Dark, cynical, but deliciously funny, Heathers is a fascinating look not just at high school but at the way we look at high school.

By the time Reilly's shaggy life story winds down, it's hard not to wish he'd been your friend, too.

Screenwriter Curt Siodmak patched together the legend of the werewolf by combining elements from lycanthropic folklore, witchcraft, and Bram Stoker's Dracula, creating a new monster for the screen. All elements combined to make a thrilling, scary, and ultimately tragic horror classic.

Their voyage through the body's bloodstream past assorted organs was created by inventive special effects that make this one of the more visually interesting science fiction films of its era.

Many of the sketches show the Pythons' deranged, offbeat humor at its best, but the film begins to pale long before the end and relies on some revolting bits such as a "live" organ transplant and the spectacular (and graphic) explosion of an obese glutton.

Epic, meticulously researched and ultimately disappointing, Martin Scorsese's bloody valentine to the birth of his beloved city is less than the sum of its parts.

Too bad Australian actress Griffiths ("Hilary and Jackie," "Six Feet Under") is as underused as Amy Madigan was in "Field of Dreams": She mastered a realistic Texan twang for the role.

Newcomer Cassidy is excellent, and Hoskins gives a flawless performance.

A rare treat for anyone interested in the American folk revival of early 1960s.

This sleepyheaded atmosphere, augmented by the languid songs of Lou Reed and Arab Strap, hangs so heavily over the film that the viewer is lulled into a state dangerously close to unconsciousness.

Beautifully shot on location in Kenya and filled with touching, almost magical moments, Link's film has been nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

The success of this effect, which helps elevate the movie above a classy disease-of-the-week saga, rests firmly on Russell Crowe's performance, and it's a strikingly good and moving one.

This stodgy film version of the famous Broadway success was one performance too many.

Filmed as the Beatles were crumbling under the weight of their own legend, LET IT BE is a milder film than its reputation suggests.

Highly sentimental social soaper, subtly crafted by director Stahl.

Fueled by an intense and intricate performance by O'Quinn, the movie is a fascinating examination of America's predilection for appearances over substance.

Seeing it once is fine, but seeing it every day for the rest of your life is not recommended.

Frankenheimer pulls out all the stops to lend excitement to the racing footage--splitting the screen into ever smaller increments, mounting cameras to the cars to get shots taken inches above the track, and using slow motion--but ultimately his obsession with technique becomes wearying, and the plot is simply not interesting enough to stand on its own.

Koyaanisqatsi asks the viewers to ponder their relationship to a social system that has come to dominate them rather than serve them. Much of the film is exhilarating and beautiful in a way that may seem counterproductive to that end. But the cumulative effect is more meditative than frightening. It's not a world-shaking film, but it is an affecting one.

Kassell's visual influences are evident -- she's clearly a fan of the down-and-dirty films of the '70s -- but the consistently fine performances smooth over the rough patches.

Sentimental, manipulative, predictable and utterly charming.

First-time writer-director Rian Johnson's gimmick is that his SoCal teens talk like film-noir yeggs and dames, slinging hard-boiled shade and spitting out terse, rat-a-tat dialogue peppered with slang that was yesterday's news 40 years before they were born. But the result is, against all odds, marvelously entertaining.

The material is well served by director Roman Polanski, who knows well how to instill a subtle, claustrophobic sense of dread in an audience and has put together a rather elegant potboiler.

In Koepp's comedic variation on a similar theme, the dead are not just unhappy -- they're irritatingly needy.

Falls far short of its grim potential.

Fictional but frighteningly realistic.

It's amusing more often than it isn't, largely because the cast is so nonchalant and, well, French about everything.

The plot unfolds exactly as you expect, but Gedeck imbues Martha with a remarkably subtlety of spirit.