It's a classic fantasy scenario, overflowing with creative possibilities, but Carrey's Nolan isn't charmingly misguided or comically loathsome enough to deserve the lesson; he's just a big, inconsequential crybaby.

While Grazia's story is too reminiscent of such films as "Blue Sky" (1994), which also draws an all too easy connection between mental illness and the oppression of high-spirited housewives, the evocation of provincial life in a tiny village that's wholly dependent on the sea is splendid, and recalls a number of classic Italian films.

Despite Schnack's half-hearted attempt to divide the film into chapters, his film is too unstructured to hold the interest of non-fans who might have appreciated a somewhat less hagiographic approach.

Takashi Miike's frenetic comic yakuza thriller embodies the best and worst this notorious Japanese genre auteur has to offer: It's endlessly inventive, consistently intelligent and sickeningly savage.

Though this frank documentary about extreme sexual practices comes with a cautionary message, it could perhaps use a stronger one.

Godard's third feature film and his first in color, A Woman is a Woman is one of the most enjoyable of all the master's works.

Though the film's fanciful premise seems more naturally suited to comedy, Bose exploits its more sinister implications surprisingly skillfully until the combined weight of narrative threads involving incest, suicide and murder eventually bog the story down.

Old family secrets and fresh entanglements snake through the intricate plot like the tendrils of a particularly poisonous strain of ivy that flourishes only in the hot-house atmosphere of tiny towns, whatever the outside temperature.

Dabbed with sentimental touches, the film nevertheless avoids facile victim psychologizing and pulls no punches.

Their mania might be funny if it weren't so creepy.

Given that most fans are very young, ignoring a key aspect of the Pokemon mythos is bound to confuse and disappoint them.

Serves as a powerful tribute to a group of heroes who gave those they saved something nearly as valuable as life: proof that the best of the human spirit can endure even through the worst of times.

The real stars of the film are Francois Emmanuelli's vibrant production design, Klapisch's flair with inventive optical effects and above all Barcelona itself, captured here in all its baroque brilliance.

More comic book-like and less intriguing than the original, the film's punch-drunk cyber-mysticism still has a darkly seductive allure that sets it apart from juvenile, Star Wars-style space opera.

Dracula fans will appreciate the witty ways in which Maddin has drawn Stoker's troubling racism and xenophobia to the fore, while making the most of the sexual ambivalence that helps make the story endlessly fascinating.

It aspires to a documentary realism and keeps the focus on the characters at all times. Though the results can't really be called enjoyable, the intensity that bleeds off the screen is undeniably effective.

The film seems longer than its 93-minute running time, but kids will probably enjoy its potty humor, many scenes of 4-year-olds getting the better of harried adults and the inevitable moment when a cute little girl kicks the fat guy in the nads.

A perennial favorite on college campuses since it first reached the screen at the height of the Vietnam War.

Combined with the Mamet-lite dialogue, a medley of all-too-deliberate pauses, smug literary allusions and calculatedly careless repetitions of the word "thingie" that obscure the meaning hidden in supposedly meaningless prattle, the result is a chic, vitriolic polemic that's as irritating as it means to be provocative.

Not surprisingly, the film is strongest when its characters are simply hanging out, shooting the breeze and venting their feelings, while moments of high drama occasionally fall flat.

Most of the music is as fine and fierce as you could want.

The film is juvenile when it should be adult, coarse when it ought to be bubbly, and upfront when witty circumspection is indicated. The result feels a bit like a drag show, a camp blend of pitch-perfect mimicry and anachronistic raunch.

Ten tumultuous years in the history of the gay rights movement serve as the backdrop for this warm, engaging romantic comedy.

The excellently translated subtitles retain the wit and flavor of the brisk, at times even hardboiled, dialogue.

Thick with sexual intrigue and characters who only reveal themselves over time, this subtle mystery unfolds like something a kinder Neil LaBute might have cooked up earlier in his career.

Casting a film set in Latin America with Spanish-and Italian-speaking performers acting in English misfires; the actors' diverse accents clash, some are clearly more fluent than others and the sense of relief when anyone speaks a rare line in Spanish is palpable.

Director Nancy Savoca's no-frills record of a show forged in still-raw emotions captures the unsettled tenor of that post 9-11 period far better than a more measured or polished production ever could.

Ironically, it's most engaging when the focus shifts to Hurt's matter-of-factly amoral enabler, whose glistening suits and jewel-colored shirt-and-tie combinations suggest a particularly poisonous tropical reptile.