More like Hollywood fluff than Gallic farce or sophistication, the French romantic comedy Jet Lag stars Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno as mismatched lovers who meet when circumstances — bad weather, computer glitches, a strike by air traffic controllers — ground them both at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris…

If you have never heard of Lizzie McGuire, you are not a female child between the ages of 6 and 14; nor are you a parent with a female child between those ages. For the uninitiated, then, Lizzie is the eponymous heroine of the 3-year old, wildly popular Disney Channel…

It is rare to find a film that defies one’s expectations as sweetly and satisfyingly as this coming-of-age comedy-drama from first-time feature writer-director Peter Sollett. The surprise isn’t in the plot of Raising Victor Vargas — that would be too easy — but rather in the extraordinarily subtle and convincing…

Why do people engaged in warfare always believe that God endorses their cause and not their opponent’s? The Civil War drama Gods and Generals is filled with so much religious righteousness — endless Bible readings, urgent recitation of prayer, and ardent supplications to the Lord, to say nothing of the…

Based on the true story of three young Aboriginal girls who walked 1,500 miles across the Australian Outback to be reunited with their mothers, Rabbit-Proof Fence might well be subtitled True Grit in recognition of the courage and single-minded determination that drove the trio to undertake such a perilous journey…

Brad Silberling’s instincts are right about half the time, which means that, depending upon your point of view, his films are either half empty or half full. His last picture, 1998’s City of Angels, an American remake of Wim Wenders’s poetic Wings of Desire, unsuccessfully tried to marry European art-house…

Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is released from a mental institution the day of her older sister’s wedding. One afternoon with her dysfunctional family and she’s ready for rehab again. No such luck, however, so instead Lee returns to her favorite pastime: self-mutilation. Based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill…

Think of it as Todd Solondz lite: loads of dysfunction but, thankfully, none of the perversion. In fact, despite deep-seated neuroses, occasionally inappropriate behavior, and a propensity for unhealthy relationships, the four females who are the Marks family are a fairly benevolent lot. As observed by writer-director Nicole Holofcener, the…

Cell phones and silk saris, dot-coms and arranged marriages — Monsoon Wedding, the latest film from Indian-born director Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala) captures the heady mix of old and new, rich and poor, traditional and modern that defines contemporary India. A sort of Father of the Bride set…

To call a movie the most accessible Dogme 95 film ever made is not merely damning with faint praise. It also threatens to alienate the two segments of the population that might consider going to see such a film in the first place: fans of the back-to-basics, no-frills-of-any-kind Danish filmmaking…

Only committed horticulturists and compulsive readers of The New York Times obituaries (this writer falls into the latter category) likely noticed the recent passing of Rosemary Verey, an aristocratic Englishwoman whose sophisticated but egalitarian approach to gardening took some of the stuffiness out of what previously had been a rather…

Anyone with any experience in sharing toys, attention, and uncomfortably long car rides on the way to dreaded family vacations will recognize some familiar personality types and situations in Tortilla Soup. Directed by the Spanish-born María Ripoll, who is best known in this country for her English-language film Twice upon…

Even more than the recent Depression-era comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the turn-of-the-century drama Songcatcher is an absolute treasure trove of old-timey, traditional folk music. Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia in the year 1907, the film follows city-bred musicologist Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) as she…

Chalk up another one for George Dubya. Recently the U.S. Immigration Department refused to allow acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, director of both the Oscar-nominated The White Balloon and the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner The Circle, to change planes in New York on his way from Hong Kong…

Like nearly all book-to-film adaptations from Merchant Ivory Productions, The Golden Bowl is a feast for the eyes, with choice real estate, exquisite interior design, and dazzling costumes all bathed in a golden light that not only enriches the colors but also helps to give the settings a sense of…

A viewer doesn’t watch Amores Perros (Love’s a Bitch) so much as absorb it — like a body blow. “I wanted to make a movie that smelled of filth,” Alejandro González Iñárritu has said about his feature directorial debut. He has succeeded beyond perhaps even his wildest dreams. One of…

The 20th Century is replete with examples of unconscionable crimes carried out in the name of some quasi-political, military, or religious cause — acts of such misguided judgment and mindless brutality that they seem to cross an invisible threshold of decency, morality, and understanding. The My Lai massacre of 1968,…

It is difficult to reconcile American perceptions of Iran, a rigidly authoritarian Islamic fundamentalist society, with the captivating and compassionate films that emanate from the country. Most of these pictures, including the 1995 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’Or winner The White Balloon and the 1998 best foreign-language film Oscar nominee…

Poor Kim Basinger! In her first role since bagging the 1998 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (for L.A. Confidential, the film that should have won Best Picture and Best Director as well), the actress positively trembles with what seems to be fear. Notoriously insecure about appearing on camera, Basinger…

When asked to name the most erotic sequence they have ever seen in a film, people tend to pick moments like the love scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland in Don’t Look Now or that indelible image of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, standing just inside her house, silently…

Jane Campion’s 1993 film The Piano was an intoxicating work of art, a film of such beauty and power that it literally took my breath away. Nothing the New Zealand-born writer-director has done before or since even comes close to matching it in form, content, or sensibility. And her latest…

Sharon Stone doesn’t appear on screen until halfway through this tale of three lives unraveling, but when she does, she makes quite an impression as Rosie, the third player in a horseracing scam. Adapted from a play by Sam Shepard, Simpatico jumps back and forth in time between the present…