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Gene Seymour, Newsday

1. Shooter 2007 Shooter eventually gets in its own way by hitting things too hard, too loud and too long. full review
2. The Ten 2007 You really have to be in the mood to get into The Ten's forced goofiness. full review
3. Copying Beethoven, (Klang der Stille) 2006 If you're going to tackle Ludwig van Beethoven, you've got to go as hard and high as he did. All this movie does is flounder and flail around his tempestuous spirit. full review
4. Saint of 9/11 2006 You come away from this movie with a bracing recognition that grace and perfection don't always share the same corners of the soul -- which doesn't and shouldn't prevent you from doing good works for others. full review
5. Unknown 2006 It's not nearly as risky or as inspired as the movies it borrows from. But it keeps its audience's collective head in the game, thanks in large part to an impressive cast enacting the sometimes ludicrous proceedings with conviction. full review
6. Color Me Kubrick 2005 You can almost see the invective splattering all over the storyline. And Malkovich's camping and vamping, however perversely entertaining it is to behold, can neutralize the venom only so much. full review
7. The Outsider 2005 Jarecki's tour of Toback's world may glean more than probe. But as these kinds of trips go, even looking at the scenery yields fascinating sights and stirs worthwhile curiosity. full review
8. Sweet Land 2005 Selim, cinematographer David Tumbelty and a superb cast work together to create a believable, poignant and haunting evocation of a long-lost way of life. full review
9. Following Sean 2004 What emerges from Arlyck's musings is a penetrating cinematic essay on how generations in the last century struggled to take hold of history and reconfigure the shape of daily life. full review
10. Secuestro Express 2004 Secuestro Express leaves you feeling as much a hostage as the story's victims -- more to the point, as if you've slept in the same clothes for more than three days. full review
11. Darkness Falls 2003 If you need to be really scared of the dark, you're better off making up stuff from the shadows in your own room. full review
12. Down to the Bone 2003 Conventional movies, even independent ones, tend to get histrionic and judgmental about such drug-related setbacks. But Granik's film, though hardly a clinical case study, keeps a measured distance from the heavy-handed or simplistic. full review
13. Bukowski: Born into This 2002 Speaks for the idolaters without apology. Yet it maintains just enough level-headedness to show the darker, not-so-admirable aspects of the Bukowski legend. full review
14. The Hebrew Hammer 2002 You may not always laugh at it. But you can't help indulging its junior-high jitters. full review
15. The New Guy 2002 An unintentional parody of every teen movie made in the last five years. full review
16. Rollerball 2002 With this new Rollerball, sense and sensibility have been overrun by what can only be characterized as robotic sentiment. full review
17. Secret Things 2002 For those who like their erotic melodramas frosty and lavish, Secret Things is as elaborately whipped up as such treats ever get. full review
18. Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams 2002 The imagery snaps and pops with such jumpy, carefree energy that the movie seems to be making itself up as it goes along. full review
19. Stuart Little 2 2002 As immaculate as Stuart Little 2 is, it could be a lot better if it were, well, more adventurous. full review
20. XXX 2002 It's hard to tell with all the crashing and banging where the salesmanship ends and the movie begins. full review
21. The Animal 2001 There's a whole lot of stuff like The Animal to the point that there's no longer anything outrageous about its outrageousness. full review
22. Pootie Tang 2001 Its calculated crudity and sledgehammer gags offer the same ephemeral pleasures one gets when heckling a campy blaxploitation thriller. full review
23. The Safety of Objects 2001 Conceptually, it's a good try. But even with a fine cast working near peak proficiency, The Safety of Objects gets all tangled up by its own aspirations and, ultimately, trips into a quicksand of bathos. full review
24. Blow Dry 2000 Director Paddy Breathnach, who made the criminally underrated I Went Down, struggles to counteract the hackneyed plotting with visual grace. All the actors likewise struggle to rise above the mawkish sentimentality. full review
25. The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick 2000 Tells a lot more than it shows about its subject, looking more like an infomercial for Dick's legend than a true window into his art and influence. full review
26. The Original Kings of Comedy 2000 Mac fires his comic salvos with the authoritative ease of a champion boxer.