The film often teeters on the brink of melodrama and is saddled with a sappy original score.

Overall, it's a curiously lifeless affair.

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.

He (Allen) seems to have forgotten that comedy is all about timing, letting individual scenes meander -- often to accommodate his own stammering monologues -- and giving viewers far too much downtime in which to consider the staleness of many of the film's gags.

This fast-paced entertainment is a surprisingly successful mix of spectacle and human-scale drama.

This film represents a perfect match of filmmaker and material. Akerman's fondness for long, static takes and circular, recurring dialogue perfectly suits the maddening repetitions that set the tone of Proust's darkest work.

Marker revisited (the film) in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union: He trimmed an hour and added a remarkably prescient coda: "Terrorism has replaced Communism as the ultimate evil."

This deliriously unsettling film evokes H.P. Lovecraft's exquisitely creepy stories of encroaching madness -- not so much in story terms but in its perversely spooky ambience -- with a subtle dose of David Lynch's dark sense of humor.

Adapted from Kirsty Gunn's acclaimed novel, New Zealand director Christine Jeff's debut feature is a small masterpiece of atmosphere.

With its thumping soundtrack, absence of body hair and a camera that practically pants over every bulge, curve and crack of the male form, the film is really closer to porn than a serious critique of what's wrong with this increasingly pervasive aspect of gay culture.

Interestingly, the real horror lies in the film's depiction of the era: The sight of guillotined bodies -- naked, headless and dumped under the shady trees of Picpus -- is truly shocking. Rarely has the horror of the Terror been so graphically and effectively evoked.

The film is graphic without being lurid, and the naked emotions onscreen are far more shocking than the naked bodies -- though there are plenty of those, in all shapes and sizes.

The truth of the matter is that, given the thoroughly manipulative, red-herring plot twists that get her to the happy ending, most audience members will have ceased to care about whether she lives or dies long before the matter is settled onscreen.

If the sign of good documentary is its ability to enthrall you regardless of your prior interest in the subject, then Stacy Peralta's hugely entertaining film earns high marks.

While the homeless, the mentally ill and the generally downtrodden are scattered about like so much shabby furniture, Rifkin has no qualms about wallowing in their filth, but he misses the tragedy of their lives -- just as he misses everything else.

Its misogyny, homophobia and overall grossness undermine the tired gags, and its relentless portrayal of African-American women as money-grubbing hootchie mamas (the sole exception is, of course, Dre's mom) would be wholly unacceptable if a white filmmaker had been at the helm.

Despite the futuristic setting, which relies so heavily on GGI effects that it looks like a feature-length production concept painting, this film is painfully predictable.

This is a thoroughly conventional story of one man's search for redemption in the neon slime; its multiple flashback structure is just a way of parceling out information, not a device used to undermine the narrative.

Vulgar doesn't begin to describe it: Try one of the foulest, least funny films ever made under the rubric of black comedy.

In a film in which the star talks graphically about the size of her vagina and ex-lovers appear as themselves to call her a whore, there might be such a thing as too much honesty.

If a year in the life of a university department head doesn't sound like the stuff of a riveting documentary, please allow this stirring film by husband and wife filmmakers Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson to change your mind.

Given his way with witty banter, Stoppard's obvious, even leaden, dialogue is especially disappointing; director Michael Apted's handling of the story's frequent flashbacks is equally infelicitous.

Sensitive, extraordinarily well-acted drama.

The few minutes of footage devoted to a performance by bona fide jazz artist "Little" Jimmy Scott, an eccentric cult favorite, is more genuinely evocative than anything else in the film

Funny without out ever making fun, Vardalos mixes elements of ethnic stand-up, Cinderella romance and Bridget Loves Bernie-style situation comedy, all grounded in something very real.

It's impossible to overstate how deeply dumb all of this is, but it skims along at a brisk clip and manages not to overdo the nudge-nudge, wink-wink humor.

There's nothing blatantly wrong with it (except perhaps the red-assed baboon ex machina), but it's 100% shock-free and coasts to a formulaic conclusion.

Bielinsky's feature debut is a smart, enormously entertaining thriller whose preposterous conclusion in no way diminishes the fun of getting there.