The script never resolves the different levels on which it tries to operate, and also throws in too many loose ends which never get cleared up.

A fantastic symphony of decay (Decay + Fantasia = Decasia), simultaneously heartbreakingly beautiful and exquisitely sad, pieced together from snippets of old films on the verge of oblivion.

General audiences will regret the absence of titles identifying various clips and interviewees, but Fellini fans will want to eat the whole thing up with a spoon.

A scary, intelligent thriller that remains haunting long after it's over...features what has to be one of the creepiest first half-hours in recent film history.

Moore's desperate need for attention is irritating, but it's also his strength as a gadfly; it drives him to needle sacred cows and received wisdom that would otherwise go unchallenged.

It's lavish, clever entertainment, a welcome opportunity to laugh without shame.

Hugely entertaining, globe-trotting documentary.

Blaze may be the least sleazy movie about whoring since The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Paul Newman stars as Louisiana governor Earl K. Long in this sanitized romance adapted by director Ron Shelton from the autobiography of Blaze Starr, the Bourbon Street stripper who supposedly stole Long's heart.

Yes, it's another gay coming-of-age while coming-out drama, but rarely has the subject been so truthfully addressed.

With 20/20 9/11 hindsight, it's clear that covertly arming the Mujahedeen wasn’t such a good idea after all, but neither Nichols nor Sorkin wants to spoil the fun.

Often rings painfully true, but would have benefited from judicious editing.

A consistently hilarious parody of the noir and detective genres, expertly blending classic archival footage with the action.

Matters become increasingly contrived as the film collapses in exhaustion from thematic overload. Still it's a fairly impressive achievement as a whole.

An excellent low-budget horror film from director Sole, whose impressive grasp of filmmaking technique and eye for the grotesque keeps the viewer on edge throughout the movie.

This is a heartwarming film, superbly directed by ex-actor Tony Bill. Makepeace is excellent as the slight protagonist, and Baldwin is perfect as the brooding, misunderstood mammoth. Dave Grusin's score adds immeasurably to the tone.

Adapted (with some changes) by Roald Dahl from his famous children's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka creates a marvelous world as close to heaven as any kid can imagine and never talks down to its young audience. The film is sometimes dark in its tone but by the end (when Wonka's motives and true nature are revealed) it is fabulously uplifting.

A weird picture based on a slim novel by Carson McCullers, this movie fails to engender any sympathy or interest due to several miscalculations.

Weighty and downbeat though that sounds, Delpy's film is delightfully light, especially when it's parsing the infinite variety of horrible French cabbies.

In addition to its views on the glamorization of serial murder, MAN BITES DOG offers a wicked send up of notoriously talky French filmmaking--the most unbelievable thing about the movie's narrative conceit isn't that the crew is calmly shooting a vicious serial murderer as he goes about his business, but that they've chosen to follow the unbearable Ben. His loathsome, self-absorbed monologues are torment worthy of the ninth circle of Hell, but with a cup of black coffee and a supply of smelly cigarettes he could pass at any cafe for a run-of-the-mill French intellectual.

Using long takes, largely improvised dialogue and an increasingly out-of-joint time frame, Van Sant chronicles the final hours of fictional but Cobain-like rock star Blake.

The only criticism that can possibly be leveled at Black's film is its narrow focus, but it's not hard to extrapolate.

Barney has been criticized as willfully esoteric, but if traditional meaning is once again elusive in this film, it remains an enthralling aesthetic experience, one that's steeped in mystery and a ravishing, baroque beauty.

The end result is a series of stylish vignettes, some entertaining and all variations on essentially the same theme.

An excellent introduction to the subject, and a movie buff's delight.

MacGregor demonstrates just how far he's come as an actor. Swinton, meanwhile, adds another notch to a resume already crowded with good performances.

The film rests on Depp's evocation of Barrie's gentle, playfulness and deeply buried sorrows; it's difficult to imagine another actor so gracefully evoking Barrie's childlike qualities without seeming creepy or emotionally malformed, and only the hard of heart will come away dry-eyed.

One is left with an unsettling ambivalence about the night's awful events -- there are no absolute villains here, just as there are no total victims -- and much of the credit is due to the performances.

What might have been a trite soap opera is elevated to the status of superior emotional drama by a wise script, sensitive direction, and an Oscar-winning performance by de Havilland.