Mississippi Burning is visually splendid. Director Parker and his crew have created a film that is unquestionably watchable. As a history lesson, however, it's laughable.

Mike Nichols, in his first venture into movies since "The Fortune," elicited superlative performances from the actors, particularly Streep and stage veteran Sudi Bond.

Its brightly colored surfaces and chirpy, picaresque tone notwithstanding, filmmaker Ra'anan Alexandrowciz's first feature is a scathing condemnation of the rampant venality he perceives as having gripped his country.

It presents an image of today's Israeli army, composed of teenagers who are by now several generations removed from the founders' original vision and have begun to question whether tactics designed to keep the country safe will only lead to increased levels of fear, humiliation and deadly violence.

With its attractive cast, beguiling score and relatively straightforward narrative, this dark fable of letters and lust is one of Greenaway's most accessible works.

Sydney Pollack's film is a solid, absorbing drama that, in profiling the damage that can result from investigative reporting, presents a counterpoint to All The President's Men.

Rapp's snappy, loquacious and catty script gives the predominantly female ensemble plenty to chew on.

Sweet, likable and consistently engaging, if so insubstantial that it's always on the verge of blowing away.

Both Hesses and a surprisingly large number of their very talented cast and crew are graduates of Brigham Young University's film program: Could BYU one day join the esteemed ranks of USC and NYU?

An extraordinary technical achievement.

Though it clearly explicates the problem, the film is by no means a straightforward documentary.

Ultimately, Coppola's pastel-colored take on Marie's life is beguiling and annoying in equal measure.

Producer Irwin Winkler's directorial debut is a well-intentioned history lesson that may play like a clear-eyed relevation for the last person in the world not yet aware of the period of the Hollywood blacklist. For everyone else, Guilty By Suspicion is a mediocre, pointless non-examination of a paranoid, hysterical historical tragedy.

In the end, sharp writing and terrific performances can't compensate for the fact that the back-and-forth between a sour scribe and a manipulative celebrity doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

It's easy to envision the big-budget remake, but hard to imagine a mainstream American production capturing the original's sour, sweaty immediacy.

The mockumentary conceit gives a vivid immediacy to the material, and the PAL digital video cinematography is often surprisingly lyrical -- certain shots of empty, fog-shrouded San Francisco sites more than make up in eeriness what they lack in special-effects decrepitude.

Directed by Charles Band, the son of Italian trash-master Albert Band and the head of Empire Pictures, Trancers is on the same subgutter, grade-school-mentality level as the rest of Empire's output.

WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU has a consistently engaging narrative that resonates with accuracy and honesty.

Chilling special effects highlight a rather gory production.

What this spectacular-looking sci-fi thriller lacks in originality it makes up for in pure beauty: It just might be the most visually audacious and startlingly beautiful space opera since the original "Solaris."

Although inconsistent in tone, it is an emotionally wrenching account of life on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

Features a first-rate voice cast and state-of-the-art animation that's nothing short of miraculous.

Though too long by a good half hour, Lee's latest film packs a genuine emotional punch, largely because its polemical agenda doesn't entirely eclipse the drama.

This follow-up to THE MUPPET MOVIE and THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER is not as good or as hip as its predecessors, but the Muppet gang remains fairly charming.

This wonderfully touching and funny reminiscence of life in a Catholic boys high school in Brooklyn circa 1965 went mostly unnoticed by critics and moviegoers alike. HEAVEN HELP US is a refreshingly honest portrayal of teenagers. No character is stereotyped, and events turn out differently than expected.

Versatile, highly skilled Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland's poignant drama examines the lingering effects of U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia.

Real Life delivers a pointed critique of the influence of media on our lives; it is also one of the funniest looks at filmmaking ever put on screen.

Preachy and predictable, an afterschool special in all but name.