Spheeris succeeds in creating a touching portrait, although the depressing nature of their dead-end, emotionally numb lives offers little hope for a cheerful resolution.

The film's crisp photography and energetic soundtrack liven up a mystery that occasionally defies logic and at other times is transparent--but that never loses our interest, primarily because of Washington's masterfully understated performance.

Well-plotted action, but as in most of Leone's films scenes seem to have been deleted from the American prints.

If his ambitious first feature isn't entirely successful, it nevertheless poses genuinely provocative questions and opens a window into the way the 9/11 disaster looks from outside the U.S.

Hughes, though he gives the material a sense of fun and achieves several moments of genuine warmth, too often resorts to obvious cliches, stereotypes, and easy answers, and throws in the near-obligatory rock video as well.

Much of the film is shot from a dog's-eye view, and this technique works perfectly. The human actors are okay but not as cool as the canine star, a veteran of TV's Petticoat Junction series.

Although Benny used this film as a running gag on his radio show for years (claiming it had ruined his movie career), there are some comic gems here, especially in the smash finale.

Be warned: the silly songs are damnably catchy, from Gerrit's ode to the seventeen pigeons he keeps on the roof, which he sings while sporting a very tight set of white undergarments, to the rousing "Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster."

Nobody shows much evidence of acting ability, and the script is full of holes. Nonstop action is what these films are about, and that's what you get here.

Bleak political parable.

This is a film worth seeing, and LaBute is a filmmaker well worth watching.

Michael Meeropol provides a far more eloquent statement of the song's enduring impact: "Until the last racist is dead, 'Strange Fruit' is relevant."

You don't have to be Jewish to love Jonathan Kesselman's uneven, profane and occasionally flat-out hilarious parody of vintage blaxploitation pictures, but it helps.

This amiable comedy may not be hugely sophisticated, but Hogan does manage to make his attractive leads look like complete idiots, no mean achievement in image-obsessed Hollywood.

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

A supremely slick piece of entertainment where style triumphs over substance.

The look is utterly faithful to Tezuka's aesthetic -- he loved classic Disney animation, especially "Bambi" (1942) -- but it's hard to empathize with the angst of a character who looks like a Super Mario Brother.

Not surprisingly, the film is strongest when its characters are simply hanging out, shooting the breeze and venting their feelings, while moments of high drama occasionally fall flat.

Great cast plays the whole thing with tongue in cheek.

There's little new here, but uniformly powerful performances (especially Owen's) give the tale unexpected power and depth, and the exotic details--like the elaborate tribal tattoos worn by Nig's gang, or the Maori chants Boogie learns in reform school--make the Heke family's descent into misery seem fresher than it otherwise might.

This anti-thriller radiates dread rather than suspense; it delivers creeping apprehension rather than adrenaline-pumping kicks, and the uniformly strong and finely calibrated performances more than compensate for the absence of technical razzle-dazzle.

Terrific acting and fearless direction transform what might have been a silly exercise in the slightly spooky into a somber and deeply romantic mystery.

Writer-director Pan Nalin's film is at its best when he focuses on the meticulous, hands-on preparation of herb- and mineral-based drugs; it's also genuinely provocative to hear Ayurvedists argue that healing should be a vocation rather than a career.

A fairly serious psychodrama rendered in cartoon images.

A powerful and complex performance by Connery is somewhat weakened by Lumet's typically stiff and stagey direction, which tends to sap the life out of the film.

Cinematographer Ken Kelsch, Ferrara's frequent collaborator, picks up the theme of overlapping lives by layering images within scenes -- the ongoing interplay of reflections and shadows is breathtaking -- and through slow, shimmering dissolves.

Superior drive-in exploitation fare.

With a concept as thin as this, Planes, Trains and Automobiles could have easily become a repetitious bore. Instead, producer-director-writer Hughes infuses his film with an appealing sense of sentiment and humanity--not to mention many hilarious scenes.