David Sterritt

Korine confirms his reputation as one of today's most experimentally minded filmmakers, helped by an inventive cast including German director Herzog in a surprisingly strong performance as the father.

Liu is dazzling as the heroine, and the movie as a whole strikes a lovely balance between comedy and compassion.

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

The gently told comedy-drama is more colorful than you'd expect, using wry humor and lively music to keep sentimentality at bay.

The song-and-dance numbers that make this musical tragedy a celebration of life despite its awfully grim climax.

Ms. Moncrieff's low-key directing is matched by fine acting from Agnes Bruckner as Meg and David Strathairn as her mentor. Aside from a somewhat schematic climax, this is as smart a debut as we've seen in a long while.

The characters are sharply etched but the plot is made deliberately ambiguous, suggesting that family life is so emotionally intricate that no single story can contain or explain it.

Moving and informative.

It's not a deep-thinking film, and I wish it probed more thoroughly into the feminist issues it raises, instead of finessing them in a goopy finale. But much of it is first-class summertime fare, generating plenty of humor while examining a slice of Americ ana that's as revealing as it is entertaining.

Its refusal to draw solid lines between "good" and "evil" characters is more sophisticated than the psychology of most current commercial pictures. It's well worth a trek to a theater adventurous enough to show it.

Although the story seems disjointed at times, no other war movie has tried so valiantly to convey not only the suffering of combat but the awful fissures it leaves between humanity's ideal oneness with itself and the world we live in.

Nicholson makes the movie so poignant that it's hard to resist, but I wonder if Payne and Taylor are rejecting the skeptical attitudes of their other films to become more popular, hoping a softer emotional tone will help this picture win the Oscars that have eluded their more tough-minded works.

It's surprising no filmmaker has adapted Dodie Smith's novel before now, and pleasing that Mr. Fywell and company have done such a responsible job with it. It's one of the season's most captivating surprises.

Very inventive, but stay away if you can't stomach over-the-top violence.

Although the film doesn't probe Whale's personality as deeply as it might, the acting is excellent and movie buffs will enjoy its behind-the-scenes references and nostalgic film clips.

The best scenes capture the blend of irony, melodrama, and real emotion that distinguishes Fassbinder's most memorable pictures.

Some will find it exhilarating fun.

What helps Lin's feature-directing debut is his insight into the dark side of living up to "model minority" stereotypes in a materialistic culture.

This remake stays close to the eponymous 1979 horror movie it's based on, except for being precisely 10,000 times scarier.

Earnest, if not as informative as it might have been.

Directors as different as Otto Preminger and Jean-Luc Godard have taken a crack at "Carmen" and Ramaka's version is a colorful addition to the list.

Unique and fascinating.

If you can endure watching it, you won't forget this grim cautionary tale for a long time.

Spielberg's directing is a tad less tricky than usual, but he doesn't have much talent for psychological suspense, which is the heart of the story. DiCaprio underplays nicely and Walken is superb as the con artist's downtrodden dad.

The story wanders, the plot twists seem contrived at times, and the emotions are never as intense as they might be. But it highlights yet another facet of Hoffman's talent: a gift for monochrome, of all things! And it has a heart as good as Raymond's own. [30 Dec 1988]

This modest drama is a touching tribute to the late Argo, a character actor you'll instantly recognize.

Isn't for everyone, but horror fans with strong stomachs will find it a memorable monsterfest that rarely loses its bite.

The picture repeats itself a lot, but Dash is a good sport in poking barbed fun at the PR machinations of today's music business.

Nick Nolte gives a superb performance and Julie Christie is positively incandescent.

Set in an exotic world inhabited by humanoids of wildly different sizes, the fantasy reflects the interest of director Laloux and designer Roland Topor in surrealistic art. [24 Dec 1999, p.B6]

Four stories with automatons as important characters...The last is the most touching, but all are skillfully made.

The cast is appealing and much of the action is wryly amusing, although Baumbach borrows so many moves from Woody Allen and Francois Truffaut that their names should be in the credits. [5 June 1998]

Leconte reconfirms his growing importance to French cinema with this precisely crafted, marvelously acted drama, which makes a powerful statement on capital punishment.

This good-natured comedy serves up plenty of laughs while suggesting that the best experts in human psychology are plain old humans.

Directed and cowritten by a veteran of Denmark's no-frills "Dogma 95" movement, this is a quiet, no-frills drama with simple human values at its core.

Law is lively and Shyer keeps the action hopping with help from the movie's original gimmick of having Alfie keep up a running monologue to the audience.

Sentimental from the moment the title hits the screen. But it's a nice kind of sentimentality, based on real affection for the characters and real involvement with a place and time.

At heart, this is an old-fashioned monster flick decked out with Hollywood's full battery of high-tech visual effects. It's as goofy as it is gory -- stay away if you don't like in-your-face mayhem.

A third aspect of The Tracker is less successful. In a badly calculated move, Mr. de Heer and singer Graham Tardif fill the soundtrack with songs full of clichés, platitudes, and truisms.

The movie's TV-style production values are a little too slick, but the real-life stories are fascinating to watch.

The story gains most of its dramatic impact from superbly understated acting and Christopher Doyle's atmospheric camera work.

The computer-driven effects are impressive, but the adventure is hampered by a flat screenplay, dull acting, and just a hint as to why the dark side of the Force will eventually transform cute little Anakin into the evil Darth Vader.

The story is a mess, as usual with Toback's movies, but intricacies of contemporary urban culture are vividly illuminated by his insistence on blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality.

Rarely has a dance movie done so many cinematic pirouettes with such a graceful sense of audience-pleasing fun.

Nolte gives one of his most fully realized performances, Coburn makes an amazingly powerful comeback, and Schrader's filmmaking has never been more expressive or assured.

It's an impressive movie, pointing to Howard as a promising new director.

Comically grotesque, strikingly filmed.

The cinematography is gorgeous from first frame to last, but the story occasionally rings false.

Morton acts up a storm, and Ramsay continues her rise as England's hottest young female filmmaker.

Belvaux tells this seamy story with great energy, and gives an all-stops-out performance in the leading role. Also fine are Catherine Frot as Bruno's former girlfriend and Dominique Blanc as the addict.

Bridges is fun to watch, Fanning emerges as Hollywood's best 6-year-old actress, and Rogers's talents are wasted. A likable drama within its limitations.

A mixed package, but often fun to watch.

The acting and screenplay are amusing, but director Sitch might have taken a more adventurous approach to a tale with such an adventurous subject.

Entertaining documentary about stuntwomen who do risky business for a living.

The results are visually striking, but conceptually they oscillate between poetic, pretentious, and philosophically dubious.

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

Vigorously directed by Joel Schumacher, the film is closer to a suspense thriller than a journalistic report.

They vary enormously in style, quality, and ideas, but the best of them -- by Gitai, Chahine, and Iñárritu, among others -- pack an enormous emotional and intellectual punch.

Strong acting and smartly tuned-in directing turn a run-of-the-mill detective story into a striking, sometimes harrowing blend of horror and suspense.

The movie is lively, funny, and endearing until melodramatics and sentimentality take over in the last few scenes.

Directed by Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky with the same unearthly visual style, and the same mingled concern with technology and psychology, that he showed in his towering ''Solaris'' a few years ago.

This capably made HBO documentary takes an understated and compassionate look at a subject that is often sensationalized in other contexts.

Poignant, spirited, revealing.

Mamet's screenplay is full of savvy satire and the cast couldn't be better.

Isn't glossy, but it has a thought-provoking mix of skepticism, hopefulness, and respect for all but its most scurrilous characters. Hollywood could learn from its canny blending of psychological and multicultural insights.

An enjoyable movie that marks a rattling good directorial debut for Stephen Fry, the English actor who's best known for starring in "Wilde" seven years ago.

Bale is brilliant.

As mysterious as it is sinister.

The movie's cutest twist is that the monsters are more scared of kids than kids are of them, because they think human children are toxic.

A refreshingly novel ride.

Suicides are proliferating in the city -- is the song to blame, or is it the tenor of the times?

The drama is a gentle, witty parable of the mixed feelings some people show toward free choice when it confronts them not in theory but in everyday life.

This is more than enough material for two hours of summer-movie fun, and The X-Files delivers said fun reasonably well. The action scenes are bigger and bolder than their small-screen counterparts.

The movie is more a family album than a historical study, but you'll learn a lot and your toe will tap, tap, tap.

The fact-based story is so riveting and revealing that the filmmakers needn't have used melodramatic formulas to boost its impact.

It's one of the season's most original and energetic movies.

Politics and humanism find an engrossing balance in this ambitious drama based on the life of Reinaldo Arenas, a gay Cuban poet who was persecuted by the homophobic Castro regime.

Just loopy enough to be tantalizing, involving, and fun.

At a time when screen comedy has its own problems with anger management, Sandler's self-possessed style is as refreshing as it is funny.

One of Hollywood's bloodiest and goofiest adaptations.

One of the most violent films this year, it's no more so than many of the Asian kung fu flicks it pays homage to. Don't be surprised if it slaughters its action-film competition in this overcrowded movie season.

But there's no denying the movie's frequent hilarity, abetted by Mel Smith's superbly laid-back directing and on-target performances by an excellent supporting cast.

Why does affection sometimes grow between people who seem to have little or nothing in common? That's the tantalizing question running through this capably acted comedy-drama

Reissued with the addition of 50 minutes trimmed from the original 1980 cut, Fuller's only A-budget movie is still among the lesser works of this frequently brilliant filmmaker.

Lively, gentle, smart.

Thanks to director Zucker, this is by far the best installment yet -- there's less bathroom humor and more "Airplane!"-type lunacy.

Sean Connery is still up to par as James Bond in the latest adventure of Agent 007,

The acting is uneven, but Huston's performance gains eerie intensity as the tale moves from sensationalistic melodrama to humanistic tragedy.

There's some very funny dialogue, but the picture falls apart when it tries to think real thoughts about celebrity, publicity, and the media.

Old-style animation slows down after a snappy start, but it's lively enough to keep kids from fidgeting too much.

Bardem is brilliant.

A romantic kung-fu comedy with a good heart.

Merchant brings keen insight and rich humanity to this culturally revealing tale of psychological unease in a tense postcolonial world.

Lots of lively tunes and spirited acting.

The coach is certainly an offensive goofball, and the Bears are certainly a pack of hard-to-handle whippersnappers. But the picture's point is that surfaces don't tell the whole story about people, about teams, or about anything.

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.

The acting is excellent.

Maybe the movie does so much dawdling and meandering so we'll have more time to bask in their presence; in any case, the otherwise pleasant picture uses up its ideas long before it uses up its running time.

One of the season's most watchable treats.

De Felitta dodges the temptations of sentiment and preachiness.

Unexpectedly subtle cinematic style.

You may find the film as outrageous as it is outlandish, and Bowery would have taken that as a compliment.

The acting is amiable and the story is crisply told.

It will frustrate viewers who like stories to make instant sense, but fans of provocative puzzles will have mind-teasing fun.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are attractive stars, but what's most appealing about the picture is the value it puts on sharing ideas and feelings through language.

The willingness to blend professionals and nonprofessionals is Duvall's most interesting directorial trademark. Most commercial filmmakers hesitate to use this technique, but he doesn't see it as risky.

Here's hoping other filmmakers will follow its spirit, if not all of its methods.

Taylor is utterly believable even when the screenplay (from an Anne Tyler novel) is too self-consciously quirky, and Pearce nicely portrays the guy she obsesses over.

A swiftly told, smartly acted yarn, and it even has an idea or two on its mind.

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.

This visually intricate fantasia combines his (Greenaway's) extraordinary cinematic imagination with a story and characters less compelling than those in his best works.

A wide range of concert and media clips lend vigor and variety to the documentary.

Both a blood-churning war movie and a mind-stirring antiwar movie, focusing not on guts and glory but on the stark realities of real battlefield experience.

The result is a fine production with splendid singing by Angela Gheorghiu, Ruggero Raimondi, and Roberto Alagna. It joins the very short list of first-rate opera films.

This disturbing drama has many telling moments, but it ends with an out-of-the-blue shock episode that raises more questions than it answers.

Be warned that the results are in aggressively awful taste from beginning to end.

Solondz is a courageous social commentator and a canny provocateur at the same time. He'll never get to Hollywood if he stays on this track, but cinema will be a lot duller if he ever mends his incendiary ways.

While it's often harsh in style and melancholy in subject, Kandahar taps into veins of humor and compassion as well.

The story is so complicated that the movie can't quite make it clear, but the picture has impressive energy and high-intensity performances from Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and Guy Pearce.

Crammed with show-biz jokes that younger kids won't fathom, but the action is so quick and colorful that they probably won't mind.

She emerges as an energetic, narcissistic, and totally self-deluded woman.

If you don't compare it with the novel, it's one of the season's better films.

The movie's style is fairly staid, but it's hard to imagine how Neeson could be better, and the subject is handled with taste and tact.

The movie is very small in scale, but the performances are appealing and Fernandez's screenplay casts an interesting light on the main characters' self-images as Latina women.

Redeemed by sensitive acting.

The movie has nothing intelligent to say about post-cold-war tensions or anything else, but it's great fun to watch Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington square off in a submarine that looks like a cross between the Starship Enterprise and something you'd get in a cereal box.

Coil up with a tub of popcorn, get a stranglehold on your soda - this is a creepy, action-packed boat ride down a jungle river with lots of huge snakes dropping by for man-sized snacks.

The screenplay is overwrought at times, but the acting is superb by any standard.

Slums of Beverly Hills is less a hard-edged exposé than a mood-shifting satire, though approaching its subject with a wryly ironic touch.

Depp gives a smart, subtle performance, and Turturro is terrific as a foe who's both exactly what he seems and exactly the opposite. Koepp's makes his (literally) corny tricks seemfresh and surprising.

A compassionate, life-affirming Spanish comedy-drama.

An intense, claustrophobic drama of love and infidelity.

The results are unsparingly perverse and oddly spellbinding.

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

Herzog soft-pedals his cinematic ingenuity in this personal documentary about his love-hate relationship with Kinski, whose performances in Herzog classics...helped both of them become towering figures on the international movie scene before Kinski's untimely death.

The movie is strong in sound and fury, weak in nuance and insight.

There are thrills and cliffhangers galore, even though everyone now knows the outcome of the tale, and chief wheeler-dealer James Carville emerges as a zesty screen personality. [12 Nov 1993, p.12]

Lacks the subtle sense of mystery that distinguished E.B. White's lovely novel, but nicely conveys its playful spirit and amiable tone.

While serving up music so free of thought that the best of it seems to crystallize our thoughtless, tightly wound era.

No show-business tradition is sturdier than the two-man comedy team, and no contemporary stars are better suited to the format than Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. Pairing them was a terrific idea.

In this forthright screen version of E.M. Forster's posthumously published novel. Directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, who show the same literate skill and the same fidelity to their source that marked "A Room With a View."

Bullock is cute. Grant is even cuter. They have the timing and panache of a first-rate comedy team.

The story is silly, the acting is campy, the effects are amusingly tacky. A mildly entertaining romp that pokes refreshing fun at its own occasional violence.

Striking an excellent balance between wry cultural critique and crisp entertainment value, the picture is as smart and funny as any comedy-drama in recent memory.

Sometimes enticing, frequently savage.

Its low-key charm shows that Dogma filmmakers have yet to run out of ideas.

A lively portrait of contemporary painter George Condo.

Lively acting and good-natured feminism lift this lightweight comedy a notch above the norm.

Ronald Harwood's screenplay, based on his stage play, brings an impressive range of moral and political issues into play. The acting is also strong.

The Four Feathers ends on the same dubious note as "Black Hawk Down" and other recent war movies, suggesting that loyalty in the trenches -- not the reason for fighting in the first place -- is all that matters. Many will disagree.

This unevenly paced comedy is an amusing parody of monster movies from "Them!" to "Alien."

The real heroes are cinematographer Stephen H. Burum and editor Bill Pankow, who help the picture keep popping even when its plot and dialogue go into a slump.

The movie is longer and slower than necessary, but it explores interesting questions of wartime violence, personal integrity, and what it means to come of age in a society ripping apart at the seams.

Too intense for the youngest viewers, but teenagers will enjoy it -- an ill-smelling "stink-god" character is almost worthy of a Kevin Smith gross-out movie -- and grown-ups should find it diverting, if not exactly deep.

Poignant, witty, historically illuminating.

There are endearing and powerful moments which thankfully overshadow the occasional clichéd passages.

There's hardly an original shot in the picture, and the screenplay ignores all opportunities to explore the patterns of poverty and racism that contribute to mob behavior. [22 Apr 1988]

No masterpiece, but that shouldn't dissuade moviegoers from giving it a whirl as a flavorful alternative to the summer's more gimmicky fare.

Even if baseball isn't your favorite sport, or if you don't like sports much at all, you'll find something to catch your attention in this smartly made (if unblushingly vulgar) new comedy. [7 July 1988]

The film's power grows from its dark-toned portrayal of the World War II era and from its evocative use of flashbacks, which show more interest in the characters' emotional lives than in story devices like surprise and suspense.

While the movie is strong on the history of its subject, it allows some yawns to enter its own account of a big, heavily hyped tournament. Still, it's very entertaining.

If you're in the mood for razor-sharp satire, this is the most refreshingly outrageous movie of the season.

The performances are engaging and the views of rural Brazil are captivating, making the film a solid audience-pleaser even though its story often seems familiar and sentimental.

Admirers of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and other Dick literature will enjoy this nonfiction look at the writer, his career, and his eccentricities, some of which were as bizarre as his fiction.

Kennedy documents their efforts with skill and compassion, almost entirely avoiding the pitfalls of sentimentality and victimology. He and his likable "cast" deserve a standing ovation.

Harrelson hits just the right sardonic note in this self-mocking crime drama, but look out for grisly touches along the way.

Hodges and screenwriter Paul Mayersberg fill the British production with Dostoevskian ironies, and Owen is perfect as the antihero.

A fascinating glimpse of family love and rivalry, if not a deep-digging documentary of "My Architect" quality.

Dance's directorial debut isn't exciting, but it's deeply felt and engagingly acted. Why doesn't he take more advantage of the story's opportunities for fine music, though?

The scenes of magic and mayhem are peppered with sly surprises, and Anjelica Huston plays the wildest wicked witch since Dorothy got back from Oz.

While it's not a blistering look behind the scenes, Last Dance gives a fuller picture of the creative process than most others of its ilk.

Full of bright colors, offbeat people, tuneful sounds.

A stirring documentary, and would be more so if it focused more on social problems than on Briski's own work.

The story sometimes seems hesitant to confront the most harrowing implications of the harsh realities it portrays. But it benefits greatly from Syed's close-to-the-bone performance as the boy.

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

The movie peaks about halfway through, when town officials try to stop Perry from revealing what's going on.

Lounguine tells the story with more discipline than you'll find in his earlier films, painting a crowded portrait of a society moving toward a future it can neither confidently predict nor look forward to with anything but nervous anticipation.

The story suggests a more violent "Seven Samurai," full of jungle mayhem and eloquently filmed action-movie suspense.

Taking great artistic chances in storytelling and performance style, Green finally fulfills the promise he showed in his fine 2000 drama "George Washington" as a terrific builder of mood, atmosphere, and psychological suspense.

Altman is one of very few directors who could have assembled such a superb ensemble, and he makes the most of it from first scene to last.

Figgis still deserves credit for taking more artistic chances than a dozen ordinary directors.

Unusual and imaginative drama.

On one level, it's an unsettling biopic and an acerbic look at a bygone media age. On another, it's a cautionary tale with uncommon relevance and bite.

Longer than necessary, that is, for the story it has to tell. This flaw aside, the drama is well crafted and sometimes touching, with especially forceful opening scenes.

Suffers from touches of sentimentality in its last portion -- Many viewers may welcome this last-minute brightening, though. If so, All or Nothing could join "Topsy Turvy" and "Secrets & Lies" as one of Leigh's most widely enjoyed recent films.

The account is highly informative, although it would come across more vividly if there were fewer talking heads and longer stretches of archival footage.

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

Quite appealing, thanks to good-humored acting and to Martha Coolidge's quiet directing style. She lets romance and comedy bubble up from the characters instead of imposing gimmicky twists on the story.

Much of the style strains too hard to be cute, but true romantics may shed copious tears of sympathy and empathy.

Rob Reiner directed "Ghosts of Mississippi" from Lewis Colick's screenplay, and both deserve credit for their conscientious work. In the end, though, a race-related irony lingers in the movie despite its positive achievements. [20 Dec 1996, p.12]

Superbly acted.

Carrey is excellent, making the most of his comic gifts even in a cumbersome Grinch outfit, and the eye-spinning color scheme is dazzling to behold.

Swank gives one of the year's most complex and hard-hitting performances in the demanding central role.

If you're not in the mood for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" meets "Last House on the Left," stay very far away. Horror fans will find what they're looking for, though.

The characters are so convincing and the mood so light and flaky that it's hard not to find it a delicious little hors d'oeuvre of a movie.

Smart and surprising.

The movie doesn't have much more get-up-and-go than the characters, but solid performances and richly textured camera work keep it involving most of the way through.

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

This doesn't mean Maelström is for everyone. It's a strange and quirky yarn, moving between deceptively calm scenes and episodes as tempestuous as its title.

As an evening of family entertainment, Something Wicked is probably far too exotic for its own good. As an excursion into the domain of dreams, it's often a fascinating voyage.

To its credit, the movie has as little patience for nonessential nonsense as the women it portrays.

A conventional dark comedy with moments of unexpectedly biting wit.

The action is light and lively all the way, poking inventive fun at everything from nosy little brothers to clueless hotel managers and romantic Romans who aren't as glamorous as they claim to be.

Well acted, handsomely photographed, a bit too long.

The film treats realistic subjects in a stylized way, putting its main energy into exploring ideas rather than building emotional power. [13 Jan 1995, p.B]

Good acting and pungent dialogue.

The topic is well-suited to the Maysles brothers, who helped pioneer reality-centered "direct cinema" techniques.

The longest comic episode is too heavily presented, and the whole plot slows down during the third quarter of the picture. But most of Dreamscape is light, lively, and entertaining. [21 Sep 1984, p.23]

Buscemi's directing blends hard-hitting visual qualities with great emotional energy.

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

Andrew Niccol wrote and directed this intelligent and suspenseful science-fiction drama featuring strong performances by Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, and Gore Vidal.

Unexpectedly entertaining, if you're willing to put up with the picture's stagy look, over-the-top moods, and heavy doses of vulgarity.

Influenced by Billy Wilder's classic "Ace in the Hole," this dark comedy-drama rambles on too long and strains credibility at times.

Dive right in if you're looking for an old-fashioned entertainment that delivers corny romance, turbulent action, and enough wave-churning seascapes to make "Titanic" seem landlocked.

Grodin is brilliant, though, practically stealing the movie without an extra word or unnecessary gesture. He's an uncommonly talented actor, and it's good to see him in a movie that gives him a chance to show his stuff. [22 July 1988]

Excellent acting, and a plot that combines suspense, whimsy, and political resonance make this Palestinian comedy-drama an unusual treat.

There's some sexually tinged humor and a bit of foul language, but most of the action is lightheaded fun. The picture also has a striking visual style - showing what a strong talent Almod'ovar can be when he focuses his energy on cinematic values, instead of dreaming up provocative stunts that put his work beyond the pale for many moviegoers.

The thriller makes up in moody weirdness what it lacks in horror-tale originality.

The film discusses important social and personal issues, although the interview subjects don't always have enlightening things to say.

It's a smart and creative comedy that skewers cheaply dehumanizing architecture and self-absorbed yuppie mentalities in a series of skillfully assembled scenes. See it in a theater that's waydowntown, and city life may never look the same.

This clever and original movie is like a John Hughes comedy for the '90s.

Isn't as funny as it wants to be, but it has a sheer pleasantness that stands out in this season of heavy-handed entertainments.

The filmmaking is uninspired and Fiennes inexplicably plays three different characters with exactly the same acting style.

Written and directed by John Sayles, with biting wit and scathing insights into earthly race relations. [04 Oct 1984, p.27]

Gripping.

Tim Burton's fantasy is more original than his previous film, “Batman,'' and its colors make “Dick Tracy'' look drab. Add wry dialogue and a mischievous critique of suburban life, and you have a diverting fable that doesn't quite live up to its quirky premise. [7 Dec 1990, Arts, p.12]

On its own intimate terms, it's one of the most winning films on family life to reach the screen in ages.

Viewers with a taste for bizarre, even surreal, humor will have a ball.

Imagine a sexually charged "Heart of Darkness" by way of Denmark's bare-bones Dogme 95 and you'll have an idea of what this dark, moody melodrama is like.

Not always compellingly made, but intelligent and perhaps prophetic.

Proudly old-fashioned in every way except the often excessive violence that director Martin Campbell splashes across the screen.

Bravo works too hard at extolling Castro -- The film's historical footage is compelling, though, and provides plenty to think about.

Strikingly original movie.

It starts slowly, but builds to a spectacular climax with hearty sound effects and deftly directed stunts.

Carries a strong emotional charge along with its valuable reminder of the suffering that youngsters may undergo when a heedless society overlooks their needs.

Fugit gives a starmaking performance as the teenage reporter, and Crudup and Lee are excellent as the band's lead guitarist and singer, respectively.

Ross's comedy isn't as inventive as "The Truman Show," which it resembles in some ways, but it explores interesting ideas with nimble humor.

This isn't a movie, it's a thingamajig - frequently as off-putting as can be, but unassailably one of a kind.

The movie is surprisingly strong despite its potentially flaky plot, combining '80s-style humor with a sincere romantic story.

Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts contribute major star power to the uneven tale, but it never becomes as convincing as a real conspiracy theory should.

Nicely acted.

Acted and directed with a savvy understatement that perfectly matches the eccentric story.

It's a picture marked by competence, not the boiling-over intensity that Frears and Thompson fans have anticipated. [30 Nov 1990]

Straightforward and informative, but overlong and repetitious.

Not a deep movie. It is a very honest one, though - there's not a cheap cinematic trick in sight - and it's a graceful one, energizing its small-town story with eloquent camera work and ingenious musical touches.

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.

A lavishly produced and often involving drama that never reaches its full potential. [09 Jan 1985, p.25]

This is one of Haneke's least powerful films, although the excellent cast is interesting to watch.

Superbly acted, especially by Giocante as the teasing 16-year-old instigator.

It's imaginatively filmed and builds a sense of brooding emotional power.

Waters fills the movie with his usual touches of outrageously bad taste, but beneath the sophomoric shocks his story has a serious message about self-absorbed artists who care more about their own careers than the privacy of the people around them.

Rush and Davis shine, and the drama is engrossingly told until it turns sadly sentimental in the last minutes.