.

Andrew Neel's fascinating but troubling documentary about his famous grandmother is more than a mere biography of an important 20th-century artist: It's also an intimate portrait of a family member that questions whether or not "great artist" and "good parent" can ever be combined in the same person.

Little Acuna -- who looks even younger than 11 -- gives a sweetly unaffected performance as the beleaguered child.

The films of writer/director Francis Veber are a bracing reminder that French comedies can be every bit as broad, unsophisticated and cliched as their American counterparts.

However you feel about her character and what she may or may not have done, Tamblyn's portrayal of Stephanie Daley is softly devastating.

The younger actors bring varying degrees of experience to bear on their roles, but all capture the desperation beneath their characters' tough fronts, while the NYC locations are suitably depressing.

Academy Award-winning live-action-short director Andrea Arnold makes a startlingly assured debut with this low-key psychological chiller.

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.

It's undone by a murky palette, silly horror-movie cliches, dumb dialogue and a confusing climactic sequence.

Todd Komarnicki's screenplay relies heavily on red herrings and a host of suspects (there are more murderers swanning around Hill's sleek offices than there were aboard the Orient Express) to keep audiences distracted from what, in retrospect, is really pretty obvious.

The lesson is that money can buy a vanity project, but it can't buy talent, imagination or an audience.

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.

Resnais cuts constantly between the various narrative threads, signaling each change of scene with a superimposed shower of snowflakes; it's a highly artificial device, and a deceptively lovely one that reinforces the sense that all Ayckbourn's characters are slowly succumbing to an emotional chill.

It may sound as if first-time director White is having his fun at the expense of introverted, asocial people who prefer the company of cats and dogs and gravitate toward animal-rights activism because the very idea of dealing with human problems requires an empathy they can't muster. But empathy is exactly what makes the film work.