-LRB- A -RRB- rare , beautiful film . -LRB- Drumline -RRB- is entertaining for what it does , and admirable for what it doesn't do . -LRB- Schweiger is -RRB- talented and terribly charismatic , qualities essential to both movie stars and social anarchists . -LRB- Wendigo is -RRB- why we go to the cinema : to be fed through the eye , the heart , the mind . ... Blade II is more enjoyable than the original . ... Hudlin is stuck trying to light a fire with soggy leaves . ... In this incarnation its fizz is infectious . ... a big , baggy , sprawling carnival of a movie , stretching out before us with little rhyme or reason . ... a cute and sometimes side-splittingly funny blend of Legally Blonde and Drop Dead Gorgeous , starring Piper Perabo in what could be her breakthrough role . ... a haunting vision , with images that seem more like disturbing hallucinations . ... a poignant and powerful narrative that reveals that reading writing and arithmetic are not the only subjects to learn in life . ... a polished and relatively sincere piece of escapism . ... a roller-coaster ride of a movie ... a weak , manipulative , pencil-thin story that is miraculously able to entertain anyway . ... always remains movingly genuine . ... ambition is in short supply in the cinema , and Egoyan tackles his themes and explores his characters ' crises with seriousness and compassion . ... an inviting piece of film . ... an unimaginative , nasty , glibly cynical piece of work . ... as the story congeals you feel the pieces of the Star Wars saga falling into place in a way that makes your spine tingle with revelation and excitement . ... both hokey and super-cool , and definitely not in a hurry , so sit back , relax and have a few laughs while the little ones get a fuzzy treat . ' ... breathes surprising new life into the familiar by amalgamating genres and adding true human complexity to its not-so-stock characters . ' ... fifty minutes of tedious adolescent melodramatics followed by thirty-five minutes of inflated nonsense . ... has virtually no script at all ... ... if you're in a mind set for goofy comedy , the troopers will entertain with their gross outs , bawdy comedy and head games . ... just a big mess of a movie , full of images and events , but no tension or surprise . ... mesmerizing , an eye-opening tour of modern Beijing culture in a journey of rebellion , retreat into oblivion and return . ... one of the most ingenious and entertaining thrillers I've seen in quite a long time . ... perhaps the heaviest , most joyless movie ever made about giant dragons taking over the world . ... surprisingly inert for a movie in which the main character travels back and forth between epochs . ... the film falls back on the same old formula of teen sex , outrageous pranks and scenes designed to push the envelope of bad taste for laughs . ... the last time I saw a theater full of people constantly checking their watches was during my SATs . ... the sum of the parts equals largely a confused mediocrity . ... there are enough moments of heartbreaking honesty to keep one glued to the screen . ... this movie has a glossy coat of action movie excess while remaining heartless at its core . ... too dull to enjoy . ... too gory to be a comedy and too silly to be an effective horror film . ... too slow , too boring , and occasionally annoying . ... watching this film nearly provoked me to take my own life . ... with the candy-like taste of it fading faster than 25-cent bubble gum , I realized this is a throwaway movie that won't stand the test of time . 4 friends , 2 couples , 2000 miles , and all the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer they can drink - it's the ultimate redneck road-trip . A 93-minute condensation of a 26-episode TV series , with all of the pitfalls of such you'd expect . A Generation X artifact , capturing a brief era of insanity in the sports arena that surely can not last . A TV episode inflated past its natural length . A beautiful and haunting examination of the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the mundane horrors of the world . A benign but forgettable sci-fi diversion . A bit of an unwieldy mess . A blessed gift to film geeks and historians . A bold and subversive film that cuts across the grain of what is popular and powerful in this high-tech age , speaking its truths with spellbinding imagery and the entrancing music of Philip Glass . A boring , formulaic mix of serial killers and stalk 'n' slash . A boring , wincingly cute and nauseatingly politically correct cartoon guaranteed to drive anyone much over age 4 screaming from the theater . A bowel-curdling , heart-stopping recipe for terror . A bravura exercise in emptiness . A breezy , diverting , conventional , well-acted tale of two men locked in an ongoing game of cat-and-cat . A broadly played , lowbrow comedy in which the cast delivers mildly amusing performances and no farm animals were injured by any of the gags . A byzantine melodrama that stimulates the higher brain functions as well as the libido . A candid and often fascinating documentary about a Pentecostal church in Dallas that assembles an elaborate haunted house each year to scare teenagers into attending services . A captivating cross-cultural comedy of manners . A carefully structured scream of consciousness that is tortured and unsettling -- but unquestionably alive . A chaotic panorama that's too busy flying a lot of metaphoric flags . A charming , quirky and leisurely paced Scottish comedy -- except with an outrageous central gimmick that could have been a reject from Monty Python's Meaning of Life . A charming romantic comedy that is by far the lightest Dogme film and among the most enjoyable . A charming yet poignant tale of the irrevocable ties that bind . A classy item by a legend who may have nothing left to prove but still has the chops and drive to show how its done . A clever blend of fact and fiction . A clutchy , indulgent and pretentious travelogue and diatribe against ... well , just stuff . A cockamamie tone poem pitched precipitously between swoony lyricism and violent catastrophe ... the most aggressively nerve-wracking and screamingly neurotic romantic comedy in cinema history . A comic gem with some serious sparkles . A compelling , moving film that respects its audience and its source material . A compendium of Solondz's own worst instincts in under 90 minutes . A comprehensive and provocative film -- one that pushes the boundaries of biography , and challenges its audience . A cop story that understands the medium amazingly well . A cumbersome and cliche-ridden movie greased with every emotional device known to man . A deceivingly simple film , one that grows in power in retrospect . A deliciously mordant , bitter black comedy . A depressing confirmation of everything those of us who don't object to the description `` unelected '' have suspected all along : George W. Bush is an incurious , uncharismatic , overgrown frat boy with a mean streak a mile wide . A deviant topical comedy which is funny from start to finish . A didactic and dull documentary glorifying software anarchy . A distant , even sterile , yet compulsively watchable look at the sordid life of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane . A dreadful live-action movie . A dream cast of solid female talent who build a seamless ensemble . A dreary , incoherent , self-indulgent mess of a movie in which a bunch of pompous windbags drone on inanely for two hours ... a cacophony of pretentious , meaningless prattle . A dreary rip-off of Goodfellas that serves as a muddled and offensive cautionary tale for Hispanic Americans . A droll , well-acted , character-driven comedy with unexpected deposits of feeling . A fairly by-the-books blend of action and romance with sprinklings of intentional and unintentional comedy . A fascinating and fun film . A fast-moving and remarkable film that appears destined to become a landmark in Japanese animation . A feel-good picture in the best sense of the term . A film made with as little wit , interest , and professionalism as artistically possible for a slummy Hollywood caper flick . A film of precious increments artfully camouflaged as everyday activities . A film so tedious that it is impossible to care whether that boast is true or not . A film that is a portrait of grace in an imperfect world . A film that takes you inside the rhythms of its subject : You experience it as you watch . A frantic search for laughs , with a hit-to-miss ratio that doesn't exactly favour the audience . A free-for-all of half-baked thoughts , clumsily used visual tricks and self-indulgent actor moments . A frisky and fresh romantic comedy exporing sexual politics and the challenges of friendships between women . A frustrating combination of strained humor and heavy-handed sentimentality . A gentle , compassionate drama about grief and healing . A gentle blend of present day testimonials , surviving footage of Burstein and his family performing , historical archives , and telling stills . A gimmick in search of a movie : how to get Carvey into as many silly costumes and deliver as many silly voices as possible , plot mechanics be damned . A graceful , contemplative film that gradually and artfully draws us into a world where the personal and the political get fatally intertwined . A graceless , witless attempt at mating Some Like It Hot with the WWII espionage thriller . A great comedy filmmaker knows great comedy needn't always make us laugh . A great ending doesn't make up for a weak movie , and Crazy as Hell doesn't even have a great ending . A great idea becomes a not-great movie . A grim , flat and boring werewolf movie that refuses to develop an energy level . A harmless and mildly amusing family comedy . A hideous , confusing spectacle , one that may well put the nail in the coffin of any future Rice adaptations . A highly intriguing thriller , coupled with some ingenious plot devices and some lavishly built settings . . A hip ride into hyper-time , Clockstoppers is a lively and enjoyable adventure for all ages at any time . A historical epic with the courage of its convictions about both scope and detail . A hysterical yet humorless disquisition on the thin line between sucking face and literally sucking face . A journey through memory , a celebration of living , and a sobering rumination on fatality , classism , and ignorance . A lighthearted , feel-good film that embraces the time-honored truth that the most powerful thing in life is love . A little too pat for its own good . A long slog for anyone but the most committed Pokemon fan . A long-winded , predictable scenario . A long-winded and stagy session of romantic contrivances that never really gels like the shrewd feminist fairy tale it could have been . A lousy movie that's not merely unwatchable , but also unlistenable . A love for films shines through each frame and the era is recreated with obvious affection , scored to perfection with some tasty boogaloo beats . A loving little film of considerable appeal . A map of the inner rhythms of love and jealousy and sacrifice drawn with a master's steady stroke . A marvellous journey from childhood idealism to adolescent self-absorption . A masterful film from a master filmmaker , unique in its deceptive grimness , compelling in its fatalist worldview . A masterpiece four years in the making . A mawkish , implausible platonic romance that makes Chaplin's City Lights seem dispassionate by comparison . A miniscule little bleep on the film radar , but one that many more people should check out A minor picture with a major identity crisis -- it's sort of true and it's sort of bogus and it's ho-hum all the way through . A mix of velocity and idiocy , this ruinous remake lacks the brawn -- and the brains -- of the 1970s original . A mixed bag of a comedy that can't really be described as out of this world . A model of what films like this should be like . A modest and messy metaphysical thriller offering more questions than answers . A modest pleasure that accomplishes its goals with ease and confidence . A monster combat thriller as impersonal in its relentlessness as the videogame series that inspired it . A moody horror\/thriller elevated by deft staging and the director's well-known narrative gamesmanship . A mostly intelligent , engrossing and psychologically resonant suspenser . A mostly tired retread of several other mob tales . A movie far more cynical and lazy than anything a fictitious Charlie Kaufman might object to . A movie for 11-year-old boys with sports dreams of their own and the preteen girls who worship Lil ' Bow Wow . A movie that , rather than skip along the Seine , more or less slogs its way through soggy Paris , tongue uncomfortably in cheek . A movie that tries to fuse the two ` woods ' but winds up a Bolly-Holly masala mess . A movie that will touch the hearts of both children and adults , as well as bring audiences to the edge of their seats . A one-trick pony whose few T&A bits still can't save itself from being unoriginal , unfunny and unrecommendable . A painfully leaden film destined for pre-dawn cable television slots . A perverse little truffle , dainty psychological terror on the outside with a creamy filling of familial jealousy and unrepentant domestic psychopathy . A picture that extols the virtues of comradeship and community in a spunky , spirited fashion . A pleasant enough comedy that should have found a summer place . A pleasant enough movie , held together by skilled ensemble actors . A pleasant ramble through the sort of idoosyncratic terrain that Errol Morris has often dealt with ... it does possess a loose , lackadaisical charm . A pleasant romantic comedy . A pleasurably jacked-up piece of action moviemaking . A potent allegorical love story . A predictable and stereotypical little B-movie . A pro-fat farce that overcomes much of its excessive moral baggage thanks to two appealing lead performances . A provocative movie about loss , anger , greed , jealousy , sickness and love . A psychological thriller with a smart script and an obsessive-compulsive's attention to detail . A psychologically rich and suspenseful moral thriller with a stellar performance by Al Pacino . A quietly reflective and melancholy New Zealand film about an eventful summer in a 13-year-old girl's life . A real clunker . A real movie , about real people , that gives us a rare glimpse into a culture most of us don't know . A real story about real people living their lives concerned about the future of an elderly , mentally handicapped family member . A recent favourite at Sundance , this white-trash satire will inspire the affection of even those unlucky people who never owned a cassette of Def Leppard's Pyromania . A recipe for cinematic disaster ... part Quentin Tarantino , part Guy Ritchie , and part 1960s spy spoof , it's all bad . A refreshing Korean film about five female high school friends who face an uphill battle when they try to take their relationships into deeper waters . A refreshingly authentic coming-of-age tale . A refreshingly honest and ultimately touching tale of the sort of people usually ignored in contemporary American film . A remarkable 179-minute meditation on the nature of revolution . A resonant tale of racism , revenge and retribution . A richly imagined and admirably mature work from a gifted director who definitely has something on his mind . A romantic comedy , yes , but one with characters who think and talk about their goals , and are working on hard decisions . A romantic comedy that operates by the rules of its own self-contained universe . A sad , superior human comedy played out on the back roads of life . A savvy exploration of paranoia and insecurity in America's culture of fear . A sensitive and expertly acted crowd-pleaser that isn't above a little broad comedy and a few unabashedly sentimental tears . A sensual performance from Abbass buoys the flimsy story , but her inner journey is largely unexplored and we're left wondering about this exotic-looking woman whose emotional depths are only hinted at . A sermonizing and lifeless paean to teenage dullards . A shambles of a movie -- visually unattractive , unbearably loud and utterly silly ... its hilarity is completely unintentional . A silly , self-indulgent film about a silly , self-indulgent filmmaker . A simmering psychological drama in which the bursts of sudden violence are all the more startling for the slow buildup that has preceded them . A simple , sometimes maddeningly slow film that has just enough charm and good acting to make it interesting , but is ultimately pulled under by the pacing and lack of creativity within . A slick , skillful little horror film . A slick , well-oiled machine , exquisitely polished and upholstered . A smart , sweet and playful romantic comedy . A soggy , cliche-bound epic-horror yarn that ends up being even dumber than its title . A soggy , shapeless mess ... just a dumb excuse for a waterlogged equivalent of a haunted-house movie . A solidly seaworthy chiller . A somewhat crudely constructed but gripping , questing look at a person so racked with self-loathing , he becomes an enemy to his own race . A sophomoric exploration of ` life problems ' most people solved long ago -- or at least got tired of hearing people kvetch about . A sour , nasty offering . A splendid entertainment , young in spirit but accomplished in all aspects with the fullness of spirit and sense of ease that comes only with experience . A sports movie with action that's exciting on the field and a story you care about off it . A spunky , original take on a theme that will resonate with singles of many ages . A startling and fresh examination of how the bike still remains an ambiguous icon in Chinese society . A strong first quarter , slightly less so second quarter , and average second half . A stunning piece of visual poetry that will , hopefully , be remembered as one of the most important stories to be told in Australia's film history . A sweet-natured reconsideration of one of San Francisco's most vital , if least widely recognized , creative fountainheads . A tale of horror and revenge that is nearly perfect in its relentless descent to the depths of one man's tortured soul . A taut , intelligent psychological drama . A teasing drama whose relentless good-deed\/bad-deed reversals are just interesting enough to make a sinner like me pray for an even more interesting , less symmetrical , less obviously cross-shaped creation . A tender and touching drama , based on the true story of a troubled African-American's quest to come to terms with his origins , reveals the yearning we all have in our hearts for acceptance within the family circle . A thinly veiled excuse for Wilson to play his self-deprecating act against Murphy's well-honed prima donna shtick . A thoughtful , moving piece that faces difficult issues with honesty and beauty . A thoughtful , provocative , insistently humanizing film . A thoughtful look at a painful incident that made headlines in 1995 . A tough go , but Leigh's depth and rigor , and his skill at inspiring accomplished portrayals that are all the more impressive for their lack of showiness , offsets to a notable degree the film's often-mined and despairing milieu . A trashy , exploitative , thoroughly unpleasant experience . A triumph , relentless and beautiful in its downbeat darkness . A triumph of art direction over narrative , but what art direction ! A truly moving experience , and a perfect example of how art -- when done right -- can help heal , clarify , and comfort . A turgid little history lesson , humourless and dull . A very average science fiction film . A very bad sign . A very funny look at how another culture handles the process of courting and marriage . A very funny movie . A very stylish but ultimately extremely silly tale ... a slick piece of nonsense but nothing more . A very witty take on change , risk and romance , and the film uses humour to make its points about acceptance and growth . A vivid cinematic portrait . A waste of good performances . A well acted and well intentioned snoozer . A well-made and often lovely depiction of the mysteries of friendship . A well-made thriller with a certain level of intelligence and non-reactionary morality . A whole lot foul , freaky and funny . A wildly funny prison caper . A wonderful character-based comedy . A woozy , roisterous , exhausting mess , and the off-beat casting of its two leads turns out to be as ill-starred as you might expect . A work of astonishing delicacy and force . A work of intricate elegance , literary lyricism and profound common sense . A work of the utmost subtlety and perception , it marks the outstanding feature debut of writer-director Eric Byler , who understands the power of the implicit and the virtues of simplicity and economy . A worthwhile way to spend two hours . A worthy entry into a very difficult genre . A worthy tribute to a great humanitarian and her vibrant ` co-stars . ' A yarn that respects the Marvel version without becoming ensnared by it . Abandons all pretense of creating historical context and waltzes off into a hectic soap about the ups and downs of the heavy breathing between the two artists . About as cutting-edge as Pet Rock : The Movie . About as satisfying and predictable as the fare at your local drive through . About nowhere kids who appropriated turfs as they found them and become self-made celebrity athletes -- a low-down version of the American dream . Absorbing and disturbing -- perhaps more disturbing than originally intended -- but a little clarity would have gone a long way . Accuracy and realism are terrific , but if your film becomes boring , and your dialogue isn't smart , then you need to use more poetic license . Achieves a sort of filmic epiphany that revels in the true potential of the medium . Adam Sandler is to Gary Cooper what a gnat is to a racehorse . Afraid to pitch into farce , yet only half-hearted in its spy mechanics , All the Queen's Men is finally just one long drag . After making several adaptations of other writers ' work , Armenian-Canadian director Atom Egoyan broached an original treatment of a deeply personal subject . After seeing SWEPT AWAY , I feel sorry for Madonna . After that , it just gets stupid and maudlin . Alas , it's neither . All I can say is fuhgeddaboutit . All but the most persnickety preteens should enjoy this nonthreatening but thrilling adventure . All ends well , sort of , but the frenzied comic moments never click . All in all , there's only one thing to root for : expulsion for everyone . All the characters are stereotypes , and their interaction is numbingly predictable . All the necessary exposition prevents the picture from rising above your generic sand 'n' sandal adventure . All the performances are top notch and , once you get through the accents , All or Nothing becomes an emotional , though still positive , wrench of a sit . All the well-meaningness in the world can't erase the fact that The Believer feels like a 12-Step Program for the Jewish Nazi . All these developments and challenges facing Santa weigh down the plot so heavily that they drain all the film of its energy and needlessly strain credibility . All this turns out to be neither funny nor provocative - only dull . Almost every scene in this film is a gem that could stand alone , a perfectly realized observation of mood , behavior and intent . Almost everything else is wan . Although Life or Something Like It is very much in the mold of feel-good movies , the cast and director Stephen Herek's polished direction pour delightfully piquant wine from aged bottles . Although based on a real-life person , John , in the movie , is a rather dull person to be stuck with for two hours . Although it's a bit smug and repetitive , this documentary engages your brain in a way few current films do . Although it bangs a very cliched drum at times , this crowd-pleaser's fresh dialogue , energetic music , and good-natured spunk are often infectious . Although trying to balance self-referential humor and a normal ol' slasher plot seemed like a decent endeavor , the result doesn't fully satisfy either the die-hard Jason fans or those who can take a good joke . Although very much like the first movie based on J.K. Rowling's phenomenal fantasy best sellers , this second go-round possesses a quite pleasing , headlong thrust and a likably delinquent attitude . An Afterschool Special without the courage of its convictions . An absorbing , slice-of-depression life that touches nerves and rings true . An absorbing trip into the minds and motivations of people under stress as well as a keen , unsentimental look at variations on the theme of motherhood . An amazing and incendiary movie that dives straight into the rough waters of contradiction . An amusing , breezily apolitical documentary about life on the campaign trail . An atonal estrogen opera that demonizes feminism while gifting the most sympathetic male of the piece with a nice vomit bath at his wedding . An awkward and indigestible movie . An earnest , heartrending look at the divide between religious fundamentalists and their gay relatives . An eccentric little comic\/thriller deeply in love with its own quirky personality . An elegant , exquisitely modulated psychological thriller . An enchanting film that presents an audacious tour of the past and takes within its warm embrace the bounties of cultural artifacts inside St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum . An enchanting spectacular for Potter fans anxious to ride the Hogwarts Express toward a new year of magic and mischief . An endearingly offbeat romantic comedy with a great meet-cute gimmick . An endlessly fascinating , landmark movie that is as bold as anything the cinema has seen in years . An engaging overview of Johnson's eccentric career . An enjoyable film for the family , amusing and cute for both adults and kids . An enjoyably half-wit remake of the venerable Italian comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street . An enthralling , playful film that constantly frustrates our desire to know the ` truth ' about this man , while deconstructing the very format of the biography in a manner that Derrida would doubtless give his blessing to . An epic of grandeur and scale that's been decades gone from the popcorn pushing sound stages of Hollywood . An excellent romp that boasts both a heart and a mind . An exciting and involving rock music doc , a smart and satisfying look inside that tumultuous world . An experience so engrossing it is like being buried in a new environment . An idealistic love story that brings out the latent 15-year-old romantic in everyone . An imaginative comedy\/thriller . An impossible romance , but we root for the patronized Iranian lad . An impressive debut for first-time writer-director Mark Romanek , especially considering his background is in music video . An impressive if flawed effort that indicates real talent . An incredibly clever and superbly paced caper filled with scams within scams within scams . An incredibly low-rent Danish film , it brings a group of people together in a sweet and charming way , if a little convenient An inspiring and heart-affecting film about the desperate attempts of Vietnamese refugees living in U.S. relocation camps to keep their hopes alive in 1975 . An instant candidate for worst movie of the year . An intelligent , earnest , intimate film that drops the ball only when it pauses for blunt exposition to make sure you're getting its metaphysical point . An intelligent , moving and invigorating film . An intelligent fiction about learning through cultural clash . An intermittently pleasing but mostly routine effort . An intimate , good-humored ethnic comedy like numerous others but cuts deeper than expected . An intriguing and entertaining introduction to Johnson . An involving true story of a Chinese actor who takes up drugs and winds up in an institution -- acted mostly by the actual people involved . An irresistible combination of a rousing good story set on a truly grand scale . An offbeat , sometimes gross and surprisingly appealing animated film about the true meaning of the holidays . An often-deadly boring , strange reading of a classic whose witty dialogue is treated with a baffling casual approach An original gem about an obsession with time . An overblown clunker full of bad jokes , howling cliches and by-the-numbers action sequences . An overstuffed compendium of teen-Catholic-movie dogma . An ultra-low-budget indie debut that smacks more of good intentions than talent . An unabashedly schmaltzy and thoroughly enjoyable true story . An unbelievably fun film just a leading man away from perfection . An uneven but intriguing drama that is part homage and part remake of the Italian masterpiece . An uneven film dealing with too many problems to be taken seriously . An ungainly , comedy-deficient , B-movie rush job ... An unsatisfying hybrid of Blair Witch and typical stalk-and-slash fare , where the most conservative protagonist is always the last one living . An utterly compelling ` who wrote it ' in which the reputation of the most famous author who ever lived comes into question . Ana is a vivid , vibrant individual and the movie's focus upon her makes it successful and accessible . Anchored by a terrific performance by Abbass , Satin Rouge shows that the idea of women's self-actualization knows few continental divides . And forget about any attempt at a plot ! And if The Hours wins ` Best Picture ' I just might . And in this regard , On Guard delivers . And in truth , cruel as it may sound , he makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Spencer Tracy . Andy Garcia enjoys one of his richest roles in years and Mick Jagger gives his best movie performance since , well , Performance . Another big , dumb action movie in the vein of XXX , The Transporter is riddled with plot holes big enough for its titular hero to drive his sleek black BMW through . Another rent installment for the Ian Fleming estate . Any film featuring young children threatened by a terrorist bomb can no longer pass as mere entertainment . Any movie this boring should be required to have ushers in the theater that hand you a cup of coffee every few minutes . Any one episode of The Sopranos would send this ill-conceived folly to sleep with the fishes . Apallingly absurd ... the chemistry or lack thereof between Newton and Wahlberg could turn an Imax theater into a 9 '' black and white portable TV . Apparently kissing leads to suicide attempts and tragic deaths . Arguably the year's silliest and most incoherent movie . Arnold's jump from little screen to big will leave frowns on more than a few faces . As Hugh Grant says repeatedly throughout the movie , ` Lovely ! As Tweedy talks about canning his stockbroker and repairing his pool , you yearn for a few airborne TV sets or nude groupies on the nod to liven things up . As Weber and Weissman demonstrate with such insight and celebratory verve , the Cockettes weren't as much about gender , sexual preference or political agitprop as they were simply a triumph of the indomitable human will to rebel , connect and create . As a belated nod to some neglected all-stars , Standing in the Shadows of Motown is cultural history of the best kind : informative , revealing and richly entertaining . As a revenge thriller , the movie is serviceable , but it doesn't really deliver the delicious guilty pleasure of the better film versions . As a singular character study , it's perfect . As a witness to several Greek-American weddings -- but , happily , a victim of none -- I can testify to the comparative accuracy of Ms. Vardalos ' memories and insights . As adapted by Kevin Molony from Simon Leys ' novel `` The Death of Napoleon '' and directed by Alan Taylor , Napoleon's journey is interesting but his Parisian rebirth is stillborn As an actor , The Rock is aptly named . As an entertainment , the movie keeps you diverted and best of all , it lightens your wallet without leaving a sting . As are its star , its attitude and its obliviousness . As blunt as it is in depicting child abuse , El Bola is a movie steeped in an ambiguity that lends its conflicts a symbolic resonance . As conceived by Mr. Schaeffer , Christopher and Grace are little more than collections of quirky traits lifted from a screenwriter's outline and thrown at actors charged with the impossible task of making them jell . As elegantly crafted as it often is , Anderson's movie is essentially a one-trick pony that , hampered by an undeveloped script , ultimately pulls up lame . As expected , Sayles ' smart wordplay and clever plot contrivances are as sharp as ever , though they may be overshadowed by some strong performances . As green-guts monster movies go , it's a beaut . As if to prove a female director can make a movie with no soft edges , Kathryn Bigelow offers no sugar-coating or interludes of lightness . As it abruptly crosscuts among the five friends , it fails to lend the characters ' individual stories enough dramatic resonance to make us care about them . As lo-fi as the special effects are , the folks who cobbled Nemesis together indulge the force of humanity over hardware in a way that George Lucas has long forgotten . As shaky as the plot is , Kaufman's script is still memorable for some great one-liners . As teen movies go , `` Orange County '' is a refreshing change As the story moves inexorably through its seven day timeframe , the picture becomes increasingly mesmerizing . As with too many studio pics , plot mechanics get in the way of what should be the lighter-than-air adventure . As written by Michael Berg and Michael J. Wilson from a story by Wilson , this relentless , all-wise-guys-all-the-time approach tries way too hard and gets tiring in no time at all . As your relatives swap one mundane story after another , you begin to wonder if they are ever going to depart . Aside from being the funniest movie of the year , Simone , Andrew Niccol's brilliant anti-Hollywood satire , has a wickedly eccentric enchantment to it . Aspires for the piquant but only really achieves a sort of ridiculous sourness . At about 95 minutes , Treasure Planet maintains a brisk pace as it races through the familiar story . At first , the sight of a blind man directing a film is hilarious , but as the film goes on , the joke wears thin . At heart the movie is a deftly wrought suspense yarn whose richer shadings work as coloring rather than substance . At its best , The Good Girl is a refreshingly adult take on adultery ... At its best early on as it plays the culture clashes between the brothers . At nearly three hours , the whole of Safe Conduct is less than the sum of its parts . At the bottom rung of the series ' entries . At times , however , Dogtown and Z-Boys lapses into an insider's lingo and mindset that the uninitiated may find hard to follow , or care about . At times funny and at other times candidly revealing , it's an intriguing look at two performers who put themselves out there because they love what they do . Attal mixes comedy with a serious exploration of ego and jealousy within a seemingly serene marriage . Audiences can be expected to suspend their disbelief only so far -- and that does not include the 5 o'clock shadow on the tall wooden kid as he skips off to school . Audiences conditioned to getting weepy over saucer-eyed , downy-cheeked moppets and their empathetic caretakers will probably feel emotionally cheated by the film's tart , sugar-free wit . Audiences will find no mention of political prisoners or persecutions that might paint the Castro regime in less than saintly tones . Automatically pegs itself for the straight-to-video sci-fi rental shelf . Awkward but sincere and , ultimately , it wins you over . Bad Company leaves a bad taste , not only because of its bad-luck timing , but also the staleness of its script . Bad beyond belief and ridiculous beyond description . Barely goes beyond comic book status . Barney has created a tour de force that is weird , wacky and wonderful . Bartleby is a one-joke movie , and a bad joke at that . Based on a David Leavitt story , the film shares that writer's usual blend of observant cleverness , too-facile coincidence and slightly noxious preciousness . Bears is bad . Before long , the film starts playing like General Hospital crossed with a Saturday Night Live spoof of Dog Day Afternoon . Began life as a computer game , then morphed into a movie -- a bad one , of course . Begins as a promising meditation on one of America's most durable obsessions but winds up as a slender cinematic stunt . Behind the snow games and lovable Siberian huskies -LRB- plus one sheep dog -RRB- , the picture hosts a parka-wrapped dose of heart . Being author Wells ' great-grandson , you'd think filmmaker Simon Wells would have more reverence for the material . Benefits from a strong performance from Zhao , but it's Dong Jie's face you remember at the end . Better at putting you to sleep than a sound machine . Between bedroom scenes , viewers may find themselves wishing they could roll over and take a nap . Beyond a handful of mildly amusing lines ... there just isn't much to laugh at . Big Fat Liar is just futile silliness looking to tap into the kiddie sensibilities . Biggie and Tupac is so single-mindedly daring , it puts far more polished documentaries to shame . Binoche and Magimel are perfect in these roles . Birot is a competent enough filmmaker , but her story has nothing fresh or very exciting about it . Blessed with immense physical prowess he may well be , but Ahola is simply not an actor . Boring we didn't . Borrows from so many literary and cinematic sources that this future world feels absolutely deja vu . Both deeply weird and charmingly dear . Bow's best moments are when he's getting busy on the basketball court because that's when he really scores . Branagh , in his most forceful non-Shakespeare screen performance , grounds even the softest moments in the angry revolt of his wit . Brilliant ! ' Britney has been delivered to the big screen safe and sound , the way we like our 20-year-old superstar girls to travel on the fame freeway . Bubba Ho-Tep is a wonderful film with a bravura lead performance by Bruce Campbell that doesn't deserve to leave the building until everyone is aware of it . Bullock's complete lack of focus and ability quickly derails the film Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability . But I wasn't . But an unwillingness to explore beyond the surfaces of her characters prevents Nettelbeck's film from coming together . But as a movie , it's a humorless , disjointed mess . But based on CQ , I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for his next project . But buying into sham truths and routine `` indie '' filmmaking , Freundlich has made just another safe movie . But even a hero can stumble sometimes . But fans should have fun meeting a brand-new Pokemon called Celebi . But hard-to-believe plot twists force the movie off track in its final half hour . But he loses his focus when he concentrates on any single person . But he somehow pulls it off . But here's the real damn : It isn't funny , either . But if it is indeed a duty of art to reflect life , than Leigh has created a masterful piece of artistry right here . But in its child-centered , claustrophobic context , it can be just as frightening and disturbing -- even punishing . But it's emotionally engrossing , too , thanks to strong , credible performances from the whole cast . But it offers plenty to ponder and chew on as its unusual relationship slowly unfolds . But it pays a price for its intricate intellectual gamesmanship . But like Bruce Springsteen's gone-to-pot Asbury Park , New Jersey , this sad-sack waste of a movie is a City of ruins . But like most rabbits , it seems to lack substance . But some unexpected zigs and zags help . But that's just the problem with it - the director hasn't added enough of his own ingredients . But the characters tend to be cliches whose lives are never fully explored . But this costly dud is a far cry from either the book or the beloved film . But this time there's some mold on the gold . But watching Huppert , a great actress tearing into a landmark role , is riveting . But what saves lives on the freeway does not necessarily make for persuasive viewing . But what spectacular sizzle it is ! By presenting an impossible romance in an impossible world , Pumpkin dares us to say why either is impossible -- which forces us to confront what's possible and what we might do to make it so . By the end , I was looking for something hard with which to bludgeon myself unconscious . By the end of No Such Thing the audience , like Beatrice , has a watchful affection for the monster . Call me a wimp , but I cried , not once , but three times in this animated sweet film . Calling this movie brainless would be paying it a compliment : it's more like entertainment for trolls . Cantet perfectly captures the hotel lobbies , two-lane highways , and roadside cafes that permeate Vincent's days Cedar takes a very open-minded approach to this sensitive material , showing impressive control , both visually and in the writing . Celebrated at Sundance , this slight comedy of manners has winning performances and a glossy , glib charm that's hard to beat . Chaotic , self-indulgent and remarkably ugly to look at , it's ... like a series of pretentiously awful student films strung together into one feature-length horror . Characters wander into predictably treacherous situations even though they should know better . Chicago is , in many ways , an admirable achievement . Chicago is sophisticated , brash , sardonic , completely joyful in its execution . Children may not understand everything that happens -- I'm not sure even Miyazaki himself does -- but they will almost certainly be fascinated , and undoubtedly delighted . Cho's fans are sure to be entertained ; it's only fair in the interest of full disclosure to say that -- on the basis of this film alone -- I'm not one of them . Cho's fearless in picking apart human foibles , not afraid to lay her life bare in front of an audience . Choppy editing and too many repetitive scenes spoil what could have been an important documentary about stand-up comedy . Christians sensitive to a reductionist view of their Lord as a luv-spreading Dr. Feelgood or omnipotent slacker will feel vastly more affronted than secularists , who might even praise God for delivering such an instant camp classic . City by the Sea is the cinematic equivalent of defensive driving : It's careful , conscientious and makes no major mistakes . Claude Miller airs out a tight plot with an easy pace and a focus on character drama over crime-film complications . Clever , brutal and strangely soulful movie . Cliches are as thick as the cigarette smoke . Collateral Damage is , despite its alleged provocation post-9 \/ 11 , an antique , in the end . Compelling as it is exotic , Fast Runner has a plot that rivals Shakespeare for intrigue , treachery and murder . Compelling revenge thriller , though somewhat weakened by a miscast leading lady . Consider the title's clunk-on-the-head that suggests the overtime someone put in to come up with an irritatingly unimaginative retread concept . Considering the harsh locations and demanding stunts , this must have been a difficult shoot , but the movie proves rough going for the audience as well . Consists of a plot and jokes done too often by people far more talented than Ali G Could The Country Bears really be as bad as its trailers ? Could the whole plan here have been to produce something that makes Fatal Attraction look like a classic by comparison ? Credibility levels are low and character development a non-starter . Credibility sinks into a mire of sentiment . Credit must be given to Harland Williams , Michael Rosenbaum and Barry Watson , who inject far more good-natured spirit and talent into this project than it deserves Creepy but ultimately unsatisfying thriller . Culkin , who's in virtually every scene , shines as a young man who uses sarcastic lies like a shield . Culkin exudes none of the charm or charisma that might keep a more general audience even vaguely interested in his bratty character . Cute , funny , heartwarming digitally animated feature film with plenty of slapstick humor for the kids , lots of in-jokes for the adults and heart enough for everyone . Daring , mesmerizing and exceedingly hard to forget . Dark , resonant , inventively detailed and packed with fleet turns of plot and a feast of visual amazement . Dark and disturbing , but also surprisingly funny . Daughter from Danang is a film that should be seen by all , especially those who aren't aware of , or have forgotten about the unmentioned victims of war . Davis has filled out his cast with appealing fresh faces . Dawdles and drags when it should pop ; it doesn't even have the virtue of enough mindless violence to break up the tedium of all its generational bonding . Day is not a great Bond movie , but it is a good Bond movie , which still makes it much better than your typical Bond knock-offs . Dazzling and sugar-sweet , a blast of shallow magnificence that only sex , scandal , and a chorus line of dangerous damsels can deliver . De Niro and McDormand give solid performances , but their screen time is sabotaged by the story's inability to create interest . De Niro looks bored , Murphy recycles Murphy , and you mentally add Showtime to the pile of Hollywood dreck that represents nothing more than the art of the deal . De Niro may enjoy the same free ride from critics afforded to Clint Eastwood in the lazy Bloodwork . De Oliveira creates an emotionally rich , poetically plump and visually fulsome , but never showy , film whose bittersweet themes are reinforced and brilliantly personified by Michel Piccoli . Demands too much of most viewers . Demme's loose approach kills the suspense . Denis and co-writer Michele Petin's impeccable screenplay penetrates with a rawness that that is both unflinching and tantalizing . Denzel Washington's efforts are sunk by all the sanctimony . Desperately unfunny when it tries to makes us laugh and desperately unsuspenseful when it tries to make us jump out of our seats . Despite a blue-chip cast and a provocative title , writer-director Peter Mattei's first feature microwaves dull leftover romantic motifs basted in faux-contemporary gravy . Despite a powerful portrayal by Binoche , it's a period romance that suffers from an overly deliberate pace and uneven narrative momentum . Despite a story predictable enough to make The Sound of Music play like a nail-biting thriller , its heart is so much in the right place it is difficult to get really peeved at it . Despite its flaws , Secretary stays in your head and makes you question your own firmly held positions . Despite some gulps the film is a fuzzy huggy . Despite the authenticity of the trappings , the film is overblown in its plotting , hackneyed in its dialogue and anachronistic in its style . Despite the premise of a good story ... it wastes all its star power on cliched or meaningless roles . Despite what anyone believes about the goal of its makers , the show ... represents a spectacular piece of theater , and there's no denying the talent of the creative forces behind it . Dialogue-heavy and too cerebral for its own good -- or , at any rate , too cerebral for its racy subject matter . Diane Lane shines in Unfaithful . Digital-video documentary about stand-up comedians is a great glimpse into a very different world . Director Benoit Jacquot , making his first opera-to-film translation with Tosca , conveys the heaving passion of Puccini's famous love-jealousy - murder-suicide fandango with great cinematic innovation . Director Brian Levant , who never strays far from his sitcom roots , skates blithely from one implausible situation to another , pausing only to tie up loose ends with more bows than you'll find on a French poodle . Director Dirk Shafer and co-writer Greg Hinton ride the dubious divide where gay porn reaches for serious drama . Director Ferzan Ozpetek creates an interesting dynamic with the members of this group , who live in the same apartment building . Director Kapur is a filmmaker with a real flair for epic landscapes and adventure , and this is a better film than his earlier English-language movie , the overpraised Elizabeth . Director Nalin Pan doesn't do much to weigh any arguments one way or the other . Director Rob Marshall went out gunning to make a great one . Disney's live-action division has a history of releasing cinematic flotsam , but this is one occasion when they have unearthed a rare gem . Disturbing and brilliant documentary . Disturbingly superficial in its approach to the material . Divertingly ridiculous , headbangingly noisy . Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood may not be exactly divine , but it's definitely -- defiantly -- ya ya , what with all of those terrific songs and spirited performances . Don't expect any surprises in this checklist of teamwork cliches ... Don't let your festive spirit go this far . Don't plan on the perfect ending , but Sweet Home Alabama hits the mark with critics who escaped from a small town life . Don't waste your money . Do not , under any circumstances , consider taking a child younger than middle school age to this wallow in crude humor . Do we really need a 77-minute film to tell us exactly why a romantic relationship between a 15-year-old boy and a 40-year-old woman doesn't work ? Doesn't amount to much of anything . Does what a fine documentary does best : It extends a warm invitation into an unfamiliar world , then illuminates it fully and allows the larger implications of the journey to sink in unobtrusively . Dolgin and Franco fashion a fascinating portrait of a Vietnamese-born youngster who eagerly and easily assimilated as an all-American girl with a brand new name in southern Tennessee . Doug Liman , the director of Bourne , directs the traffic well , gets a nice wintry look from his locations , absorbs us with the movie's spycraft and uses Damon's ability to be focused and sincere . Drags along in a dazed and enervated , drenched-in-the - past numbness . Dreary , highly annoying ... ` Some Body ' will appeal to No One . Droll caper-comedy remake of `` Big Deal on Madonna Street '' that's a sly , amusing , laugh-filled little gem in which the ultimate `` Bellini '' begins to look like a `` real Kaputschnik . '' Dull , if not devoid of wit , this shaggy dog longs to frisk through the back alleys of history , but scarcely manages more than a modest , snoozy charm . Earnest but earthbound ... a slow , soggy , soporific , visually dank crime melodrama\/character study that would be more at home on the small screen but for its stellar cast . Earnest falls short of its Ideal predecessor largely due to Parker's ill-advised meddling with the timeless source material . Earns its laughs from stock redneck ` types ' and from the many , many moments when we recognize even without the Elizabethan prose , the play behind the thing . Eastwood is an icon of moviemaking , one of the best actors , directors and producers around , responsible for some excellent work . Ecks this one off your must-see list . Edited and shot with a syncopated style mimicking the work of his subjects , Pray turns the idea of the documentary on its head , making it rousing , invigorating fun lacking any MTV puffery . Effectively feeds our senses with the chilling sights and sounds from within the camp to create a completely numbing experience . Egoyan's movie is too complicated to sustain involvement , and , if you'll excuse a little critical heresy , too intellectually ambitious . Eight Crazy Nights is a showcase for Sandler's many talents . Elling , portrayed with quiet fastidiousness by Per Christian Ellefsen , is a truly singular character , one whose frailties are only slightly magnified versions of the ones that vex nearly everyone . Elling really is about a couple of crazy guys , and it's therapeutic to laugh along with them . Emerges as something rare , an issue movie that's so honest and keenly observed that it doesn't feel like one . Energetic and boldly provocative . Engagingly captures the maddening and magnetic ebb and flow of friendship . Enormously likable , partly because it is aware of its own grasp of the absurd . Enough similarities to Gymkata and Howie Long's Firestorm that my fingernails instinctively crawled towards my long-suffering eyeballs . Enough trivializes an important crisis , reduces it to an almost comic embarrassment . Escapism in its purest form . Ethan Hawke has always fancied himself the bastard child of the Beatnik generation and it's all over his Chelsea Walls . Even as lame horror flicks go , this is lame . Even by dumb action-movie standards , Ballistic : Ecks vs. Sever is a dumb action movie . Even die-hard fans of Japanese animation ... will find this one a challenge . Even if Britney Spears is really cute , her movie is really bad . Even if you can't pronounce `` gyro '' correctly , you'll appreciate much of Vardalos ' humor , which transcends ethnic boundaries . Even legends like Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston occasionally directed trifles ... so it's no surprise to see a world-class filmmaker like Zhang Yimou behind the camera for a yarn that's ultimately rather inconsequential . Even the imaginative gore can't hide the musty scent of Todd Farmer's screenplay , which is a simple retread of the 1979 Alien , with a plucky heroine battling a monster loose in a spaceship . Even the unwatchable Soapdish is more original . Even those of a single digit age will be able to recognize that this story is too goofy ... even for Disney . Even when foreign directors ... borrow stuff from Hollywood , they invariably shake up the formula and make it more interesting . Even with all those rough edges safely sanded down , the American Insomnia is still pretty darned good . Eventually , it wins you over . Every bit as bogus as most Disney live action family movies are -- no real plot , no real conflict , no real point . Everyone connected to this movie seems to be part of an insider clique , which tends to breed formulaic films rather than fresh ones . Everything that has to do with Yvan and Charlotte , and everything that has to do with Yvan's rambunctious , Jewish sister and her non-Jew husband , feels funny and true . Everything you loved about it in 1982 is still there , for everybody who wants to be a kid again , or show it to their own kids . Everytime you think Undercover Brother has run out of steam , it finds a new way to surprise and amuse . Everywhere the camera looks there is something worth seeing . Evokes a little of the fear that parents have for the possible futures of their children -- and the sometimes bad choices mothers and fathers make in the interests of doing them good . Excellent acting and direction . Expect to be reminded of other , better films , especially Seven , which director William Malone slavishly copies . Extreme Oops - oops , ops , no matter how you spell it , it's still a mistake to go see it . Extremely boring . Extremely confusing . Extremely dumb . Fails to bring as much to the table . Fairly successful at faking some pretty cool stunts but a complete failure at trying to create some pretty cool characters . Falters when it takes itself too seriously and when it depends too heavily on its otherwise talented cast to clown in situations that aren't funny . Fans of Behan's work and of Irish movies in general will be rewarded by Borstal Boy . Fans of Nijinsky will savor every minute of Cox's work . Fans of the animated wildlife adventure show will be in warthog heaven ; others need not necessarily apply . Far from perfect , but its heart is in the right place ... innocent and well-meaning . Farrell ... thankfully manages to outshine the role and successfully plays the foil to Willis's world-weary colonel . Feel bad for King , who's honestly trying , and Schwartzman , who's shot himself in the foot . Feels less like it's about teenagers , than it was written by teenagers . Feels like one of those contrived , only-in - Hollywood productions where name actors deliver big performances created for the sole purpose of generating Oscar talk . Feels like six different movies fighting each other for attention . Few films this year have been as resolute in their emotional nakedness . Filmmakers have to dig deep to sink this low . Finally , a genre movie that delivers -- in a couple of genres , no less . Finds a way to tell a simple story , perhaps the simplest story of all , in a way that seems compelling and even original . Fine acting but there is no sense of connecting the dots , just dots . First good , then bothersome . Fisher has bared his soul and confronted his own shortcomings here in a way ... that feels very human and very true to life . Flaccid drama and exasperatingly slow journey . Flashy , pretentious and as impenetrable as Morvern's thick , working-class Scottish accent . Flat , but with a revelatory performance by Michelle Williams . Flaunts its quirky excesses like a New Year's Eve drunk sporting a paper party hat . Flavorful and romantic , you could call this How Martha Got Her Groove Back -- assuming , that is , she ever had one to begin with . Flotsam in the sea of moviemaking , not big enough for us to worry about it causing significant harm and not smelly enough to bother despising . Flounders due to the general sense that no two people working on the production had exactly the same thing in mind . For Benigni it wasn't Shakespeare whom he wanted to define his career with but Pinocchio . For Caine Lovers only . For a film about two mismatched buddies , Crystal and De Niro share little screen time and even less chemistry . For a good chunk of its running time , Trapped is an effective and claustrophobic thriller . For a shoot - 'em - up , Ballistic is oddly lifeless . For all its alleged youthful fire , XXX is no less subservient to Bond's tired formula of guns , girls and gadgets while brandishing a new action hero . For all its failed connections , Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is nurturing , in a gauzy , dithering way . For all its highfalutin title and corkscrew narrative , the movie turns out to be not much more than a shaggy human tale . For all its surface frenzy , High Crimes should be charged with loitering -- so much on view , so little to offer . For anyone who grew up on Disney's 1950 Treasure Island , or remembers the 1934 Victor Fleming classic , this one feels like an impostor . For anyone who remembers the '60s or is interested in one man's response to stroke , Ram Dass : Fierce Grace is worth seeking out . For its seriousness , high literary aspirations and stunning acting , the film can only be applauded . For me , this opera isn't a favorite , so it's a long time before the fat lady sings . For the first time in several years , Mr. Allen has surpassed himself with the magic he's spun with the Hollywood empress of Ms. Leoni's Ellie . For the first two-thirds of this sparklingly inventive and artful , always fast and furious tale , kids will go happily along for the ride . For the most part , I Spy was an amusing lark that will probably rank as one of Murphy's better performances in one of his lesser-praised movies . Ford deserves to be remembered at Oscar time for crafting this wonderful portrait of a conflicted soldier . Formula 51 is so trite that even Yu's high-energy action stylings can't break through the stupor . Fortunately for all involved , this movie is likely to disappear as quickly as an ice cube thrown into a pot of boiling water . Foster nails the role , giving a tight , focused performance illuminated by shards of feeling . Francophiles will snicker knowingly and you'll want to slap them . Frenetic but not really funny . Frida's artistic brilliance is undeniable -- it's among the most breathtakingly designed films I've ever seen . Friday After Next has the same problem that Next Friday did -- it's called Where's Chris Tucker When You Need Him ? From spiritual rebirth to bruising defeat , Vincent's odyssey resonates in a profound way , comparable to the classic films of Jean Renoir . From the big giant titles of the opening credits to Elmer Bernstein's perfectly melodic score , Haynes gets just about everything right . Frustratingly , Dridi tells us nothing about El Gallo other than what emerges through his music . Full Frontal is the antidote for Soderbergh fans who think he's gone too commercial since his two Oscar nominated films in 2000 Full of profound , real-life moments that anyone can relate to , it deserves a wide audience . Fuller would surely have called this gutsy and at times exhilarating movie a great yarn . Funny and , at times , poignant , the film from director George Hickenlooper all takes place in Pasadena , `` a city where people still read . '' Gangs of New York is an unapologetic mess , whose only saving grace is that it ends by blowing just about everything up . Gee , a second assassin shot Kennedy ? Genuinely touching because it's realistic about all kinds of love . George , hire a real director and good writers for the next installment , please . George Clooney proves he's quite a talented director and Sam Rockwell shows us he's a world-class actor with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind . Gets under the skin of a man who has just lost his wife . Given that both movies expect us to root for convicted violent felons over those assigned to protect us from same , we need every bit of sympathy the cons can muster ; this time , there isn't much . Glib , satirical documentary that fudges facts , makes facile points and engages in the cinematic equivalent of tabloid journalism . Gloriously goofy -LRB- and gory -RRB- midnight movie stuff . Go see it and enjoy . God help the poor woman if Attal is this insecure in real life : his fictional Yvan's neuroses are aggravating enough to exhaust the patience of even the most understanding spouse . Godawful boring slug of a movie . Gollum's ` performance ' is incredible ! Good actress . Good for a few unintentional laughs , `` Extreme Ops '' was obviously made for the `` XXX '' crowd , people who enjoy mindless action without the benefit of decent acting , writing , and direction . Good movie . Good ol' urban legend stuff . Gosling provides an amazing performance that dwarfs everything else in the film . Goyer's screenplay and direction are thankfully understated , and he has drawn excellent performances from his cast . Grant gets to display his cadness to perfection , but also to show acting range that may surprise some who thought light-hearted comedy was his forte . Greene delivers a typically solid performance in a role that is a bit of a departure from the noble characters he has played in the past , and he is matched by Schweig , who carries the film on his broad , handsome shoulders . Greengrass has delivered an undoubted stylistic tour-de-force , and has managed elements such as sound and cinematography with skill Guaranteed to move anyone who ever shook , rattled , or rolled . Guided more by intellect than heart , his story flattens instead of sharpens . Guillen rarely gets beneath the surface of things . Had anyone here done anything remotely intelligent , we all could have stopped watching long ago . Half of it is composed of snappy patter and pseudo-sophisticated cultural observations , while the remainder ... would be more at home on a daytime television serial . Hands down the year's most thought-provoking film . Haneke challenges us to confront the reality of sexual aberration . Happily for Mr. Chin -- though unhappily for his subjects -- the invisible hand of the marketplace wrote a script that no human screenwriter could have hoped to match . Harsh , effective documentary on life in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories . Has a shambling charm ... a cheerfully inconsequential diversion . Has it ever been possible to say that Williams has truly inhabited a character ? Has little on its mind aside from scoring points with drag gags . Has the feel of an unedited personal journal . Having never been a huge fan of Dickens ' 800-page novel , it surprised me how much pleasure I had watching McGrath's version . Hawke draws out the best from his large cast in beautifully articulated portrayals that are subtle and so expressive they can sustain the poetic flights in Burdette's dialogue . Hayek is stunning as Frida and ... a star-making project . He'd create a movie better than this . He's Super Spy ! He has not learnt that storytelling is what the movies are about . He just wants them to be part of the action , the wallpaper of his chosen reality . He simply presents his point of view that Ayurveda works . Helmer DeVito ... attempts to do too many things in this story about ethics , payola , vice , murder , kids ' TV and revenge . Her delivery and timing are flawless . Her film is unrelentingly claustrophobic and unpleasant . Here's a British flick gleefully unconcerned with plausibility , yet just as determined to entertain you . Here's a self-congratulatory 3D IMAX rah-rah . Here , Adrian Lyne comes as close to profundity as he is likely to get . Herzog is obviously looking for a moral to his fable , but the notion that a strong , unified showing among Germany and Eastern European Jews might have changed 20th-Century history is undermined by Ahola's inadequate performance . Hey , who else needs a shower ? High Crimes miscasts nearly every leading character . Highlights are the terrific performances by Christopher Plummer , as the prime villain , and Nathan Lane as Vincent Crummles , the eccentric theater company manager . Hilarious , acidic Brit comedy . Hilarious , touching and wonderfully dyspeptic . His characters are engaging , intimate and the dialogue is realistic and greatly moving . Home Alone goes Hollywood , a funny premise until the kids start pulling off stunts not even Steven Spielberg would know how to do . How did it ever get made ? How on earth , or anywhere else , did director Ron Underwood manage to blow $ 100 million on this ? However , it lacks grandeur and that epic quality often associated with Stevenson's tale as well as with earlier Disney efforts . Hu and Liu offer natural , matter-of-fact performances that glint with sorrow , longing and love . Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock are two such likeable actors . Human Nature talks the talk , but it fails to walk the silly walk that distinguishes the merely quirky from the surreal . Huppert gives Erika a persona that is so intriguing that you find yourself staring hypnotically at her , trying to understand her and wondering if she'll crack . I'd give real money to see the perpetrators of Chicago torn apart by dingoes . I'm not suggesting that you actually see it , unless you're the kind of person who has seen every Wim Wenders film of the '70s . I Spy is an embarrassment , a monotonous , disjointed jumble of borrowed plot points and situations . I admired it , particularly that unexpected downer of an ending . I admired this work a lot . I can only imagine one thing worse than Kevin Spacey trying on an Irish accent , and that's sultry Linda Fiorentino doing the same thing . I complain all the time about seeing the same ideas repeated in films over and over again , but The Bourne Identity proves that a fresh take is always possible . I cry for I Spy -- or I would if this latest and laziest imaginable of all vintage-TV spinoffs were capable of engendering an emotional response of any kind . I didn't believe for a moment in these villains or their plot . I didn't laugh at the ongoing efforts of Cube , and his skinny buddy Mike Epps , to make like Laurel and Hardy 'n the hood . I don't have an I Am Sam clue . I don't know precisely what to make of Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal , though that didn't stop me from enjoying much of it . I don't think I've been as entranced and appalled by an Asian film since Shinya Tsukamoto's Iron Man . I doubt anyone will remember the picture by the time Christmas really rolls around , but maybe it'll be on video by then . I found it slow , drab , and bordering on melodramatic . I hate this movie I hated every minute of it . I just didn't care as much for the story . I kept thinking over and over again , ' I should be enjoying this . ' I kept wishing I was watching a documentary about the wartime Navajos and what they accomplished instead of all this specious Hollywood hoo-ha . I like Frank the Pug , though . I like the new footage and still love the old stuff . I love the way that it took chances and really asks you to take these great leaps of faith and pays off . I loved it ! I loved looking at this movie . I regret to report that these ops are just not extreme enough . I saw Knockaround Guys yesterday , and already the details have faded like photographs from the Spanish-American War ... It's so unmemorable that it turned my ballpoint notes to invisible ink . I tried to read the time on my watch . I was perplexed to watch it unfold with an astonishing lack of passion or uniqueness . I watched the brainless insanity of No Such Thing with mounting disbelief . I weep for the future when a good portion of the respected critical community in this country consider Blue Crush to be an intelligent film about young women . I whole-heartedly recommend that everyone see this movie -- for its historical significance alone . I wish I could say `` Thank God It's Friday '' , but the truth of the matter is I was glad when it was over . I would have preferred a transfer down the hall to Mr. Holland's class for the music , or to Robin Williams's lecture so I could listen to a teacher with humor , passion , and verve . IHOPs don't pile on this much syrup . Ice Cube holds the film together with an engaging and warm performance ... If High Crimes were any more generic it would have a universal product code instead of a title . If Kaufman kept Cameron Diaz a prisoner in a cage with her ape , in his latest , he'd have them mate . If Melville is creatively a great whale , this film is canned tuna . If Myers decides to make another Austin Powers movie , maybe he should just stick with Austin and Dr Evil . If Shayamalan wanted to tell a story about a man who loses his faith , why didn't he just do it , instead of using bad sci-fi as window dressing ? If it's possible for a sequel to outshine the original , then SL2 does just that . If it seems like a minor miracle that its septuagenarian star is young enough to be the nonagenarian filmmaker's son , more incredible still are the clear-eyed boldness and quiet irony with which actor and director take on life's urgent questions . If it tried to do anything more , it would fail and perhaps explode , but at this level of manic whimsy , it is just about right . If no one singles out any of these performances as award-worthy , it's only because we would expect nothing less from this bunch . If nothing else , this movie introduces a promising , unusual kind of psychological horror . If somebody was bored and ... decided to make a dull , pretentious version of Jesus ' Son , they'd come up with something like Bart Freundlich's World Traveler . If this dud had been made in the '70s , it would have been called The Hills Have Antlers and played for about three weeks in drive-ins . If this is an example of the type of project that Robert Redford's lab is willing to lend its imprimatur to , then perhaps it's time to rethink independent films . If this is satire , it's the smug and self-congratulatory kind that lets the audience completely off the hook . If this is the Danish idea of a good time , prospective tourists might want to consider a different destination -- some jolly country embroiled in a bloody civil war , perhaps . If this is the resurrection of the Halloween franchise , it would have been better off dead . If this movie were a book , it would be a page-turner , you can't wait to see what happens next . If we don't demand a standard of quality for the art that we choose , we deserve the trash that we get . If you're like me , a sucker for a good old fashion romance and someone who shamelessly loves to eat , then Mostly Martha offers all the perfect ingredients to more than satisfy your appetite . If you're looking for comedy to be served up , better look elsewhere . If you're not a prepubescent girl , you'll be laughing at Britney Spears ' movie-starring debut whenever it doesn't have you impatiently squinting at your watch . If you're not into the Pokemon franchise , this fourth animated movie in four years won't convert you -- or even keep your eyes open . If you're not the target demographic ... this movie is one long chick-flick slog . If you can get past the fantastical aspects and harsh realities of `` The Isle '' you'll get a sock-you-in-the-eye flick that is a visual tour-de-force and a story that is unlike any you will likely see anywhere else . If you collected all the moments of coherent dialogue , they still wouldn't add up to the time required to boil a four - minute egg . If you liked such movies as Notting Hill , Four Weddings And A Funeral , Bridget Jones ' Diary or High Fidelity , then you won't want to miss About A Boy . If you liked the 1982 film then , you'll still like it now . If you love Motown music , you'll love this documentary . If you pitch your expectations at an all time low , you could do worse than this oddly cheerful -- but not particularly funny -- body-switching farce . If you sometimes like to go to the movies to have fun , Wasabi is a good place to start . If you think that Jennifer Lopez has shown poor judgment in planning to marry Ben Affleck , wait till you see Maid in Manhattan . If your senses haven't been dulled by slasher films and gorefests , if you're a connoisseur of psychological horror , this is your ticket . Imagine a really bad community theater production of West Side Story without the songs . Imagine if you will a Tony Hawk skating video interspliced with footage from Behind Enemy Lines and set to Jersey shore techno . Imagine the James Woods character from Videodrome making a home movie of Audrey Rose and showing it to the kid from The Sixth Sense and you've imagined The Ring . Impresses you with its open-endedness and surprises . In Adobo , ethnicity is not just the spice , but at the heart of more universal concerns . In Fessenden's horror trilogy , this theme has proved important to him and is especially so in the finale . In a normal screen process , these bromides would be barely enough to sustain an interstitial program on the Discovery Channel . In his debut as a film director , Denzel Washington delivers a lean and engaging work . In its ragged , cheap and unassuming way , the movie works . In scope , ambition and accomplishment , Children of the Century ... takes Kurys ' career to a whole new level . In the end , Punch-Drunk Love is one of those films that I wanted to like much more than I actually did . In the process , they demonstrate that there's still a lot of life in Hong Kong cinema . In the second half of the film , Frei's control loosens in direct proportion to the amount of screen time he gives Nachtwey for self-analysis . Instead , we just get messy anger , a movie as personal therapy . Instead of accurately accounting a terrible true story , the film's more determined to become the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre . Instead of kicking off the intrigue and suspense and mystery of the whole thing , Hart's War , like the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl , waits until after halftime to get started . Intended to be a comedy about relationships , this wretched work falls flat in just about every conceivable area . Interacting eyeball-to-eyeball and toe-to-toe , Hopkins and Norton are a winning combination -- but Fiennes steals ` Red Dragon ' right from under their noses . Intriguing and beautiful film , but those of you who read the book are likely to be disappointed . Invincible is a wonderful movie . Involving at times , but lapses quite casually into the absurd . Isn't it great ? Isn't quite the equal of Woo's best earlier work , but it's easily his finest American film ... comes close to recapturing the brilliance of his Hong Kong films . Is this progress ? It's a beautifully accomplished lyrical meditation on a bunch of despondent and vulnerable characters living in the renown Chelsea Hotel ... It's a bittersweet and lyrical mix of elements . It's a brave attempt to tap into the heartbeat of the world , a salute to the universal language of rhythm and a zippy sampling of sounds . It's a decent glimpse into a time period , and an outcast , that is no longer accessible , but it doesn't necessarily shed more light on its subject than the popular predecessor . It's a film that hinges on its casting , and Glover really doesn't fit the part . It's a glorious groove that leaves you wanting more . It's a good film -- not a classic , but odd , entertaining and authentic . It's a great deal of sizzle and very little steak . It's a hoot and a half , and a great way for the American people to see what a candidate is like when he's not giving the same 15-cent stump speech . It's a humble effort , but spiced with wry humor and genuine pathos , especially between Morgan and Redgrave . It's a minor comedy that tries to balance sweetness with coarseness , while it paints a sad picture of the singles scene . It's a movie -- and an album -- you won't want to miss . It's a movie forged in the fires of Chick Flick Hell . It's a nicely detailed world of pawns , bishops and kings , of wagers in dingy backrooms or pristine forests . It's a pleasure to see Seinfeld griping about the biz with buddies Chris Rock , Garry Shandling and Colin Quinn . It's a refreshing change from the self-interest and paranoia that shape most American representations of Castro . It's a sly wink to The Others without becoming a postmodern joke , made creepy by its `` men in a sardine can '' warped logic . It's a terrific American sports movie and Dennis Quaid is its athletic heart . It's absolutely spooky how Lillard channels the Shagster right down to the original Casey Kasem-furnished voice . It's all pretty cynical and condescending , too . It's all very cute , though not terribly funny if you're more than six years old . It's almost impossible not to be moved by the movie's depiction of sacrifice and its stirring epilogue in post-Soviet Russia . It's also heavy-handed and devotes too much time to bigoted views . It's also stupider . It's also the year's sweetest movie . It's amazingly perceptive in its subtle , supportive but unsentimental look at the Marks family . It's an awfully derivative story . It's an example of sophisticated , challenging filmmaking that stands , despite its noticeable lack of emotional heft , in welcome contrast to the indulgent dead-end experimentation of the director's previous Full Frontal . It's an old story , but a lively script , sharp acting and partially animated interludes make Just a Kiss seem minty fresh . It's as close as we'll ever come to looking through a photographer's viewfinder as he works . It's as flat as an open can of pop left sitting in the sun . It's astonishing . It's badly acted , blandly directed , and could have been scripted by someone who just graduated from elementary school . It's best to avoid imprisonment with the dull , nerdy folks that inhabit Cherish . It's both a necessary political work and a fascinating documentary ... It's difficult to say whether The Tuxedo is more boring or embarrassing -- I'm prepared to call it a draw . It's disappointing when filmmakers throw a few big-name actors and cameos at a hokey script . It's drained of life in an attempt to be sober and educational , and yet it's so devoid of realism that its lack of whistles and bells just makes it obnoxious and stiff . It's endearing to hear Madame D. refer to her husband as ` Jackie ' -- and he does make for excellent company , not least as a self-conscious performer . It's fairly self-aware in its dumbness . It's frustrating to see these guys -- who are obviously pretty clever -- waste their talent on parodies of things they probably thought were funniest when they were high . It's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that Hollywood isn't laughing with us , folks . It's hard not to feel you've just watched a feature-length video game with some really heavy back story . It's hard to tell with all the crashing and banging where the salesmanship ends and the movie begins . It's just a silly black genre spoof . It's just incredibly dull . It's laughing at us . It's like a poem . It's neither as romantic nor as thrilling as it should be . It's never a good sign when a film's star spends the entirety of the film in a coma . It's not exactly a gourmet meal but the fare is fair , even coming from the drive-thru . It's not horrible , just horribly mediocre . It's not so much enjoyable to watch as it is enlightening to listen to new sides of a previous reality , and to visit with some of the people who were able to make an impact in the theater world . It's obviously struck a responsive chord with many South Koreans , and should work its magic in other parts of the world . It's often faintly amusing , but the problems of the characters never become important to us , and the story never takes hold . It's one of the most honest films ever made about Hollywood . It's one of the saddest films I have ever seen that still manages to be uplifting but not overly sentimental . It's painful . It's predictable , but it jumps through the expected hoops with style and even some depth . It's push-the-limits teen comedy , the type written by people who can't come up with legitimate funny , and it's used so extensively that good bits are hopelessly overshadowed . It's rare to find a film that dazzles the eye , challenges the brain , AND satisfies our lust for fast-paced action , but Minority Report delivers all that and a whole lot more . It's rather like a Lifetime special -- pleasant , sweet and forgettable . It's really yet another anemic and formulaic Lethal Weapon-derived buddy-cop movie , trying to pass off its lack of imagination as hip knowingness . It's so full of wrong choices that all you can do is shake your head in disbelief -- and worry about what classic Oliver Parker intends to mangle next time . It's so underwritten that you can't figure out just where the other characters , including Ana's father and grandfather , come down on the issue of Ana's future . It's solid and affecting and exactly as thought-provoking as it should be . It's still worth a look . It's the best film of the year so far , the benchmark against which all other Best Picture contenders should be measured . It's the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner , and even if it's nonsense , its claws dig surprisingly deep . It's the kind of movie you can't quite recommend because it is all windup and not much of a pitch , yet you can't bring yourself to dislike it . It's the kind of pigeonhole-resisting romp that Hollywood too rarely provides . It's traditional moviemaking all the way , but it's done with a lot of careful period attention as well as some very welcome wit . It almost plays like Solaris , but with guns and jokes . It becomes gimmicky instead of compelling . It could change America , not only because it is full of necessary discussion points , but because it is so accessible that it makes complex politics understandable to viewers looking for nothing but energetic entertainment . It dares to be a little different , and that shading is what makes it worthwhile . It delivers some chills and sustained unease , but flounders in its quest for Deeper Meaning . It doesn't do the original any particular dishonor , but neither does it exude any charm or personality . It doesn't help that the director and cinematographer Stephen Kazmierski shoot on grungy video , giving the whole thing a dirty , tasteless feel . It does succeed by following a feel-good formula with a winning style , and by offering its target audience of urban kids some welcome role models and optimism . It extends the writings of Jean Genet and John Rechy , the films of Fassbinder , perhaps even the nocturnal works of Goya . It feels like a community theater production of a great Broadway play : Even at its best , it will never hold a candle to the original . It further declares its director , Zhang Yang of Shower , as a boldly experimental , contemporary stylist with a bright future . It has fun being grown up . It has the courage to wonder about big questions with sincerity and devotion . It helps that Lil Bow Wow ... tones down his pint-sized gangsta act to play someone who resembles a real kid . It helps that the central performers are experienced actors , and that they know their roles so well . It is a film that will have people walking out halfway through , will encourage others to stand up and applaud , and will , undoubtedly , leave both camps engaged in a ferocious debate for years to come . It is a kickass , dense sci-fi action thriller hybrid that delivers and then some . It is also , at times , curiously moving . It is far from the worst , thanks to the topical issues it raises , the performances of Stewart and Hardy , and that essential feature -- a decent full-on space battle . It is inspirational in characterizing how people from such diverse cultures share the same human and spiritual needs . It is intensely personal and yet -- unlike Quills -- deftly shows us the temper of the times . It is interesting and fun to see Goodall and her chimpanzees on the bigger-than-life screen . It is not a mass-market entertainment but an uncompromising attempt by one artist to think about another . It is ridiculous , of course ... but it is also refreshing , disarming , and just outright enjoyable despite its ridiculousness . It is risky , intelligent , romantic and rapturous from start to finish . It is so refreshing to see Robin Williams turn 180 degrees from the string of insultingly innocuous and sappy fiascoes he's been making for the last several years . It may be an easy swipe to take , but this Barbershop just doesn't make the cut . It might as well have been Problem Child IV . It might be tempting to regard Mr. Andrew and his collaborators as oddballs , but Mr. Earnhart's quizzical , charming movie allows us to see them , finally , as artists . It never fails to engage us . It represents better-than-average movie-making that doesn't demand a dumb , distracted audience . It risks seeming slow and pretentious , because it thinks the gamble is worth the promise . It settles for being merely grim . It should be mentioned that the set design and interiors of the haunted vessel are more than effectively creepy and moodily lit . It smacks of purely commercial motivation , with no great love for the original . It suggests the wide-ranging effects of media manipulation , from the kind of reporting that is done by the supposedly liberal media ... to the intimate and ultimately tragic heartache of maverick individuals like Hatfield and Hicks . It takes this never-ending confusion and hatred , puts a human face on it , evokes shame among all who are party to it and even promotes understanding . It took 19 predecessors to get THIS ? It tries too hard , and overreaches the logic of its own world . It turns out to be a cut above the norm , thanks to some clever writing and sprightly acting . It uses an old-time formula , it's not terribly original and it's rather messy -- but you just have to love the big , dumb , happy movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding . It virtually defines a comedy that's strongly mediocre , with funny bits surfacing every once in a while . It will come as no surprise that the movie isn't scary . It will delight newcomers to the story and those who know it from bygone days . It won't be long before you'll spy I Spy at a video store near you . It would be hard to think of a recent movie that has worked this hard to achieve this little fun . It wouldn't be my preferred way of spending 100 minutes or $ 7.00 . Its characters are thinner than cardboard -- or even comic-book paper . Its direction , its script , and Weaver's performance as a vaguely discontented woman of substance make for a mildly entertaining 77 minutes , if that's what you're in the mood for . Its gross-out gags and colorful set pieces ... are of course stultifyingly contrived and too stylized by half . Its lack of quality earns it a place alongside those other two recent Dumas botch-jobs , The Man in the Iron Mask and The Musketeer . Its mysteries are transparently obvious , and it's too slowly paced to be a thriller . Its over-reliance on genre conventions , character types and formulaic conflict resolutions crushes all the goodwill it otherwise develops . Its save-the-planet message clashes with its crass marketing . Its scenes and sensibility are all more than familiar , but it exudes a kind of nostalgic spy-movie charm and , at the same time , is so fresh and free of the usual thriller nonsense that it all seems to be happening for the first time . Its underlying mythology is a hodgepodge of inconsistencies that pose the question : Since when did dumb entertainment have to be this dumb ? Jacquot's Tosca is a treat . Jagger the actor is someone you want to see again . Japan's premier stylist of sex and blood hits audiences with what may be his most demented film to date . Jason X has cheesy effects and a hoary plot , but its macabre , self-deprecating sense of humor makes up for a lot . John Leguizamo may be a dramatic actor -- just not in this movie . John McTiernan's botched remake may be subtler than Norman Jewison's 1975 ultraviolent futuristic corporate-sports saga . Jolie's performance vanishes somewhere between her hair and her lips . Julia is played with exasperating blandness by Laura Regan . Just a bloody mess . Just another fish-out-of-water story that barely stays afloat . Just because it really happened to you , honey , doesn't mean that it's interesting to anyone else . Just like Hearst's enormous yacht , it's slow and unwieldy and takes a long time to reach its destination . Just one more collection of penis , breast and flatulence gags in search of a story . Just when the movie seems confident enough to handle subtlety , it dives into soapy bathos . K-19 may not hold a lot of water as a submarine epic , but it holds even less when it turns into an elegiacally soggy Saving Private Ryanovich . Katz uses archival footage , horrifying documents of lynchings , still photographs and charming old reel-to-reel recordings of Meeropol entertaining his children to create his song history , but most powerful of all is the song itself Kaufman creates an eerie sense of not only being there at the time of these events but the very night Matthew was killed . Kinnear gives a tremendous performance . Kwan makes the mix-and - match metaphors intriguing , while lulling us into torpor with his cultivated allergy to action . Lacking gravitas , MacDowell is a placeholder for grief , and ergo this sloppy drama is an empty vessel . Lacks heart , depth and , most of all , purpose . Lame , haphazard teen comedy . Lanie's professional success means she must be a failure at life , because she's driven by ambition and Doesn't Know How to Have Fun . Lathan and Diggs have considerable personal charm , and their screen rapport makes the old story seem new . Lauren Ambrose comes alive under the attention from two strangers in town - with honest performances and realistic interaction between the characters , this is a coming-of-age story with a twist . Lead provocatuers Testud and Parmentier give superlative performances Leave it to Rohmer , now 82 , to find a way to bend current technique to the service of a vision of the past that is faithful to both architectural glories and commanding open spaces of the city as it was more than two centuries ago . Leave these Flowers unpicked -- they're dead on the vine . Leaves you with a knot in your stomach , its power is undercut by its own head-banging obviousness . Led by Griffin's smartly nuanced performance and enthusiasm , the cast has a lot of fun with the material . Lee Jeong-Hyang tells it so lovingly and films it so beautifully that I couldn't help being captivated by it . Legendary Irish writer Brendan Behan's memoir , Borstal Boy , has been given a loving screen transferral . Let's cut to the consumer-advice bottom line : Stay home . Let your silly childhood nostalgia slumber unmolested . Life is a crock -- or something like it . Like Dickens with his passages , McGrath crafts quite moving scenes throughout his resolutely dramatic variation on the novel . Like Mike doesn't win any points for originality . Like a marathon runner trying to finish a race , you need a constant influx of liquid just to get through it . Like a south-of-the-border Melrose Place . Like a tone-deaf singer at a benefit concert , John Q. is a bad movie appearing on behalf of a good cause . Like its two predecessors , 1983's Koyaanisqatsi and 1988's Powaqqatsi , the cinematic collage Naqoyqatsi could be the most navel-gazing film ever . Like most Bond outings in recent years , some of the stunts are so outlandish that they border on being cartoonlike . Like most sequels , it takes what worked last time , repeats it and adds more characters , more stunts , more stuff in attempt to camouflage its sameness . Like old myths and wonder tales spun afresh . Like so many other allegedly scary movies , it gets so tangled up in The Twist that it chokes the energy right out of the very audience it seeks to frighten . Like the film's almost anthropologically detailed realization of early - '80s suburbia , it's significant without being overstated . Like those to Rome , all roads in The Banger Sisters inevitably lead to a joke about Hawn's breasts , which constantly threaten to upstage the woman sporting them . Liman , of Swingers and Go , makes his big-budget action film debut something of a clunker as he delivers a long , low-heat chase , interrupted by a middling car chase . Little more than a frothy vanity project . Longley has constructed a remarkably coherent , horrifically vivid snapshot of those turbulent days . Look , this is a terrific flick replete with dazzling camera-work , dancing and music . Looks awfully like one long tourist spot for a Mississippi that may never have existed outside of a scriptwriter's imagination . Looks like a high school film project completed the day before it was due . Lovingly choreographed bloodshed taking place in a pristine movie neverland , basically . Made by jackasses for jackasses . Madonna still can't act a lick . Maguire is a surprisingly effective Peter\/Spider-Man . Majidi's poetic love story is a ravishing consciousness-raiser , if a bit draggy at times . Majidi gets uniformly engaging performances from his largely amateur cast . Makes S&M seem very romantic , and Maggie Gyllenhaal is a delight . Makes an aborbing if arguable case for the man's greatness . Makmalbaf follows a resolutely realistic path in this uncompromising insight into the harsh existence of the Kurdish refugees of Iran's borderlands . Marisa Tomei is good , but Just A Kiss is just a mess . Mark me down as a non-believer in werewolf films that are not serious and rely on stupidity as a substitute for humor . Marries the amateurishness of The Blair Witch Project with the illogic of Series 7 : The Contenders to create a completely crass and forgettable movie . Marvelous , merry and , yes , melancholy film . Matthew McConaughey tries , and fails , to control the screen with swaggering machismo and over-the-top lunacy . Maudlin and melodramatic we expected . May be spoofing an easy target -- those old ' 50's giant creature features -- but ... it acknowledges and celebrates their cheesiness as the reason why people get a kick out of watching them today . Maybe I found the proceedings a little bit too conventional . Maybe it's asking too much , but if a movie is truly going to inspire me , I want a little more than this . Maybe it's the star power of the cast or the redundant messages , but something aboul `` Full Frontal '' seems , well , contrived . McKay deflates his piece of puffery with a sour cliche and heavy doses of mean-spiritedness Meandering , sub-aquatic mess : It's so bad it's good , but only if you slide in on a freebie . Men in Black II has sequel-itis something fierce . Merchant effectively translates Naipaul's lively mix of characters from the page to screen . Merely as a technical , logistical feat , Russian Ark marks a cinematic milestone . Message movie or an action-packed submarine spectacular ? Might have been better off as a documentary , with less of Mr. Eyre's uninspired dramatics and more of his sense of observation and outrage . Mixes likeable personalities , inventive photography and cutting , and wall-to-wall toe-tapping music to paint a picture of a subculture that is at once exhilarating , silly , perverse , hopeful and always fun . Mocking them now is an exercise in pointlessness . Moderately involving despite bargain-basement photography and hackneyed romance . Moore's complex and important film is also , believe it or not , immensely entertaining , a David and Goliath story that's still very much playing itself out . Moore's performance impresses almost as much as her work with Haynes in 1995's Safe . Moot point . More a load of enjoyable , Conan-esque claptrap than the punishing , special-effects soul assaults the Mummy pictures represent . More honest about Alzheimer's disease , I think , than Iris . More than makes up for its mawkish posing by offering rousing spates of genuine feeling . Morton is , as usual , brilliant . Most impressive , though , is the film's open-ended finale that refuses to entirely close its characters ' emotional wounds . Most new movies have a bright sheen . Most of Crush is a clever and captivating romantic comedy with a welcome pinch of tartness . Most of the action setups are incoherent . Most of the supporting characters in Eastwood films are weak , as are most of the subplots . Mr. Parker has brilliantly updated his source and grasped its essence , composing a sorrowful and hilarious tone poem about alienated labor , or an absurdist workplace sitcom . Mr. Wedge and Mr. Saldanha handle the mix of verbal jokes and slapstick well .