David Sterritt

The acting is excellent.

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.

Almereyda's movie is riveting for several reasons: its inside look at Shepard in action, its vivid account of how a challenging play is brought from printed page to public stage, and its glimpses of Shepard's troubled youth.

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.

The performances are persuasive but the plot rattles on much too long.

Angela Bassett gives a superbly versatile performance as the heroine, and Laurence Fishburne's portrayal of Ike Turner consolidates his status as one of the most expressive and intelligent actors in movies today. [18 Jun 1993, p.13]

Three short documentaries about photography made by one of France's finest directors.

The movie makes up in sweep and splendor what it lacks in psychological depth and dramatic impact.

It's an engrossing and inventive drama despite its flaws.

A triumph of psychological drama, owing as much to Ms. Bier's sensitive style as to Anders Thomas Jensen's smart screenplay, based on Bier's own story idea.

A mixed package, but often fun to watch.

One of the best pictures so far this year, marking a high point of Rudolph's career and reconfirming the extraordinary talent Mr. Campbell has shown in earlier films. Dentistry will never seem the same.

What makes this small-scale drama so compelling is Pontecorvo's treatment of the main character.

The movie makes up in sincerity and goodwill what it lacks in originality and style.

The action isn't as consistently funny or surprising this time, but there's a lot of laughter to be found between the merely crude moments. [2 Dec 1988]

Rollicking documentary that will have your toes tapping and your ears sizzling whether you're a die-hard Motown fan or not.

Dench and Winslet give strong and creative performances, and Broadbent is positively brilliant as old Bayley.

Along with some creaky plot mechanics in the last third of the story, this reduces the film to ordinary dimensions - a sharp but no longer resonant show.

It seems to have had the opposite effect on the director's taste, as she strives for new levels of raunchiness.

Sensitive acting and imaginative filmmaking help rescue the movie from potential excesses of its own.

The Secret of NIMH is exciting, engaging, and often magnificent to look at. Add it up, and you have what is probably the best cartoon since the bygone heyday of the Walt Disney studio.

Stillman brings his usual sharp wit to this exploration of upper-middle-class angst, completing the comic trilogy he began with "Metropolitan" and "Barcelona."

Anderson's cinematic style gets more adventurous from one movie to the next, and he begins this story with bursts of originality that leave his respected "Rushmore" far behind.

Alex & Emma isn't nearly as clever as Reiner's classic "Misery," a very different look at a male writer and his female companion. But it's diverting fun.

This offbeat Chinese production is at once an innovative art film, a traditional suspense yarn, and a moody voyage through Shanghai's gritty back roads.

The picture has fine ensemble acting and superb Italian scenery. It would have more power if it were shorter and tighter.

Denzel Washington is stellar, and so is Tak Fujimoto's cinematography, which is as edgy and antsy as the story it tells.

Based on William Faulkner's novel "Pylon," this 1958 melodrama gains much of its dark power from Douglas Sirk's visually rich directing, which transforms basically sordid material into a moral tale of love, loss, and redemption. [27 Jun 1996, p.14]