Yes, detractors - But what you forget is how flat and flowing Roman's film is, how personal and simple Roman's film is, and how potent an eye it casts on life during wartime - up to and including demonstrating the pratfalls of the resistance.

A throwback to a less complicated, but equally shark-infested Hollywood - before everybody was an insider. Evans iis good at cursing and self-perspective, but after awhile, the film starts to lag, as if it's lost without the war stories of great payoffs from Evans' lucky streak. His tumble downward is met with a somber tone that doesn't suit the film, present tense dipping from active to passive far too quickly and for far too long, as if the man himself didn't want to dwell on the negative aspects of his life ("Hey, who said I was supposed be fucking objective?!" I'm sure he'd retort). The style (still photos + white-hot commentary = documentary comes alive!) - is dead on; The Kid Stays in the Pictture is Part E-True Hollywood Story!, part jet-fueled biography. Evans' participation makes the film - an otherwise by-the-numbers rise-and-falll story - deeply human, right down the character development, which Evans delightfully engineers, conquers and (as Coppola so delightfully puts it at one point), second guesses.

It's a terrific thrill to see Noah Taylor bring the huge personality that was Hitler to life - and an even bigger thrill to see him sparring with ultra-bourgeoise art dealer Max Rothman, played with the usual earnest middle-age-y-ness John Cusack invests in most of his non-comedy pictures. The trouble is, the film just flat-out doesn't work for a variety of reasons (the biggest being the broad, practically stamped-on precursor elements Meyjes can't seem to avoid in this "fiction"). The piece lingers on the fog surrounding Hitler's career decision, suggesting that it hinged on the approval (or disapproval) of Rothman's art advice. We know how this story is going to turn out, so each time Hitler even seems to entertain the idea of becoming an artist - Max feels strangely false. That's the extent of the film's depth, I'm afraid to report, as its real agenda seems to be a much more tiresome and (quite frankly) boring one: That anti-semitism was merely the hook which Hitler used to ensnare a humiliated post-war nation facing a mammoth identity crisis. The trouble with chalking that sort of thinking up to a parallel with the interior of an artist - that is, to put your emotions on canvas via paint - is that it pretty much leads to a great big contradiction: Hitler was insecure, so he picked on the secure. Hardly new news.

You're in a bit of a bind: To watch the style-less Invincible, you'd pretty much have to be told it was a film by Werner Herzog. (Trust me, though, you'd rather remain ignorant to such a fact, if you could help it.) So bland and serviceable is this first part of the story of a strong Polish blacksmith who entertains Nazi crowds disguised as a Roman gladiator (only to out himself as a Jew and, in the process, decide that he is the chosen one to spread the word of forthcoming doom), that you'll scarcely be prepared for just how unbelievably whiny and annoying it manages to get after closing the last door on act two. Aside from creepy clairvoyant Tim Roth (often just a notch above passable himself), I haven't seen this many stiff performers since Herzog's 1976 film Heart of Glass (They were, of course, hypnotized). (This is where I reveal the ending.) As the cast walks through scene after scene, learning many goopy life lessons along the way, the most intolerable cruelty are the details surrounding the Strongman's death (He drives a rusty nail through a piece of wood with his bare hands, and refuses to get it looked at). Herzog, always the eccentric, is clearly substituting a martyrdom element (and a second rate one at that) into the film. Listing over the end credits that the main character's death came just two days before Hitler seized power, Herzog seems to be stating, "If only this guy had lived, he could have warned everyone." I'm not kidding when I say that this is only one the most preposterous things that happens in the film.

Consistently one of the few movies I enjoy watching over and over again. Easily one of the very best films of all time. (Insights imminent. Maybe.)

It surprises me that they even listed the cinematographer and the editor, both redundant participants in an experiment - and a darn coherent one at that (remember now, this is the mastermind behind, ahem, Performance). Both characterization and acting become equal background noise to carefully-planned camera wizardry, which would be terrifically annoying were it not so damn hypnotic. Where Performance was a stuffy and indecipherable mix of opposite male egos, and where Walkabout was a allegory operating out of a symbol factory, Don't Look Now isn't cerebral in the least - which makes it, easily, the most entertaaining selection in Roeg's wildly inconsistent ouevre. Generally terrifying is Venice at night, as is the organ theme; The film, on  a whole, seems to play like a more hallucinogenic version of Schnitzler's Dream Story (on which Kubrick's equally grave-tinged masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut is based), but the film is actually based upon a story by the typically character-driven Daphne du Maurier. A successful antidote - like Eyes Wide Shut - to the current, bland trend of adapting a book practically verbatim. And it's a wacked-out, experimental studio picture at that.

I was totally in to it for about ten minutes - "A material, all this steam", I thought - until I realized, all at once, that the film was playing on an endless loop of its own commercial for itself. Portioned as the ultimate in short attention span viewing, Charlie'sAngels erupts so often that it's almost boring. Instead of being kinetic, the non-stop bursts of  beautifully composed energy give us the impression that the director, McG - the first wave of a generation babysat by their parents' big, expensive televisions - seems to fashion himself an art-house king in a studio world. (A fine sentiment, except that I'm making fun, you see, because he's, in a word, not). The electricity in his world might feel more at home being smashed into about a hundred little pieces, and then aired repeatedly on a channel where it could be introduced by a VJ (who's going to get this countdown a-rollin')! Hard then, not to continually notice how unebelievable the principles are - even at playing dumb (their best roles, I've found, are usually found on the pages of National Enquirer or, failing that - Celebrity Skin). At the very least, Bill Murray and Crispin Glover get a chance to be their unruly, deeply wierd selves - even if they are both clearly not fit to star in action sequences involving any kung fu or, uh, sumo wrestling (bad idea, guys!). These films are good for an allotment of about two minutes, thirty seconds - or, as trailers. (Or, I guess, as music videos. You're thinking it. I know you are: "He's going to state the obvious".)

[Nope. If we're all on the same page, why waste space, you know? (Too late.)]

Consistently one of the few movies I enjoy watching over and over again. Easily one of the very best films of all time.(Insights imminent. Maybe.)

I was more interested, honestly, in trying to spot things I'd have liked when I was younger. It wasn't hard; Easy as: uno (the soundtrack); dos (the set design); tres (Michael Wincott). As far as the hammy dialogue, stereotypical cop after stereotypical crook after stereotypical kid, and the tightrope blend of mystical "love will set us free" crescendos and goth-kids-don't-do-drugs vibes - I'm pretty sure I had to have had my gigantic pair of rose colored glasses on when I first viewed the film. Do you think Mr. Proyas, whose cityscape designs on the DVD could have easily doubled for the ones in his terrific follow-up (Dark City), is hated by every crew he's ever worked with? I mean, can't we get a day shoot just once, man? (As in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, we see the title reference in every other shot, prompting me to wonder aloud what the crow's on-set name was? Sure enough, it's in the credits: Jim. Tasteful, guys. Real tasteful.)

First hour or so isn't much more than a slower-in-the-coming version of the stream of consciousness-transitioned Mr. Show, on whose reoccuring character the focus falls (that would be Ronnie Dobbs - an amalgam of every redneck David Cross had the privelidge of growing up with). Luckily, there's no chance any sort of half-baked narrative built around Ronnie Dobbs can properly flourish, exactly. Instead, the film seems to warmly accept the successful stylings of the television show, forever spoiling its chances (thank god) of being another film about a guy who leaves his crummy life behind to become a TV star. That, for the most part, Run, Ronnie, Run! is nothing more than an extended episode of the show, makes it more than reccomendable. What a shame when the last half hour creeps up on us, evincing a particularly embarrasing set of exhausted turns, most of them hyper-typical to the TV-leaps-to-the-big-screen genre (All this money is boring, I miss my squalor!, things of that ilk). The film becomes so plot-driven, in fact, that it almost works to call out, by contrast, its first two acts, as pure shreds of non-cinema. But whatever. I know what it is - and I know that I laughed deep, cavernous gullet guffaws for nearly an hour straight.

What a horribly glib and scorched human being I've become when a film like Waking Ned Devine barely sparks the kindling. I saw this sucker twice in theaters (and once more on DVD when it came out). Suspecting I was somewhat immovable in my arrogant mid-twenties, I wonder why I continually subject these films to my once embarrassing (and twice shameful) wrath - but there it stands. There's cheese at center, and sweetness on the edges; Jones is obviously a first-time filmmaker, as everything seems just twee enough to pass. What I miss, I suppose, from seeing it three times previous, was the grand sense that it made me feel terrific at the end. This time it just made me feel as if I should be feeling terrific. What a bummer to realize I've just all but completely turned. (On the good side, I can still admire its madcap dashes into complete implausibility, as well as the unconscionably pleasurable guilt that comes with laughing at nude old men on motorcycles.) Sigh.

The film seems to be entirely about the characters, though completely uninterested in them. At every turn, the five principles are overwhelmingly upstaged by the decor; the fuzziness just about washes completely over them, leaving a half-realized streak of a plotline. This doesn't discourage it from creating a sort of disconnect between these souls and their words. Quite the contrary: it's as if they've dubbed over double-speak where literal chatter should be taking place.Gorgeous to look at - like Greenaway through foggy eyeglasses - but ultimately too unsatisfying, too stilted, and too scattered to be anything of any real value.

Made almost entirely in the style of the great silents - except when the humor is way out of control (Here's a headline: "Man choked with recently gouged intestine") or when the dialogue dubbed over sounds as if it were done by a film class experimenting with the powers of DAT. Moody atmosphere (often evocative of the German expressionist period) almost takes over in a few spots, but Maddin keeps interrupting it with silly excesses.

It's great because of the information that is withheld, but also because it is such a challenge, and because the little emotional attachments take some getting used to (as do some of the arrangements - Greenwood and Kirshner's to be specific). The way Egoyan's characters are slimy - but pitiable, and human - makes his portrait of these strange, circumstantial encounters so emotional and so haunting.

It was all I could do not to tear up the steps and begin writing. I hereby crown PT Anderson's film the only one I saw in 2002 with a truly original voice.

It exudes nothing but charm, finding three distinctly gracious notes to hit (straight/funny man in the first act, fish-out-of-water in the second act, and
all-hope-is-lost-save-for-the-surprise there in the third act). Loved Garbo, was unbelievably moved by the chemistry between herself and Melvyn Douglas, and found the whole affair to be typically, brilliantly top drawer Lubitsch.

Full of goopy musical numbers (even if all but two are verses from "Everyone Says I Love You"), but the sub-referencing is so deliriously, ridiculously excessive (and brilliant), it almost achieves the Dennis Miller Quotient (i.e. - I can barely keep up with it). It's bawdy, indicating that it may be pre-code (don't know for sure) and, quite honestly, I can't remember the last time I was able to laugh at a guy throwing a guitar at a duck.

Terrific mix of mentalities - Kieslowski's achingly defiant insistence that moral matters cannot be seen as black and (or) white and Tykwer's insistence on making every shot visually pleasing as well as formally valuable - and an absolutely hypnotic little flick. I especially liked how, somehow, the film was able to read my mind (I was thinking to myself: "Damn, that Cate Blanchett is distractingly attractive") and remedy the situation (I think we'll shave her. Bald.) Tykwer continues to make indexing look practically fluid and Kieslowski, from beyond the grave, continues to assert his position as one of the great masters.