The storytelling is episodic, and the film takes a little while to get going, but it hits its stride.

It puts The Cockettes into social, political and popular cultural context and gives the documentary a moving resonance.

With braces on her teeth and preteen gawkiness, Eliza's a nerdy girl on the surface, but her backbone and chutzpah manage to save human and animal family alike. Move over Bond; this girl deserves a sequel.

Exquisitely captures the irony and hopefulness of the era.

One of the most clever, most enjoyable historical fantasies to hit screens in a long time, The Emperor's New Clothes is a sumptuous showcase for Ian Holm, who delivers not one but two great performances.

Delivers a surprising, moving portrait of contemporary womanhood.

It wisely lets us hear Pinero's words for ourselves, and in the end, they echo louder than the images that accompany them.

Toback's films deliver a lot of bang for the buck. He's one of the few serious and original directors who can mix group sex and talk of existentialism; a fast-paced basketball sequence cut with scenes of Mafia members plotting a hit; and an in-class philosophy lecture stylishly edited with Alan's memories of a contradictory in-bed discussion.

Hits the ground running and never lets up.

Likable comedy about ordinary people stumbling badly and then triumphing.

A surprising and delightful romantic take on modern women.

Doesn't win any points for originality. It does succeed by following a feel-good formula with a winning style, and by offering its target audience of urban kids some welcome role models and optimism.

As a bonus, "Liquid" also includes eye-popping footage of the top surfers in the world (Taj Burrow, Laird Hamilton, Dave Kalama) -- wave riders who make the impossible look easy.

Any film about the folk tradition is required to have a stellar soundtrack, and Songcatcher does not disappoint.

A searing documentary with an agenda.

An unpredictable, mythic tale about haunted outcasts that is both dazzling and disquieting.

The heartfelt truthfulness of Gardos' tale, and the performances of all leads, particularly Johansson, make the film a powerful account of the universal search for identity and the meaning of "home."

Despite the deftness with which Bigelow handles the transitions, the modern story never attains the intrigue and tension of the period tale.

Plenty of dramatic action, stunning imagery and an operatic score add weight to Escaflowne. It may not appeal to fans of traditional animation.

An ebullient toast to grande dames: part homage, part camp, all artifice and a thoroughly entertaining, if light, confection.

A welcome respite from verbal nastiness and sexual cynicism. It's nice to see characters who enjoy falling in love, even if it's to a schmaltzy light-soul score.

With its welcome lessons on friendship and self-esteem, is not only appropriate for preschoolers, but it also has enough sophistication for older kids.

A searing reminder of the relevance of recent history and of the timeless power of fiction to humanize people and crystallize sweeping events into personal drama.

Laurel Canyon itself feels musical: languid, rich in color and light, and deliciously sensual.

Manages to wring some originality out of its fairy-tale plot. This freshness compensates for the expected hackneyed qualities in this Cinderella tale.

A welcome family film that extols noble values and offers first-class animation.

Offers something rare for a modern movie: an uncynical depiction of the redemptive power of human relationships.

Boldly goes where Hollywood rarely treads: into the passionate, intense and complex world of girls at the point in their lives when self-discovery is tempered by enormous vulnerability.

A powerhouse of a film about modern journalism and war, with battle scenes that have the immediacy and impact of the famed opening sequence of "Saving Private Ryan."

It's a raw and raucous rock story that, for once, gets the big picture and the small details right.

Deftly uses the conventions of the urban buddy/ romance film to create a fast and loose, often humorous, atmosphere.

Succeeds as a paean to movies and movie-watching.

The rigidity of most of the rabbis interviewed in the film is balanced by the presence of openly gay Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg, who offers a more liberal, but no less scholarly, interpretation of the Torah.

Despite its many charms, the title of the film -- both complaint and boast -- makes clear whose point of view this is. Gainsbourg is delightful, intelligent and sexy, but this isn't her film.

An uneven mix of genres that, even when it misses the mark, gets points for originality and a good beat.

It's the pre-teen set who will revel in the adolescent angst and anarchic high jinks of Max Keeble.

A fine, handsome-looking costume drama that works best as a historical account of a brutal era. But as a portrait of the Marquis de Sade, it is not titillating in the over-the-top manner of "Quills."

Despite its shortcomings, Girls Can't Swim represents an engaging and intimate first feature by a talented director to watch, and it's a worthy entry in the French coming-of-age genre.

Snappy but sappy romantic comedy.

Meadows clearly has a flair for working with actors and for depicting the rough-and-tumble of ordinary provincial lives. If he could go just a bit deeper, the truly great Midlands movie just might surface.

Makes you want to run home and shower, but Rourke's performance gets under your skin.

A handsome but lightweight period piece about passions indulged and repressed, and the calamitous outcomes that result from both courses.

Mix of stylish action and meta-musings, provides plenty of confusing, satisfying surprises, though it could have used more tightness and punch.

Despite its charms, and the refreshingly non-traditional characters, Lilo & Stitch seems diluted and too derivative to be as effective as one wants it to be.

But as likable as it is, Tadpole is hardly a maturing woman's revenge movie, but another male fantasy -- that of the sexually nurturing mother figure. If only all coming-of-age sexual experiences could be as healthy and wholesome.

Star Pilar Lopez de Ayala is such a feisty, striking presence, and the film so conventional in its depiction of a jealous and insatiable love, that it is hard to see Juana as anything other than a typical soap opera heroine.

The movie moves predictably to its feel-good finale.

It makes the viewer wonder whether Circuit would have been stronger as a documentary instead of the well-intentioned, overlong, intermittently entertaining but flawed feature that it is.

It is awkward and dull, a capital crime for an aspiring noir.

Disappointingly hollow.

Griffin may well get there, but he's not there yet.

Doesn't aim for more than padding a plot around Kennedy so he can do his Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character full-force. And the joke soon wears thin.

Schlock that could and should have been better.

It's a refreshing theme for a kids' movie, one that incorporates history and urban flavor, not to mention a preservationists' perspective, into the usual mix.

Surprising less moldy and trite than the last two.

Predictable and dull.

One can hardly argue with the desire to make a wholesome movie for families that extols honesty and decency, but it all comes too easily, too superficially.

For all its slickness, is an R-rated version of "Survivor," "Big Brother" or any number of reality-TV shows that present voyeurism as entertainment and exploitation as insight.

Lesnick seems to be saying that lesbian characters on screen can also meet cute significant others, spar in a lite Woody Allen fashion, and have a happy, sappy Hollywood ending. But a sitcom is still a sitcom -- gay, Greek or otherwise.

The Eye is a feast to behold, but it lacks substance and will leave most viewers wholly unsatisfied.

An adequate horror movie for the Halloween season, but it too easily sinks into haunted-house-film conventions, even if the haunted house is decked out as an Italian luxury liner.

Unambitious and transparent, but that doesn't mean it won't warm the hearts of audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

The British intelligence operation at Bletchley Park that cracked the Enigma code is truly the stuff of great drama. But that story doesn't offer Matt LeBlanc in a wig and heels.

There's nothing original about the father-son conflict that forms the core of the film, nor is there enough suspense and drama.

The film's crude humor and violence -- cartoonish, but still violent -- should offend parents of younger kids. Yet its ultra-broad, pratfall-filled comedy will satisfy only the most indiscriminate teens.

The situations and jokes are as predictable and as lowbrow as the endless pratfalls the boys take in their high heels.

Like its parade of predecessors, this Halloween is a gory slash-fest. It can't escape its past, and it doesn't want to.

Throws its obvious predecessor, "Waiting to Exhale," into relief, making that 1995 syrupy revenge fantasy look positively Shakespearean next to the moronic Two Can Play That Game.

Despite some imaginative fatalities, is less a movie than a slick video game.