Andy Klein

For fans of the franchise, Evil Dead Rises marks a welcome return to the seamless blend of humor and genuine scares and creepiness that Raimi created 42 years ago.

The film operates like a clockwork mechanism. If there were foul-ups or major implausibilities—as such trick plots often have—they eluded me.

Spinal Tap is still on the right side of the fine line between stupid and clever.

Except for a few slow patches, the movie is compulsively watchable: You keep waiting to see just how sick things are going to get.

Manages the seemingly impossible task of being very funny indeed and being as dark as anything Wong has ever made. This is an almost painfully bleak comedy that makes you squirm in the manner of “The Out-of-Towners.”

A warning is virtually mandated: No one who's even the least bit squeamish should even think about seeing Audition. But, if you have a taste for the disturbing, it's a trip that will stay with you for some time.

Maniacally funny. It remains neck and neck with "Young Frankenstein" as Brooks' best film.

The film is a masterpiece of nuance and characterization, marred only by an inexplicable, utterly distracting blunder at the very end.

Its tone has elements of Jim Jarmusch and the Coen brothers but without Jarmusch's self-conscious artiness or the Coens' hip snottiness.

At first glance, Schizopolis may seem like no more than a grab-bag of tricks and gimmicks, but repeat viewings reveal a more coherent pattern.

More involving and intriguing than any by-the-numbers studio thriller. In large part, it holds our interest because of its stylistic boldness, not despite it.

There have been other films dealing with the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi occupation of Poland -- some very good -- but The Pianist, the latest feature from Roman Polanski, may be the best.

This is not Tsui's best film by a substantial margin, but it's immense fun.

The story is just as funny and touching. The only problem is the inevitable one: The freshness -- the novel delight -- is a little faded now.

Craven's other accomplishment here, besides resuscitating the genre, is the way he keeps things scary even when they're at their funniest. The grand finale, while thoroughly bloody and tense, has some genuinely hilarious shtick.

It’s Del Toro who really gets to strut his stuff with a subtle, ambiguous, and riveting performance. In a field of top-notch actors, he’s the one whom you remember days later.

It manages to be sentimental without seeming trashy.

What Nolan does accomplish here that we haven't seen from him before is staging a few horrifyingly effective suspense set pieces -- one of which, in particular, is likely to stay with you for a long time.

Fuqua has done an admirable job staging the action scenes, but the script is little more than a thin framework to justify those scenes.

A six-year-old masterpiece, never-before widely seen in the U.S., is still a masterpiece.

For all its mystery and its stylistic finesse, there is something vaguely plodding about The Sweet Hereafter.

Zhang deftly and quickly draws a half-dozen supporting characters, and his pacing never flags.

It's funny, heroic, exaggerated and, most of all, energetic; the film speeds along as though afraid to lose the audience's attention for even a moment.

Full of provocative concepts, but, like most films that attack such metaphysical concerns head-on, things have become a tad too jumbled by the end to be altogether satisfying. It's a problem built into the subject matter...This all said, Dark City is immensely entertaining, as well as visually dazzling.

Despite some savvy camera movement, the production values obviously can't match American action films made for a hundred times the budget. Still, Hatamikia has put together a gripping drama that balances visceral suspense and interesting ideas.

What about Ronny Yu's 1992 masterpiece "The Bride With White Hair," of which Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a decent facsimile?

As the story plows toward its finale, the cultural dislocation problems become worse, until by the end they almost defeat the whole film.

A lovely little comedy that--like its predecessor--will, one hopes, buck the odds and find its audience.