A picture so powerfully harrowing, its slight shortcomings are forgettable compared to the entire film's cumulative effect. It's that searing.

No other sporting figure has ever been afforded so much screen time for self-revelation: just another instance of Iron Mike's one-of-a-kind status.

Branagh's Henry is inevitably darker and more violent than Olivier's, but also even more youthful and energetic at times. He is generally far more direct, with fewer sly implications. [17 Dec 1989]

The film works as well as it does thanks to Kimberly Roberts' magnetic screen presence.

They've made a movie-movie of Sweeney Todd, and if you've got the stomach and ear for it, you'll be grateful.

A man can be a treasure just as a work of art can be, and O'Toole is one of the handful of living film actors worthy of a museum of his own. Venus would make a brilliant final exhibit.

The film is all the more remarkable because its actors are untrained and their lines are improvised. Clearly, they've lived this.

Before it traps Ralston, 127 Hours gives us ample evidence of his energy, zest and boyish charm and wit.

In the fine tradition of well-made thrillers, it's enough that it all feels solid at the moment, and the final revelations are unexpected and seemingly inevitable.

Simple enough for children, deep enough for adults, clever enough for cynics.

Incendies was likely a crackling thing to read, but it's not quite so vivid as a finished film.

With this amoral business environment, it's not a question of if there will be another Enron, but when.

Reigns as the most assured, provocative film so far this year.

There's quality, wit and emotion throughout.

There are moments that stir, and it's always lovely, but it's generally too remote to gain hold of you truly.

The problem here is we never get much more than the pretty, the quaint and the comfortingly familiar. There's a place for such stuff in the world, yes, but that doesn't make it art.

Isn't just a horror film, but an American classic. Watch again and reflect for days after -- at your own risk.

Somewhat marred by Bruno Coulais' treacly New Age score -- as well as by Perrin's somewhat daft and repetitive narration. But the key word is "somewhat." In the main, Winged Migration is an unforgettable piece of moviemaking.

Isn't easy to watch, but it's beautifully written and acted, with a sharp eye for the small embarrassments of divorce.

Crowd-pleasing, feel-good stuff.

With its eye-popping color, bold personality and snazzy tunes, Chicago is a breathtaking experience.

Nair takes mostly low-key material about a traditional Indian family raising kids in America and turns it into something sensual, funny and quietly devastating.

An alternately harrowing and poetic take on the fatal 1982 hunger strike of Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands, Hunger is also one of the most impressive feature directing debuts in years.

You can't help getting emotionally involved, and as the central outrage -- a case of judicial negligence that would seem unbelievable in a work of fiction -- plays out, you feel the pain and anger that Bagby's family and friends experienced. Then the story takes a final, horrible twist that's almost too much to endure.

A hilarious, touching, profound and inspiring film about art and dreams and self-belief and the goggle-eyed hope that you can will a miracle into reality through sheer effort and desire.

The Trip doesn't really go anywhere you didn't see it heading, but it's worth the journey.

Much has been made about the fact that the world's most popular fictional children are growing up and straight into that horror-filled no man's land of the human life span, puberty.

At once spare and dense, chilly and thrilling, literate and visceral, it feeds in gray areas, teasing ambiguities and conundrums out of shadows and making strengths of inconclusiveness and uncertainty.

Credit the great Bruno Ganz with creating a vivid Hitler: furious, unsteady, crushed and frankly cracking up.

It's one of the great horror films of recent years -- and a welcome antidote to the in-your-face sonic assaults that all too often pass for genre fare.

A mental workout of the most invigorating sort.

As numbing as the drumbeat of downbeat documentaries can be, as hard as it is to even be shocked at the depravities committed in our name, a film like this remains important, both as an indictment of the present day and as a warning to future generations that the ends don't always justify the means.

It may, finally, be the best and last word on the man, his music and his myth that we ever get on film -- an estimable achievement in itself.

The tension between the comely and comforting manner of the film and its undecided and beguiling content is, arguably, Haneke’s signature touch.

An all-hell-breaks-loose, panicky fever of a story, all of it drenched in grainy, color-saturated cinematography.

The film verges on hagiography as one interviewee after another testifies to Dominique's positive influence on his nation, but in this case the cynical notion that there must be another side to the story is easy to tamp down.

The longer it goes on, the more you're swept up into the jet stream of good feeling.

Kaurismäki is a master of expressive stillness for whom inaction often speaks louder than words, and the performances he elicits are perfectly pitched, including young Miguel's.

The notions of sacrifice, patriotism, race and self-identity are compellingly questioned, and the battle sequences are realized with stirring intensity.

My Summer of Love, with its lush, sunlit landscapes, may occupy the opposite end of the visual spectrum, but it reinforces the sense that this director knows his way around the range of human emotion as well.

Though you get caught up in the criminal element (you really want these people to get away with it), you're also fascinated by who to trust. It's an unusual dance between the awkward and plain that becomes romantic and thrilling -- a subtly impressive feat to say the least.

Because make no mistake: The Dark Knight is many things, some of them deliriously fun, some of them deeply impressive, and some of them puzzling and frustrating. But most of all it is dark.

It's not a happy film, but it feels true.

Doesn't give off the same happy feel of the Indian arranged-marriage movie "Monsoon Wedding." Rather, it poses hard questions and leaves them unanswered.

Not only does this film make you think, it makes you want to think. Few films -- few works of art of any stripe -- can claim that.

The pace of this Oscar nominee may be a bit contemplative for audiences seeking "Yojimbo"-style action, but it's surely a more realistic and moving look at life in 19th-century Japan.

With its wide-open setting and taciturn, macho characters, it's a film that earns the right to use the "Once Upon a Time" title that Sergio Leone made so perversely famous.

Despite dancing between a story and a story within a story, something seems simple and effortless about Ten Canoes. Director Rolf de Heer and his all-Yolngu cast offer a take on tribal life that's warm, funny and powerfully alive.

The film is somewhat sketch-like in its episodes and in placing Raquel within a larger world. But it’s very surefooted when it stays close in on her and her universe of chores, rituals and fears.

Cronenberg has, as Guillermo del Toro did in "Pan's Labyrinth," crafted both a drama and a fairy tale -- and he's done it in an entertainment as cracking as you could wish for.

It's Cronenberg's most mainstream work, and yet it has all the power of his creepiest nightmares.

It's surreal, erotic, creepy, frustrating, absorbing, transporting and torturous in the way only a Lynch film can be.

Quick and charming and irresistible.

It’s a fascinating story about ambition and vanity and pride, and in Sheen’s performance and the atmosphere capture by Hooper it contains truly fine and rare things.

Georgia is one fine movie. Or maybe two or three fine movies.... Best of all, Georgia is a music movie, and a good one. [12 Jan 1996]

A funny and sincere indie about what happens when an acerbic teen finds herself "in a fat suit I can't take off."

It's visually appealing, but embodies the movie's (and Frances') problem: wanting to be taken seriously without putting in the real work required to prove you're actually serious.

It wallows in misery so much that the two-hour experience ends up being about as much fun as a real divorce.

It's a wonderfully crafted work, handsome, lively, stirring and utterly convincing in its depiction of the perils and thrills of sea life. But I'm not sure that my personal enthusiasm for it will translate entirely for viewers whose favorite movie about the high seas is, for perfectly good reasons, "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Like a picture postcard vision of his life and work: absolutely accurate as far as it goes but not too keen on looking too close for fear of uncovering anything untoward.

The result is somewhat elliptical but also thoroughly engrossing and propulsive. Compared to Denis' earlier work, it's practically an action movie.

Watching this tender little movie with its teasing humor, its deeply felt performances and its focus on slight moments rather than gigantic sea changes is like hearing a tasteful sonata instead of the usual vulgar symphony that the cinema offers up.

The acting is so persuasive as to be transparent.

The result is as much a revelation of the artist's craft as it is of the man's heart and mind.

There are nice bits throughout, and your heart can’t help but go out to these impassioned young lovers whom you know are doomed. But Bright Star is too often tarnished by the ordinary.

Flopped on its initial release, and it is a somewhat decadent and overlong production. But Masina's performance is, as always, engaging, and Fellini's glee at launching into color filmmaking is palpable.

Sorrentino is a spectacularly inventive talent and has harnessed an astounding performance from Servillo.

Like "Red Road" it's slow-moving and sometimes grueling, but it's more of a chronicle than narrative, a series of slices-of-life rather than an unfolding and increasingly engrossing enigma.

Anchoring a terrific cast is Bernal, who gives one of his best-ever performances.

The most telling moment comes when his mother reveals that, despite all the subterfuge and false promises, she wouldn't have had it any other way.

It's smashing fun, nonetheless, made with razor wit and continual invention and far, far fresher than not only Hollywood buddy-cop movies but also Hollywood's own spoofs of them.

For all the inactivity and resistance that mark the plot, there's beauty in the filmmaking and a kind of dazzling inevitability to the unwinding of the tale.

Django doesn't have the razor-sharp chronological complexity of "Pulp Fiction," but it's ably paced. A very funny scene involving a proto-Ku Klux Klan lynch mob and their poorly made hoods nevertheless seems a bit out of place, but there's plenty of well-timed suspense.

The style and subject matter recall the films of the Dardenne brothers, ("The Kid With a Bike") and while Sister never reaches the heights of their best work, it earns the comparison.

With gadgets, girls and globe-trotting held to a minimum, Skyfall, could, for long stretches, be mistaken for just another 21st-century thriller, albeit a well-made and intelligent one.

There are levels of complexity and nuance and intellectual rigor in The Hours -- it's clearly a film into which you could gain continued insight after several viewings.

It's a raw and honest film, and it keeps its feet firmly on the ground, even as The Ram flies through the air to deliver -- or receive -- another beating in the squared circle of life.

Freeman and Tandy are the whole film, and their interplay is marvelous to watch and hear. [12 Jan. 1990, p.G7]

A mature, tense, frightening and altogether masterful film.

So good at what it does that it can exhaust you: In the later going, one big number follows on the heels of another so quickly that it feels more like an opera than a regular musical.

Filled with wonderful performances, especially by Hedaya and Walsh, Blood Simple remains a tight, beautifully ugly, neo-noir classic.

She (Cho) can tell a joke, mimic, offer commentary, play cute, play ugly and be so hilariously absurd that tears will run down your cheeks.

It breaks so sharply from the practice of contemporary horror film that it requires us to return to the most basic understanding of what it is to be frightened by a movie.

Kong is brilliant in many, many places. But it overwhelms its own best qualities with its sheer, punishing size. It is, literally, too much of a good thing.

See Casino Royale for a Bond you've never seen before, and then imagine him in a film two-thirds the size. Here's hoping the writers of the next Bond movie employ the same personal trainer that Craig did to keep the script tight and lean.

Allen's filmmaking technique isn't what it once was, true. But at age 75 he still manages to keep a spry pace going even if something less than impeccable craft hobbles the photography and editing.

As with many Iranian films, reality and fiction collide (the lead actor really is a pizza deliveryman), and the moral of the story is a surprisingly blunt critique of the growing inequality of wealth in the slowly Westernizing nation.

Mostly this film is a glorious ode to the culture and family bonds that override all else, and to the expressiveness of both the human and animal actors.

This is a delicious premise, and Blomkamp, who first played with it in a 2005 short called "Alive in Joburg," has magnified and improved it with ferocious energy, wit and style.

You come away with an appreciation of the abstraction, scale and daring of Ai's art and, even more, a sense of the living man in his courage, humor and restlessness. It's an invigorating experience.

Bad Education, in this light, is Almodovar's "8-1/2" or "Day for Night," a lens through which all of his movies appear as a seamless whole. It's not the story of his actual life but, more excitingly, the deft, witty, bittersweet story of the life of his art.

A funny, believable film about the ability of even the damaged and imperfect to earn a little happiness.

The merits of its arguments can be debated on the Op-Ed pages, but at least the movie makes it clear that they desperately need to be.

It's Herzog-light, in a way -- more travelogue than dissection. But it's filled with small riches, not least of which is the director's amazing narration. Can't you just imagine him reading "Green Eggs and Ham"?

Upstream Color culminates in a wordless final act that is among the most transcendent passages of pure cinema in memory.

Gripping, outraging documentary.

The film is exquisitely realized, with a tremendous, naturalistic performance by Michelle Williams at its heart and a pervasive, assuring sense that Reichardt and Raymond have distilled everything nonessential from their story and imparted exactly the impact they wished.

Wonderful performances and the director's continual inventiveness make Junebug a particularly promising first feature.

To top it all off, the movie ends with one of the best covers of "I Shall Be Released" you'll hear, courtesy of gospel singer Marion Williams.

Kenner mounts it all with a pleasingly fluent and varied style, which makes it more or less easy to absorb his arguments, even if they're familiar from other books and movies and are presented with unopposed certainty.

A haunting, melancholy fable, Tony Takitani is the kind of film that could seem tedious from a mere description. Approached with the right mind-set, however, it's a hypnotic mood piece on love and loss, one that knows -- at 75 minutes -- not to overstay its welcome.

The experience of psychological depression has been described with a variety of metaphors. William Styron called it "darkness visible," and Winston Churchill euphemized his bouts as "the black dog." In typically grandiose fashion, though, Lars von Trier tops them all.

Stirring and haunting.

Watching The Queen of Versailles you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Offers a charming reinterpretation of what it means to look for happiness and all the unexpected places that it may be found.

A joy to watch.

Movies don't get any more real than this.

The snaky cinematography pulls you through even when the writing doesn't, and the best performances keep you hoping that you'll feel the next one or the one after that just as powerfully.

A fine, straightforward and engaging film that restores the salt, fire and humor that Hathaway and company drained from their source, Charles Portis' wonderful 1968 novel.

Entertaining and informative.

The end result is the best documentary you'll see this year, as thrilling a competition as any Super Bowl and as suspenseful a story as any Hitchcock film.

The result is a film that outrages and fills the viewer with poetry that's at once epic and intimate, scandalizing and life-affirming -- a real work of art.

It's easy to imagine that some folks will find the film rapturous, but it's equally clear that there are others whom it will drive crazy.

It's one of the best and strangest films of Miyazaki's career.

It's amusing enough and breezy enough not to disappoint. But it never dazzles or challenges or truly delights. And that leaves me fairly certain that whatever Bart Simpson would say about it probably couldn't be printed in a family newspaper.

A coming-of-age movie that stands apart from the rest.

A more sober, less in-your-face documentary than Peralta's great skateboarding flick.

The credibility of these theories ranges from faintly plausible to frankly ridiculous, but Ascher isn't interested in judging them; his movie is more about the joys of deconstruction and the special kind of obsession that movies can inspire.

Being a fairly faithful adaptation, this version also has a lot of that other stuff about the hypocrisy of civilized life, the truthfulness of natural splendor and so forth.

A charming little film built of bits of music, romance, cultural conflict and the simple human need to connect.

For its sheer visual gusto alone, Coraline is a wonder.

Only in the slightly overlong last act, as the family's misfortunes become truly existential, does director Kiyoshi Kurosawa take things to another level. Whether this is an extension of the film's social criticism, a comment on the absurdity of melodrama or straightforward audience manipulation, is anyone's guess.

Coogan makes tremendous sport of himself, taking on a role as an adulterous, vain, anxiety-riddled, alcoholic and truly comic creep. Brydon is exquisitely droll as the straight man to this ugly comedian act.

An unusual and absorbing, if somewhat preachy film.

This was a story that made front pages in its day but has been largely lost to history, and now is brought bracingly and compellingly back to life.

Among the Dardennes' more accessible films, despite a drawn-out finale that still doesn't quite satisfy.

A hard and bright and tough film in all the best ways.

A painful, funny and fresh comedy.

Very good Leigh -- maybe even, given Manville's heroic work, great Leigh.

The opening sequences of this film from director Olivier Assayas are gripping, as students flee baton-wielding police, then embark on a late-night vandalism spree at a school. But the drama becomes mired with too many characters, too many shots of pretty Italian scenery and an unfocused story.

West of Memphis does nothing to displace its predecessor films as masterpieces of investigative filmmaking, but complements them as a riveting capstone to an epic and tragic tale.

Some aspects of Siddhartha seem terribly dated: the '60s-ish nude sequences, the wispy music, the big-eyed earnest acting. But it is a lushly beautiful film. Shooting largely in natural light, Nykvist creates a poetry more beautiful than Hesse's prose and as profound as the author's message.

Not a masterpiece, but still fabulous.

The most compelling question dangling at its end is, "Didn't Steven Spielberg used to know how to bring a movie to an end?"

The result is a totally absorbing and entertaining film, one of the best historical dramas from Hollywood in many years.

In some ways, Senna is as pure and clean as the man's sport: as actor/racer Paul Newman liked to say, the winners of auto races are determined, unlike movies, by objective criteria. And although it's a subjective judgment, it's hard to see how anyone wouldn't be absorbed by this fascinating film about a formidable driver and man.

Beyond the Hills is an undeniably difficult (not to mention lengthy) film to endure. But for those with the fortitude, there is grace and enlightenment hidden in this harsh Romanian winter tale.

John Hawkes has, until now, been known primarily as the skilled character actor who brought an earthy authenticity to roles on TV's "Deadwood" and the Oscar-nominated "Winter's Bone." With The Sessions, he makes his mark as a bona fide member of screen acting's elite. And he does it while barely moving a muscle.

The film that results from Jacquet's application is gorgeous and even inspiring, a tale of loyalty hard-tested and hard-earned, a sumptuous travelogue, and a reminder that some of the critters with whom we share the planet are, in ways, as complex in their feelings as any human being.

A riveting and impeccably researched documentary.

A tender and affirmative movie, if never a transporting one.

An exhilarating slap in the face, bracing and sexy, smart and visceral, stylish and raw -- the advent of a fabulously exciting new moviemaking talent.

It's a tiny story, told on an intimate scale, and it is rich in emotion, specificity and care.

Precious can’t be endorsed as entertainment: the circumstances and incidents and emotions in the film are far too dark and painful. But there is exhilaration in its daring, in its craft and in the powerhouse work of its principal actresses.

Cheadle's performance elevates Hotel Rwanda, making it a film that does justice to the tragedy it commemorates.

Rarely has a documentary subject projected such palpable fear and anxiety as Joan Rivers in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.

The film is filled with fascinating, static set-ups, beautiful but never fussy or artificial.

It's so spry and lively and warm that you want to dance to it.

If there's one thing missing, it's a sense of purposeful, immediate outrage. You can't help but wonder why this film wasn't made 20 years ago, when it could have saved these men some time behind bars.

Controversy aside, there's no denying that Kinsey was a pivotal figure in 20th-century America, and one whose fascinating story makes for a fascinating film.

If dissonance is your dish, you'll find Beautiful People tempting indeed.

It's all jolly bad fun, but the primo aspect of the exercise is the phenomenally intense performance by Kingsley as a careening sociopath who is every bit as dangerous to his friends as to his foes.

It's a treat to be diverted by a film that actually has a brain.

An engaging chronicle not only of a memorable game but also of an era that seems at once more innocent and combustible than our own.

An engaging exercise in mature poignancy, existential consciousness and deadpan drollery, Broken Flowers is a return by Jarmusch to the road movie structure of such films as "Stranger Than Paradise," "Night on Earth" and "Dead Man."

It's no insult to the rest to say that this is one of those films that sells itself on the strength of a single performance.

Like "Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers," it fills in our sketchy impression of that famously reticent generation of ordinary young men who were asked by a frightened world to accomplish an extraordinary feat. In this case, the homage takes the form not of a photograph or a statue but of a deeper, more sympathetic understanding of their experience. A finer tribute is hard to imagine.

Youth may be wasted on some of the young, but the two aspiring Norwegian novelists at the center of Reprise, director Joachim Trier's debut feature, try desperately to avoid that particular cliche.

It’s a story that begins in an ancient riddle and ends, perfectly, in the rumble of an oncoming storm. It’s about life, A Serious Man is, and it’s as close, I think, as any American narrative movie of recent vintage has come to touching on the uncanniness of it.

A fascinating and frustrating film in turns, created out of scorching passions and built around a fascinating performance but rambling and choppy in the telling. It can overwhelm you and puzzle and repel you, sometimes within moments.

It's a film possessed of its own force, wit and style, and it builds to a rousing climax that absolutely pays off in crowd-pleasing fashion. It knows what it is, doesn't try to be what it's not, and hits you with drop-dead force. In short, it's terrific.

Lacks the poetic and romantic resonance of "Crouching Tiger," but it's got kicks aplenty -- of both the physical and the sensational kind -- and it lands them again and again.

The combined effect is, as I say, small but sincere. McCarthy may prove to have something bigger in him, or he may be a miniaturist content to build little stories and fill them with all the humanity they can bear. If that's the case, there are far less worthy ways to spend a career.

To follow up his superb "The Host," director Joon-ho Bong has crafted a remarkable film about love, faith, determination, guilt, and honor, a full-blooded, constantly inventive movie that enthralls, entertains, horrifies and never lets go its grip.

There are more compelling stories to be found in the comic book world, and there are more expressive directors than Jon Favreau. But on the bases of wit, verve, spirit and whiz-bangery, it's pretty tough to find fault with.

As the film accrues intensity and awakes the demon lurking inside its protagonist, you can see it as something more than a retro-cool crime story. Rather, it's a parable of good and evil and the nature of man.

Searing, intense and unrelenting, Affliction moves to the deepest centers of experience and desire and brings its characters to unflinching life.

Daring work of genius.

It's a moderately compelling historical record, but of far more interest as an artifact than a film.

It proves the power of a good story, both to entertain us and to allow us to process unpleasant truths.

The film moves with strange, creepy energy and is populated by characters who delicately walk a line between charm and grotesquerie. It's a treat.

That rarest of movie biographies: a warts-and-all exploration of the life and times of its subject.

Here the homages/critiques of old craft and form are often laughably mangled, and nothing sexy, profound or illuminating results. For all its prettiness, it's the sort of picture that gives the arthouse a bad name.

A vibrant, multicharacter film that entertains, disorients and enlightens.

This much is guaranteed: You won't leave thinking you've seen the like before.

Whether your tastes are delicate or coarse, whether you prefer the ballet or horror movies, there is plenty in the film for you.

It's a good movie, mind you, with great bits in it, but it still falls short of rapture.

I give the slight edge to the first movie because I prefer Boyle's craft to Fresnadillo's, but the action is more intense here, and I greeted the thought of a third film -- virtually assured in the closing shots -- with a little yip of "Yes!" Likely you will, too.

Anderson, possessed of an eerily Edwardian aspect, is superb, luminous and knowing and convincingly proud and desperate as the situation requires.

In the annals of monster movies, one name stands above all the rest, way above: Godzilla.

Can a movie about such a fellow and such a fate be lovely? And can it uplift? Control is and, in its artfulness, does.

Fact is, Starting Out is pretty dry stuff as a movie, even as it's enlivened by vivid acting.

Intense, well-acted love story.

You might not be able to picture yourself in such a life, but you'll be glad that it persists.

The sheer volume of amazing things that del Toro is able to mine from his unconscious and render plausibly on the screen is remarkable. Hellboy II feels pretty sequel-y, as these things go, but there's a lot in it that has no precedent of any kind, anywhere, ever. That stuff makes it worthwhile.

There are laughs and moments of pain and many instances of embarrassing (and deeply human) behavior throughout, but there's also delicacy and grace.

The film is masterful in many ways, and brilliantly acted by its lead player, Eriq Ebouaney, but it's often overly dense and fast with information, background and ideas.

The black-and-white cinematography and silent-film feel are haunting and nostalgic, and Aurora's story encapsulates a broader, bittersweet truth about the perils of tinted memory.

The results are inspiring, demonstrating that an artistic eye is an innate thing.

Anderson delivers a satisfyingly quirky, cinematically masterful valentine that contains more seeds of truth about the human heart than a hundred big fat Greek comedies.

Director Bent Hamer ("Factotum") keeps things drily amusing throughout.

While terrific entertainment, The Counterfeiters fails to stir the soul.

I wish Zenovich wasn't forced to skate surfaces when it comes to Polanski's perspective -- his interviews are vague and archival -- but she skillfully works around him to craft a maddening look at one of Hollywood's most infamous trials.

It's a riveting character study/soap opera.

The Dark Knight Rises is reasonably accomplished as a gigantic superhero movie; as a meditation on capital and its personal and social discontents, it's strictly from the funny pages.

A profoundly anxious picture that from its first frame holds you, clenched, never able to let go, even after its unresolved coda.

The film has visual and verbal flair, spry energy and deep wit.

We've seen documentaries with more daring themes, greater drama, sharper craft and timelier subject matter. But few have been as affecting as The Real Dirt on Farmer John.

By an order of magnitude --- the strongest (or at least the most mature, subtle and emotional) entry in the series thus far.

When it all comes to a head, what seems ordinary blossoms into something deeply complex and emotional.

You will be surprised by the film's poignancy when the winner is announced. You may even get choked up. You will care that much.

In the rather weak ending, we aren't sure what will become of Peter and Santino.

What's different here is the setting: Instead of modern-day misogyny, the heroine of The Last Mistress is up against its 19th-century version.

About as good a movie as you could have hoped for. Really good. Hole-in-one good.

It doesn't break ground like "Seven" or "Fight Club"; it's not a thrill ride like "Panic Room." But it's a mature, thoughtful and full-bodied movie that compensates for the demands it makes with the rewards of craftsmanship, rigor, skill and art.

In Morvern Callar, the subject matter may be morbid and unappealing, but the director handles it with a visual poetry and an eye for hidden beauty that marks a filmmaker of the first order.

One of those undeniably beautiful things. The film is, in fact, an encyclopedia of beauty -- the beauty of desire, the beauty of nostalgia, the beauty of music and clothing and smoke and pain, and, chiefly, the beauty of women.

It's a visual feast that only a crack director could provide, and it's mounted within a story and setting that, played utterly straight, might still have made a good movie.