It's a cut above the throng of mindless, purported thrillers in which explosions and gun battles replace even rudimentary story telling.

Berlevag's 1300 inhabitants are by nature hardy and uncomplaining, but Knut Erik Jensen's unhurried documentary reveals that there's more to them than mere stoicism.

Get Shorty's assortment of lowlifes and high rollers is a familiar one, but it's still deeply satisfying.

This is a wonderfully simple idea that succeeds very well indeed: take a bunch of kids from New York's High School of Performing Arts and let them strut their stuff. Fame shows us how much life there still is in moribund genres like the musical.

It lacks "Fingers" searing, explosive vitality.

Though clearly shot on a shoestring, it's handsome, tightly written and generally well acted.

The film has some excellent sight gags, some old jokes, and two winning performances from Dreyfuss and Landsberg, who could very well be a comedy team to reckon with, if their next pictures are handled better by the distributor.

This film is one of the most effective tearjerkers ever made and is given sophistication and style by its consummate lead actors.

It's alternately stimulating and exhausting.

For all the blood spilt -- and there are gallons of it -- this is a surprisingly understated thriller.

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

It's an exercise in star turns, surrounded by elephantine blandness. The supporting cast look, and act, like refugees from Disney or Oral Roberts University, handpicked not to ruffle the star.

From the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and the president's opposition to the morning-after pill to his pandering to fundamentalist family groups, Cho has all things Bush-related in her crosshairs, and she's taking no prisoners.

Though some consider this one of Eugene O'Neill's finest plays, The Iceman Cometh does not translate well to the screen. No matter what Frankenheimer pulled from his bag of directorial tricks, the work remains stagey and talky on celluloid; even the majestic talent of March cannot turn it around.

A great premise which doesn't quite deliver what it promises but it's fun anyway.

Shimizu generates a sense of palpable dread in each segment, expertly manipulating tried-and-true scare tactics supplemented by a truly inspired use of spooky sound effects.

The movie isn't "Blade Runner," but it's got some provocative ideas about the implications of cloning in a market-driven, capitalist society.

With its dream cast, standard story and heaps of class, this is the kind of sophisticated heist flick that could be just as easily at home in 1951 as it is in 2001.

Hayley Mills plays twins in this innocent, fast-paced comedy, a favorite of countless youngsters in the 1960s. An enjoyable, corny Disney picture with a memorable soundtrack featuring tunes sung by Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello.

The interactions between the raspy-voiced Hurt and various shallowly cheerful Americans are genuinely charming and dynamic.

Ratnam, known for integrating controversial cultural and political themes into popular melodramas, bundles a multitude of coming-of-age traumas into the kind of juicy, overwrought narrative that was once a Hollywood staple.

But the film soars when the stunning Jennifer Lopez beams and struts her stuff in a series of exhilarating performance sequences; she's a glitzy, thrilling icon a la the made-over Olivia Newton-John of Grease.

Balaban and Nairn are radiant, with none of the mannerisms that so often make Hollywood actresses look like Stepford teens.

Even during the most intense moments, it's hard to shake the impression that the conspicuously buff-and-polished Justine is only visiting this drab world, her miserable life an interesting career move.

Ambitious thriller, which never quite lives up to its aspirations or its cast.

This fast-moving gangster picture was typical of the Warner Bros. releases of the 1930s: lots of shooting, action, and romance, all crammed into a brief 78 minutes as overseen by supervisor Sam Bischoff who went on to be the producer of such epics as THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, THE PHENIX CITY STORY, among others.

The film is marvelously acted all around, and the fact that there isn't a false note in the entire film is especially impressive given Kureishi's melodramatic contrivances and the fact that his characters are clichés whose behaviors are predictable at nearly every turn.

A delicate watercolor dream of a ghost story, as insubstantial and tremulously haunting as an unquiet spirit.