Juvenile and pointless.

Director Jesse Peretz, onetime bassist for The Lemonheads, cut his teeth on music videos and appears to have embraced the austere aesthetics of Dogme 95 filmmakers without comprehending that an interesting story and well-developed characters are supposed to be part of the package.

Director Nancy Savoca's no-frills record of a show forged in still-raw emotions captures the unsettled tenor of that post 9-11 period far better than a more measured or polished production ever could.

The film is filled with the kind of choreographed carnage that became synonymous with Hong Kong action during the genre's heyday, but there's an elegiac self-consciousness to it all that acknowledges that while the best is behind us, there's still something to be said about its passing.

Performances are really what count in a character-driven romantic comedy like this, and each is well above the indie average.

So while the facts of Frank's actual political career tend to fall by the wayside, Everly treats us to an insightful look at a remarkable public figure who first became famous for what he does in private.

Even with all its flaws, Johnny Dangerously has many genuinely funny moments, and if you're in the mood for silliness, you won't stop laughing.

Interestingly, the real heart of the film is in the finely drawn adult characters.

A good concept fails to become a good movie in this predictable tale of corruption in college basketball, featuring the ubiquitous superstar and corporate pitchman Shaquille O'Neal.

Not even the always reliable Diane Lane can save this one.

The primary difference between the original and the remake is that the latter is in color, though a deliberately subdued color. In addition, the zombies created by Everett Burrell and John Vulich, are far more elaborate than those in the first film.

Good, dirty, escapist fun.

The movie almost seems the same as the Bride herself--begun with all the correct parts, but eventually self-destructing. Before it falls apart, however, The Bride of Re-Animator does still have time for a number of clever, outrageous bits.

THE STAR would have been a much better film if all its loose ends had been gathered. As it is, the ending is too curt and too convenient to bring the tale to a close with a ring of truth.

Though Estevez's achievement doesn't quite live up to his ambitions -- the climax of Altman's "Nashville" (1975) evokes the same brutal loss of innocence to more shattering effect -- it still contains enough powerful moments to balance the weaker sections.

It's basically a one-joke comedy that spins out of control once the joke's over, but the cast is likable, the women smart, and one can't argue with the important safe-sex message.

This film exposes a more insidious kind of exploitation, one far more difficult to detect.

A sensitive, thought-provoking story involving a man forced to look at himself as youth gives way to middle age. Elliott is outstanding as the title character, an old-timer in the profession at age 30.

Sadly, this inane vehicle was not worthy of the talents of the two great vets.

This is a poignant if predictable take on the English class system, buoyed by an effervescent performance from Walters.

Like "Secret Things," the film is ultimately infuriating, subtle, self-indulgent, astute and disingenuous, which makes for great -- if divisive -- conversation.

With this perceptive, however bloody, film, Ishii makes it disturbingly clear that a culturally instilled sense of shame and fear of being shunned mean that women like Chihiro are doubly victimized, both by their attackers and the society that should protect them.

It's all pretty entertaining in a shallow sort of way.

It differs from American films about the period in its evocation of day-to-day passion. The power of beauty is often dealt with in films, but not so often its powerful curse.

Thoroughly old-fashioned entertainment.

One promising note, however, was that the character of Freddy Krueger had recovered some of the evil edge he lost in previous installments.

Suicide, child molestation, corruption, insanity and the faintest implication of incest are wound around the film's suggestion that the cure for modern-day alienation and anomie lies in embracing traditional Japanese culture, like ritual tattooing.

Although Brown (Endless Summer) captured the beauty and fun of his favorite sport in his "surfumentaries," Milius, whose work always seems underlain with weighty symbolic intent, infuses Big Wednesday with heavy-handed philosophy and all-around stupidity.