One of the more ingenious and fresh surprises of the summer.

Visually the film is a knockout. I'm not sure this will matter to the young adult audience, but the film is philosophically confusing.

It's a fascinating babel, and Nair, using the unfolding ritual of the wedding as a centre point, captures the competing sights and sounds with her own unique mix of cinematic borrowings -- think Robert Altman meets Bollywood.

Part of the charm of Satin Rouge is that it avoids the obvious with humour and lightness.

A horror movie based on history, offering some of the most spectacularly brutal, viscerally intense battle scenes ever brought to a Hollywood movie.

Undoubtedly the rudest and possibly the most inspired comedy of the summer.

Loses its momentum just when you'd expect the suspense to mount -- at the competition itself.

That level of acting-without-words demands the likes of a Bruno Ganz or a Klaus Maria Brandauer, not a Clooney. Even when flashing his bare derrière in a sex scene, he isn't revealing nearly enough -- his work is just skin deep.

There's a particular upside-down, half-masked kiss that instantly becomes one of movie history's more memorable smooches. It's the kiss to send any teenaged boy on a spinning high, as well as launching the new age of arachnophilia.

A flashy nineties flick with a campy fifties feel -- it's playful, naive, clever, silly, often inventive, occasionally uneven and, compared to studio offerings to date, the best present under this year's cinematic tree.

The Motown musicians today are in their 60s and 70s but they remain inspiringly colourful, funny in their stories and assured in their musicianship.

Mamet's stylized dialogue, elaborate plot puzzles and the angry cleverness of his characterization makes for an invigorating, if not exactly likeable, mix.

Too bad there's also a final 15 minutes that surely ranks among the worst endings an otherwise good movie has ever received.

Around about the third act, the picture does what no self-respecting virus ever would -- relents, turns confused, and lets our immune system fight back with thoughts of its own, with distracting cavils about the logic of the plot and the slightness of the themes.

Myers's sheer fertility of invention is of a different order, and even if he misses as often as he hits, he's definitely a swinger.

Not just a 3-D novelty to amuse school groups, but also a memorial.

For those who have been waiting for movies to catch up with the graphic possibilities of comic books, wait no longer: The Matrix is among us.

A drama that's often insightful and occasionally powerful but is still, at heart, a piece of television and not a work of film.

Often more ingenious in appearance than fact. The hunter-gets-captured-by-the-game scenario is predictable and the sequence of shell games does not, when reconsidered, actually add up.

Energetic, eager-to-please culture-clash comedy.

Tuned in to the anarchic wisecracks and slapstick humour of traditional Warner Bros. cartoons. In contrast to the computer-generated characters and slick script of a movie like "Shrek," Lilo and Stitch still feels like a cartoon aimed at kids, not their parents.

One of Stephen Chow's extravagant and very funny martial-arts spoof movies.

The results are not monumental, but they are a variety of sober responses to the tragedy that help place the event in a global context. Some of the films may be, as has been suggested, anti-American in tone, but none come anywhere near defending the attacks.

Delightful as it often is, the picture suffers fom the same structural and thematic tidiness, even smugness, that it nominally opposes.

An integrated work whose form clearly mirrors its content. Often, looking into that mirror is dreadful; but, often enough, it's also dreadfully revealing.

For all its accomplishments, Far from Heaven remains hermetic, an elegant exercise in deadpan irony. What does the movie ultimately mean? Art, we're told, should not mean, but be -- but Haynes's cinematic essays are designed to provoke commentary.

This ranks among the highest concentrations of acting talent brought to any screen. But let's spare no praise for David Hare, whose superb script draws heavily on his playwrighting skills.

Seabiscuit is a good enough movie, in the sense that it's a well-crafted assemblage of pathos and rousing moments, solidly acted and handsomely shot -- but it's far from champion material.

The Canadian film "Atanarjuat" travelled back to the past to meet an ancient legend on its own ground and treated the tale realistically. Whale Rider whisks its legend up into the present, and then adds a touch of lyricism.

Adoring, appropriately offbeat documentary.

Just when the movie seems set to soar, there's a drag factor -- it keeps getting weighed down, if not sunk, by an anchor of ponderousness.

The voice that jerks out from Levy's throat suggests Lazarus waking from the dead.

Speaking personally, I wouldn't voluntarily go to this flick. But for those with a greater gross-out threshold, it's a better film than anyone should normally expect in this genre.

So this is a first-level, unironic fright film, the sort whose tongue is removed from its cheek, coated in gore, and pointed right at the audience.

Arguably, Lost in Translation is the American answer to Wong Kar-wai's masterpiece, "In the Mood for Love," though less about history, more about infatuation.

The exiled Tibetans who are interviewed display a lack of bitterness, a sympathy for their enemies and hope for the future that is inspiring.

There are a thousand ways you can imagine My Life Without Me going gruesomely wrong but, somehow, it doesn't.

The movie's main attraction isn't hard to find. It's essentially a character study, but one where the nature of the study is as unique as the stature of the character.

The acting throughout is exceptional, rooted in observed realism, but suggestive of more mythical agents at work through the lives of human beings.

Mostly, it's a Coen brothers movie so slick, so careful in rationing its darkly perverse and personal elements, that it seems suspiciously sweet. Intolerable Cruelty feels like the Coens' peculiar new way of being cynical, by pretending they're not.

Riveting and courageous documentary.

Happily, the climax races to our rescue... Beyond the grasp of most directors, this is tour de force stuff -- definitely meriting the price of admission and almost worth the three-year wait.

Sylvia the movie competently shows us how; but, as always, it's Sylvia the writer who brilliantly tells us why -- then, now and tomorrow, her foreboding words are her finest legacy.

This low-budget horror film, sophisticated far beyond its budget, is the work of John Carpenter, an authentic prodigy whose style recalls both Martin Scorsese and the Brian De Palma of "Carrie," but who has a metaphysical, sophomoric sense of humor both of those directors lack.

The producers of Hidden in Plain Sight decided that they couldn't deal with Sept. 11 in the film without losing focus on its principal subject. The result is that the film stands as a testimonial to the world as it existed before that date, a world very different from the one we now live in.

In this journey, [Crowe] wears the uniform, the accent and the derring-do with consummate panache. Have him strike a muscular pose on the ship's prow, which Weir does more than once, and the manly sight puts that wussy DiCaprio to titanic shame.

A twofold story of heroic achievements and personal failings.

As a film about intellectuals, The Barbarian Invasions can sometimes seem maddeningly scattered and contradictory.

In the end, is In America slight in its sentimentality and manipulative in its moral? Sure, but that's the job of any fable or myth.

Unclassifiable and wildly original, it is almost wordless but teeming with sound.

A lovely oddity.

It isn't an exciting work of art so much as a contemplative reverie on the nature of art -- and what's wrong with a smart essay that unfolds like a sweet dream?

The [final] battle is vast, and undoubtedly required thousands of hours of matching puppetry, robotics and computer code, but it is not without tedium.

The S in Robert S. McNamara stands for Strange, which is an unusual middle name and perhaps an apt description of the man at the centre of documentary filmmaker Errol Morris's gripping character study, The Fog of War.

There is both a sense of disappointment and relief when House of Sand and Fog crosses over into improbability, when the viewer can sit back, breathe easy again. All this trouble over the failure to open an envelope.

All the signs pointed to a major movie achievement...And it does -- sometimes, and dazzlingly so. But the dazzle doesn't add up to the sustained act of brilliance I'd been expecting.

As angry, deluded, vulnerable and confused as Aileen is, the character remains an enigma. Apart from serving as an opportunity for Theron's emotionally deep-dredging performance, the movie doesn't know why it exists.

A love letter to performers who put their egos and bodies on the line.

The story in Japanese Story grabs you precisely because it's so wonderfully hard to define.

Obviously, this is no easy sell, but give writer-director Siddiq Barmak full credit for portraying his country's social catastrophe with restraint, concision and some real beauty.

It's also mysterious in fresh ways. Like Hillary, Yates and Simpson climbed the mountain because it was there -- but what strange deity sent down a Boney M song to help Joe Simpson get home?

This witty, star-packed and visually splendid kids' movie provides a small-is-beautiful message served on a parodoxically epic scale.

In a movie about an ant colony, perhaps it's futile to complain about a superfluity of characters. Yet this need to cover every permutation of cuteness is one major drawback to the cast of A Bug's Life.

As torpedoes shoot through the seas and depth charges pass by, carrying their whining cargo of destruction, Das Boot brings the presence of death to within a whisper of the eardrum.

With its grainy images, amateurish acting and homemade sets, there's nothing slick about Neil Young's new movie. Then again, that's the beauty of it.

A film of deceptive narrative wisps and intricate thematic curls.

The beautifully photographed film is quite stylized at times...But it manages to steer clear of the stereotypes one might expect of a movie set in this time and place, thanks in part to the underlying and, mostly, underplayed themes of spirituality and the search for identity.

The lows never last too long - something invariably jumps out to recapture our interest or prompt a chuckle.

It is a slight, charming, filmic oddity, well acted and intelligently written

An efficient, cold-blooded sci-fi splatter movie that never makes the mistake of forgetting that on some level it is deeply ridiculous.

A believable, tender story of how a terrible crisis can turn out to have a positive, transforming effect on a family as long as there is love.

Jeunet manages a terrific pass in an extended underwater sequence, but, beyond that, he runs out of ideas as we run out of patience.

You'll be rewarded with a terrific finale. The twists here are the rare sort that seem both narratively surprising and emotionally engaging.

If only Taking Lives had given Jolie a greater foil than Ethan Hawke -- a young Kevin Spacey or Jack Nicholson say -- the film might have been a B-movie classic.

You may well watch this film and not buy into a single frame. Me, I couldn't help myself.

So much cinematic majesty perched precariously atop so little common sense. But, hell, maybe Quentin's right; relax, enjoy -- a castle with a shaky foundation is still quite a sight.

The lanky action star of the cult television series "Alias" is assigned a tired playbook in this film, but she finds room to manoeuvre in a performance that exceeds expectations.

Shows how our family fictions sustain us, and how some truths are better left unspoken.

The film extends Jackie's fame beyond her allotted New York 15 minutes and keeps it alive 30 years later, thanks to a mixture of fond high-profile interviews and grainy archival clips.

Watching Morgan Spurlock commit slow suicide in Super Size Me is rather like watching Nic Cage do the same in "Leaving Las Vegas," except here the "preferred" instruments of destruction are hamburgers and vanilla milkshakes instead of booze and cigarettes.

Odd but engaging film.

From the film's bravura opening scene to its cute but bloody conclusion, The Negotiator plays out as tautly as any crowd-pleasing action flick since Die Hard,which it emulates with shameless glee.

More illuminating than not.

It's blackly comic - though the humour creeps up on you slowly, and you're seldom sure if you should really be laughing.

Both an homage to his dad and a backstage story rich in Hollywood lore.

The complications of its story are found in the deep complexities of emotions and family relationships.

Neither outrageous nor subtle as a religious satire, but here's the good news for modern viewers: With it's unusual Christian backdrop, this is one of the most intriguing rite-of-passage teen comedies in a long time.

Plays like a sophisticated children's story.

It feels like one long non-sequitur -- like closing a Charles Bronson film with a disco medley -- but there's an emotional consistency to Kitano's boisterous celebration of movement.

A welcome rarity: an amiable film comedy that leaves you feeling good as opposed to feeling for your wallet.

Apparently, the faith that can move mountains is detectable in the microscopes that can track electrons. If so, the metaphoric is real and, to me, that thought is as scary as it is thrilling -- but what the bleep do I know?

The kind of movie that kids used to flock to on Saturday afternoons in the forties and fifties.

Thrown into exalted company, Zellweger easily holds her own in the film's most difficult role.

Crude, rude, nasty fun.

Tasty and sweet, if a little on the mild side.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, the unflinching eye behind "Bloody Sunday," The Bourne Supremacy not only lives up to the promises of the novel by Robert Ludlum, but in many ways manages to improve on the first film.

Director Scott, flashy, fluid and at his best in the steely-blue claustrophic battle-training scenes, immerses the viewer in the process.

A good film prevented from being a great film by an act of well-intentioned but misguided casting.

Mrs. Brown will not overturn Queen Victoria's prim reputation, but it reminds us that there was more to the woman than that famous plump cameo that has become the symbol of a more modest era.

Part patrician WASP, part Lady Macbeth and revealing more than a little of Hilary Clinton steel, Streep crackles with neurotic energy and barely checked sexuality, sublimated into an addiction to power and an unhealthy devotion to her son.

The film is not about the audience's shared experience, and a lot more about how cool it is to have a backstage pass.

The first half is exhilarating, and the rest is a tolerably honourable surrender to Hollywood conventions.

Girotti is especially evocative, his face an alternating current that switches from emptiness to alarm and back again.

It makes for a compelling story and some thrilling music.

After a solid start and a strong buildup through two acts, the movie fumbles the resolution. Ethical lines that were convincingly wavy suddenly straighten out, too quickly and too neatly.

In the end, the spectacular martial-arts epic seems to signify nothing much more than its own beauty, as brilliant and ephemeral as a fireworks display.

Predictable but highly entertaining.

Here is a psychological twister with an implausible and hard-to-follow plot. All of this is more than compensated for by terrific performances, a seductive colour palette that is greenish and glassy, and a minimalist style reminiscent of Michael Mann.

Plays perfectly on two levels — it's a clever comedy, but disguised as a fun, dumb horror flick. A movie made to delight, and even accidentally enlighten, both the living and the dead.

Captures some of the spirit of the real Che.

As a first-time director, Lewis shows a impressive visual sense -- abandoned factories take on an eerie gorgeousness through his lens.

Packs a wickedly satiric punch.

Timoner offers a resonant, often painfully funny, drama about two good friends who become enemies against the backdrop of the pop-music business.

The older John Kerry, today's candidate, is conspicuous both by his absence (he's not interviewed here) and by the contrast between then and now, between the hero he was and the politician he's become. That contrast gives the film a nostalgic yet palpable sadness.

There's fun to be had in watching these losers drift without a compass.

Comes alive with the more relaxed performances from its senior set.

WAG the Dog is a cozy political satire, the warm-and-fuzzy kind that is always entertaining yet never disturbing.

Because it's a well-crafted and superbly acted sweet little tearjerker, we're content too -- it's a mild pleasure to watch.

A mature biopic as entertaining as it is timely.

Even when the plots of sexual confusions, transgression and tragedy became absurdly complicated and arbitrary, there was always the mise-en-scène to die for.

Certainly long and not always engaging and comes with a predictably basic ending, yet there are unexpected pleasures, moments of beauty and tiny pockets of joy to sustain you through the journey.

A thinly plotted, amateurishly acted, cartoonishly violent and hugely entertaining array of jaw-dropping stunts and corny slapstick.

Despite Marber's sardonic wit and Nichols's intelligent direction, the film winds up in the ironic position of practising exactly what it preaches: Closer invites and even gains our intimacy, only to finish by driving us ever farther away.

Actors Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro are the kind of startlingly good-looking, glamorous stars that evoke classic Hollywood adventure films.

Running at about three hours, The Aviator is long, and the momentum occasionally flags. The depiction of Hughes's first mental breakdown feels a little obsessive-compulsive itself.

A movie deeply immersed in movie lore, and the more seasoned the swimmer the richer the experience.

The smarter script and stronger range of performances than most high-budget blockbusters clogging theatres these days make you wonder why the live-action feature isn't already obsolete.

With his trademark spare, unfussy direction and jumping into the story approach, Eastwood subtly establishes the themes of faith, loss and love and then he raises the drama to a different level.

Rather than another oppressive film about poverty, it's a revealing experiment in perspective.

It may not be a pretty picture, but A Tale of Two Sisters is definitely a satisfying piece of less-is-more cinematic horror.

More entertaining than Mission: Impossible or the last Bond film, Goldeneye, it brings back the humour and sang-froid that makes the genre work.

This movie might make you cry, but it is not explicitly designed to do so.

Throughout the film, Cheadle's eyes are constantly scanning his environment for opportunities or anything that may be amiss.

The film, like its subject, is more adroit with pictures than with words.

The film manages the extraordinary feat of forcing us to empathize simultaneously with both the potential victim and the potential villain.

The comic spirit in this type of picture is wonderfully democratic, and so is the result.

It's the small, smelly details that elevate this Indian-fusion retelling of Jane Austen's classic novel from trifle to bona-fide delight.

An entertaining takeoff and a high-altitude ride eventually runs into some bumpy weather and a clumsy landing in Mike Newell's new comedy.

Everything you've come to expect, and cherish, in a Mike Leigh movie.

Rohmer doesn't attempt to create any skepticism about Grace's perspective on her experiences; we are shown them as she saw them, and seeing is the real pleasure of The Lady and the Duke.

Happy Times may be the last of the "little" films from this remarkable director for some time.

Surprisingly entertaining.

A beguiling, slow-moving parable.

It's a good film. But its exotic allure may lead some to mistake it for a great one.

Although there are definite lags here, those "glittering" set-pieces are funny enough (at least one is hilarious) to stave off any prolonged yawns.

The film is a vertiginous experience of hanging 350 kilometres above the Earth.

This is a formula film with panache.

With its intricate design, sly humour and timely theme, Travellers and Magicians is a lot more than just a travelogue.

One of this enlightened B-movie's many pleasures is French director Jean-François Richet's handling of atmosphere and setting. Shot almost entirely at night in a blinding snowstorm, the crime drama is an intriguing remodelling of a classic film noir.

Violent and sexy and funny and sad, Head-On is a big collision that doubles as a bizarre love story.

At the end of Courage Under Fire, you feel torn between admiration and annoyance with the filmmakers.

The climax also comes with a nifty little kicker.

A cornball charmer of a film with some beautiful birds and homespun wisdom.

Actress Helen Buday is coolly persuasive in the seesaw role of an unbalanced housewife who jerks from despair to anger.

Like the blues, you feel it first, and think of the meaning later.

Not everything here is that vivid or uncluttered. Sometimes, the film betrays the circumstances of its making, shot hastily on location in Iraq after the fall of Saddam just as the extended conflict was beginning.

If you've got six hours to invest watching superior television in a movie theatre, then spend the time wisely with The Best of Youth.

Very well crafted and superbly acted. Whatever you may think of the idea, its execution is admirable.

Sure, it's a bit mechanical, but what did you expect? The important thing is that the characters and jokes don't prevent you from grooving on the pleasures of the moving parts.

The narrative here may be strictly nuts and bolts, but as an achievement in graphic design, Steamboy is first class.

A sprawling personal journey, filled with an array of fascinating characters, through the world of wine.

We leave this movie hoping to see Miller and Lewis together again soon.

This is a movie about draining, tenderizing and chopping up the audience emotionally.

Sin City gives sin a great name -- it's never been more plentiful or looked so gorgeous.

A celebration of Hong Kong action cinema that mocks gravity, both emotional and physical.

An acquired taste that you may not acquire. I did, but it took me a while.

Certainly a bizarre kind of virtuoso filmmaking, but it does not feel precocious or burdened with too many ideas.

Young and bold and bristling with talent, Argentine director Lucrecia Martel has continued right where she left off in her feature debut.

Unlike Todd Solondz's "Happiness," Mysterious Skin is not an abuse movie that seeks to offend or upset.

The considerable charm of Mad Hot Ballroom can be traced directly to its choice of subjects. They happen to be 11-year old kids, and the lens loves every precious one of them.

For such a mush-ball teen movie, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants carries a welcome amount of grown-up emotional truth.

Alas, around about the third act, the idea grows tired and the whole thing gets derailed. Too bad, because it's a good ride until it isn't.

With its bold screen-filling imagery, this is definitely a movie to be relished on the big screen.

Will make you glad to be living on the same planet as Miranda July.

Land of the Dead is a horror flick, but not a screamy one -- the booming soundtrack pumps up the drama, and the gore induces squirms, but zombies more titillate than anything.

The Clowns and the Krumpers have a rivalry that parallels the Bloods and the Crips battle for the neighbourhood, but fought out in moves, not bullets.

This is B-movie material all the way, yet it's not only watchable, it's engrossing. That's because the material is in the hands of an A-talent director, who knows, as few of his contemporaries do, how to manipulate the plastic qualities of a film: the lighting, editing, composition, camera movement and production values.

Reportedly, after seeing the film, rapper Eminen is anxious to play a wheelchair athlete in a coming movie.

Burton's movie is not only more faithful, complex and better cast, it has an essential ingredient: squirrels.

An engaging and surprisingly sharp allegory about high-school hierarchies and adolescent growing pains.

The structure of the film mirrors the changes in the joke which in turn reflect the moral of the story -- hey, it's all a matter of perspective.

Only a master director could make such a beautifully flawed film.

The documentary My Date with Drew is "Don Quixote" meets "Bowfinger" meets "Swingers" for the reality-TV generation.

As confusing, horrific and unsettling as a nightmare can be, at least you wake up and the memory fades. Darwin's Nightmare, tragically, is not a dream, but rather a haunting, beautifully made reality check well worth waking up to.

Breakdown is a taut little thriller, the kind of well-crafted yarn that sets itself attainable goals and then meets them.

While "Wedding Crashers" ultimately succumbs to endorsing the mushy romantic clichés that it spends the rest of the time ridiculing, The 40-Year-Old Virgin offers a wiser take on the anxieties, negotiations and expectations that surround love and sex, particularly for people who've been burned before.

Sitting through Red Eye is like watching a master carpenter at work on a custom bookcase. No one would call the result art, but you're sure bound to admire the sheer craft of the thing, the clean lines and seamless joints and meticulous attention to detail.

Bold, intelligent and provocative.

But it is bright, smart, sometimes wickedly funny, and crisply performed to the point where the acting seems richer than the script.

In a sometimes misguided narrative, their scenes together are right on track -- they add lightness, even a shimmering hint of humour, to a symbol-laden drama. Theirs is a unique romance that has a sparrow's frail beauty -- it beats with a trembling, fluttering heart.

Stockwell takes an especially leaden screenplay, floats the dull thing up from the depths of mediocrity, and makes it cinematically buoyant. Within limits, that is.

After witnessing the wearying parliamentary debates among good and bad senators in recent Star Wars episodes, it's a pleasure to watch a sci-fi movie where more than just the spaceships move quickly.

Good Night, and Good Luck may be simplified history, but it's almost consistently well-crafted.

Ushpizin takes us to a fascinating place, and hands out the sort of brochure that tourists always need but seldom get -- the charming kind, fun to ponder and rewarding to browse.

The movie is pretty damned funny in its insubstantial, gratuitously violent, gratuitously everything way.

Well, the movie suffers slightly from that tendency -- the portrait shows definite signs of airbrushing. But it's rendered with enough intelligence, and performed with sufficient grace, to offer us an occasionally compelling, curiously upbeat look behind the lacquered image and into the complicated self.

Eraser may lack the chameleon wizardry of the the "Terminator" duo, or the imperious mechanics of "True Lies", but the bang-for-the-buck ratio is high enough to appease even the thinnest wallet.

Ballets Russes should find a wider audience beyond dance aficionados. Like all good documentaries, the human element is the glory of Ballets Russes.

Zathura involves a lot of yelling, a lot of explosions and a lot of flying objects -- but what else would you expect from a movie that is, honestly for a change, intended for 10-year-old boys?

Jordan remains faithful to the looney sensibility of a hero, who is hard to take, but in his refusal to acquiesce to the social humdrum, is like a saint, or at least an artist.

That may be your lump of coal, but it seems a precious gift to me.

Reserved yet still suspenseful and hugely ambitious, Syriana sets out to prove what many have come to suspect -- that oil money is the root of all contemporary evil.

It's all so geekily gorgeous, it hardly matters that the narrative lapses in and out of incoherence and the dialogue is functional at best.

What a fine, tender, delicate, funny, gender-bending-and-rebending performance this is.

For those who like their horror served straight up with no ironic chaser, The Descent is a tasty cup of torment.

Ledger proves what we've suspected all along -- this is his picture, and he steals it brilliantly.

What a strange and strangely compelling movie this is.

The movie is unexpectedly disciplined and enjoyable.