Amy Taubin

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.

An intelligent, perceptive film. It's good enough to make you wish Chen hadn't sacrificed emotional complexity for a last-minute surprise.

Not nearly the mindfuck it wants to be.

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 mushy than mystical.

Director Eric Bross has a smooth nonstyle that serves him well until the screenplay turns melodramatic at the end.

I suspect that Time Code was a lot more fun to make than it is to watch.

A sympathetic but conventional disease-of-the-week movie.

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.

Filled with people who cut Holmes more slack than he deserved.

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]

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

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.

Its awkward mix of polemic and melodramatics probably won't travel very well.

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

The most revelatory moment is provided not by the spectacle of the Roes clinging to each other on a bungee cord, but by Julian Lennon, who pops up on the beach in Monaco to give a terse evaluation of his father.

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.

Properly picturesque but lacks subtlety and substance in blending Chinese and Western history, ideas, and cinematic conventions.

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.

Except for Polley and Rea, the performances are heavy-handed.

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

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

More commendable as social protest than as filmmaking.

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.

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

It soon becomes evident just how inane a film this is.

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.

Schneebaum is a great subject; the film doesn't quite make the most of him.