Amy Taubin

If Lloyd's performance is the film's near-fatal flaw, Unger's is its saving grace.

Its exploration of faith and love is skin deep.

Forster not only makes this unlikely story emotionally believable, he moves you to tears. Lakeboat isn't much of a film, but for Forster fans, it's indispensable.

Psychologically resonant despite the intermittently clunky performances...one of the only Amerindies in recent years to match intellectual with formal ambitions.

(You) might be charmed by the film's blend of kineticism, car-culture rituals, and hilariously flat-footed dialogue.

The script for Session 9 is so underwritten that even such lively character actors as David Caruso, Peter Mullan, and Brendan Sexton III are left stranded.

Loathsome though Stepmom is, the eternally coltish Roberts is always a pleasure to watch and Sarandon's mordant wit occasionally comes to the fore.

The movie lacks any sense of subcultural specificity, though it has a superabundant country music score. [22 Apr 1997]

That in such a miserable film I could still care whether his character lived or died is, perhaps, the greatest proof that Chow Yun Fat's a movie star.

Primary story line is clumsy and badly acted. But he (Lee) reminds you that movies have power, that they matter, and for a few brilliant moments, Bamboozled matters more than any other American movie this year.

The film's greatest failure, however, is the absence of any convincing emotional or sexual relationship between Sally (Leigh) and Joe (Cumming).

More mushy than mystical.

Series 7 could have turned out as ugly as the second season of "Survivor," were it not for the pleasure Minahan takes in melodrama.

The film is too eager to please and falls short of the novel's tragic dimension.

For those who care, Madonna has found her match in Guy Ritchie, whose absence of talent when it comes to the film medium is equal to her own.

Lacks development and dramatic coherence.

Sweet, ribald, and even inspired in an off-the-cuff way.

It does offer Annaud the opportunity to show his directorial muscle in elaborate battle scenes, where many bodies are torn apart and blood flows freely.

Had Nelson and Kaaya been less concerned with following Othello to the letter and rather had pursued this love affair into uncharted cinematic waters, O might have been more than an unresolved mixture of gimmickry and good intentions.

A sub-sitcom stretched to an interminable 85 minutes.

Although there's no evidence of sexual chemistry on the screen, the stars share a certain physical defensiveness that occasionally makes them seem simpatico; most of the time, however, they just look bored to death.

Garvy has worked hard to weave the interviews into an exciting narrative, but the focus is perhaps too narrow for the film to be as politically effective as it could have been.

Martin's grin-and-don't-bare-it performance lifts the picture above sitcom level. [31 Dec 1991]

Merendino's most innovative directorial strategy is to collapse present and past by having Lillard shout Stevo's reflections about his youthful rebellion directly at the camera, while the scene he's describing in the past tense takes place behind him. I know it sounds like a Brechtian affectation, but it works.

A caper film hardly worthy of his (Newman's) presence.

It's a lot of plot but none of it is particularly funny or compelling. What keeps the film chugging along and also gives it a depressive aftertaste is a middle-aged male sexual anxiety subtext that intermittently sputters to the surface.

Michael and Mark Polish's debut feature, "Twin Falls, Idaho," was a cloying oddball love story involving adult male Siamese twins; their follow-up, Jackpot, is another piece of whimsical Americana.

Martin's performance is as impeccable as the set decoration, though one wishes he'd stop wasting his skill. Keaton flaunts her matronly hips, daring us to remember Annie Hall, but despite a jawline that's tighter than it was a decade ago in Baby Boom, she looks past the age of conception (no cosmetic surgery for wombs). [19 Dec 1995]

A dark and unsparing study of female masochism and a brittle sex comedy of manners, Romance is unsettled in tone, to say the least.

Gibson has never lacked chemistry with his leading ladies, from Sigourney Weaver in "The Year of Living Dangerously" to Julia Roberts in "Conspiracy Theory," but faced with the awkward Hunt -- Hollywood's bland antidote to the Lolita syndrome -- he doesn't even try.

As fragmented and unresolved as the experiences of mother and daughter, Alma bears witness to a situation for which there are no easy answers.

Figgis's frenetic and grossly self-aggrandizing adaption of Strindberg's worse-for-wear two-hander about the battle between the sexes and the classes.

The queasiness it makes you feel is more like acid reflux than existential nausea.

A progressive but not very funny comedy of manners.

Owen and Mirren are fun to watch, but the film, despite the many shots of gardens in full bloom, lacks visual distinction.

So formulaic and predictable that you're bored even when you're scared.

Runaway Bride isn't as offensive as most studio romantic comedies—just pointless and dull.

Refreshingly direct and even courageous in its confrontation of female pleasure -- specifically orgasms and masturbation, the staple of teen-boy comedies, but hitherto off-limits for girls.

Clichéd and condescending.

Part cautionary tale, part moral-uplift saga, Brokedown Palace is as dull as it's absurd.

Valentine isn't exploitative or trendy in the manner of so many indie films. Rather, it seems like the kind of art film that might have been dreamed up by a feverish high schooler.

Barely a movie.

The best Elmore Leonard adaptations ("Jackie Brown," "Out of Sight") play behind the beat, and although The Big Bounce isn't top-shelf Dutch, the film finds its own pace.

An inert and inept romantic comedy.

A smart, realist drama -- I wouldn't be surprised if this one winds up on my 10-best list for '99.

A gorefest of epic proportions.

Begins on a note of total migraine-inducing hysteria, which continues unabated throughout.

An Indiewood spoof that's more winning than anyone who wasn't a close friend of the director could possibly expect, R2PC satirizes not only wannabe auteurs but also that overworked genre, the faux documentary, while functioning as a credible study guide for Filmmaking 101.

Dorothy and Petula leave a bloodier trail than Thelma and Louise did.

So extremely stupid and incompetent, I doubt that even the most impartial critic could find much to praise.

That Simon Birch is not as maudlin as it might have been is largely due to the intensely thoughtful, prickly performance of 11-year-old Ian Michael Smith, who plays Simon.

More commendable as social protest than as filmmaking.

Not as skillful, subtle, or hilarious as "Some Like It Hot," but its anti-essentialism vis-à-vis gender roles is just as sharp and exhilarating.

Punishing, visceral violence is the key element.

Mindless, shoddy (lurching zooms, no color correction, an entire reel out of sync) depiction of some very big guys who work as bouncers.

Mark Hanlon's ridiculous and repellent hash of "Repulsion" and "Psycho," with scenic elements of "Seven" thrown in for good measure.

So hackneyed and so condescending to its potential audience (adult women) that even Lifetime might hesitate before running it.

What's on the screen is so dreadful that it inspires the ontological question "What are films and why is this not one of them?"

A logo-laden celebration of the joys of sponsorship wrapped inside an innocuous teen-pic package.

East/West fusion aside, The Musketeer is a stale Euro-pudding.

Isaac Eaton wrote and directed; he evidences little talent in either department.

Bette Midler and Danny De Vito mug more shamelessly than usual.

Despite its incoherence and inaudible dialogue, this slice-of-life film manages to be simultaneously thuggish and platitudinous.

A very beautiful film, but its bleached desert colors and flatter perspectives are less inviting, and the back-and-forth between present and past can occasionally be confusing.