Charles Taylor

A cozy little ode to sensual and culinary pleasure.

Much of the pleasure of the movie is the way its mood lingers with you afterward.

An art noir that courts pretension but just manages to keep from succumbing to it.

It’s no news to anyone that “E.T.” is one of the loveliest and happiest of American movie entertainments. It’s also a greater picture than we could have known. [2002 re-release]

Branagh is appealing here in the way we remember from movie heroes of the '30s: cynical, wisecracking and wised-up.

Not without its own bleak integrity. But the movie wipes you out and leaves you with nothing, not even the feeling of exaltation that can be present in the most tragic works of art.

In some ways, this is the most conventional of Sheridan's movies. But it never feels sentimental because of the grittiness of his approach.

Behind its mask of deadpan goofiness, it's a friendly, clever picture, one that doesn't feel untouched by human hands. And at an hour-and-a-half, it doesn't wear out its welcome.

Walking out of the theater, I felt so bereft that I couldn't speak. And it doesn't hurt any less thinking about the movie now, as I write this.

The 1996 kidnap drama Ransom traverses the parameters of public life in America, from the image public figures present to us to the image they never intended us to see. Neither one tells the whole truth. Luckily, Ransom isn't content with surfaces..

Local Hero is as sweet and loving as movies get. But it's also about as off-kilter as they get, too.

Manages to be entertaining and reasonably exciting. Scott's style may be slick and tricky but, if this and his last film, "Enemy of the State," are any indication, he's lost the glossy sadism that characterized his previous work.

Watching it is a little like stumbling upon a frayed valentine you put away years ago and then laughing with pleasure at how much it still means to you.

The dirtiest-minded American movie in recent memory -- and an honestly corrupt entertaining picture is never anything to sneeze at.

The director seems to be saying that, for survivors, art may be a way back to our finer selves -- extraordinary.

When the camera is floating up high, as the band practices its moves on the field, you can imagine Busby Berkeley watching somewhere, jealous that he never got his mitts on a marching band.

The General may be the most intimate and matter-of-fact of Boorman’s films. Movies like Deliverance and Excalibur revealed Boorman as a master of scope. The General, which is one of his masterpieces, proves the depth at which he’s working.

Kundun, which was written by Melissa Mathison ("E.T.") from interviews conducted with the Dalai Lama, doesn't make you greedy for its images the way some gorgeous films do. It allows you to drink each one in tranquilly.

This heart-wrenching documentary about a French village schoolteacher at work offers the comedy and pathos of great drama and the visual magnificence of painting.

Assayas' triumph here is in making sense of confusion and emotional drift -- bringing his characters gently forward into life, and making the film feel full and rounded while still resisting easy resolution.

If there were any justice in the world, The Cat's Meow would be the beginning of the rehabilitation of Davies' image.

This long shot pays off -- in spades. Not only has Jordan made a movie that's looser, hipper, freer and -- abetted by his great cinematographer, Chris Menges -- more sheerly beautiful to look at, he's also made the best movie of his career.

What Ray does right, combined with its generosity of spirit, makes it the most satisfying American movie of the year.

The good-natured silliness of it all kept me laughing.

In some ways it's not a very good movie... tries to mix comedy and tragedy...but the movie has an exciting subject -- a true story.

Ricci's Wendy captures the volatile combination of aggressiveness and uncertainty in a young woman trying to come to terms with her sexuality like no performance since Emily Lloyd's in "Wish You Were Here." It's a very different performance, quieter, harder and yet more vulnerable.

Director Brian De Palma is having too much fun zipping around curves and hitting the accelerator to slow down. He's a supremely confident engineer, and if you're game enough to make a jump for it and hold on, he offers the giddy excitement of watching the ground rush by beneath your dangling feet.

Unassuming masterpiece about life, love and the cruel joke of old age.