Has an intimate, personal quality. Rather than showboating for the camera, the soldiers get to a deeper level, conveying a surprisingly reflective and aware sensibility.

The result is an insightful look at a remarkable behind-the-scenes life and slice of American and Hollywood history. Told from an outsider's perspective, it sheds light on the workings of a glamorous but often treacherous business.

This is a story as involving as you'd imagine it would be.

An ambitious and largely successful documentary testimony-tribute to the founders of the so-called Beat movement.

With its lovely images of wintertime Paris and its lyrical Michel Legrand music, La Bu^che does take the cake.

Robot Stories isn't any good. I don't say this lightly. There's no pleasure in giving new directors bad reviews and it's especially unpleasant when what's wrong with their work isn't a clumsy performance or two, a sagging second act or a repugnant worldview, but a near-total absence of filmmaking talent.

A small movie with some big moments and a lot of unfinished business.

He (director Mark Waters) keeps the story light and bright, and he brings out real comic performances from his cast, including newcomer Seyfried, who plays her ditz with Judy Holliday charm.

The film itself is playful, weird, unpredictable and a bit tasteless. [10 Apr 1992]

Directed by Alan Rudolph and co-scripted by him with Randy Sue Coburn, Mrs. Parker is a real odd duck of a movie. It seems to have been made both as tribute and put-down. The sporty conviviality of the Algonquin Round Table is celebrated, and yet there's a hollowness to the confabs.[21 Dec 1994, p.4]

The result is that "Spider-Man" goes in and out of focus. This is a film that is memorable in pieces but not as a whole.

What helps offset the predictable in this very predictable movie is a series of show-stopping numbers, so props to the folks who oversaw music and choreography. But the true saving grace is a few of the central players.

The film ultimately is more practical than profound, a slightly smartened-up "Dummy's Guide to Green Living," which, as you learn, most of us probably know a good deal less about than we imagine.

There's an urgency about "Star Trek VI" that comes from its deliberate topicality. [6 Dec. 1991, p.F1]

A thoughtful, provocative exploration of the ways poets have dealt with the experience of battle throughout history.

An unusually intelligent cut at the relationship game.

Catfish was built to charm, not indict, and on that front it makes for a diverting seriocomic wade into the pitfalls of Internet-based immediacy, and by extension, the manipulative mysteries of documentary assemblage.

Slick, adrenaline-fueled fun.

The movie's clatter and whiz-bang suggests more humor than there actually is.

Ends up more challenging and intriguing than personally involving, and while these are far from small things, it is only human to hope for more.

Known for an elegant visual style, Jarmusch has a great gift for playing actors against one another, for finding complementary eccentrics (Murray and RZA) and uncovering rare gems (Bill Rice and Taylor Mead in "Champagne").

Lively, incisive and comprehensive documentary.

Detailed and intensely researched documentary.

Exquisite yet harrowing.

An affectionate tribute to the drag artist who has been a Manhattan institution for more than 20 years.

The appeal of the cast, the witty dialogue, the gorgeous costumes and production design, and the refreshingly grown-up subject matter can't be discounted. Maybe it is about compromise, after all, because though Married Life has its moments, it's bewildering as a whole.

An emotionally rich and satisfying drama featuring a terrifically understated performance from John Cusack.

An enjoyable celebratory ode to a fiercely entertaining counterculture-inspired genre.

A deeply satisfying feat of storytelling, Bless Me, Ultima makes a difficult task look easy. It combines innocence and experience, the darkness and wonder of life, in a way that is not easy to categorize but a rich pleasure to watch.

The acting is serviceable and primarily of the stare-until-you're-uncomfortable variety, although Rampling is much more than that: She's a classic screen temptress with the aura of a melancholy spider.

Selena is in part a completely predictable Latino soap opera that should satisfy those who complain they aren't making movies like they like used to.

For an exquisitely melancholy story steeped in a sense of the past as a succession of great waves of political, ideological and economic change, it's fitting that the movie should end with an underwater sequence. It looks like a dream of a memory of a place about to be wiped out by the next great flood of history.

More concerned, and with good reason, with the opera's extravagant visual look. The gorgeous pageantry of sets and costumes is frankly dazzling.

An accomplished film that continually takes us beyond our first impressions of people and situations.

Has the virtue of sincerity but not that of restraint. Unlike Terrence Malick, whose shadow looms over the film's visual style, the Smiths over-explain, not grasping that all those barren fields and blood-red clouds are doing plenty of work for them.

A most ambitious first film. Dominik pulls it off impressively, assisted by a selfless cast, a driving score by Mick Harvey, and gifted cameramen Kevin Hayward and Geoffrey Hall.

Somehow, Hoffman makes all this hypnotically interesting, and, through impeccable timing, sometimes terribly funny--a sweet humor which never betrays Raymond's unalterable character. [16 Dec 1988]

The film is especially strong in its second half, which is dominated by contemporary footage of Zinn.

Despite involved acting and Nichols' impeccable professionalism as a director, the end result is, to quote one of the characters, "a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully."

Memorable and significant.

A pretty engaging tale, and it's refreshing to see a well-acted, suspenseful drama made without a bloated budget or a lot of bloodletting.

Dzi Croquettes is both a tribute and a terrific entertainment.

Any caseworking suspense is drowned out by an over-abundance of visual pizazz: disjointed shootouts, arbitrary camera angles and cinematography that draws the eye to lighting patterns, not people.

The provocative noir experience that Talaash promises, with its jazzily scored, moodily lighted opening montage of a Mumbai red-light district at night, is nowhere to be found once this meandering mystery begins.

The characters in this somber film have the glum look of individuals delivering a Very Important Message to the world. And though this film in fact does have something crucial to convey, this is not the way to go about it.

Bristling with dangers both corporeal and cerebral, The Debt is a superbly crafted espionage thriller packed with Israeli-Nazi score settling.

If anything is missing from this inspiring film, it is a deeper examination of why, given how common-sensical these approaches are, so few other schools have been able to accomplish what Providence St. Mel's has.

Too serious to be an out-and-out comedy, too funny not to be one, My Best Friend is a lot easier to enjoy than to classify.

A rich sense of the dawning of gay liberation.

Because it is so old-school Hollywood, with a weakness for standard moments and pat situations, The Great Debaters initially comes off as easily dismissible. Largely saving it from that fate is the presence and ability of Denzel Washington, who costars with Forest Whitaker and directs from Robert Eisele's script.

The story becomes more ridiculous as it escalates, the film's over-determined ecological focus undermining any real horror movie tension. Levinson's casting choices are off-the-mark as well - star Kether Donohue is just plain bad.

Spritely, tender and unpredictable.

A treat to experience visually (especially in lively 3-D) and verbally, Puss in Boots is a family film where the adventure and invention never flag and the tongue-in-cheek humor doesn't linger far behind.

One of the least sensationalistic--and therefore, more unsettlingly plausible--visions of prison life ever transfigured into big-screen drama.

A splendid instance of a surrealist vision that serves to heighten the impact of genuine emotions experienced by believably real people.

A delicious pitch-dark Icelandic comedy centering on a femme fatale so enigmatic it brings into question just how fatale she may actually be.

Robert Redford, who for the first time stars in a movie he's also directed, has taken this soap opera material and treated it like something inscribed on yak vellum by the Dalai Lama.

Dazzling and dizzying, confusing and even annoying, Velvet Goldmine is a feverish dream of a film, a riot of color and attitude that is all pop decadence, all night long.

The filmmakers have brought such breadth and depth to the material. Everyone counts in this film, not just Julia Lambert.

A stirring snapshot of America from 1963 to 1968 and the many rock 'n' roll thrills, cultural and political watersheds, and whirling emotions that erupted in between. It's also deviously smart and darkly funny.

In his illuminating, timelessly timely Sex Positive documentary, Daryl Wein calls attention both to unjustly neglected pioneering AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz and his still widely ignored groundbreaking promotion of safe sex.

Jindabyne's strength and power come from a number of factors: its origin, its current landscape and the unusual way its writer-director, Ray Lawrence, has chosen to work.

A slick package all around. Adroitly edited, filled with fine music like Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman" and more people flashing needles than at a garment worker's convention, this film is less a dispassionate examination than a celebratory infomercial on its central character.

A mildly successful attempt at updating a relic, its appeal depends greatly on an audience's willingness to go along for a familiar ride. [17Nov1995 Pg. F.01]

It's the candid moments of joy and accomplishment -- Welcker finding out she's an Intel contest finalist, Khan learning he's been accepted to Yale, high school valedictorian Cisneros thanking her devoted parents in her graduation speech -- that really make this one soar.

As gut-punch storytelling, Viva Riva! delivers much, not the least of which is the promise of an exciting new filmmaking talent.

Without the ability to move off the mythic, without the emotional texture that "Heat" created, it is a film easier to admire than to get passionately involved with.

In general, the movie doesn't necessarily reveal anything we don't already know but delivers it in a personable, entertaining manner.

If the segments are uneven, Moncrieff -- with the help of her excellent cast -- nevertheless crafts a gripping overall narrative that exposes a shared dissonance among the protagonists.

Kazemy and Boosheri are excellent, and Soheil Parsa and Nasrin Pakkho are also fine as Atefeh's doting, liberal parents. And if Keshavarz is less successful managing the film's sometimes choppy narrative, she is clearly willing to take risks on all fronts. More power to her.

Whatever the reason, the energy and hold-onto-your-seat excitement that Muhammad Ali brought to the sports world is oddly absent from this quite accomplished but finally distant film.

The skill involved holds us in our seats, the project's inability to transcend its built-in limitations keep it from achieving the kind of overarching impact it is after.

Carefully crafted, notably in its deft dramatic structuring, and has become timely in a way its maker could never have anticipated.

The film is, perhaps, intended as a deadpan burlesque of race and class and beauty ideals...but it plays more as a boorish, overextended punch line.

A triumph of stylish, darkly absurdist horror that even manages to strike a chord of Shakespearean tragedy - and evokes a sense of wonder anew at all the terrible things people do to themselves and each other.

As unusual and idiosyncratic as its one-of-a-kind title. You'd expect no less from Terry Gilliam, and admirers of this singular filmmaker will be pleased to know that "Imaginarium" is one of his most original and accessible works.

Rueful, funny and wise, The Salt of Life is a comedy not of errors but of the tiniest of missteps. A warm yet melancholy film of quiet yet inescapable charm, it has a feeling for character and personality that couldn't be more delicious.

Skipping from one story to another and scrambling their relative chronologies, Drama/Mex presents a flashy package, but that only reveals the paucity of its ideas.

The problem with The Runaways is that they went with the wrong girl.

This most observant and involving film has three strengths: It shows that a strongly family-oriented, middle-class suburbia is initially hardly idyllic for gays; the arrival of Patrik reveals fissures in Sven and Goran's relationship; and that Lemhagen, who plays against predictability at every turn, maintains suspense right up to the final minutes as to how everything may turn out for the three.

It's lush and vibrant when Williams is onscreen, mostly fussy British discontent when she's not.

Marie Antoinette gives a wide berth to the conventions of period dramas, especially their time-capsule remove, and instead tries to mainline the singular personal experience of the arch-villainess of French history (and freedom history, for that matter). The result is a startlingly original and beautiful pop reverie that comes very close to being transcendent.

Though the film stars a relaxed and capable Harrison Ford as everyone's favorite intrepid archaeologist and boasts supporting players ranging from Cate Blanchett as a superb villainess to Shia LaBeouf as the inevitable youngster, the real heroes of this film are director Steven Spielberg and the veritable army of superb technicians who turn the film's numerous stunts and special effects into trains that insist on running on time.

Director Stephen Kijak previously made the documentary "Cinemania," about a group of obsessive moviegoers, and it comes across here that Walker (born Noel Scott Engel) and his acolytes might best be described not by that distasteful word "hipster" but rather by the more dignified "connoisseur." These are people of discerning taste.

And really, who goes to summer action movies for cast-iron logic anyway? Or for plausible characters, for that matter? You go for brisk stunts expertly executed, for well-directed action that doesn't allow you to catch your breath and for one of the preeminent action stars of our time. Yes, that would be Angelina Jolie.

It's clear from first frame to last that the filmmakers decided to go broad, very broad, with a story that swings between hysterical, hyper-sexual, bizarre, surprisingly tender and just plain awful. This is one mixed bag of a movie.

A farce of misunderstanding first, body-count nightmare second and at nearly all times a refreshingly upending horror-comedy bromance.

The cast Rush has assembled around Ferrell helps as well. There are tiny gems contributed by Laura Dern as the long-lost high school crush Nick looks up, and Stephen Root as a prickly neighbor with some unusual proclivities.

Fortunately, director Michael Apted and his team understand the challenges of this kind of story and have met them with intelligence and energy.

An assured, graceful instance of effective screen storytelling, and Meadows draws splendid performances from his cast, especially from the young Shim and Marshall.

It's clever, amusing, clever, visually inventive, clever, well-cast .

Has everything a period romance should have, including a score by Michael Nyman and passionate performances by stars Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.

Its portrait of the many ways we can complicate our romantic lives may have a few serious moments, but it's intended to go down easy, and that's what it does.

You can't roll monstrous boulders straight at audiences any more and have a whole theater-full duck and gasp with fright--and pleasure. We may be plumb gasped out. And although Harrison Ford is still in top form and the movie is truly fun in patches, it's a genre on the wane. [24 May 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

A mordantly funny and shrewdly understated millennial fantasy.

Smart and funny, touching and unabashedly sensual... the sweet sleeper of a hot season. [21 Aug 1987]

Hawkins' performance as "Dagenham's" unassuming heroine, an amalgam of several key figures who stepped up back in the day, is first-rate and already generating some Oscar talk.

A tedious two-plus hours. There were such possibilities in the origins idea.

Arias has a tendency toward creative overkill, mostly in the climax that renders with apocalyptic imagery the metaphysical consequences of Black and White's separation.

A paint-by-numbers version of an artist's life, Basquiat is amusing for all the wrong reasons, especially at those horrible moments when you realize you're supposed to be taking it seriously.

As it is, Bustin' Bonaparte is an enjoyable diversion, but with more energy and style it might have been a gem.

Running just shy of 2 1/2 hours, the film has too much of everything, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. By turns exuberant and goofy and mushy and yearning, Dostana plays like a super-sized pilot episode of "Three's Company: Miami" with crack tunes and jampacked with fun.

Featuring a knockout performance by Adam Scott, The Vicious Kind upends the heavily tread dysfunctional family drama in ways that are unique, surprising and memorable.

Scurlock does well to counter the more dire aspects of the film with a razor-sharp sense of humor.

A glum British kidnap movie in which writer-director J Blakeson manages to generate tension and some suspense, never rises above the mechanical and contrived, finally lapsing into the improbable.

In The Matador, a delightfully sly diversion, Pierce Brosnan breaks the mold and turns in what might be considered the performance of his career, the kind of witty, relaxed star portrayal that recalls those of Cary Grant and other Golden Era legends.

Arlington Road belongs to that splendid Hollywood tradition of dealing with serious, timely issues in the form of a suspense thriller.

Plays out the notion of the forces of light being inexorably drawn to those of darkness, of the older generation betraying the younger and maybe even an indictment of European indifference to the Balkans' agony.

It's a gritty story made in the director's more elegiacal mode, a confusion of style and content that is not in the film's best interests.

Intimate and human yet deeply ambitious, a powerhouse of a film made with a disturbing vision.

So sharp and funny it should appeal to all ages.

What's surprising about this traditional thriller, moderately successful but not completely satisfying, is exactly how genteel and unsurprising the execution turns out to be.

All of Loach's formidable strengths, which include a sense of humor, come together in the wrenching A Fond Kiss.

A straightforward, surprisingly faithful and definitely loving adaptation of the original.

A clever way of providing crucial layering and heightening a hip, satirical take on bad old Hollywood ways.

The elegant Water Lilies is not about answers but about discovery of self and of others in all its pain and pleasure.

Dan offers the most pleasing kind of unforced charm as it uses a terrific plot device to examine the conflicts between family and romance as well as the joy and pain of being in love.

The seriously out-of-control hard R dude is writer-director Nicholas Stoller, who apparently has major trust issues with his odd-couple stars, women and the audience. Did I forget anybody?

Has the right mix of sugar and spice for a satisfying rush.

Alice Wu's debut film is so deft, natural and exquisitely specific, it feels fresh.

Noticeable skill has gone into the making of Seven, but it's hard to take much pleasure in that.

Smart, compassionate filmmaking that captures both the intricacies and the tragedy of contemporary adolescence.

With characters this alive, it's a pity that no one was able to build a more convincing film around them, instead of leaving everyone more or less out there on their own. [13 May 1994, p.1]

The film is very much like a home movie in trying to tell its story of families and feuds complete with the bad lighting, bad camera angles and meandering observations. Though you will wish for more polish and insight, its unruly action is hard to resist.

Samsara is as frustrating as it is beautiful, which is saying a lot because this is a film laced with exquisite images.

In Tetro, nearly every time Coppola should have clung to intimacy, he opts for excess. Especially tedious are the meta excerpts from staged productions -- overcompensation trying to masquerade as illumination. Regrettable since there is such fine work being done in the smaller moments.

An unexpectedly emotional, continually disconcerting film.

Prometheus, unlike its predecessors, does not wear its themes lightly. It pushes too hard for significance, which is dicey in and of itself for genre material and contrasts badly with the standard nature of some of the story's plotting.

A superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.

This well-paced film's realistic style and authentic locales are a perfect fit for the characters and their story.

The film is also strengthened by a pair of adroit lead performances by Brad Renfro and Kevin Bacon, actors who completely understand their characters and know how to make the most of them on screen.

The Swell Season emerges as an incisive cut at fame's effect on the real-life music and romance of Hansard and Irglova. It's an accomplished piece of filmmaking from the trio, who are making their feature-length documentary debut.

The new Israeli film Walk on Water is complex and paradoxical, at times frustrating but always involving. Something like the country that produced it.

It is the kind of film that leaves you limp, exhausted and feeling battered by the end. But its wrenching performances make the beating worth weathering.

Medem is one of the few directors who understands sensuality and knows how to make it happen on screen. Sex and Lucia specializes in pleasant eroticism, using nudity, Koko de la Rica's dreamy cinematography and Alberto Iglesias' Goya-winning score to create episodes of voluptuous lovemaking.

More creepy and flesh-crawling than overwhelmingly gory, it nevertheless takes pride in characters who get splattered with blood as often as take-out fries get doused with catsup.

The film doubtless works better for those able to accept it unquestioningly as a charming fable of the redemptive, healing power of love that it means to be.

Chrystal unravels a bit toward the end as it becomes more fable-like, but the performances make it worthwhile.

Polanski's version, though handsomely realized, is a fairly conventional rendering of the novel that probably won't be counted among his best films.

Moving somewhat obviously toward denouement, the film hits a false note or two. But mainly it's exhilarating in its refusal to make smooth what's messy, inchoate and tenaciously alive.

The movie contains enough fresh insanity and inventive visuals to make it an amusing cyberpunk extravaganza for most of its protracted running time.

Somehow, against considerable obstacles, it has captured something true about families and friendship, creating a texture of believable emotions on screen.

Blessed with considerable virtues, including a clever concept, crackling filmmaking and a charismatic star, it ultimately squanders all of them, undone by an unfortunate lack of subtlety and restraint.

Manages to be both pertinent and dramatically persuasive. Made like it means something (and it does) by first-time writer-director Tanya Hamilton, it demonstrates that social relevance and emotional connection can be compelling fellow travelers.

Manages to evoke a complex series of reactions. It both frustrates with its unrelenting sentimentality and impresses with the overwhelming physicality of its combat sequences. These in turn are so powerful they take on a life of their own, sending a message that is probably quite opposite to the one the filmmakers intended.

It's sensational in both senses of the word: a bravura, provocative sendup of horror pictures that's also scary and gruesome yet too swift-moving to lapse into morbidity.

Exhilarating comedy...Its warm, embracing spirit is refreshing in these divisive times.

It is chockablock with brutality, but the violence is of the high-minded, self-congratulatory sort that indicates without actually showing.

If Simon's hands-off approach precludes a thorough stock-taking of Dreier's misdeeds - numbers alone hardly tell the full story - the movie's subject obligingly avails himself of the ample rope.

To be fair to Deathly Hallows, the filmmakers have tried hard to fill the proceedings with battles and chases and debilitating curses. Genuine filmmaking excitement, however, is harder to provide.

On-screen, Bad 25 moves in the style of a great pop song.

The road is rocky when the story speeds up to take care of business, with the end a mad dash to tie up loose ends. Still, there is enough saving grace on these craggy shores to let the mists and the legends roll in and envelop you for a while.

For a film that has allegedly undergone extensive tinkering following its premiere at last year's Cannes Film Festival, Down in the Valley abounds in nagging loose ends and suffers overall from logy pacing.

An elegant, sophisticated mystery.

An unexpectedly rich exploration of family bonds, blood rituals and the oftentimes zombie-like desire to assume the roles proscribed to each of us, played out with a sharp undertow of political allegory and darkly comic sensibility.

One of the places where In a Better World is especially successful is comparing and contrasting the moral worlds of children and adults, showing how difficult but essential it is for each group to learn from the other.

Devastating and amusing.

Close to Home is a slender slice -- a sliver is more like it -- of a very rich cake.

Despite its arresting visual style, its wave after wave of creative and hypnotic images, The Pillow Book, as its name hints, slowly but inexorably leads to sleep.

While the anger of Outrage is to be expected, the surprise of the film is how much sadness you take away as well, the sadness of people who feel compelled to pretend to be what they are not.

A look at the annual San Diego convention that is sweetly empathetic where previous Spurlock works have been brash and confrontational. Plus, it's a lot of fun.

The gentle drama offers an intriguing look at the contemporary version of an ancient ritual, and is anchored by the on-screen work of the writer-director's father, Martin Sheen. But Estevez doesn't push far enough, opting to focus on generic lessons in camaraderie and the primacy of the moment.

Rapp is clearly in sync with Altman's peerless sense of rhythm and knows how to write incisively and economically for Altman's cherished large ensemble casts.

A sly romantic comedy made with wit and style.

It's a simple collection of sight gags and pratfalls that mines the overly familiar turf of awkward adolescence without bringing anything truly original to the experience.

A lovingly rendered visual treat struggles with indifferent direction and torpid plot.

Like an exquisite minimalist painting - its beauty will move you, its simplicity will fool you. For there are layers and complexities to be found in the film, like the many mysteries it slowly exposes.

For a film that unfolds mostly in a single location, Interview manages not to feel like a stage piece. But the premise, which may have worked in Holland, gets a little lost in the American translation.

A dark, riveting thriller.

For though it can't maintain its momentum all the way to the end, Sunshine until it stumbles is gratifyingly far from the usual space-opera stuff.

They use dialogue sparingly, powerfully; a talky detective sounds like a visitor from another planet. The world he has encroached upon is defined by the ability to run and the adrenaline-rush threat of capture. Freedom's just another word in this gripping existential portrait.

It won't be everybody's idea of entertainment but the heady documentary "Examined Life" provides a sound forum for an influential cross-section of professional thinkers to theorize on such weighty topics as life and death, politics, the environment and disabilities.

Much in this wholly absorbing and poignant documentary is familiar from numerous previous Holocaust accounts, but Mago and her quiet sense of moral obligation provides a fresh perspective.

It is a straightforward, conventional narrative, charting seemingly endless cruelty and hardship, but rewards the patient with an eloquent climactic sequence that is impossible to predict.

Thoughtful and moving, if often heavy-handed, The Whale follows the remarkable story of Luna and will appeal to animal lovers of all ages.

Alas, the flick can't resist overheating. Paradoxically, when people finally do jump in their cars, curl their fists and grab their guns, we wish they'd retreat to the safety of their monitors.

Starts out self-consciously but gets better as it goes along, winding up as affecting as it is illuminating.

Antisentimental to a fault.

Well-crafted, disturbing Texas gothic thriller, a completely spooky piece of business that gets under your skin and, some plot blips aside, stays there for the duration.

A bombshell in its home country, Herod's Law is made with the kind of flair that ensures a following everywhere politicians are venal and voters hope against hope for deliverance.

Although it starts off vaguely amusing, 8 Women grows progressively sour, curdled by the filmmakers' bad faith and lack of compassion. It isn't just the tone that's off; it's the point.

Wise, understated, warm and witty, it presents stars Michel Serrault and Mathilde Seigner in roles that fit them so perfectly they could have been tailor-made.

With killing as an end in itself, combatants lose sight of what they were supposed to be taking up arms for in the first place. It's a terrible lesson, and one that Tae Guk Gi teaches with unexpected confidence.

Wanted's hyperkinetic antics are sometimes weighed down by a surfeit of adolescent misanthropy. But the adrenaline-overdose strategy works for viewers as well as hit men. As long as Bekmambetov keeps the pedal to the metal, you don't notice the rotten scenery outside.

There is always a risk with having such a singular focus on a single theme; you might wake up to find the walls of that favored niche are closing in on you. And that is where we find Egoyan in Adoration.

The giddy near-brilliance of its central conceit is squandered by flat execution.

A forceful documentary set against the 2004 Haitian coup d'état that toppled the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Harron has said she was determined to be nonjudgmental about Page, to do justice to the woman's "mystery and ambiguity." In practice, however, that attitude plays as coldness, and Page, for all her remarkable zest, comes off as a not terribly interesting person we're given no incentive to become involved with.

Rich in revealing detail and apt in its use of everyday Spokane settings, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers shows that Wang remains a master explorer of the landscape of the human heart.

Directed by Jon Favreau from a script by David Berenbaum, Elf returns to the hip but warm-hearted spirit of "Swingers," which Favreau both wrote and starred in. It brings sophisticated glee and a sense of innocent fun to what could have been a moribund traditional family film.

Features some charming songs by Carly Simon and is warmly animated so as to evoke nostalgia in parents.

All too predictably, as if obeying some rule of genre, the director trades in his more involved ideas about alienation and voyeurism for an eruption of violence, then tags on some nonsense about marital fidelity.

A thoroughly original accomplishment of a high artistic order, Northfork features flawless, spare production design by Ichelle Spitzig and the Polish brothers' father, Del, and cinematographer M. David Mullen's striking images slide effortlessly into Dalí-like Surrealism.

It's an exasperating, irresistible, must-see mess of a movie about life in the modern world and so very good that even when its story finally crashes and burns the filmmaking remains unscathed.

Nothing much happens by way of plot in the course of Father and Son, but it offers a fresh and often startling vision of one of the most fundamental relationships between human beings.

Even in an animated feature, visuals alone, no matter how successful, are not enough. And despite having this sturdy biblical tale to work with, despite being faithful enough to the spirit of the story to please a wide swath of scholars and theologians, the creators of Prince of Egypt have been unable to relate it in a completely compelling way.

Niccol's script, which has the earnest simplicity of a freshman philosophy paper, is merely naked exploitation, a sci-fi snow job that projects a contemporary ethical question--would a perfect human be human?--into a solemn future where the worst-case scenario unfolds as conventional Hollywood melodrama.

Successfully brings to the big screen those no-brainer nerds who have brought laughter to living rooms around the world for nearly four years.

The plot, naturally, is silly and not exactly bound by logic. But it's Judge's gimlet-eyed knack for nightmarish extrapolation that makes Idiocracy a cathartic delight.

Prechezer's cast is ingratiating and attractive, and Blue Juice is as buoyant as its terrific rock score.

Love in the Buff may not be one for the ages, but it is one for right now, and shows up countless lifeless Hollywood romantic comedies. Pang's nimble, incisive writing and direction and his winning leads give proof to the rom-com ideal that a film can be funny, romantic and connected to modern life.

Quartet is very much a performance piece, which plays to Hoffman's strength - as an actor he knows when to allow this excellent ensemble breathing room and when to tighten the belt.

Canner's deft exposé also makes clear that some of the highest-profile "experts" are shills for Big Pharma, and that genital mutilation is thriving in the West, in the form of cosmetic surgery.

Paper Clips arrives with an authentically persuasive message of hope.

Goon feels like a movie starring a gimmick, not a person.

Indeed, Aranoa loves these women so completely that his film seems overly drawn out at nearly two hours and likely would have had greater effect had it been half an hour shorter. Even so, Princesas remains largely engaging and rewarding.

From the moment we meet Abby, whimsically soothing her callers, we're turned into lap dogs, ready to follow her -- ready to follow Garofalo -- anywhere.

It's to be expected that the music is going to be wonderful, and it is. But there is more to this film, a surprising amount more.