Carefully scripted and well acted, Stand and Deliver is sentimental and utterly predictable but better than many films of this kind.

Very modest, but surprisingly sweet. The naive escapades of a group of American students studying in France for a year is given a charming, somewhat corny treatment by the authors of AMERICAN GRAFFITI--Huyck (who also directed) and Katz.

Brimming with intriguing concepts and brilliant visual effects, making it a stimulating treat for both the eyes and the intellect.

First-time writer-director Greg Mottola has a real feel for characters, a quality that's in disturbingly short supply among young filmmakers. The Malone family could easily be a one-dimensional collection of sitcom caricatures, but by the movie's end they feel like real people. He also pulls off a tricky shift of tone, from pleasant, mild comedy to something far more bitter and haunting.

Tender Mercies is an episodic gem that offers little in the way of action or melodrama but gets by on fine performances (particularly from Barkin and from Duvall, who does his own singing), atmospheric cinematography, and spare, unglamorous writing.

This is Hunt's show, and she delivers a strong performance that captures all the seriousness and absurdity of the avalanche of circumstances that comes crashing down on April's head. To say she's only half the director she is an actress is actually paying her quite a complement.

A popcorn film that aims to entertain -- nothing more, nothing less -- and it achieves that goal admirably.

Fast-paced and witty, this is Chase's best solo venture to date, and will hold almost anyone's attention for its well-edited 98 minutes. Chase underplays his wackier moments to great effect, though he isn't always quite as funny as he thinks he is. (He also isn't the next Cary Grant, which he seems to believe as well.)

Based on a French play by way of Broadway, Angels is both warm and sophisticated, combining witty, carefree humor with more unabashedly evil undertones. The charmingly hammy performances capture this feeling well: In addition to Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov are especially winning as his partners in crime.

For the most part, the result is a smashing success, filled with great performances and exquisite production design. But those final moments, in which the true nature of the story is revealed, are an unmitigated disaster.

The bitter-sweet story of young lovers caught up in an political struggle waged by farmers against the grain trade, the banks and the railroads, NORTHERN LIGHTS brings back a forgotten era of American history and evokes the austere beauty of the Northern Plains.

A visually fascinating rumination on the genre.

A thoroughly captivating romantic adventure in the grand tradition of the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s. With a plot flavored with elements from such classics as the Carole Lombard-Fredric March romp NOTHING SACRED and Frank Capra's delightful masterpiece YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, this Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan outing is writer-director John Patrick Shanley's gift to moviegoers who are tired of films distinctive only for their excessive violence, sex, gutter language, or a combination of all three.

A crisp, well-written cast caper movie sporting some stunning landscapes and a fine core of performances.

First-time writer-director Matthew Porterfield's small-scale, 16mm slice-of-life drama has the hazy, sticky rhythms of a hot summer day and the minimal narrative of a classic European art film.

And though the new Little Princess is a far darker affair than the 1939 version, Mexican-born director Alfonso Cuaron doesn't make it anywhere near as drab and moody as Agnieszka Holland's more artistically and commercially successful The Secret Garden.

An unconventional but rewarding film.

The end result is the very definition of a summer movie: breezy, undemanding and a carefully balanced blend of the familiar and the not-quite-what-you-expected.

The young actors are charming, O'Toole commands every scene he's in, the scenery is lush, and the animals are gorgeous.

The screenplay is a distinct improvement on Crichton's one-dimensional, humorless potboiler. The movie comes closest to thematic coherence in its depiction of something nearly everyone can relate to: the office from hell.

Though the portentous title is taken from the Old Testament -- Elah is where little David took on Goliath -- the film's concerns are painfully timely and forcefully articulated.

It's fun, fast-paced, educational entertainment that's fit for the whole family -- American boys included.

Race to Witch Mountain isn't some kind of action watershed, or science-fiction milestone, but it most certainly is a finely crafted reboot of a franchise that was ripe for an updating.

Audriad's film articulates an uncomfortably familiar vision of a nation desperate enough to believe its own lies, where the copy is inevitably much better than the real thing and heroes are only as genuine as one needs them to be.

The film is partly inspired by SHANE, accentuating the close relationship of hero-worshiping youngster to virtuous gunfighter, and its exterior shooting has the look of a John Ford work, but HONDO stands tall on its own.

Newman's performance is unquestionably the best thing about this brutal portrait of humanity.

Abandoning the gritty realism of his first two films, BLUE COLLAR and HARDCORE, screenwriter-turned-director Schrader here adopted a sleek and stylish approach. The result was one of his most satisfying attempts to mesh a European sensibility and his own obsession with moral drift and emotional alienation.

Aimed squarely at little leaguers and their doting parents, Rookie of the Year is a modest fantasy that makes its comic fable appealing despite sporadic slapstick missteps.