February 15, 1996 | Given the current state of high-tech trickery available to filmmakers, just about any director with an adequate budget can give you maximum bang for your box-office…

August 24, 2001 | How awful can a movie be without actually leaving a stain on the screen? Bubble Boy skirts perilously close to the outer limits of what can…

August 20, 2004 | Despite the sporadic box-office success of IMAX spectacles and rock-concert extravaganzas, documentaries almost never attract mainstream moviegoers. Indeed, even art-house devotees tend to respond to nonfiction…

December 7, 2001 | There is a chilly precision to way writer-director Patrick Stettner establishes a vaguely but unmistakably ominous mood during the opening scenes of The Business of Strangers, a mesmerizing…

January 23, 2004 |  As a Twilight Zone type of time-bending, destiny-altering thriller, The Butterfly Effect has a lot going for it: An intriguing premise, intelligently tricky plot twists, sympathetic supporting…

April 11, 1996 | Sitting through Bruno Barreto's Carried Away is a bit like watching someone defuse a bomb. A great deal of your appreciation for what you're seeing is informed…

November 30, 1995 | Martin Scorsese is a hard act to follow -- even, apparently, if you're Martin Scorsese. Casino, Scorsese's sensationally stylish drama of a mobsters' paradise lost, is a…

November 21, 2003 |  Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat , a surreally rambunctious farce inspired by the popular children's book, is…

July 4, 2001 | The most extraordinary thing about Cats & Dogs is how ordinary it seems. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying this raucously anthropomorphic comedy isn’t funny. Quite the contrary. …