Carrie Rickey

The film's recurring image is that of a butterfly fluttering around a flower, a lovely symbol of the reader drawn to a novel's nectar.

A mostly glum, gray and grim story lit by a fugitive sunbeam.

Irreverent, provocative and provoking.

In his newest film Egoyan memorably gets under the skin of the skin trade. [10 Mar 1995, p.03]

The three (human) leads are perfection. Bridges' Howard is as breezily garrulous and glad-handing as Cooper's Smith is laconic and withdrawn. Maguire's Pollard has haunted eyes and orangey hair that makes him look like a human jack-o'-lantern, and establishes his own unique rhythm and less-is-more style.

Except for a handful of scenes, Hancock's film isn't good enough to be memorable. Neither is it bad enough to be entirely forgettable. It's just one of those compromised movies that makes one look forward to the director's cut.

The beauty of the actors and the ravishing landscape of New Zealand goes a long way to make Ben Sombogaart's sudsy film so eminently watchable.

Colorful, noisy, and pixel-deep.

At times Let It Rain recalls one of those Katharine Hepburn comedies where the New Woman gets cut down to size so as not to intimidate the Old-School Men. Yet the film so likably deflates the pompous and pumps up the humble that it's hard not to like.

Whether it's the clothing, cars or furniture, everything is sleek and chrome-plated. That is, with the exception of Bening's alchemical performance, which turns brass to gold.

It's half hilarious, half serious; all poignant.

The unforced performances of Courtney and Fanning are remarkable.

Though a fine specimen of cultural anthropology, The Aristocrats is too shapeless to be satisfying as a film.

Gluck is not a visual storyteller. He depends entirely on his performers and their snappy dialogue.

Delicious confection about the resilient Czech character, tastes like a bittersweet chocolate souffle, it's much more substantial than dessert.

In this, Alfred Hitchcock's centenary year, Felicia's Journey so startlingly channels the obsessions of the late director that it might be the greatest Hitchcock movie the master of suspense never made.

Enchanted and thrilling film.

Shelton and her cast are so skillful that before long it seems we are not moviegoers watching a screen but flies on a wall witnessing real encounters and the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

McQueen finds the exquisite tension between the brother wanting to disconnect and the sister longing for connection. To paraphrase a line of Sissy's, it's a good movie that comes from a bad place.

In its final act, Akeelah is as exciting as any Final Four matchup. What it may lack in cinematic art it compensates for in abecedarian adrenaline guaranteed to pump the pulse and the spirits of viewers from 10 to 90.

Develops microclimates of mood without fully developing the same shadings of character.

It is painful, it is funny, and it marks the remarkable debut of Wysocki.

When it's not making the argument that Surfing = Peace, Step Into Liquid can be diverting.

Short, sweet-and-sour, and amusing rather than funny, Despicable Me can't help but be likable.

It's hard to know whether this is a function of the sympathetic screenplay or of Krieger's sympathetic direction - or both - but Celeste and Jesse are endearing even when they do unsympathetic things.

Standouts are Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, Harry's sly father-surrogate, and Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge.

Paradise Now plays like Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," but with explosives.

Exhilarating, edgy and wryly comic.