Writer/director Austin Chick falls into the timeworn trap of making an immature, irritating film about immature, irritating characters.

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

For all the technical wizardry that went into making the film, Paxton's reflections on the human tragedies of the Titanic and the terrorist attack of Sept. 11th, 2001, which took place while the crew was out at sea, provide one of the film's most haunting moments.

Shock-rocker Rob Zombie's loving homage to flat-out nasty horror films of the 1970s will leave many post-"Scream" (1996) horror fans cold because of what it's not. It's not slick or glossy. It's not funny or self-referential.

If Griffin were a jowly Southern redneck, his mean-spirited rants would make him a pariah.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the high-profile cast, obviously working for brownie points in heaven -- they're so good, yet nothing they do can make the movie fly.

A piercing satire of Italian investigative techniques, and an interesting meditation on the relationship between class and guilt.

The results are a bit amateurish, but wholesome and achingly sweet.

Brisk, engaging story.

Warm and utterly beguiling fable.

Bynes is a charmer who adeptly straddles the line between romantic heroine and physical comedienne, while Firth is extremely enjoyable as a befuddled father.

The payoff doesn't quite equal the intensity of the spectacularly squirm-inducing premise, but Farrell takes his showboating star turn and runs with it.

The film works best when it's sticking to the guns and poses conventions of macho crime pictures. When it reaches for emotional resonance, the results range from unconvincing to ludicrous.

Propelled by a soundtrack as diverse as its international gallery of thieves, Jordan's cheerfully scruffy neo-noir caprice even lays on the religious imagery with a palette knife and sweetens Melville's ending without seeming terminally sappy.

Pretentious but gorgeously photographed.

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 dark, brooding noir, with Widmark riveting as a hustling promoter who sinks into the quagmire of his own ambitions.

The similarities between this film and Michael Bay's overblown "Armageddon"are too numerous to ignore; the crucial difference is that this one is actually pretty good.

Nearly perfect.

The roots of Steve James's disturbing documentary lie in youthful idealism.

Duvall at his worst is still an accomplished performer; Pedraza is a modern-day Ali McGraw, lithe and beautiful but no kind of actress. For all her fluidity on the dance floor, she's a dead weight who drags the film down.

As the mismatched interrogators, Travolta and Nielson seem to be in two different and incompatible movies.

Toothless satire punctuated by the occasional biting gag.

There's a telling disjunction between the dismal lives of Jia's characters and the optimism of China's officially sunny advance into the 21st century, and their helplessness often becomes a pathetic pantomime.

The offbeat cast and gorgeous Barcelona locations can't quite make up for the thinness of the mystery and forced quirkiness of the characters and their tangled relationships.

Frankly, the film's nostalgia for the "coffee, tea or me?" era of flying, when stewardesses were fantasy figures in soaring heels and uniforms tailored for bust enhancement rather than utility, is retro in all the wrong ways.

Sprawling, gooey and profoundly juvenile, this derivative thriller piles on the cheese: aliens, male bonding, psychoanalytic gobbledygook, childhood secrets, military black ops, gross-out special effects, explosions, bodily function humor and a retarded boy with special powers.

The film is filled with the kind of choreographed carnage that became synonymous with Hong Kong action during the genre's heyday, but there's an elegiac self-consciousness to it all that acknowledges that while the best is behind us, there's still something to be said about its passing.