question: A bizarre, compelling spectacle that invests its absurd plot with heartfelt sincerety, Brand Upon the Brain! is a unique cinematic experience.

numbered reviews: 1. Welcome to the Spectacle of the Summer!
2. A surprisingly frightening and affecting film, launching itself from vertiginous peaks into shadowy hollows.
3. The film is a bizarre mess of monster movie, teen detective novel and coming of age, cross-gendered romance film....one I am extremely pleased to have attended.
4. No matter how much the director disguises the tale in flickery symbolism, the emotions feel painful and personal.
5. Imagery, language, and emotion can be pulled apart and put back together any way you like
6. Narrated by Isabella Rossellini and enhanced by Jason Staczek's superb score, this is characteristically intense and, unlike most of Maddin's silent-movie models, frenetically edited.
7. ... a feverishly imaginative Freudian vampire film ...
8. Brand Upon the Brain! is like no other movie you're likely to see this year -- or any other year. It won't be to everyone's taste. But for those who like their cinema weird, it doesn't get any weirder or more oddly fascinating than this.
9. The casual viewer may well reject the experimentalism outright, but for those who seek more unique rewards, they're definitely here.
10. exploring the phenomenon of memory with a transcendence that includes reality and fantasy with equal measure and equal importance. It is dark, it is disturbing, and yet, this is the man's genius, it is also wildly, improbably, blessedly funny


question: We Don't Live Here Anymore is often overly moody and grim, but it's made watchable by the strong performances for its four principal actors.

numbered reviews: 1. Spellbinding stuff -- in part because of its vivid characterizations.
2. The most realistic couple arguing I've seen on screen to date.
3. At times harrowing to watch, yet it's also wry and delicate and absorbing. It's infused with the messy excitement of imperfect passion.
4. So 'literary' that it's drained of every drop of life and truth, it's...rather like a soap opera thoroughly scrubbed of its characteristic bad taste but equally unconvincing.
5. The film, sometimes talky and overemphatic, is also literate, erotic, brutally funny and touched by brilliance in its quartet of live-wire performances.
6. Failing to find the cinematic equivalent of Dubus's vertical writing, Curran and Gross's movie strains for truths it never earns.
7. Like d.p. Mayse Alberti's overemphasis on dark interiors and gloomy exteriors, the music dresses an already dismal soap opera in somber tones that leave us vaguely despondent rather than caring.
8. Adult, if occasionally soapy.
9. We Don't Live Here Anymore is marked by the rich characterization of four starkly different people.
10. There's nothing we haven't seen before here and done far better in the snappy works of Neil LaBute or Edward Albee.


question: Tigger Movie may lack the technological flash and underlying adult sophistication of other recent animated movies, but it's fun and charming.

numbered reviews: 1. There is something badly wrong with the film's premise, which contradicts Milne's lessons that Tigger can't climb trees ... and that, crucially, Tigger can't be unbounced.
2. I was pleasantly surprised.
3. ...designed to appeal primarily towards younger audiences...
4. It's not just the pacing. The Tigger Movie just doesn't show a lot of imagination.
5. Flouncy, trouncy feel-good fun!
6. Perfect for the single-digit aged set, who will love it, and not terrible for adults since the film moves fast at a quick 75 minutes.
7. The Tigger Movie is a nice, blank children's movie; it is a dismaying betrayal of Tigger himself.
8. Tigger's bouncy quest will appeal to younger viewers.
9. Everyone knows that tiggers are wonderful things, and the bouncy striped feline is more than wonderful in this delightful 2000 animated feature.
10. Even at a brief 77 minutes, we're left feeling the story and its characters have been stretched too thin.


question: This trite teen romance has too little plot and not enough dancing.

numbered reviews:
1. Fletcher shows no real talent for the dramatic scenes.
2. ...this is lowest-common-denominator stuff.
3. Clichйd dance movie with some fun moves.
4. The dance numbers are high octane, and the characters are likable enough to make us want to hang with them through a plot we've seen so many times before it's like movie muscle memory takes over.
5. Displays atypical laziness and tone-deaf direction for a feature concerning the electric boogaloo secrets of the underprivileged.
6. Even if the picture breaks no new ground, the verve of the actors and their fancy footwork is half the battle.
7. The TV spots claim that it "captures the voice of a generation," and if that's the case, then the voice of the youth hasn't changed at all in the five years Save the Last Dance lit up the box office.
8. Tatum and Dewan have none of the chemistry of Astaire and Rogers, but with help from a good supporting cast and talented choreography, the movie rises slightly above the usual cookie-cutter dance-movie fare.
9. Predictable dance melodrama with little to recommend it.
10. For the movie--and audiences--the good news is that both Tatum and Dewan are just enough to best the bum script. They are likeable and their dance talent is undeniable.