Chances are you'll watch most of this documentary with both hands over your eyes, but as a window into a particular kind of insanity seizing kids in heartland America it's enthralling.

This otherwise sober film's high ick factor is clearly designed to convince restless students that entomology is extremely cool.

Sad, leisurely road picture.

The story is less a sustained narrative than a series of scenes. But personal dynamics are the main event, and McDormand's powerhouse performance alone compensates for many minor deficiencies.

Slight but affecting.

Filmed in Vancouver (which looks like nobody's idea of the Bronx), the film is a throwback to the hoary chop-socky conventions that gave Hong Kong cinema its shabby reputation.

The high point of the picture is the antics of Merlin; at one point he's hilariously funny in his absentmindedness, and the next he shows his cunning.

Anyone with even a modicum of history awareness knows that Churchill was never kidnaped--which destroys much of the film's suspense. Director Sturges, however, is an excellent craftsman and, with the help of a very good cast, manages to make the proceedings entertaining.

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.

if son Nick's adaptation isn't in the same league with Faces or A Woman Under the Influence, he also can't be accused of dropping the ball: He's just not experienced enough to overcome the structural weaknesses of a sporadically brilliant piece of writing.

Angel Heart is a convoluted combination of film noir and horror that, although expertly filmed by director Alan Parker, seems more an exercise in flashy visuals than mature cinematic storytelling.

Loosely based on the true-life exploits of French spy Philippe de Vosjoli and the 1962 "Sapphire" scandals in which top French officials were uncovered as Soviet agents, the film has a sense of authenticity but fails to fire up as much suspense as most of Hitchcock's intrigues.

Though the raw material is juicy stuff, the details and the larger picture never come together and the cast is uneven.

This was a small, low-budget picture that went straight for the heart and succeeded critically as well as financially.

Its opponents, Arab and Israeli alike, the "wall" is a dispiriting symbol of apartheid and defeat.

Nancy Sinatra sings the wistful title song, and the action scenes are enhanced by some of composer John Barry's best work for the Bond series.

Until the disappointingly conventional ending, in which dad and the head baddie go it mano a mano on the streets, this dark drama -- based on a 1956 Glenn Ford picture of the same name -- negotiates its narrative twists and turns with professional aplomb, even daring to make the hero an arrogant schmuck.

UNDER CAPRICORN is talky and static, with little of Hitchcock's trademark suspense.

Shot in neorealist black-and-white, it opens like a gritty slice of social drama, then takes a sharp turn into bleak, existential horror.

It does consistently remain both totally nuts and totally hilarious.

The film is filled with a languid air of decadence and decay, and a touching sympathy for people whose lives are crushed in the shadows of progress.

The result is fearlessly divisive and will no doubt play according to viewers' preexisting perceptions.

In real life the opportunity to make amends is rare, though the attempt may produce great art. In The Kite Runner, we get neither.

The remake is infinitely more entertaining if you haven't seen "Nine Queens" -- the details are different, but the surprises are the same and something of the first film's underlying darkness has been lost in translation.

Modest, on-the-money performances, which look effortless because they're so meticulously thought out, make the hours fly by.

Neither trite nor pandering, and that's what makes the film better than most of its peers.

Harsh, funny, grim, and, like all Bob Fosse's films, primarily concerned with the intersection of life and showbiz.

Inferior retread.