David Stratton

Hard-boiled entertainment in the Tarantino mold is leavened with a distinctively Aussie sense of humor in The Hard Word.

An entrancing ensemble piece, directed with calm assurance, acted by a fine ensemble, and structured and scripted with wit and precision.

This depiction of the trials and tribulations of a working-class Catholic family during the Depression is a far more intimate viewing experience than the similarly themed "Angela's Ashes."

Eternity and a Day finds Angelopoulos refining his themes and style. Just as other great filmmakers have in the past explored similar themes time and again, so Angelopoulos has evolved and come up with one of his most lucid and emotional journeys thus far.

Develops into a powerfully emotional experience thanks to a career-best performance by Toni Collette.

Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing.

This poignant film about an Israeli family rendered dysfunctional by the sudden death of the husband and father is a strongly emotional experience despite its tendency toward cryptic dramatics.

Melds an insightful observational style with some rather clunky satire and the resulting mix is uneven at best.

An exceedingly sleek and handsome thriller, this ambitious European co-production, like the novel on which it's quite faithfully based, starts intriguingly but fails to stay the distance.

Might spark controversy in mainland China, not only because it deals with a homosexual relationship between a member of the Chinese establishment and a peasant, but also because it touches on events such as the 1989 massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. However, pic is unlikely to raise eyebrows anywhere else.

Powered by two eye-catching performances.

Made with deft evenhandedness, Paul Devlin's accomplished film plays almost like a fictional drama, containing suspense, comedy and some colorful characters.

Delicately handled and superbly textured, this fine adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker Prize-winning novel deals with all the really big subjects: love, friendship, death, life.

Too often goes off on a tangent with unessential anecdotes and then fails to deliver in more important areas.

Shot on location in subdued colors, Twist offers much less hope for its troubled characters than Dickens did. Its very downbeat vision may turn off auds, which is a pity because the film has a great many qualities, not least the admirable performances of Stahl, Close and Pelletier.

A little gem that takes a potentially grim subject and mines it for maximum humor and insight.

Distinguished by generally good performances and smart camerawork.

Filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky needs nothing more than the cold facts surrounding this awesome weapon to get across a message about the importance of peace.

A funny and original film set in a future when communications are even more refined than they are now.

Guediguian's seemingly sprawling but in fact quite precise picture takes a while to establish itself, but is eventually rewarding viewing.

The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.

A visually lush and very Westernized vision of life in a remote Chinese village in the early 1970s.

Isn't only an outstanding documentary -- it's also a powerful personal drama.

Though Pieck is to be admired for the rigorousness in telling this chilling story (on what looks like a near zero budget), the film itself remains resolutely unlikable.

A deliciously sexy and hedonistic comedy of morals and manners, filmed amid some of Australia's most spectacular scenery. The blend of eroticism and humor, plus the formidable presence of supermodel Elle Macpherson, who is seen regularly in the buff in her featured role as an artist's model, will ensure wide interest in this engaging yarn from writer/director John Duigan.

Technically, this is Jackson's best to date, with state of the art creature and gore effects by Richard Taylor and prosthetics design by Bob McCarron. There's any amount of dismemberment, disembowelling, beheading, and the like, all of it handled with bloody conviction.

It succeeds emotionally in the cause of what seems to be its primary aim, to advance an attitudinal change in Australians not normally sympathetic to the aboriginal cause.

Evil is not, as the title would suggest, a horror film, at least not a conventional one. Based on the autobiographical novel by Jan Guillou and set in the mid-1950s, the film relates the experiences of a troubled young man who's enrolled into a hidebound private school.