Despite its shortcomings, it's an effective clarion call that will no doubt stir audiences to action, even if it doesn't quite prepare them for the important battle ahead.

Werner Herzog's self-proclaimed "science-fiction fantasy" is a meticulously constructed fiction made from a combination of real-life footage repurposed in ways a conventional documentarian couldn't imagine.

Schnabel at least manages to tell a fairly coherent story. The bad news: It's not a very interesting story, and Schnabel doesn't have the chops to make it one by sheer strength of filmmaking prowess.

Only a riveting performance by Jodie Foster lifts THE ACCUSED above the level of a television movie.

Ron Shelton's second outing since his breakout success with Bull Durham aims to be a high-energy remake of The Hustler in a street-basketball setting, but succeeds only intermittently.

Catania and Ignacio's film works best on the level of straightforward biography told through the reminiscences of friends, family, members of Busch's Lost-in-Limbo theatrical troupe and, best of all, Busch himself.

Preminger's heavy-handed adaptation of a Broadway triumph combines gorgeous music with risible lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; the project is saved by a terrific cast.

Victor McLaglen gave the performance of his life as the scar-faced betrayer, Gypo Nolan, in this telling adaptation of Liam O'Flaherty's novel, directed by John Ford.

Those who lived through the 1960s will enjoy this more than those who haven't, but in the final analysis, Godspell is generally a disappointing film version of a small musical that rocked audiences with its fervor.

THE HARVEY GIRLS has a little of everything: songs, dance, action, romance, and the triumph of virtue and chastity over the forces of saloondom.

Director Brest does a great job with a sensitive subject, drawing fine performances from everyone.

A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend 101 minutes.

Although Body Snatchers is a competent genre piece with Freudian fillips, there's little there to justify another go-round for what is by now very familiar material.

The film's main attractions are the Charlottes, but the price of watching their eerie psychological pas de deux is to endure muddled metaphors and goofy gadgetry.

All the paraphernalia so important to the image of the Reich, particularly the uniforms, are painstakingly rendered, bringing a heightened sense of realism to what might otherwise have been a romantic coming-of-age tale.

Demonstrating just how different literature and filmmaking can be, filmmaker-turned-writer-turned filmmaker Dai Sijie botches an adaptation of his own best-selling short novel.

It may be long, but it's not boring -- how could it be when jack o' lanterns float lazily overhead in the dining hall, and the venerable Maggie Smith turns into a cat?

One conclusion is inescapable. You have really seen something you don't see every day.

The filmmakers don't shy away from discussing their frustrations with censorship or the depiction of women, but their work raises interesting questions about the ways in which restrictions can sometimes facilitate artistry and lead to a deeper consideration of the film's subject.

The film's real strength lies in two excellent performances, from veteran Morse and up-and-comer Gosling.

Rain Man rises above the banality of its concept--another buddy movie crossbred with a road picture--to become a genuinely moving and intelligent look at what it means to be human.

It's an excellent introduction to a man whose thoughts on war, peace and dissent have become increasingly influential in ever more confusing times.

Overall, Owen and Law are more nuanced than Roberts and Portman, but Portman's dewy youth is 90 percent of Alice (the remaining 10 is an eleventh-hour twist), and Nichols uses the unkindly costumed Roberts so skillfully that her performance looks like a revelation.

The larger message remains clear: Unified communities have more power than they realize, and the most vicious enemy of progress is learned helplessness.

While Canadian writer-director Eric Nicholas has no fresh thoughts about the voyeuristic nature of movie going, he knows enough to make sure when high-tech peeper Doug (Colin Hanks, son of Tom) conceals his camera in a bag, its lens pokes out of the zipper like the big, fat metaphor it is.

Released simultaneously in the U.S. with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-nominated fictional thriller "The Lives of Others," this chilling 82-minute documentary about three souls destroyed by the Stasi, the notorious secret police of East Germany, puts a cold, factual gloss on what might otherwise be taken for fiction.

The fifth picture of the Pink Panther series, this wasn't as good as most of the others. It's a bit too unfocused, and the scenes shift to locations all over the world, like a comic version of a James Bond movie, but a good cast led by Sellers, under Edwards' direction, still provides plenty of laughs.

Beatty mercilessly lampoons his own offscreen image in a bumptious comedy of manners that turns persuasively sombre at the end.