Yes, The Yes Men is funny, but it's humor that hurts.

Packing a dizzying array of motives and tensions into his careful, densely layered round robin, LaBute orchestrates The Shape of Things like a suspense thriller, full of hidden agendas and emotional switchbacks.

If Casa de los Babys isn't necessarily a fully realized film, it's still a deeply felt glimpse into dizzyingly complex political and psychological forces that shape the most crucial decisions of a woman's life.

For fans of old-fashioned European filmmaking, this may have its pleasing qualities.

Although the rest of the story plays out with melodramatic predictability, it's timely, not to mention refreshing, to see an affirmation of true love over hot sex, along with a reminder that the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Pontecorvo's pointed 1969 drama of the politics of war feels surprisingly timely.

The film is nowhere near the level of Pontecorvo's masterpiece, or even his subsequent flawed allegory on Vietnam, "Burn!," but is clearly the work of a natural coming into the full range of his powers.

With it's many knotty connections and complex exposition, the movie is definitely something of a muddle, but for that matter so are most conspiracy theories.

Rather than the mad, kinetic video-game vigor you'd expect, the movie proceeds at a more leisurely and methodical gait. I rather liked that.

The movie, directed by Simon West isn't bad, although the repeated shots of Campbell lying spread-eagled on the ground, and the amount of detail we're forced to swallow about the horrors she underwent border on the offensive.

So unexpected and unpredictable and so full of tiny grace notes that its ultimate collapse seems almost irrelevant.

(Stamp and Fonda's) polar-opposition in acting styles and temperament, their cultural differences and their pop-cultural synergy come together with almost delicious cacophony.

Jim de Seve's cogent pro-gay-marriage argument appeals equally to emotion and reason.

It's tough, astringent, darkly funny and . . . well, it's also generic, untidy, condescending and mild of impact rather than stunning.

For the truth is, given the audacity, the organization, the seriousness of purpose, the movie isn't nearly as provocative as you think it might be.

The main reason to see Criminal isn't for the mental workout it might offer but simply to watch these two appealing performers act and act and act.

The decade has been fondly spoofed in capers like "The Brady Bunch," but Lee's film takes a much more searing, if initially hilarious look at the sexual revolution's migration to a New England suburb and the community's subsequent meltdown. [17 October 1997, p.D6]

Unfortunately, the movie is likely to earn more money than praise. If it showcases him in all his glory, it also shows what little glory there is to celebrate.

You want a happy ending? You want sunshine, sentimentality, a sense of justice and honor and duty? Me too. But you won't find it here.

A thematically bleak yet subtly comic film.

A warmly spirited travel diary of a movie.

Genial rather than an affront to good taste. It's also pretty darn funny.

Though a thematically ambitious and deftly acted thriller, the film is also shockingly coldblooded and not a little reactionary.

There's your intrigue. There's your romance. There's your x factor, by which I mean your willingness to give two appealing stars an incredible break throughout most of the major obstacles between them and a successful robbery.

One rousing, if rote, adventure.

Another handsome, dramatically moribund adaptation of a grand old classic.

Turns out he's infinitely more likable than Vin Diesel, who carries his sense of stardom through every movie like an insufferable Atlas. In fact, Dwayne Johnson is a gentleman, the kind of Rock who puts you in a very easy place.

The movie, with its panorama of emotional epiphanies and its belief in the talent and grace of young women, is nevertheless bracing.

An odd and oddly endearing romantic black comedy.

Brings things to an almost cheesy conclusion. Given the gripping, dark elements that creator George Lucas introduced in the two previous films, the third movie’s outcome smacks of PG-rated populism rather than artistic fulfillment. But the experience is still highly entertaining. [Special Edition]

The overall effect is highly entertaining for grownups, and, judging from the squeals of delight from the young audience at a recent screening, for kids, too.

Ferrara is clearly drawing an equation between the criminals' actions and The Lieutenant's, and as trite (and potentially shameless) as this may sound, it actually works.

Somehow, wondrous acting holds things together.

By Breillat's usually dire standards, this is practically a laff riot, and if you want to see her funniest, most accessible movie, this is the one to watch.

Slick, gripping and largely believable.

Engaging, energetic film.

The movie's sweeter than funny, but still has a fair share of guffaws.

Slow going, but it provides an absorbing glimpse of a rarely seen side of Chinese life.

Wang is working on your mind, not your body.

The movie's sweet, gentle nature may lack the subtle irony of the "Toy Storys" and "Shreks" of the world, but parents won't be bored.

It's the individual characters, so carefully crafted, who count, as opposed to a tidy conclusion.

This is an odd amalgam of bleeding-heart sentimentality and over-the-top guts-and-glory action. You're not sure how to feel. But you're certainly not as moved and stunned as you were in "Black Hawk Down."

Its adroit use of suspense makes you overlook the silliness.

Documentary about rock history's biggest heavy metal band is -- variously -- serious, funny, frustrating and touching.

With its spooky atmosphere to spare and a riveting central performance by Kingsley, an actor who manages to elicit both terror and sympathy, I was able to forget all those things, basking in the pleasure of my own goose bumps. So, for an hour and a half, will you.

A touching documentary on the immigrant experience -- or at least one very tough slice of it.

A completely adequate modern facsimile of the classic romantic epic.

Just isn't as fresh, focused or uniformly funny as "Waiting for Guffman."

Much of "Clerks" is extremely funny and dead-on—in terms of its intentionally satirical, Gen-X-istential gloom.

An entertaining affair whose wild-card creativity never ceases to surprise.

Can't wait for the next sequel . . .

A sweet, even delectable diversion from the more explosive cinematic fare of the season.

This is a stirring movie, if relentless intensity, handheld camera work, cover-your-eyes violence and ear-splitting yelling matches are what you're craving.

I will admit that this TV skit stretched out to a filament-thin 83 minutes is idiotic, but I mean that in a good way.

Unlike some of its recent ilk – "Spider-Man," for example – The Punisher is, no disrespect, a thoroughly morose and bilious affair. That is precisely what I like best about it.

There's something impressive and yet lacking about everything.

Compelling, if throwaway, drama.

If the story seems a little waterlogged, it's still big, loud, and fun to watch.

A amusing trifle that might fit somewhere between "The Big Lebowski" and "Intolerable Cruelty"; for those expecting "Fargo," it's no "Fargo."

Most important, the film has a terrific supporting character in St. Marie herself, portrayed by the real Canadian island of Harrington Harbour (pop. 300).

A perfect example of a really good not-great movie, the kind that would be classified as a guilty pleasure were it not executed with guilt-free honesty and good nature.

You don't want to love this, but you will. Although Scooby-Doo falls far short of becoming the "Blazing Saddles" of Generations X, Y and Z, it is hard to resist in its moronic charms.

Mulan may be exotic, but it's hardly a risky enterprise, what with its sentimental show tunes, wholesome morals and plucky teen heroine.

A lucid, emotionally affecting portrait not just of one man but of his times.

Good but it SEEMS even better because of its evocative setting.

A lot of White Oleander is heavy sledding of the waa-waa, touchy-feely kind. But just as much of it has the sting of something so real it hurts.

A spirited attempt at modern film noir, and huge parts of it are enjoyable.

By equal measure tragic and hopeful, it is both a love song to escapism and a warm embrace of the real world.

Funny without being flip.

Despite its generic title and flat ending, tickles most of the way through.

Fairly fascinating little documentary.

Brendan Fraser breathes loopy new life into the swinging '60s TV cartoon icon.

Is Along Came Polly a great film? No, probably not, but it is a very amusing one.

Where the movie succeeds-and succeeds wonderfully-is when it stays a heartbeat away from politics. For two-thirds of the movie, it's an involving, boxing saga and romance.

It's like an enema to the soul as it probes the ways of death ? some especially grotesque in a family setting. You leave slightly asquirm. You know it will linger.

A shorter version of which was shown last year in a series of house parties sponsored by the anti-Bush organizations MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress -- Greenwald marshals dozens of impeccably credentialed witnesses to debunk the case made for going to war.

If you love the theater, you've got to see the film.

Mostly, the movie is riveting, well-done fare -- the stuff of Hollywood epic adventure.

You may not enjoy The Mother (I certainly didn't), but it's a movie so heavy on truth, its spell cannot be denied.

The movie's great fun, particularly for kids used to that satirically hard-edged kind of kid show.

[Craven's] stroke of genius is to offer the horror movie in an ironic mode. He's winking at viewers and inviting them to share a clever conspiracy that we on the cholesterol-clogged side of 30 cannot begin to understand.

A big, fat, gorgeous, mesmerizing mess.

This wonderfully acted romance brings the touching fantasy "Truly, Madly, Deeply" to mind.

Its egotistical, wishy-washy and otherwise flawed protagonists are no less heroic because they look -- and act -- like you and me. On the contrary, they are more so.

Quietly, with pathos and tinges of melancholy humor, Valentin pays homage to the heroism of creating your own world when the one that's on offer breaks your heart.

It is a well written, nicely acted and smoothly directed battle of the sexes.

Watching Spacek dance around the bedroom, slowly loosening up while Laura Nyro plays, is one of the joys of this cinematic season.

The movie manages to educate without losing steam.

Although the plot is crucial, it's the interaction among characters that makes Snatch percolate. Ritchie knows when to stop and smell the comedy.

It somehow feels richly, hilariously real, even -- at its most bizarre -- familiar.

This is a spirited, dirty dance between the polished inauthenticity of Hollywood romance-musicals and hip-hop's central tenet: keeping it real. It's an intriguing combination, if nothing else.

A dumbed-down adaptation of Michael Crichton's techno-novel on the dangers of dinosaur cloning, it's not Spielberg at the top of his game, but it's dino-mite just the same.

Nothing is new about the movie's premise, but it is entertaining all the same.

The suspense may be fraudulently manufactured but it captivates us nevertheless, and by the end we're reduced to the bloodlusting anonymity of the true culprits in all this jaded junk, and that is the TV audience.

Trenchant and visceral, American History X may not be perfect, but it's a darn sight better than good.

Ultimately this is a celebration of the theater, a big, wet kiss to the craft of acting and the artists who inhabited London's early stages.

The action scenes are beautifully mounted and photographed and offer a sense of the rigors of the sport.

A movie that longs for a return to a cinema that, rather than marketing, merchandise and corporate synergy, is about the mysteries that flicker to life after the lights go down.

Thoughtful documentary.

A tender, tragic allegory in which grave human emotions play out against a small, simple backdrop.

A scrappy independent film that packs the same emotional punch as "Rocky."

May lack originality but makes up for it in sheer bravado and really nice clothes

The story (adapted from Andrew Neiderman's novel by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy) is surprisingly well-handled, given its rather crazy premise.

May not be great cinema, but it's a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

A solid second film from director Gary Fleder ("Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead"), it's sure to set pulses racing and spines tingling. Too bad it's at the expense of the dignity of young women everywhere.

The experience overall is like laughing down a gun barrel, a little bit tiring, a lot sick and maybe far too perverse for less jaded moviegoers.

Any film where a beer baroness's glass leg (filled with beer) shatters when a high note is struck is okay by me.

A decidedly medieval enterprise, darker in text and tone than a Gothic cathedral by the light of the moon.

Cameron captures the majesty, the tragedy, the fury and the futility of the event in a way that supersedes his trivial attempts to melodramatize it.

It's also genuinely moving to see disenfranchised individuals discovering self-determination from the hard ground up.

This one has crossover hit written all over it.

This heavy-hitting fist lands with calculated deliberation. Despite Spielberg's obviously genuine commitment, "Schindler's List" feels strangely controlled -- more than impassioned. It's officially artistic, an engineered project of pride, Little Stevie's growing-up project, rather than an organically brilliant masterpiece.

It's plenty entertaining, but the ending is disappointing, given the buildup.

It is piffle done well. A (literally) lighter-than-air story, full of goofs and creeps and fools and silliness, it manages to delight without simpering, make points without lecturing and break hearts and mend them again without turning you weepy.

By going back to its origins and dusting itself off, the King Arthur story has proved itself to have a very contemporary resonance.

Fraser is one funny, mixed-up guy

Enlightening, if structurally relaxed documentary.

Give credit to Berg for keeping Bissinger's all-too-true ending intact. It's a doozy.

It's a clever plot with a minimum of the already tired standard kids-on-computers sequence and a maximum of silly face-to-face deflation.

A hilarious, inventive and goofy breath of fresh air.

A provocative experience that lights you up even as it brutalizes you. And I don't even like Brad Pitt very much.

Low-tech inventiveness at its best.

This little charmer both celebrates and kids the corny conventions of family sitcoms.

An anti-capital-punishment polemic that won't change a single mind anywhere on Earth but will entertain well enough everywhere on Earth.

Always entertaining. But someone seems to have thrown away the metronome into the Spanish moss outside. "Midnight," which finally draws to a halt after two and a half hours, has a lot of acting, a bit of soul and no rhythm.

It's always nice to see Clint, and especially nice to see him play someone whose humanity -- no, whose mortality -- is all too apparent.

May not be the ultimate word on the Tibetan situation, or even the Dalai Lama, but its heart seems to be in the right place; and it's entertaining enough to give audiences an emotional sense of the story. [16 January 1998, p.N32]

For the first half-hour, the movie is pretty crummy. Even Spielberg appears bored with the script's lame setup, its quick evocation of the first movie and its wan establishment of human villains and heroes. Like any 50-year-old adolescent, he can't wait for the dinosaurs. And when he gets to them, the movie ceases to bear any relationship to conceits of narrative and becomes a sheer adrenalin spike to the brain stem.

Director Phillip Noyce, who made "Dead Calm," "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger," keeps things moving at a kinetic, involving pace. And writers Jonathan Hensleigh (who wrote "Die Hard With a Vengeance") and Wesley Strick create a diverting human steeplechase.

The atmospherics are wonderfully dark and film-noirish, if overly violent.

Jensen's tone is admirably dry, and the film offers its pleasures through small, writerly details.

It's a brutal, demonic film with a grip like a vise; it grabs you early, its fingers around your throat, and never lets go.

Spielberg has made a small and charming story out of The Terminal.

Isn't particularly scary. No, it's much harder on you than mere fright: It's . . . creepy.

It's enough of a spectacle to enjoy. It's too bad the stars are little more than serviceable and give the movie title an irony it could certainly do without.

Malkovich's lead performance digs in its heels, deadening the movie's speedy exhilaration. The result is a highly diverting but ultimately unsatisfying production that doesn't perform -- so much as paraphrase -- the script.

In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore largely stays out of the picture, and the film is the better for it. But otherwise his style hasn't changed.

As glossy and overproduced as the thing is, it's a GOOD Big Stupid American movie.

The movie is not exactly an upper, but Hartley fans won't want to miss the latest creation of this consistently intelligent director.

It's enough to send you home with jiggly knees and a tummy ache.

True to IMAX form, the high-tech graphics and sounds are great.

As cinematic storytelling, it works.

It's a brilliant movie, fluent, spectacular, breathtaking and basically, uh, wrong.

In the end, it may leave its audience, young and old alike, just as charmed as its bewitched young heroine.

The movie is both exhilarating and depressing. The trouble is, I can't figure out which is more important.

Wittily scripted, engagingly sappy, completely implausible and unabashedly Capraesque, it's a rather wonderful crock.

It's one of those "I-can't-believe-I'm-enjoying-this" kind of things.

Impressive, big-scale scenes, such as a train derailment from a snow-covered bridge. And the vocal performances of Ryan and Cusack give us a real sense of romance.

Artfully structured, combining old-school MGM-type musical numbers with occasional postmodern flourishes to keep the narrative moving.

Spiked with some genuine show-stopping musical numbers, and the sheer pluck of its young cast is nothing if not admirable.

Ferrell provides just enough humor to get us through the familiar fare and enjoy the ride.

So good it breaks your heart for not being better. It is kept from brilliance by a soggy climax and a clumsy central narrative device.

Becker handles the film's comedy with fluency.

Nothing from the book is left to wither away. That should please the vast reading audience that'll watch the movie.

With razor-sharp performances, zingy one-liners, broad slapstick humor and a message of sorts, there's enough to distract the viewer from becoming hopelessly lost in the lint-filled chaos that is the umbilicus.

Isn't scintillating, but it's sort of embraceably funny.

The path taken by the film is somewhat labyrinthine and obscure, but it offers enough rewards to counterbalance its frustrations.

Offers audiences a real rarity in theaters these days: a good, honest cry.

A wonderful movie: inspired, hilarious, visually inventive. Just don't take your kids to see it.

Cleverness can be overrated but it can be underrated too, and the best thing about National Treasure is how clever it is.

Until a disappointing tailspin in the last hour, Pearl Harbor is the best piece of popular entertainment to come along in years.

Often wickedly funny, but about halfway through, the premise becomes -- shall we say? -- intestinally overextended.

It is to the film's credit -- and Foxx's -- that we are able to see, behind the flash and fury, a man who didn't know how to love, and was so much the lonelier for it.

You may find some of the story developments melodramatic -- I did -- but the film itself is quite powerful.

Enter the world of the sociopathic killer and enjoy.

Garden State features some wonderful performances, chief among them an engaging, even courageous turn from Natalie Portman.

You may soon forget the specifics of the plot, but you'll always remember the world it came from.

It's at once too restrained and too perversely funny to have emanated from the play-it-big-but-play-it-safe sensibilities of Hollywood, U.S.A.

This is a smart movie, full of astonishing reverses and switchbacks, and it adroitly walks the thin line between too clever by half and not clever enough by three-quarters.

A film whose far-fetched foundation is overshadowed by the endearing story.

There's no doubt that Eminem has the talent and presence of a star. It's just a shame that the filmmakers didn't capture his power with mad skillz of their own.

Seems like a pretty cool movie -- at least, for a remake of a 1970s Saturday morning TV show.

It's not perfect, or even close, but it delivers on the promise of J.K. Rowling's novels to a far greater extent.

Surprisingly effective re-creation of a Latin American Bing and Bob on the Road to History.

Mind you, there's lots to like, if not love, in this London-set, star-studded comedy. Unfortunately, there's a little bit to hate, too.

In this sprawling oglefest, such things as "narrative" and "story" are remote little abstractions indeed.

Far from great, but much farther from awful, Troy offers several popcorn buckets' worth of good old-fashioned time at the movies.

An amusing enough romp through his familiar undersea universe.

Isn't just for music fans. It's more accessible than that, thanks to Joel Schumacher's bright direction and a few storytelling embellishments.

Hovers frustratingly somewhere between charming and only mildly amusing.

Lee elevates herself from the lower echelon of mere international super-babedom to the loftier realm of pulp myth. She is "It" with an exclamation mark.

A spirited remake of the French drag farce, has everything in place, from eyeliner to one-liner.

It features a pleasing mix of good-guy gumshoeing, smart-alecky dialogue and courtroom surprises.

Tin Cup works for viewers of any handicap.

Takes the spirit of their late night TV show and flies with it.

Delivers the entertaining goods without fuss or frills.

The movie is wry, touching and fun to sit through, thanks to Rosenberg's amusing script, Ted Demme's vital direction and zesty performances from everyone.

An absorbing, if overlong adaptation of Tom Clancy's bestseller.

The movie feels stretched out and thin.

The name is enough to clue you in that this is not highbrow humor. In fact, it will appeal mostly to those who can appreciate basic juvenile humor.

Jonathon Mostow, who wrote the script and then directed the movie, travels mostly familiar backroads and crosses bridges when he comes to them, actually managing a pretty good cliff-hanging denouement on the latter.

While the plot is thin and there's little action till the big blow some 60 minutes into the film, a volcano offers a greater variety of thrills than your basic cyclone ever could.

Flubber, the substance, has more personality than many Hollywood actors. And if Flubber, the movie, isn't quite a slam dunk, at least it's a relatively bouncy way to spend an hour and a half.

This is a great performance from Pacino, who has the good luck here to work with Goldman's mostly wonderful, edgy script, but it might not become a beloved one because the man he plays is such a bitter pill.

But because the filmmakers stray from the facts, presumably in hopes of gaining a wider audience, there is a cheapness at the core of the film that comes perilously close to undermining it.

But if the modestly budgeted film (loosely based on journalist Michael Nicholson's factual narrative, "Natasha's Story") lopes along a formulaic, often heavy-handed track, its pictures and subtext make a powerful statement. [9Jan1998 Pg. N.41]

Murphy owes much of his success to the amazing special-effects makeup by Rick Baker ("An American Werewolf in London"), but he brings a tenderness and dignity to the performance that he has never shown before.

Though the film gleams with Howard's customary spit polish, there's no denying that the story is pitted with plot holes.

The scenario may be dumb and predictable, with a wimpy ending to boot, but it's also sort of fun.

Cutting to the chase: In terms of summer movie thrills, director John McTiernan's return to the "Die Hard" genre (he made the first one) is a triumph.

New Bond man Brosnan can't be faulted for much. He's always been generically sexy, a sort of programmed cover boy. In this new venture, he's appropriately handsome, British-accented and suave.

But the film, written and directed by fellow artist Julian Schnabel, is so tender in its affections, these omissions and poetic licenses seem like the embellishments of a good friend.

Bound, a diabolically clever caper, isn't nearly so deep as the genre it kids.

The hero's feats are implausible even by action standards, but screenwriters Tony Puryear and Walon Green have concocted one of the summer's most spectacular action sequences.

Evita is a busy movie with an often noisy soundtrack that can get tedious and monotonous (particularly in the second half), but it's just as likely to sweep one away with its musical, emotional and historical momentum.

The excitement comes from Frakes's direction -- his liveliness, and his pleasure in looking at, and showing us, events and images.

What counts is the comic tension between MacLaine and Cage. It's so well done, it doesn't matter how dumb things get.

The personable star of the TV series "Home Improvement" turns this Walt Disney film around. He may not be as effervescent as, say, Robin Williams, but he's full of understated, ticklish charm.

Monument Ave. is a cinematic dead-end street that is not without its gloomy, gritty thrills -- assuming, that is, that you're not in the market for a hero or even the slightest feather of that thing called hope. [09 Oct 1998, Pg.N.49]

In old-fashioned movie terms, it's enjoyable, thanks mostly to Neeson who, not unlike Jeff Bridges, always eclipses your expectations of him. [25 Oct 1996, Pg.N.42]

Like the male-bonding movies upon which it's modeled, it celebrates letting down your hair with your own gender.

It's not a challenging movie or an original one, but it does have its pleasures -- most notably a radiant, soulful debut performance from Driver, who saves Circle of Friends from being merely an Irish ugly duckling story.

Using a cockeyed, surreal style harking back to Monty Python-ism, writer- director Peter Duncan illuminates the tragedy of all true believers whose faith depends upon keeping ears and eyes firmly shut.

The reason for the film's success is simple. Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese and director Eastwood skirt most of novelist Robert James Waller's excesses.

First-time writer/director Tom Hanks stays about a half-beat ahead of the cliches with rim shots of boyish enthusiasm and deft comedy.

For all of its departures, Luhrmann's largely successful reinterpretation is far from irreverent. He takes liberties with the world, but never the words of this achingly beautiful love story.

Jon Amiel, who previously directed "Sommersby," delivers a taut, gripping thriller and, with the help of his accomplished leads, succeeds in camouflaging some of the mammoth holes in Ann Biderman and David Madsen's otherwise intelligent and inventive screenplay.

Taylor Hackford's film version of the Stephen King novel, has a whopping list of shortcomings -- and yet it still manages to be an engrossing, unsettling and, at times, powerful psychological thriller.

[Leven] keeps the film's tone light and ingratiating. And, though the material is thin, the actors do seem to be getting a kick out of playing off each other.

Barkin's succulence and De Niro's showboating lend sizzle and ferocity to the proceedings, but the film draws its poignancy from 18-year-old DiCaprio's performance.

It's less like a film by Demme than the best of Frank Capra. It is not just canny, corny and blatantly patriotic, but compassionate, compelling and emotionally devastating.

Pu Yi's personal tragedy has become Bertolucci's three-hour epic of obsolescence, opulently visualized. It's docudrama that dazzles, but basically Pu Yi was a bore.

In today's mouse-toting, instant-gratification world, this kind of old-fashioned, character-driven slapstick is wonderfully incompatible. It's a grumpy last hurrah.

With this bold stamp [director Jane Campion] lays claim to the story that follows as wholly her own.

Adapted from Valerie Martin's psychosexual novel, this maudlin film transforms the legend of Jekyll and Hyde into a talky romantic love triangle. [23 Feb 1996]

The story is riddled with absurd coincidences and improbabilities. It doesn't have an original bone in its body. And no one's going to leave this film thinking De Niro should stay behind the camera. But none of these problems stops the movie from being enjoyable. If Bronx Tale feels too familiar, it's at least the familiarity of good Italian movies.

The picture seems muted, the flower's petals a little brown at the edges.

In Truly, Madly, Deeply comparisons with "Ghost" are inevitable. But this British production, starring Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman, takes a wide berth around the kind of button-pushing found in "Ghost." It presses with lighter fingers.

Fear is pretty much a cheap-thrills fix; the ideas, such as they are, function as window dressing. Still, cheap though these thrills may be, they are genuinely thrilling.

The graceful and affecting Grand Canyon, with its flock of fortysomethings, is much more than just "The Bigger Chill."

The movie won't come clear, Eastwood has succeeded so thoroughly in communicating his love of his subject, and there's such vitality in the performances, that we walk out elated, juiced on the actors and the music.

The caper isn't as passionate as the title suggests—in fact, it's facile—but Ryan and Kevin Kline, as her attractive opposite, are irresistible together.

As lectures go, this may be the most fun one yet.

It's sexy and bloody and, to my amazement, R-rated, but in a stylized, Grand Kabuki manner that lifts the action (including the sex and violence) from our normal sphere of reality to the realm of timeless, primal tales.

Maurice succeeds because [Merchant/Ivory's] trademark flatness is appropriate for the subject.

What could be a needed and satisfying commercial breakthrough for Coppola.

The Mosquito Coast is the only movie you'll see this season that has too much ambition for its own good - its subject, really, is nothing less than the American experience.

Modulating from heavy to light, from angry to lyrical, and so on, the movie's an enjoyable, emotional symphony.

In his [Ice Cube's] dramatic roles, Cube's raised eyebrows usually unleashed a fearsome glare and a hint of danger; here, his expressions are more quizzical, amused or confused. He plays against type, just as the movie itself plays against hype.

The most nagging impediment to wholehearted acceptance of Tootsie and its little storytelling subterfuges is a failure to recognize the hypocritical aspects of Dorsey's imposture and alleged character improvement. Although Dorsey is supposedly sensitized to the desirability of honesty and consideration in romantic dealings by being forced to seethe on the sidelines while Ron treats Julie badly, the hero never does square things with Sandy, the woman whose trust he betrays in a far more deliberate, systematic fashion. Indeed, it seems downright outrageous for Dorsey to get indignant about Ron's oblivious sort of misbehavior when he's conning Sandy in premeditated ways. [17 Dec 1982, p.F1]

Henry Fool, the fascinating and often infuriating new film from the idiosyncratic Hal Hartley. [24 Jul 1998]

The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese's provocative, punishing, weirdly brilliant adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, has a feverish intensity. And undeniably, there's a prodigious greatness on display here. But just as undeniably, it is failed work.

Nixon is an audacious biography rich in imagination and originality, with a provocative, often subversive sense of character and history. Dense and challenging, it is also undermined in places by Stone's obsessions just as dramatically as Richard Nixon was undermined by his.

A jumble of subplots and suppositions, The Unbelievable Truth ultimately comes together as suburban farce in a door-banging conclusion to all the wild speculation.

If there's one thing going for Last Action Hero, it's the construction of it all. Even if this intermixing of kid fantasy and adult shoot'em-up, Hollywood insider jokes and cheap Arnold puns, doesn't completely bowl you over, it's clever and intriguing.

It's the rapport between the two actors, De Niro and Murray, that saves Mad Dog and Glory from being something less than just another buddy movie. Their real-life friendship spills over into this jittery, very funny look at the male bonding experience.

Douglas's intentionally robotic -- and intense -- performance holds its own. He's scary, normal and funny all at once.

The spirit of the film, though, is snazzier and more playful than Crichton’s rather thin, humorless schematic. The subject is serious; thankfully, the movie is not.

Knee-jerk tears aside, there's nothing tremendously special. It's very watchable, but it doesn't stand out. Which is not to say the film is badly done; it's just decently done.

But for all the jagged, witty chatter -- and Streep and MacLaine do their tragicomic damnedest with it -- Postcard provides the most rudimentary and jury-rigged of outcomes.

Green proves adept at capturing the quiet intensity and peculiar rhythms of Traveller culture.

If you're in the mood for loud, fast-moving action trash, The Corruptor is waiting to meet you in a dark alley.

Everything and everyone you liked in the original are there. But GB II often seems like "Ghostbusters: The Preview Reel, Extended Mix," with its rather see-through buffet of special effects, comic bits and music-video transitions.

Heckerling's central hokum is definitely silly, based on the notion that Mikey (and all babies, in fact) has somewhat adult, slightly cynical thoughts on everything that goes on around him, from conception to end credits -- and that these thoughts and embryonic wisecracks and creative interpretations are heard only by the audience via the aptly cast voice of overgrown kid Willis.

Its intentions seem fairly modest, and so are its achievements. It's a modestly enjoyable diversion.

It's a thoughtfully constructed story, with nuanced performances all around and even a mild surprise thrown in, but the whole thing feels ever so slightly enervated, like a game of chess between codgers in the park.

Big has a warmhearted sweetness that's invigorating; it makes you want to break out the Legos. It's only near the end of the film, when Hanks has to play the scenes for pathos, that the movie becomes cloying.

Hairspray is definitely self-congratulatory, like the message movies it aims to spoof. But there's a sweet morality mixed with the camp clumsiness of this nostalgic goof. Waters couldn't care less about the subtleties of plot or character. He writes and directs the way a kid finger paints. As usual, he's gathered a tantalizing cast from the so-out-they're-in crowd. [26 Feb 1988, p.b1]

The words - taken directly from the book - are beautifully cast, but they encapsulate the emotions too conveniently.

Considering how firmly the image of Popeye is fixed in the minds of all spinach-bred Americans, it's daring of the film to open by showing the character in its familiar cartoon form. But Robin Williams so utterly captures the Popeye idea as to justify this, and Shelley Duvall is such a perfect Olive Oyl that it will always be difficult to imagine her impersonating a human being. [19 Dec 1980, p.20]

It starts slow, but finishes fast with some clever plot twists. In the end, all is not lost with these boys.

The movie has a big payoff; it's the setup that's the drag. But Kevin's antics will touch the budding subversive in every kid. My advice? Hide the car keys.

This is sweet-natured fun for the very young.

But even though Marcos, in this film, provides enough material for a few hundred giggles and head-shakings, she also shows a pathetically human side.

There are some very thought-provoking points, and the movie deserves a balanced listening-to.

A wonderfully unsentimental parable that backs no horses in the movie's secular/religious dualities.