Bill Gallo

Forces of Nature goes through all the motions without moving us very much.

Ken Loach’s My Name Is Joe offers up an unsentimental local hero.

Beautifully acted but grim as a funeral, Affliction is heavy on soul-searching and stingy on hope.

Get out your hankies and weep for the heart-tugging disaster Message in a Bottle.

For those about to rock, Still Crazy salutes you.

The earnest Playing by Heart talks itself to death.

Fear + loathing + a cache of cash + America’s great white north = A Simple Plan.

Travolta, Duvall, and filmmaker Steven Zaillian make a case for A Civil Action.

Kirk Jones’s Waking Ned Devine brims with the pluck of the Irish.

Maya Angelou extends her domainby taking on film with Down in the Delta.

A stylistic mess, Home Fries hops out of the pan and into the fire.

Woody Allen casts a dubious eye on the culture of fame in Celebrity.