It's just a clever, pointed little fable about the price of complacent conformity, slavish worship of the status quo, and trading freedom for the illusion of safety, wrapped in a sugary-sweet, Jordan-almond-colored coating that looks good enough to eat.

Beautifully filmed, but extremely painful examination of the African slave trade takes a difficult position: Rather than focusing on the white European superstructure, Ivory Coast director Roger Gnoan M'bala focuses on African complicity in the capture and selling of African people.

Hugely entertaining.

Huppert's performance leans a bit heavily on the moist-in-the-eyes motif, but it's terrific none-the-less.

This gentle comedy marks the feature directing debut of writer Peter Hedges, a gifted writer who's perhaps best known for the screenplay based on his novel "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."

The screenplay just isn't funny: Most jokes fall flat and just lie there in a pool of their own sick. And while Zwigoff's deadpan pacing was perfect for the wry, sophisticated humor of "Ghost World," here it's a comedy killer; that extra beat after each new outrage is just long enough for viewers to realize just how sad and disturbing it all is.

Director Robert Benton effectively re-creates depression-era Texas in this moving tale that landed the second Oscar for Field.

What you're seeing isn't wire work or CGI -- it's stunt choreography, beautifully executed, flawlessly cut together and brainlessly thrilling.

An offbeat and in some ways, more daring variation on vampirism

Keshishian's straightforward style allows a number of readings: he may flatter The Material Girl, but he also manages to do something much more complicated and engaging.

Both a biographical portrait and an exploration of the tradition of Jewish liturgical music in America.

The final scenes pack a surprising melodramatic punch.

An affectionate adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel that beautifully evokes the seamy side of 1940s Los Angeles via superb production design and the same period atmosphere cinematographer Alonzo previously evoked for Chinatown.

Director Cassavetes here applies his remarkable talent for social observation in a light-comedy context and creates one of the strangest, and in many ways most frustrating, screen comedies in recent years.

The film's flippant style ultimately undermines its material - Rosen's decision not to immediately identify interviewees is especially irritating - and, ironically, makes the American art scene of the '60s appear as shallow and trendy as its detractors always claimed it was.

Long expert at unforgettable characterizations, Techine turns his talents toward creating an evocative sense of time and mood.

The movie opens with the dismal statistic that most teachers quit after three years. Akel and Mass see the humor in the situation, but the laughs are small and sad.

The film may be lighter in tone than Imamura's more recent work, but it still has a number of serious things to say about life in contemporary Japan.

Gosling is the film's salvation: He really is good enough to make this underwritten fantasy feel as though it amounts to something. But it doesn't.

A delirious fever dream of pulp-western conventions by way of 1950s Hollywood melodrama, Thai filmmaker Wisit Sasanatieng surreal oddity unfolds in heavily manipulated colors so rich they seem ready to leap off the screen, punctuated by spasms of over-ripe dialogue, floridly dramatic songs and maniacal villainous laughter.

The film's underlying notion, that imperfection is the essence of humanity and the pursuit of bland flawlessness a kind of soul-killing drug, is far more compelling than its story of clichéd teen angst.

Though the political lesson drives the movie, the action is also effective as the odd couple flees from their oppressors. This is an engrossing depiction of racial tensions and an oppressive penal system.

Director/co-screenwriter Rob Cohen shrewdly opts for a three-tiered approach to the biographical material, making DRAGON a poignant interracial love story, a thrilling kung-fu flick, and a surreal fantasy in the which the hero literally confronts his inner demons. Jason Scott Lee captures his subject perfectly, and his handling of the action scenes is particularly impressive. The result is one of the most purely enjoyable American films in recent years.

Despite its interesting, grim tone and undeniably striking visuals from director Burton and production designer Furst, the film fails to synthesize its strengths into a compelling whole.

The flashy spectacle of intersecting narratives and its crosscutting and fractured chronology nearly overwhelms the film's simple message, in this case that despite divisions of language, race and geography, we're all connected.

Saturday Night Live veteran Chris Kattan more or less steals the film as the racially confused Mr. Feather, a white supremacist bad guy whose speech patterns tend to get down and funky against his will.

At heart an emotionally rich look at mothers and their daughters.

Indeed, all of the performers in the film truly shine, and all of them can probably thank Sam Mendes for creating an ideal environment.