The Event

A very important film that is as sad as it is uplifting. After viewing it you may just have a whole new appreciation for life.

There's a lot of talent on display here: Dukakis has never been better and once again Fitzgerald proves himself to be a filmmaker of unfailing sensitivity, capable of transforming what could have been distastefully flip or overly lachrymose into something humorous but deeply heartfelt.

Just sit, feel a little blue and watch Parker Posey wander through New York in an ugly conservative suit. In "Blade," at least she'll get a snazzier wardrobe.

Other than the terribly miscast Posey, the cast is solid, with Dukakis wrenching the heart as a mother tested to the max by her son's request. But the movie didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

Middling drama about euthanasia, worked out through a sprawl of underdeveloped characters.

A deadly earnest, relentlessly solemn affair.

Shot on crummy DV and told via flashbacks, the film largely plays out like a Reagan-era "Citizen Kane." Common sense wrecks even the film's funniest bit, and the director's nausea-inducing camera observes the hysteria in perpetual pan-and-scan.