A darkly funny journey about life ticking by and the change to make wrongs right.

The movie never falls into gushy moments of inspiration and Schnabel never tries to manipulate any particular response from the audience. We're left to make of it what we will.

While Margot's casual cruelty and the scenes of squirmy discomfort are sometimes painful to watch, the rendering of this disastrous family reunion is seriously, savagely droll.

A witty, literate, wryly sophisticated parable of American politics: just the kind of movie that Hollywood, in its search for the global audience, supposedly doesn't make anymore.

Sometimes jaunty, often dark, and very stylized. In other words, it's a perfect fit for director Tim Burton.

Flat-out one of the more exciting and original gut-busters that Hollywood has produced in many a month. It's virtually all action, but the action is never mindless and it is full of marvelous surprises every step of the way.

An absorbing, exciting costume drama that works as a historical romance, a family tragedy and a showcase for its young stars.

It's a loving and attentive take on a charming classic.

Captures the overwhelming and uncontrollable emotional assault of loving and living through captured moments and sensuous images.

Dillane gives such a layered, detailed, utterly convincing performance as a man struggling with an inescapable and suffocating burden of guilt that he quickly makes us forget that he's too old for the part.

Mamet is more respectful than exciting as an action director, but his fascination with how things work, be it the mechanics of designing and promoting a big pay-per-view event or battling a world-class Jiu-jitsu master, makes it all quite mesmerizing.

It's not an instant classic, but it's imaginatively drawn, full of charming characters, alive with action sequences and blissfully free of the snickering scatology and endless pop-culture references.

An unapologetic B-movie.

Get Smart is action movie and spoof and, though it's often a little unbalanced, the ultimate result is a harmlessly entertaining picture.

The casting also works. As the Khan, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano ("Zatoichi") is all effortless charisma, and Chinese actor Honglei Sun (as his best friend-turned-enemy) and Mongolian actress Khulan Chuluun (as his faithful wife, Borte) are just as effective.

An engaging and generous profile of the fascinating folks who have chosen to live at the end of the world.

One of the most hilarious and engaging films from producer Judd Apatow's often inconsistent comedy factory, thanks to inspired dialogue, dynamite chemistry between Rogen and Franco and perfectly pitched stoner gags (undoubtedly the result of copious research).

And who would have guessed that, in this age of excess and one-upmanship, when bigger is always better, the year's most romantic screen kiss would last a mere two seconds.

It's a solid study in paranoia and gamesmanship.

The casting clicks; the visuals have leaped right out of Dave Gibbons' original panels; the action is brutal, stylish and well-staged, and -- with most of the major characters, themes and symbolism are retained in an abbreviated form -- the 2 1/2-hour film makes an enjoyably esoteric Cliff's Notes version of the book.

Seems a much more even-handed and thoughtful take on the man than anyone might have expected.

Throughout, it's clouded -- for me at least -- by a nagging sense that it's straining too hard to build the media clash into more of an historic event than it was.

Hammer filmed on location with local nonactors. Their lack of polish is evident -- Smith's inexpressiveness, though part of his character, is simply blank at times -- but their conviction can be just as powerful.

Meirelles adds another perspective, that the epidemic might be a good thing if, by being thrown into the darkness together, we may once again recognize the human family to which we all belong.

It's a little long and dissipates some of its power in an unfocused subplot, but the skewed sensibility of the film is both innocent and feral and offers a smart and satisfying reworking to the familiar genre. An American remake is already in the works.

The movie's biopic aspect is multiplied by the sheer number of players who made Chess the first family of Chicago blues, R&B and rock 'n' roll...That all of them were later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame attests to their enormous influence on popular music and culture.

The film's added enigma makes the play's title even more appropriate, but it results in a more ambiguous and perhaps less satisfying dramatic experience.

It's all about Guevara's education as a revolutionary and his development as a leader in the jungles and in battle.

It's bleak, credulity straining and often stomach-turning, but it definitely works as a heart-tugging character study, and Rourke's performance as the has-been title character is golden.

A movie that plays better if you know nothing about it going in.

Ceylan has an unerring gift for camera placement, and his slow, measured scenes can be as hypnotic as they are lovely -- at times, too much so, with the characters constrained by his poetic perfection.

With a steady eye and a warm (but never overtly sentimental) heart, it explores a territory where few movies have ventured before.

Hip-hop is not the beat I dance to, but you don't need to be immersed in the culture to understand the heartbeat it sets in the lives of Brown Sugar's main characters.

Gorgeously evocative visually.

The movie works -- at least marginally.

A solid piece of storytelling that doesn't pander, skips the usual POW stereotypes and allows the film to work reasonably well as an epic of war, a survival story, a prison thriller, a murder mystery and a courtroom drama.

The most totally appealing and seemingly heartfelt performance of (DeVito's) career.

Sometimes so intimate it's embarrassing, and the messiness at falling in love at any age is disquieting.

It moves so fast you almost forget it leaves the characters in its wake.

It has its flaws, and traditionalists are likely to think it falls well short of its inspiration, but it works on its own terms, it fills the screen with Burtonesque excitement and it strikes me as one of this tepid movie summer's better offerings.

The movie itself is not completely successful, but it's consistently both engrossing and entertaining, and -- once again -- Spacey's performance creates a spell that lingers long after the lights come back on.

Good-natured and fun, the Austin Powers silliness of the era shines through, and Coppola family art director Dean Tavoularis ("Apocalypse Now," "The Godfather" trilogy) makes the film -- and its kitschy film-within-the-film -- look consistently terrific.

Eight Legged Freaks is a B-movie-and-proud-of-it thrill ride, probably the best of its kind since "Tremors." It does just what a good creature feature is supposed to do: It entertains with laughs, gasps, gooey spectacle and a bemused sense of fun.

Even though she's (Khouri) determined to give us feel-good entertainment, she's not at all afraid to let the darker moments be very dark indeed.

Dizdar humorously compares and contrasts extremes in economics and lifestyles and looks at the west through the eyes of an outsider.

For all its darkness and tragedy, Monster's Ball is a film that wants to be liked and Forster stumbles over his good intentions to win the audience over.

A genre-twisting surprise.

Could there possibly be a worse time for a movie celebrating a draft-evader who embraces Islam? You wouldn't think so.

Works well as a metaphor for a more innocent time.

Beautifully acted and conceived -- even if the final vision is not always totally satisfying.

It's Waters' way of saying: It's only a movie.

A first-rate student film, but not much more.

He (Chan) still can turn a silly little action comedy like this into a high-spirited, butt-kicking good time.

Brokedown Palace does have some plot implausibilities but Kaplan, manages to turn some hashed story lines into something substantial and emotionally affecting.

Loaded down with gritty Glasgow atmosphere and authenticity, and works so well as an ensemble piece

Scratch could use some of the wit and jagged energy that defined "Hype!"

It's a sporadically thrilling visual epic and a gruesome reminder that war is hell.

Never comes alive.

Like most films in this overworked genre, it's as formulaic in its own way as a John Wayne western, and the characters and situations all have a gnawing predictability about them.

Lacks the cohesive flow of "Fantasia" and suffers from an attention deficit that seems to mark and flaw our current fast-paced technological era.

Fascinating and mostly sympathetic.

It's a nicely crafted little ensemble piece, but -- like so many films that have become the rage in France in recent years -- it's surprisingly light and forgettable.

It's hard to imagine an upbeat movie about homelessness, but Dark Days is just that.

Has difficulty reaching a resolution. In the final half-hour, the film becomes almost hysterically out of sync with its prior quiet reserve.

The new movie year's poignant love story to beat.

A cheerful and stylish romantic comedy that's easy on the eyes and ears, and makes few demands on the intellect.

An indie film that was lavishly praised and won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, rolls along in the well-rutted, dusty tire tracks of other mother-and-daughter road trip

It's a superior film in every way to its predecessor "Kiss the Girls."

The film still shines.

This tale of kooky social misfits finding their place in the world is an audience pleaser, for all the reasons such tales usually are.

A film with a real depth, resonance and texture, and room for an ensemble of supporting characters.

Non-cultists should enjoy this engaging and well-acted retread -- a film that develops its own charm as it goes along.

A nifty little neo-film noir that's a lot more intriguing and watchable than half the films that make it to the multiplexes.

Sticks in the mind and simply won't go away.

Clever, often hilarious, inside-Hollywood farce that makes the most of... a delightfully absurd premise.

(Fiennes's) Onegin is clueless to anything other than the sensual world, and is finally more repellent than sympathetic.

Both sophisticated and elemental enough for all ages to grasp the message.

There is a ton of psychology and inference in this intriguing first feature by French director Anne-Sophie Birot.

At its best when it remains with the women, and Marshall draws marvelous performances from all.

A reminder of the offbeat comic sensibility and visceral charge that marked him (Sabu) as a director to watch.

It's so beautiful and moving and simple that I'm willing to forgive Majidi his contrivances.

Isn't so emotionally powerful as the Oscar-winning "When We Were Kings" but which -- in its more intimate way -- still packs a punch.

Funny, eccentric and touchingly just, combining a unique interpretation of the time with an offbeat sense of humor.

Exquisite and fragile in visuals and tone, yet has some difficulty with a choppy narrative.

Kahn manages to turn his feast of flesh, navel-gazing talk and self-destructive jealousy into a thoughtful reflection on the subject.

Garcia's dialogue is wonderfully crafted, short, sharp and resonant, and her elegant direction is delicate and handsome.

A quirky little film with an offbeat trajectory that rattles through the bones of story with eyes open to the texture of experience and the dimensions of character.

A disturbing, and disturbingly funny, twist on adolescent love, and Shiota captures the emotional avalanche with understanding.

It's remarkably bright, funny and sweet for a film that wades through so much sleaze, though it can't escape all of the weirdness it worms through.

A spirited, screwball crime-thriller with a sly heart.

Enormously cute, but it doesn't allow us to ever completely suspend our disbelief.

Always absorbing.

A fresh, well-written comedy that doesn't lag, casts its actors against type and has a real love for its characters.

It assumes considerable knowledge of his life and times. But, with even a little of the familiarity it demands, the movie is something special.

In its austere visual understatement rests a ton of emotional power.

It's a gloriously baroque vision and Leconte believes in his sequin and sawdust fantasy with such unabashed enthusiasm that he makes it work even through its most absurd moments.

Casts a dreamy romantic spell that lingers pleasantly in the mind for a long time after experiencing it.

Oddly fresh and naively chipper.

In Arcand's skilled hands, this sassy assembly comes together to be a comedy, a satire and a character study that's somehow not a bit condescending.

Finally becomes a somber, sentimental and rather profound romantic fantasy that is more true to the spirit of the Golden Age of science-fiction writing than possibly any other movie of the '90s.

The film is such a good-natured and easygoing ride that it's ultimately very hard to resist.

A teary appreciation of the value of a good teacher, the joy of music and the payoffs of discipline and hard work.

The horror and spectacle of medieval battle has never been re-created on film before with such ghastly beauty.

The faces of its inarticulate characters tell the story, and Majidi has put some amazing faces on the screen.

As good as the film is in so many ways, it also altogether rings a bit false and contrived.

The style is dated, and its neorealism seems forced and ineffective, but it's still delectable, and mostly for the things Pontecorvo hated about it: its delirious '50s color, and its stars, particularly Montand at the peak of virility.

Kassovitz keeps the film zipping along with solid pacing and just enough action to clear the credibility gaps as long as the film is rolling.

Elevated out of the music-documentary genre to become something of an intriguing mystery -- and one with no neat solution.

This is an unmistakably Asian variant on the action movie, a sleek, slick, entertaining espionage thriller in the John Woo mold.

In spirit and nuance, this is an amazingly faithful remake.

Hypnotic and fun.

There's a real joy to this film, a love of the music and an appreciation of the band's eccentric humor.

Though Signs & Wonders loses its bubbles and runs flat in its anticlimactic final moments, it's far more inventive and demanding than any movie of recent memory.

Scream 3 also has wit and intelligence, but at their core the Scream movies are still slasher films and this one is no exception.

Has enough simmering beneath its sweaty, grimy and disconsolate surface to be more than just another rite-of-passage missive set in the '70s.

An utterly nihilistic, harrowingly upsetting vision of hell on earth.

It's a romantic fantasy of the gangster brotherhood and their doomed lives, executed with Takeshi's unique mix of stoic ruthlessness and giddy energy.

Gorgeous re-creation of another time.

What makes this film truly chilling is the fact first-time feature filmmaker Scott Elliott and his writers somehow make every step of this descent harrowingly believable.

An empowering film for children, showing them at their most capable, working through problems and finding innovative solutions to overcome what seems like an insurmountable obstacle.

A highly entertaining film that still packs much of the punch and the quirkiness of Willeford's novel.

An edgy comedy with heart.

Breathtaking visual accomplishment.

An almost documentary reality and voyeuristic appeal.

For the most part, it's imaginatively staged and consistently entertaining.

Outside national borders, this naive vantage point is an entry into a country's history and culture, explaining without seeming patronizing.

The Cockettes is a fascinating poke into the soul of the '60s and it moves past a simple chronology of a counterculture phenomenon to examine how this predecessor to glitter rock and camp movies, such as "The Rocky Horror Show," could ever have ascended to such heights.

Cronenberg is one of the cinema's true originals, and a trip to his spooky world is always a harrowing, thought-provoking experience.

A welcome return to the courtship, cuddling and sweet nothings of yesteryear.

I guess there's something grizzled old codgers like Clint can teach those young hotshots after all.

The stars ultimately carry the day, the film cumulatively builds both an emotional power and tender wisdom that's very affecting.

All told, it's a reasonably effective movie, but it might have been a lot more effective had it the guts to portray a Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden-like character as its villain instead of this rather unbelievable, but more politically correct, gaggle of cardboard neo-Nazis.

A rather likable and very sweet-spirited story.

Truly raunchy but it's more sweetly stupid and silly than anything.

It's hard to figure exactly what the point of this movie is -- except maybe to expose the myth of samurai machismo.

Murders aside, Mac and Pat are the most fun-loving Shakespearean couple to hit the screen, and Morrissette's answer to Lady Macbeth's damned spot is brilliant.

Like Lurie's previous two films, it's also simplistic and somewhat muddled.

With the story's vivid and passionate women and the power of emotional healing (not to mention the intense eroticism of his hothouse romance), gives Sex and Lucia a dynamic, vigorous life.

Has the modesty of a savvy, smart drive-in movie with Hollywood studio polish and a movie buff's loving care.

Difficult to weigh and rate precisely because it deals with real life and real people.

What emerges is a funny and sometimes aching movie that treads familiar dysfunctional family turf but still manages to eke out an emotionally toned balance.

It offers no special insights into its subject, it doesn't connect on any higher level, and it left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied and let down.

A summer movie that knows it's a summer movie. You don't go to this film for the story, but for the scenery: Bikini-clad girls riding waves, surf photography as beautiful as it is breathtaking, sun, surf, sand, even a little PG-13 romance.

A strange and convoluted film that is as rewarding as a Dylan song, and just as perplexing.

A comedy of miscommunication that blends the humanism of Jean Renoir, the magic of Jean Cocteau and the absurdism of Eugene Ionesco.

The music is truly the thing in Songcatcher and it's awesome, haunting stuff.

Much of the film is oddly ambiguous, as if Tran used it to explore conflicts of tradition and modernity and never came up with any answers.

It makes for chuckling entertainment and it's fun to watch as it's happening. But its New York characters are not a bit believable, there's no real bite to the humor, and the film never adds up to be more than the sum of its parts.

It's a sumptuous mood piece.

Oliviera's mastery is a joy to experience and his bittersweet comic touch adds a loving absurdity to what could have turned maudlin or morose.

Thornton has made so many bad movies and become so notorious as a talk-show eccentric that it's easy to forget what a good film actor he can be.

Scores high on nastiness, but it has as many surprisingly funny moments as offensive ones.

Writer/director Raoul Peck never gives us enough intimate moments to let us feel we know the man on a personal level, and he doesn't have the narrative skill to economize the necessary exposition or steer a clear storyline.

In the end, it's not much fun to watch a brave artist getting his dream kicked out of him.

The result is like a "Waiting for Godot" for the video-game generation.

A slick, smart-alecky rat-a-tat crime comedy.

A bit smarter than it seems at first glance, and ends up being a rather colorful and fascinating -- and often imaginatively Capraesque.

It's hard to call it thrilling -- these aren't characters you actually care about and De Palma isn't as concerned with building tension as playing visual games -- but it sure sparkles.

Unashamedly positive look at the rise of the '60s counterculture.

Spottiswoode and Schwarzenegger deliver a clever and colorful conspiratorial thriller with high-energy action scenes, car crashes a go-go, spectacular technology and big explosions, packaged with ferocious glee and spoofing humor. Who could ask for more from Ah-nold?

Hardly sophisticated, but it's as inspired as teen sex comedies get.

Rather incredibly ends up being a kind of inspirational upper.

It's a surprisingly happy film, almost completely devoid of bitterness or cynicism.

At its best, Company Man hums from one piece to the next, a harmless, good-natured, often silly spoof with a few cutting barbs and a comic showman's love of the well-executed gag.

Behind the narrative twists and contrived dramatic complications is a searing and scary look at dysfunction.

A richly textured thriller.

When (Tykwer) connects it's exhilarating and gorgeous, a sight to behold.

Once you get the joke and grasp the aesthetic they're after, it's fun, and it almost works on the steam of its clever plot mechanics.

A documentary that is half confessional memoir.

More intelligent and thought-provoking than the usual dumb and dull-witted fare for children.

It really does communicate an optimistic sense that race is irrelevant and we can all live happily ever after together.

Its power and bite come from the contrast Seinfeld makes with Orny Adams, a younger comedian on the verge of success who is everything Seinfeld is not: hungry, vain, petty, mean-spirited, desperate for recognition.

The film perpetuates a self-congratulatory vision of the record's worth, when an opposing point of view would have provided a more balanced perspective.

Really two movies working against each other. One is a feel-good movie -- But the more intriguing movie is a tragedy that studies the subtle but long-lasting impact of the teacher's single moral lapse.

Ends up being empty, anti-climactic and overlong.

A beautifully drawn film and engaging story marred only by its vague character development and mediocre voice-overs.

Touching, transcendent love story.

Director Neil Burger manages to make his technical deficiencies and clumsy interviews work for the credibility of his story rather than against it, and he builds an eerie, naturalistic suspense that's believable enough to raise an authentic goose bump or two.

Donovan makes us totally believe the character and his predicament, co-star Mary-Louise Parker is especially witty and winning as the film's screenwriter.

A few scenes are a bit coy and the "big secrets" threaten to pitch into melodrama, but Birmingham keeps bringing the film back to the delicate dynamics of the relationships at its heart.

The film is not without its flaws, but it sports a terrific production design that integrates magically into the story -- as well as another top-notch performance by Anthony LaPaglia.

If ever a film seemed poised to take over the spot occupied by the surprise indie hit, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," it's Real Women Have Curves.

For the most part the eruption of repressed anger is blindly destructive. There's little healing to be found in the bitter melodrama, but there is a small sense of triumph as the children face up and move on.

A cogent, optimistic and mostly entertaining slice of ghetto life.

Stiller is enjoyably long-suffering, and De Niro convinces us that Attila the Hun would make a preferable father-in-law.

Grant's timing is flawless, his delivery is perfection, and he once again demonstrates himself to be the movies' unrivaled master of sophisticated verbal comedy.

Imagine the sequel to "Clueless" reconceived as a peroxide "Paper Chase" and punched up with a valley girl version of "My Cousin Vinny" for the climax.

The Ring, is going to be this year's version of the "Blair Witch" and "Sixth Sense" phenomenon.

Plays in spots something like a stage play smartly brought to screen.

After all of these years playing smug street thugs, cocky idiots and patsies, can you blame Dillon for giving himself an elegant girl (Natascha McElhone), a devoted guardian angel, and a little redemption?

Allen has avoided his usual stable of jokes and one-liners, and the result is a film that feels and looks fresh from the maestro of urban angst.

Hugh Grant is one of the true phenomena of new millennium moviemaking. In an era in which the broadest and most scatological comedy imaginable rules, he's built a career for himself as a sophisticated light comedian very much in the style of his hero, David Niven.

DiCaprio could hardly be better. He brings this outrageous character and his demons to life with skill, sympathy and a symphony of small, telling touches.

Whatever it is, it's totally Kubrickian: Its scenes have both an edge and an extraordinary visual perfection that could come from no other filmmaker.

Somber and violent but undeniably stylish and unsettling thriller.

The cast is engaging, the overall visual effects are tremendous and I found myself fairly swept away for most of the fast-moving, three-hour running time.

As amateurish and fumbling as it is in every department, the sum total of the movie is pretty darn scary.

There's not enough insight to the social phenomenon presented onscreen, but that doesn't make the utterly human horror of this thriller any less unsettling.

It's aimed squarely at a young dating audience, and is not likely to be hugely captivating for anyone out of that demographic.

What's left at the end is an emotionally restrained vision of harsh, impoverished lives, more thoughtful than affecting, and never less than gorgeous, but so unfocused it leaves only scattered impressions.

A witty new indie with a good cast and high production values that has fun with the absurdity of the frenzied bidding wars that can break out over a "spec" script by an unknown or first-time screenwriter.

The fact is no one has a better understanding of the corruption of ego and power, or is more qualified to encapsulate it in a defining moment of Hollywood Gothic.

Dark farce, a four-handed game of sexual trumps.

A frothy and deliriously enjoyable souffle.

As a grueling "trip" movie and cautionary tale of the nuclear age, K-19 fits the bill. The harsh depiction of everyday life in the Soviet navy and numerous scenes of seamen exposing themselves to lethal doses of radiation are profoundly disturbing.

The film is so explicit (endless swinging parties and porno scenes, more bouncing breasts than a Russ Meyer movie) that it finally becomes the thing it fears.

Presents itself as a sassy twist on "Taming of a Shrew," but what looks like just another contrived sex comedy becomes, surprisingly, an insightful and sensitive look at knots that family ties create in adult romance.

The film is so full of ideas and so dense that its narrative splinters, moving tangentially, and ultimately is weighed down by its rant and rhetoric.