Most people, if you live in a big city, you see some form of schizophrenia every day, and it's always in the form of someone homeless. 'Look at that guy - he's crazy. He looks dangerous.' Well, he's on the streets because of mental illness. He probably had a job and a home.

Each one of us fulfills a piece of a larger puzzle.

Duncan Jones has skills; he's an architect of emotional dislocation.

In 'The Adjustment Bureau,' Damon shows movie-star concentration as David Norris, a politician whose world ambitions hit a pothole when his angry streak becomes public.

No actor has made a career of exerting determination to the extent that Matt Damon has. In the 'Bourne' movies, he burned himself down to a central nervous system - his focus fried away unnecessary calories.

It is fun to see a comedy in which every single joke hasn't been packed into the trailer.

The Comedy of Emasculation that Judd Apatow and his disciples have made into a separate economy was invented by the Farrelly brothers, 'Kingpin' being the strongest version of that.

The pleasantly crude 'Hall Pass' reminds us of what's been missing from movies: Those squirm-inducing moments in comedy that produce enough discomfort that, at points, what we're watching is half a heartbeat away from a horror film.

A stand-up comedian who's assaultive and decent and has managed a career that has spanned over five decades deserves a documentary.

The documentary 'Certifiably Jonathan' has engrossing moments in it. How can it not? It's got a great subject - the extraordinarily voluble comedian Jonathan Winters, whose constant rush of words can be like a blizzard: beautiful, maddening, exhausting, and finally beautiful again. But it's not a great film.

In period films, it always helps to have someone built to carry a sword, and Channing Tatum clearly hasn't missed a workout for the past two years, so he fits the bill in that regard.

Natalie Portman's approach to acting demands that she wears her heart on her sleeve so explicitly, the heart becomes the whole garment - a crimson chemise with streaks of blue veins running across it.

The kind of filmmaking excitement that director Peter Weir brings to movies is bone deep.

The stoic drama 'A Somewhat Gentle Man' is photographed in a palate of steel gray tones that match Stellan Skarsgard's complexion. It's a low-blood-pressure version of the kind of thing James M. Cain used to do in his sleep, and its filmmaking accomplishment is as minimalist as its narrative ambition is minimal.

'8 Mile' could do without an unnecessary class swipe. In a final throwdown, Rabbit clowns a competitor by revealing that the guy went to suburban Detroit Cranbrook, one of the finest private schools in the country.

One of a handful of films made in Detroit, '8 Mile' doesn't feature the Motown renaissance that Mayor Coleman A. Young dreamed of in the 1970s. Instead, it's the beaten-down city: 8 Mile refers to the line of demarcation between Detroit and suburban, mostly white Oakland County.

The mission of '8 Mile' is essentially to garner sympathy for a white rapper involved in an old-school shootout - a rap contest. This may be the final frontier for pop, more unbelievable than the prospect of launching a member of 'N Sync into orbit.

It is evident that the grip of 'The Return of the King' on Mr. Jackson is not unlike the grasp the One Ring exerts over Frodo: it's tough for him to let go, which is why the picture feels as if it has an excess of endings. But he can be forgiven. Why not allow him one last extra bow?

It's an oddity that will be avoided by millions of people, this new 'Pinocchio.' Osama bin Laden could attend a showing in Times Square and be confident of remaining hidden.

Miramax seems to be showing the same faith in Roberto Benigni's 'Pinocchio' that the Republican Party showed in Trent Lott; the live-action version of Carlo Collodi's fairy tale about the wooden puppet whose only ambition was to be a real live boy was sneaked into theaters Christmas Day.

Mr. Miyazaki's specialty is taking a primal wish of kids, transporting them to a fantasyland, and then marooning them there. No one else conjures the phantasmagoric and shifting morality of dreams - that fascinating and frightening aspect of having something that seems to represent good become evil - in the way this master Japanese animator does.

The picture is being promoted as Disney's 'Spirited Away,' although seeing just 10 minutes of this English version of a hugely popular Japanese film will quickly disabuse any discerning viewer of the notion that it is a Disney creation.

The title 'Spirited Away' could refer to what Disney has done on a corporate level to the revered Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki's epic and marvelous new anime fantasy.

Just the idea of seeing a type of narrative we've not seen before is a chance to be surprised.