question: A modern update on the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, Freeway is an audacious black comedy with a star-making performance from the young Reese Witherspoon.

numbered reviews: 1. Hilariously cheap but oddly reflective at times.
2. Both grimly funny and thought-provoking.
3. The imperfect teenager fairy tale for the 1990s.
4. A hip, corrosive and often hilarious entertainment, the movie strikes another blow for the American independent film.
5. It's one of the sickly funniest movies you're ever likely to encounter.
6. A wild, audacious drive-in attraction that takes the 'high' from 'highbrow' and the 'low' from 'lowdown' and shakes them up.
7. Alive with the luscious turn-ons of sex and danger, Freeway is the most impressive debut film I've seen all year.
8. Like it or hate it (or both), you have to admire its skill, and the over-the-top virtuosity of Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland.
9. 'Little Red Riding Hood,' my, how you've grown...
10. I didn't particularly want to like Freeway, but I couldn't help myself. Reese Witherspoon made me.


question: It doesn't always find comfortable ground between broad comedy and social commentary, but lively performances -- especially from Kevin Kline and Joan Cusack -- enrich In & Out's mixture of laughs and sexual tolerance.

numbered reviews: 1. The clever screenwriter Paul Rudnick cooks up a solid script that's both wildly funny and gently satirical.
2. Actually, the funniest parts of the movie are excerpts from the film that Cameron is originally nominated for.
3. A plain ol' enjoyable time at the movies.
4. In & Out is the screwball Philadelphia, a movie that contorts itself in order to indulge and then whitewash the core audience's perceived homophobia.
5. Forget the inevitable carping and give credit where credit is due.
6. ...an often painfully broad comedy that's rarely as entertaining (or as funny) as one might've anticipated.
7. Fast-moving and very funny.
8. If only it was gay in the old sense of the word.
9. Paul Rudnick has written scenes that will go down as classics.
10. Basically a one-joke farce that plays around with a once-delicate subject that by now is a mainstay even on TV.


question: It doesn't honor its source material -- or its immensely likable leads -- as well as it should, but Dinner for Schmucks offers fitfully nourishing comedy.

numbered reviews: 1. Rudd and Carell turn out to be a near-perfect double act, with Rudd's exasperated, manic nice guy act a perfect foil for Carell, who gives the kind of broad, nutty, idiot man-child performance we haven't seen from him since his Anchorman days.
2. Remarkably, they have managed to take a very funny original film, some very talented comedians and created an experience akin to a dentist visit.
3. It's hard to feel sorry for someone who seems to instigate so many of his own problems.
4. Steve Carell and Paul Rudd fizzle in this dire, painfully overlong comedy bomb.
5. Dinner for Schmucks, while not as instantly iconic and defined as [Jay Roach's] previous work, still delivers a lot of entertainment.
6. The humour is spasmodic, but for a new target audience of 18 to 34 year olds (not the same crowd that loved the original) the film may offer a simplistic escape and some oddball ideas
7. A comic misadventure that unfolds like a never-ending series of dastardly mistakes.
8. Dinner For Schmucks is hilariously entertaining. Its pointed messages, meanwhile, make it even more meaningful.
9. It wasn't going to be Anchorman 2 but we still expected more from Brick Tamland's reunion with Brian Fantana.
10. A sweet and sentimental comedy that has the potential to be plum duff but too often is just duff.


question: Although T3 never reaches the heights of the second movie, it is a welcome addition to the Terminator franchise.

numbered reviews:
1. What is missing from Terminator 3 is the relentless inventiveness Cameron brought to the first two Terminator films.
2. Rise of the Machines works not just as a strong, credible sequel to one of the best sci-fi franchises but as a great popcorn movie on its own.
3. T3 is not just a rare example of a worthy sequel to a sequel, it's a rare example of a worthy summer movie, one that does its job above and beyond the fast-food call of duty.
4. Essentially one long chase and fight, punctuated by comic, campy or simplistic dialogue.
5. Without James Cameron's expertise, the Terminator is not really back.
6. There are spectacular car chases and countless firefights, but they feel perfunctory, predictable and devoid of context.
7. T3 director Jonathan Mostow delivers a high-energy barrage of special effects gee-wizardry that self-effacingly mimics Cameron's style.
8. In style and texture, this $170 million film lies between the gritty look of the first Terminator and the slick extravagance of the second.
9. An expertly paced and efficient sci-fi thrill machine, 'T3' effectively marries impressive action sequences with persuasive storytelling and its star's uniquely appealing style of 'No' drama -- as in no reaction, no expression, no emotion of any kind.
10. not nearly in a class with either of the Cameron films, yet it's entertaining enough on its own terms: a fast-paced cavalcade of calamities, set to Marco Beltrami's thundering score and packed with perils a-plenty.