It's easy to view the story of these brothers as a larger metaphor for the relationship between the two Koreas, which gives the film an added resonance that your typical Hollywood war movie wouldn't possess.

It's alternately stimulating and exhausting.

It comes as a huge disappointment, then, that having cast Witherspoon as Miss Sharp, director Mira Nair and Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) were unable to resist that impulse to find 21st-century prototypes in 19th-century literary characters, fictional creations whose values lie not in the way they reflect our own narcissistic times, but the way they reveal so much about their own.

It's actually quite interesting, albeit in a supremely self-conscious and artsy-fartsy way.

Though the specifics of the story may be unfamiliar to Western viewers, its broad outlines and underlying themes are universal, and Christopher Doyle's ravishing cinematography transcends language.

Supremely silly but undeniably fun sequel.

Entirely too convoluted for kids and implausible even by the standards set by the original concept.

It's not easy to make a thriller that's both incredibly convoluted and intensely boring, but director E. Elias Merhige scores on both counts with this lame excuse for a spooky crime story.

The film basically follows Moore and Slater's book, but without the details that reveal the strange complexity of the Bush-Rove symbiosis.

It doesn't help that the cast is populated by unfunny actors, with the possible exception of Evans, who is an appealing presence if not necessarily a great comedienne.

Ethan and Lenny's story is silly, good-natured and full of unlikely moves, just like the titular twister.

Unless you grew up in an Italian-American neighborhood like the one featured in this contrived but pleasant enough comedy, you might not know that "chooch" is slang for jackass, a likeable loser who can't help but screw up.

This rich, complex and surprisingly entertaining film also becomes a meditation on filmmaking and the parallels McElwee finds between cinema and, of all things, smoking.

Bart the Bear shows more versatility in his gender-bending role than Lillard, who trots out his old, tired slacker shtick.

It's sweet-natured, soothing and there's a behind-the-scenes/blooper reel at the end that will reassure anyone worried about the animals' treatment during filming.

Pokey, blood-spattered, cheap-scare-larded prequel.

Deville gently reveals that they're all simultaneously hauntingly fragile and amazingly resilient, their smiles as piercing as any resigned gaze.

Lacks the novel's drier-than-dry bite, but compensates with a strong ensemble cast and a series of glamorous party sequences in which the decor has at least as much depth as the guests.

Though occasionally repetitive, Gramaglia and Fields' admirably evenhanded documentary gives the Ramones the respect they deserve: Fans will be grateful and the uninitiated should listen and learn.

Ironically, as the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman, puts it, Iraq has become what the Bush White House insisted it was at the very beginning, albeit for altogether different reasons: a battlefield in the war against terrorism.

A refreshingly straightforward, conventional approach to the documentary form. (Review of Original Release)

As a treatment of yet another unexplored corner of the Nazi nightmare, the film is revelatory; needless to say it's also heartbreaking.

There isn't a one-note character in the mix, and they respond with haunting, subtle performances that feel utterly natural and unaffected. It's a striking debut for Estes, and a remarkable showcase for the cast.

It's ultimately hard to care deeply about a silly, sheltered girl-woman who's taking an inordinately long time to learn that money can't buy happiness.

More reminiscent of Hitchcock's progeny than of the master's own films, Cedric Kahn's intelligently menacing thriller combines Brian DePalma's sexy style with the ice-cold cool tone of Claude Chabrol and the sense of mounting panic George Sluizer exploited in "The Vanishing."

Though "Pulp Fiction" is the obvious point of reference, but this hugely entertaining Mexican crime comedy is actually closer in spirit to "Go," Doug Lyman's underrated 1998 lark.

A reductive spook show in which a bunch of puny humans get chased around by scary monsters.

Though the violence in this film never becomes physical, the psychic wounds these people inflict on one another cut so deeply you wish it would. It's a grueling experience.