David Sterritt

An amiable look at a bygone time and a set of ideas about the world that once held far more power and magic than it does today.

The visual style is at once deliberately archaic and slyly postmodernist, slinky and sensuous from first frame to last.

Has undertones of serious commentary on American violence, thanks to the screenplay by Larry Cohen, who often uses horror-film plots to explore cracks and contradictions in society.

This is a funny, sad, stunningly smart movie about the end of movies, made in Tsai's inimitable, unblinking style. No movie lover should miss it.

Moving the action to a modern American city, the hyperactive movie seems goofy and gimmicky at first, but it acquires real power when the cinematography settles down enough for Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes to do some excellent acting.

In both its original 1973 version and its expanded 2000 edition, this hugely popular horror yarn is less a cleverly spun story than a disjointed collection of shockeroos, surrounding a few ghoulishly effective moments with overcooked plot twists and in-your-face vulgarity. [2000 re-release]

This comedy-drama for children is made with more intelligence and imagination than many of the so-called art films that come our way, filling the screen with vivid images that ideally suit its fanciful plot.

Well acted and ably directed, if not very probing about its subject of underclass youth.

Finkiel's filmmaking is so careful and cautious that it becomes plodding at times. The theme is powerful, though, and the movie's sincerity overrides its heavy-handed tendencies.

Adaptation is sort of like the mythical Ourabouros mentioned in the screenplay -- the snake that eats its own tail -- or like a series of mirrors repeating their images to infinity.

Todd Solondz's movie begins like a suburban ugly-duckling tale with many comic overtones, but it grows darker as it goes along, evoking dangers that youngsters must be alert to in today's world - from drugs to child abuse - and showing how cruel children can be to one another when grownups aren't around.

On the action-adventure level it's a sure-fire delight for fans, a punchy entertainment for average sci-fi buffs, and a colorful rocket-ride for moviegoers who just want a good time on Saturday night.

Dustin Hoffman gives the inspired performance that launched his movie career, and director Mike Nichols shows a gift for social satire that has never glistened quite so brightly since. [Review of re-release]

It's regrettable that director Costa-Gavras puts more of his storytelling energy into simplistic psychology and suspense-movie action than historical depth and philosophical insight. This prevents Amen. from becoming a Holocaust drama for the ages.

A fascinating account, if less urgently compelling than it might have been.

Sometimes enticing, frequently savage.

Superb performances from a nonprofessional cast. It's gripping, timely, and revealing.

The story has more violence than brains, but Hong Kong action star Chow makes an interestingly moody impression in his first Hollywood role.

While the result is visually brilliant, it's oddly disjointed and packs less emotional force than Richard Price's novel.

It's the year's cleverest comedy in more ways than one. The animated sequences are brilliant... Most important, the story also has dark overtones that lend a hint of seriousness to what could have been just silly. [24 June 1988]

Most of the acting is as real and warm as the characters themselves. And the streets, shops, and living rooms of Brooklyn have never seemed more inviting. [29 Jan 1988]

At once sympathetic and unsentimental, this is a model of low-budget storytelling on a human scale.

The sequel is more exciting and surprising than the 2002 original, thanks largely to Molina's excellent acting. Only the strenuously comic scenes fall as flat as one of Spidey's leftover webs.

Fascinating footage goes beyond the boxing ring to document Ali's brilliance as a public personality.

In all, Wyler's version is a fine example of classical Hollywood filmmaking. But if you want the full experience of this dark and stormy tale, spend a few evenings curled up with Bronte's novel. Nobody has improved on it yet. [19 May 1989, p.10]

Ladybird Ladybird tackles this troubling tale with documentary-style realism, showing profound sympathy with the protagonists while dispassionately revealing the enormous divide that exists between ideals of harmonious family life, on one hand, and a network of inadequate social policies, on the other. [29 Nov 1994, p.14]

The acting is passionate, but the film would be more effective if it presented a more thoroughgoing lesson in the raging horrors that swept through European culture during the era of the French Revolution.

Arguably the subtlest, most carefully textured film of Cronenberg's career.

A quintessential New York director made this quintessential New York movie in 1973, with Pacino at his best.

This grim Danish-Swedish production is socially revealing and artistically creative, both coldly realistic and infused with compassion for its heroine and her youth culture.

One of the most entertaining films ever made by the legendary Maysles brothers and their gifted associates. [17 Apr 1998, p.B2]

Tarantino has always been an inventive director, and in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 he's at his cinematic best, showing an ingenuity that nothing in his monster hit "Pulp Fiction" surpasses.

The acting is brilliant and Leigh's screenplay - developed through his usual process of improvisation and rehearsal - is very long on compassion, very short on preaching and politics.

A pungent, powerful film that points an accusing finger not at religious beliefs but at flawed human institutions. It also targets social and cultural mores that are almost medieval in their patriarchal bias against girls and women.

Touching, transfixing, unique.

Broderick and Witherspoon give perfectly matched performances at the head of a first-rate cast.

This unconventionally structured thriller moves at an energetic pace, spurred by a string of clever variations on conventional film narrative.

Suspenseful, surprising, and psychologically rich.

The filmmakers can't decide what sort of picture they're trying to cook up, so they keep oscillating among shallow psychological drama, high-tech action sequences, and comedy scenes that are themselves an uneasy mixture of sitcom-style dialogue and self-mocking campiness.

This is Hollywood's most mature treatment of the '50s-nostalgia theme so far, and the most accurate.

A pungent pleasure from start to finish.

Written and directed by a brilliant screen artist at the peak of his powers, it's an utterly original comedy-drama.

The film would be more informative if it put Goldsworthy into the broader context of modernist art movements. It's visually ravishing from start to finish, though.

Spellbinding.

As the uptight banker, Robbins does some of his subtlest acting to date. As his hardened but resilient friend, Freeman is simply miraculous, giving the role so much depth, dignity, and good humor that you feel that you've known this man forever. [27 Sept 1994]

Technical virtuosity and entertainment ingenuity.

The film is rude, colorful, and bursting with questions about American culture, subculture, and society. [08 Apr 1991, p.11]

As gorgeous as it is to watch, Winged Migration suffers from a lack of organization.

First and foremost a very funny film, and a very pleasant one that doesn't really have a villain. Credit for its hilarity goes largely to Black, who gives the performance of his career as a character who might have seemed merely coarse and crude in less gifted hands.

The story soon lapses into familiar private-eye formulas, though, and the characters aren't interesting enough to hold much attention on their own.

You run across animation this ingenious about as often as a moving castle comes your way.

John Schlesinger's rollicking version of Stella Gibbons's novel is acted with the highest of spirits by Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, Freddie Jones, and many others.

It's a troubling, courageous, compulsively watchable work of art.

From its restlessly moving camera work to its heartfelt acting by a splendid cast, "Azkaban" is a horror movie for mature kids.

A riveting re-creation of three world-changing collapses: those of the Nazi party, of militarized Germany as a whole, and of the Führer who guided them into self-destructive ruin.

Kathy Bates gives her most gripping performance since "Misery," also based on a Stephen King thriller. The picture is weakened by a rambling and inconsistent screenplay.

This is the ultimate Woo movie, but while his fans will enjoy every minute, others will find it too long, repetitive, and violent.

It sounds like what it is: a modest, workable story for a modest, workable picture. And that's one of the things that make Broadway Danny Rose so likable. The film's very lack of presumption lifts it above the common run of noisy farces and pretentious romances so plentiful these days. [09 Feb 1984, p.29]

Watching Demme's documentary is both a crash course in the nation's tumultuous past and a provocative visit with one of its most colorful citizens.

Don't miss this harrowing movie if you're in the mood for adventure more thrilling than anything Hollywood has to offer these days.

Hal Hartley's new comedy-drama is more cleverly conceived and imaginatively realized than his earlier film, "The Unbelievable Truth," and develops impressive emotional power at times. [16 Aug 1991]

Superbly acted, movingly written, and directed with a tough-minded lyricism rarely found in today's films. A summer movie to love.

Gently filmed, quietly thoughtful, sometimes almost heartbreaking.

The story of this Spanish thriller is weak in psychological credibility but strong in suspense, novelty, and imagination.

Thai filmmaking continues its renaissance with this moody, offbeat drama.

The first half is a well-acted psychological drama, but the second half is standard thriller fare with more action than insight.

Enriched by allusions to biblical stories of fathers, sons, and sacrifices, subtly woven into the movie's moodily photographed fabric.

Splendidly acted, and directed with touches of visual poetry by Lasse Hallstr"om, but a little heavy on trite sexual-awakening scenes.

Visually ravishing -- an exquisite movie.

The acting is superb, the filmmaking is imaginative, and the story never goes quite where you expect.

Russell's stylish and imaginative filmmaking wages its own war against lunkheaded and sometimes offensive material.

This violent Hong Kong thriller has more psychological depth than most of its kind, but ultimately seems like a pointless exercise in style.

Efficiently and imaginatively directed.

There's a new visual idea every second, each teeming with energy, pitch-dark comedy, and inspired cinematic lunacy.

Green tells the tale through leisurely, eye-catching shots that allow the young cast members to imbue their characters with striking credibility and intensity.

It marks a new artistic peak for director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

The movie's most original features are the awfulness of the dialogue and the hamminess of Richard Jordan's performance as a Nazilike policeman. He seems to have given up on the project long before director Alan Johnson ran out of film. [28 Nov 1986, p.39]

A daring but flawed achievement, diluting its emotional power and satirical bite with a self-consciously jagged structure, and a calculating, sometimes chilly untertone. [1 Oct 1993]

The parody would be more memorable if it satirized a broader section of the folk-music scene instead of limiting itself to commercialized acts of the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary ilk. But it is as accurate as it is funny.

Directed by Ulu Grosbard, who has never done a better job of filling the screen with superb acting, and shows great ingenuity at interweaving music with other aspects of the story.

Riveting, suspenseful, and a perfect antidote to the too-tricky documentary "Super-Size Me."

Auteuil is a superb actor. Still, the real-life Sade would be dismayed to see himself portrayed more as an eccentric old codger than the world-changing firebrand he worked hard to be.

Rigorous and riveting.

The picture has enough assets to please moviegoers willing to put up with its many four-letter words and the bursts of violence that spring from nowhere at unexpected moments. [27 October 1995, Arts Film, p.12]

This is a rip-roaring adventure combining edge-of-your-seat battle scenes with vivid historical details and more fascinating characters than most action movies dream of. Add heartfelt acting and Russell Boyd's atmospheric camera work, and you have the adventure movie of the year.

Sensitive performances and intelligent storytelling keep the sometimes-violent tale involving from start to finish, marking a giant step for director Raimi, previously known for action stories and over-the-top fantasies.

A change from summer fare, but it doesn't make the picture compelling to watch. You won't find the detail of the "Godfather" films or the psychological complexities of Martin Scorsese's gangster movies. The plot holes are big enough to hide Al Capone's illicit millions in.

Weerasethakul's latest has received mixed responses on the film-festival circuit, yet while it's anything but commercial, it's also anything but unadventurous.

The movie's intentions are as serious and thoughtful as its content is timely and sometimes horrifying. For adventurous viewers only.

Imaginatively directed by Bill Duke, and featuring yet another first-rate performance by Larry Fishburne. [19 Jun 1992, p.12]

Sweetie is imaginatively filmed, but it's sadly mean-spirited, too. For all its cleverness, it left a mighty sour taste in my mouth. [29 Jan 1990, p.11]

Maglietta gives a magical performance in this lightweight but flavorsome comedy.

Obviously a profoundly personal film, but it's also a smartly conducted tour through the world of building and design that Kahn towered over during the most successful phases of his career.

It reconfirms Marker as one of the most serious-minded and artistically gifted filmmakers in France, or anywhere else.

I must report that Reservoir Dogs has little of intelligence to say - except for a few implicit comments on the nature of loyalty and betrayal - and that it's violent to the ponit of sadism. [5 Oct 1992]