Valuable as a fine performance of an important and delightful play, MAJOR BARBARA makes for bracingly intelligent cinema.

This hard-hitting crime film, based upon the notorious career of one-time New York City vice lord Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was a tour de force for Davis who had just battled Warner Bros. to a standstill in a contract dispute.

An uncanny and thoroughly creepy nip-yuck nightmare about plastic surgery and identity.

In the end it remains an academic exercise, though a dazzlingly ambitious one that’s well worth seeing.

Overall, the filmmakers are a little too reverent -- it would have been interesting to hear Derrida respond to criticism leveled against deconstruction as an academic methodology -- but then again, they're not entirely in control here.

Occasionally melodramatic, it's also extremely effective.

(Valli) brings an ethnographer's eye for detail to a plot that amounts to little more than the good old generation gap.

It's clever, in a "dare you to name this hommage" kind of way, but it's fundamentally heartless and coldly hollow.

The whole thing has the air of a parlor trick, but it's a good trick, beautifully acted.

A refreshing alternative to the hypertrophied spy thrillers in which exaggerated action sequences, over-the-top super-villainy and high-tech gadgetry trump character and plot.

A sweat-slicked, near-abstract ballet of blood and sand.

Unfortunately, for all its credentials and the virtuoso performances of its three leads, this lengthy movie doesn't add up to much. It fails to explore its themes--love and hedonism, freedom and commitment (political and sexual)--in depth, floating haphazardly from scene to scene without emotional or intellectual development.

De Niro gives a miraculous character performance, much different from the intense brooding loners for which he is renowned. He seems to disappear into this oddball, somewhat repulsive, but ultimately rather touching character. Sandra Bernhard, in her film debut, is nearly as memorable as Rupert's outrageous partner in crime.

Taken as a whole, Robin and Marian is a spotty picture that's sometimes satirical, a trifle pretentious, occasionally exciting.

The first of the witty, well-produced sex comedies featuring Day and Hudson.

Béart and Berling are both superb, while Huppert -- imperious as a woman who turns her world into a moral prison to prove a point -- is magnificent.

Cornish's raw, nuanced performance and Shortland's sympathetic but unsentimental portrayal of Heidi's fumbling steps toward maturity are underscored by Sydney-based band Decoder Ring's catchy, angst-ridden score.

The intentionally artificial campiness of the story eventually becomes touching, as it's played out against the sound of The Platters singing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and The Great Pretender.

You'll feel lucky for such a comprehensive introduction to Turkish music.

The unrelenting tempo is bolstered by Rodriguez's camera work and editing: nearly every frame seems to have been shot with a careening, handheld camera, and they're cut together in a skillful, fluid fashion that enhances the tension and pace of the 80-minute chase.

It's a surprisingly uplifting experience, and in the end, unmistakably a Kiarostami film.

Solid, old-fashioned narrative moviemaking with just enough no-budget cachet to disguise its essential blandness.

Brilliantly edited from well over 100 hours of tape, the final two-hour film recalls Michael Apted's 7 UP series.

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

If this were a more mainstream film with a shot at a wider audience, we'd probably be talking Oscar nominations for Futterman and Ball.

For all its tongue-in-cheek toying with images, it doesn't reward attempts at serious intellectual analysis. It has the air of a surprisingly juvenile lark, a pop-influenced prank whose charms are immediately apparent and wear thin with repetition.

Wrenching documentary.

With a screenplay from first-time screenwriter E. Max Frye and superior performances from his principal cast, Demme has created a unique and likable film.