Desson Thomson

While he dithers around in search of a movie and a theme, Moskowitz meets intriguing people -- almost all of them older men. And because they are hungry readers, they have interesting things to say.

Exquisitely textured film.

Moore provides a rather rambling discourse of causality, which includes racism, white flight and Africanized bees.

If the scope of the film feels small, Girl With a Pearl Earring fills that scope to bursting with subtle glory. It takes things as far as they can -- and should -- go.

This ensemble comedy has its inventively funny moments. But ultimately, it gets a little too cute for its own good.

Like Casablanca, Diva, Clockwork Orange and countless other quality-cult films, Prick Up Your Ears has an indefinable idiosyncrasy that makes you want to come back for more.

At its worst, which ends up being most of the time, the movie traps us in art-house pretentiousness, as we're obliged to follow the yearnings and abstract corruptions of the urban zestless.

A full-throttle fantasy, about as heady a movie experience as it gets.

The performers bring freshness to what could have been cliched roles.

Yes, it's that cheesy, but it's also surprisingly appealing. After all, the horse Seabiscuit really WAS that phenomenal.

Pontecorvo's pointed 1969 drama of the politics of war feels surprisingly timely.

Left-wing filmmaker's attempt to call foul on megamedia owner Murdoch's exclamation-point news network.

These storied 13 days feel like the Hundred Years War.

[An] appealing, if overcooked romantic comedy.

The movie, which is based on the Lowell Cunningham comic book series, throws out some wonderful implications, but they’re frustratingly few and far between.

Spiritually aware documentary.

You won't feel enlightened, just let down

Costner (with Michael Blake's screenplay) creates a vision so childlike, so willfully romantic, it's hard to put up a fight.

But if the modestly budgeted film (loosely based on journalist Michael Nicholson's factual narrative, "Natasha's Story") lopes along a formulaic, often heavy-handed track, its pictures and subtext make a powerful statement. [9Jan1998 Pg. N.41]

Mamet doesn't just give us an enthralling heist flick, he makes the language something to savor. You're biting your nails with your ears peeled.

What makes this movie deeply fascinating is the fight Haskell wages. As the semi-willing subject of this movie, he's determined to gain the upper hand or, at least, come out somewhat sympathetic.

Though much of "Candy" is a clumsy sprawl, there's more than enough human spirit in the tank to keep it going.

There are many periods when the two men are traveling and you feel the need to fast-forward the movie to another scene. This is not a great comedy but it's a string of funny highlights.

There's nothing "wrong" with this movie but it feels like warmed-over business as usual.

A firepowered, blood-drenched action picture that doesn't let up.

Bening makes the movie into something finer still.

After 9/11, few of us look at terrorist acts casually. It's insulting to watch this grandiloquent pornography, using shock value and Hollywood cliche to evoke poignancy.

Finally, we have found ourselves in a movie where the characters are free to blunder, even if it means turning their backs on us. There's powerful liberation in that, all around.

Stumbles mindlessly in all directions.

Tautou is a delight, as always, using her bubbly personality to comic advantage. And Elmaleh makes for a sort of poor man's Buster Keaton, perpetually stressed but refusing to surrender, no matter how much damage he sustains to himself or his wallet.

Wonderful images, hues, sensations and faces.

Wickedly funny. In fact, Heathers may be the nastiest, cruelest fun you can have without actually having to study law or gird leather products. If movies were food, Heathers would be a cynic's chocolate binge.

So elegantly layered and emotionally restrained, it makes the horror at its center all the more disturbing.

So unassuming and pure of heart, you can't help but warmly extend your arms and yell "Safe!"

There are scenes that simply ask the audience to drink in the details, to enjoy the repast, just as much as follow the plot.

Instead of an originally conceived movie that reflects Nash's troubled but brilliant mind, we have one of those formulaically rendered Important Subject movies -- the kind that seem exclusively designed for Best Picture nominations.

Its hackneyed themes prevent the sci-fi flick from feeling like anything more than well-directed mediocrity.

If he had to die so soon, this movie is the best and most appropriate sendoff Lee could have hoped for.

With its zany daily episodes, "Groundhog" gets stuck in a non-progressive repetition.

Bacon's subtle, assured performance keeps us with him every step of the way.

Like a good campfire storyteller, writer-director Rian Johnson knows how to fuse the amusing and the edgy. And, in Brendan, he has created an endearing character.

Wins you over with its devastating simplicity.

A sort of romance noir -- spruced up in pressed white linens -- this British-made film is elegant, uncompromising and oh-so- veddy nasty.

Grabbing every backstage musical cliche by the lapels, it sends each one pirouetting, then sprawling hysterically across the floor. It's hard not to love this kind of tribute.

This is pretty much a feel-good film for committed fans and moviegoers looking for some spectacular combination of travelogue, athleticism and slo-mo grace.

This movie has all the same elements as other Grisham fare: raw young lawyer trying to make it in the South; helpless client treated badly; sleazy, star-chamber villains. Wake me up when the last-minute surprise witness comes out of her hidey hole to turn the case around.

Unfortunately, the drama operates on a see-through, easily shatterable metaphor: the frigidity of the WASP soul. [17 October 1997, p.N32]

Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg and director David Yates have transformed J.K. Rowling's garrulous storytelling into something leaner, moodier and more compelling, that ticks with metronomic purpose as the story flits between psychological darkness and cartoonish slapstick.

Paradise may not change anyone's ideology, but it should convince some that, but for some deeply divisive views of religious morality, people are pretty much the same on either side of the holy fence.

Absolutely refuse to make predictable patterns in the sand. Instead, they set their characters loose.

One of the most pleasurable movies of the year.

Although the movie loses power in its final sections, the performances, writing and Richard Pearce's direction transform this shaky idea into something rewarding.

The Treatment gets this year's Rip van Winkle award.

The animation, rendered in good old-fashioned watercolors, is appealing. It's easy, rather than flashy, on the eyes. But the best thing about the movie is the humor.

Hilarious…The joy of Beetlejuice is its completely bizarre -- but perfectly realized -- view of the world, a la Gary Larson's "The Far Side," or "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." [1 Apr 1988]

Doesn't need the passage of time to become a classic. It's one already.

Energetic and slickly done, but also somewhat soulless.

Grim, yes, and great viewing.

It's a movie of deft impressions and telling human moments. Whether or not those impressions and moments add up to anything is almost beside the point.

I would rather have a more interesting group of desperate people to spend my post-apocalyptic time with.

There's a good chance you're going to enjoy Aladdin more than the children.

Won't go down as Robert Altman's most memorable movie. But it's a pleasant affair, whose greatest assets are its unhurried, benevolent atmosphere and the quiet, gem-like moments that occur among its characters.

With their inspired, absurdist taste for weird, peculiar Americana-but a sort of neo-Americana that is entirely invented-the Coens have defined and mastered their own bizarre subgenre.

As a satire on Tobacco Inc.'s outrageous ability to market carbon monoxide as the elixir of life, this movie should be packing more nicotine.

These dramatic shortfalls make us merely worried that two human beings are in danger, but not two compelling souls. There's your missing ingredient, the human X-factor.

This is the kind of sophisticated and pleasurable movie you dream of seeing from France.

A spirited remake of the French drag farce, has everything in place, from eyeliner to one-liner.

Director Van Sant, who made the lyrical "Mala Noche," "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho," returns to his favorite hunting ground -- the subworlds of grimy, poetic lost boys -- and pulls us right in

Paint-by-numbers feel-gooder, in which Homer and his friends decide to win a national science fair for their little town and, ultimately, for America.

To watch this movie is to be moved not only by an affecting, warmly spirited yarn, but also by the wisdom that seems to waft to us directly from those snow-capped peaks.

Although the movie never quite dispels the sense of being dated (it could have been made anytime in the past 40 years), it's a memorable, often moving timepiece.

Garrone's movie finds a disconcerting niche between edgy character thriller and black comedy.

First-time writer/director Tom Hanks stays about a half-beat ahead of the cliches with rim shots of boyish enthusiasm and deft comedy.

This is as good a visual treat as you and your kids can expect.

Writer-director Cameron Crowe, who directed the John Hughes-scripted "Say Anything" and wrote "Fast Times at Ridgemont High,", creates a diverting collection of interwoven vignettes. It's not art, but it's always diverting.

Watchable, certainly. It should have been so much more.

It's a joy to see nice warm performances by real people of different shapes, sizes and ages, who are seldom to be found in any glamour catalogues. And it's even more rewarding to watch Ferrera's many-sided performance.

Wuornos was unambiguous about one thing: She wanted to die. In the end, that's the only assurance the movie provides. It's an odd kind of closure for her and for us.

The best heist flick since "The Usual Suspects," a perfect 10 of a movie.

A beautifully textured, disarmingly simple movie about romantic devotion.

Buscemi makes Seymour into a character you simply want to see again and again. He's the most appealing, amusing "loser" anyone could ever share old records with.

It does honor the book's flavor and spirit with a bright, funny treatment. Voice performers Jim Carrey (as Horton) and Steve Carell (the Mayor) play their roles just right, without making the movie about them.

A problematic movie, based on a problematic book, that's not for everyone, and that might not even be for all the people it is meant for. Hmmm. Yet there's something fascinating about it and, believe me, it ain't the sex. Perhaps it's Irons's and Richardson's haunted performances, or Binoche's highly credible weirdness. Whatever it is, compared to the likes of "Top Gun" and "Basic Instinct," "Damage" is far more compelling and far less false.

While director Aronofsky pistol-whips your attention with his style, the characters (mostly relegated to human mannequins in Aronofsky's visual schemes) suffer big time.

Feels like a prolonged campfire conversation, filled with weathered, measured talk about holistic thinking and finding a new perspective.

The movie is more entertaining than it is logical; its narrative leaps are sometimes ahead of our ability to believe them. But as the compellingly enigmatic Pierre, Pinon keeps us rapt.

Diabolically amusing without plunging into the Mel Brooks zone, and it's smart without being pedantic. And it's genuinely scary at times.

If Collateral is all formula, it's polished to a fine sheen.

The movie's intense watchability can be traced directly to superb performances by Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley.

A gee-wonderful virtual visit to the arid orb, which uses ingenious technical sleight of hand to -- let's face it -- fake it beautifully.

An extraordinary and brilliant (and almost wordless) film that takes us above ground and below it, up in the air and deep below water, to follow its conundrum of a story.

In Things Change, the gangsters and bodyguards, the lounges and limos don't got, whaddya call, da same allure. You watch the whole thing with a detached amusement, like a goon cooling his heels in the lobby, just waiting for things to change.

His new film, Manhattan Murder Mystery, isn't a knee-slapper. A comic mystery in the tradition of the "Thin Man" movies, it has effortlessly funny appeal. Almost intentionally imperfect, it's a tossed-off sketch of a thing, intended to lightly engage and no more.

The film may employ the well-worn tradition of filtering African stories through the experiences of Europeans, but they use the conceit for some penetrating revelations.

So unambiguously good-natured it feels like something fresh.

Burton has evoked the surface of Ed Wood's life, but in a story about a man who loves angora and frilly panties, he has barely unbuttoned Wood's uniform.

It's just a simple, actorly drama about big, gaping emotional needs and the consequences a woman can face -- particularly during the 1960s -- for simply owning up to them.

The movie (written and directed by Noonan), which took the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, is not as profound as the festival laurels imply. But when all is said and said, the fate of this relationship -- left hanging as the movie ends -- becomes a matter of compelling significance.

There's something secondhand about everything here. Hoge (this is his debut) seems to be mimicking the tone and fabric of other, better indie movies.

Within its narrow, unambitious, commercial boundaries, the movie is highly watchable. Lowther is appealing, and Costner is a likable rebel.

Appealingly, the movie has a certain lightness -- like the aforementioned butterfly -- which makes its foreboding qualities surprisingly user-friendly.

There is so much violence, as gangs kill gangs, or gangs kill cops, or the predator kills all of them, that it's hard to watch without the brain succumbing to self-protective numbness.

A charming children's crusade -- a rewarding journey for all ages.

Little in this movie makes real sense; and characters (particularly Dafoe and Delany) seem to bump regularly into each other. But there's something transcendentally appealing between the lines. This is a film to be savored for its nuances rather than its story.

Short but powerful drama.

Batman Begins emerges from the darkness and leaves a powerful, lasting impression.

Has an intoxicating, old-fashioned feel about it. We are instantly lost in the period, thanks to cinematographer Dion Beebe's almost haloed images and Joseph Bennett's authentic, restrained production design.

A darkly interesting distraction but not much more.

Rush is too sinfully good for the drama he's in.

A movie for aesthetically hungry moviegoers: wildly amusing, sometimes sardonic and always touching. There's so much here, and all of it delightful.

It's the atmospheric sideshow that earns the highest marks.

First Contact, written by Ric Berman, Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, pulsates with great imagination, amusing characters and the fundamental optimism handed down by "Star Trek" founder Gene Roddenberry.

Admirable in its refusal to be politically correct.

To completely sabotage the work, there is an insipid affair between Manon and a young teacher, Bernard (Hippolyte Girardot). Their juvenile romance blunts the epic effect that Berri obviously is trying to create.

A chalice of unpretentious delight, flowing over with goodwill, a cheeky love for soccer and, uh, Buddhist humor.

Until the movie gets lost in its ultimately convoluted conceit, however, it's a superb modulation of menace, tension, mystery and eroticism.

Penn's performance is the movie's ultimate grace note. As funny and ingenious as Allen's films can get, they are rarely known for depth of character.

This is a stirring movie, if relentless intensity, handheld camera work, cover-your-eyes violence and ear-splitting yelling matches are what you're craving.

Although this film doesn't have the classy quality of The Fugitive, it certainly goes down like an action milkshake. And Jones, one of the most enjoyable actors on the screen, plays himself to the hilt.

Scent is a captured memory, a living, breathing reverie rather than a narrative. It's also the birth of a great talent.

Making a film about mob violence while showing restraint and humanism is a difficult procedure. Singleton and screenwriter Poirier search for some gradations within the white ranks, but for the most part, every cracker's a psycho with a short, smoking fuse.

As Tsotsi, Chweneyagae turns his face into a living battle mask -- curved, molded and sandpapered into smooth ruthlessness. But as the story unfolds, Tsotsi's mask begins to crack, and his humanity begins to flow through.

Robbins, who scripted and directed, creates more than enough on his own. Bob's un-hackneyed character is the prime case in point.

A wonderfully unhurried and precious yarn.

Luminously understated.

For all his legitimate laments and pithy documentary moments, Moore gloats too much over his treasure. Where Moore makes his mark is basically where he shuts up and, like a good documentarian ought to, lets the subjects do the talking.

The movie gradually peters out.

Despite a glut of luridness, the story line feels essentially flat, as Keitel stumbles through New York in an immoral, unchanging haze. It is only the strength of Keitel's performance that gives his personality human dimension.

A highly watchable slice-of-low-life entertainment. If this isn't her best role, it's Dunaway's gutsiest.

Guilty, deftly orchestrated fun.

The movie's much more than a castor-oil feminist message about self-realization, bad old Dad and all those awful men. The performances take care of that.

Spade and Warburton might not have made The Emperor's New Groove one of the mouse factory's all-time greatest, but they've certainly made it one of the funniest.

Cheerful, energetic and on the money.

It feels like real life unfolding before your eyes.

The Krays is a foreboding, riveting metaphor about human monsters and the monstrosities of criminal life. It's one of the most original films of the year.

A triumphant return to the icky, otherworldly eerieness that graced such earlier Cronenberg works as "Scanners," "Videodrome" and "Dead Ringers."

Do these soldiers make it? We keep watching and waiting. There's not much more to Gunner Palace than that, but it's no different than the soldiers' lot.

Never intends to be deeper than a magician's hat, and its wonderfully low-tech stop-motion technique is not only a nod to Czech animator Jan Svankmajer but a tacit rebuke to computer-graphics-heavy fantasies such as "The Chronicles of Narnia" or the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

An understated, hypnotic stroke of brilliance.

Yes, it's weird. But it's wild card weird, with that thrill of never knowing what's coming next or when these Parisians are going to get musical on us.

On one hand, the movie is guilty of schematic arrangement...But at the same time, Israeli producer-director-writer Eran Riklis and Palestinian co-writer Suha Arraf use the device to reveal touching human complexity.

It's a magnificent comic experience.

Noyce's direction moves impressively from sensual tenderness (between husband and wife) to edge-of-the-seat horror. he finds lurking dangers in quiet, peaceful waters and goes down with the good ship Dead Calm, his head held high. If you don't mind 11th-hour disappointments (including a laughable, Hollywood-kicker ending), you'll enjoy going down with it too.

Even though we're caught up in his derring-do as he beguiles entire meeting rooms of jaded publishers and editors, we're kept at a dissatisfying distance from Irving and the movie.

In this good-natured film, even the smallest efforts at kindness yield positive results.

It's one view of Kerry that seems to have been lost in the present acrimonious shuffle.

Only Human, a Spanish farce, has absolutely no business being as laugh-out-loud funny as it often is.

It's so laden with foreboding, you want to get out from under it and gasp for air.

Slickers is also a white male's "Wizard of Oz." Stern will get his courage back and defeat the wicked witch. Crystal's heart will be restored and Kirby will get to roar for a while. But the film's strewn with enough amusing lines and situations to make the trail diverting.

Much of "Clerks" is extremely funny and dead-on—in terms of its intentionally satirical, Gen-X-istential gloom.

Robocop is one weird and entertaining hybrid of camp and sci-fi shoot-'em-up.

For all its faults Lady in White is never dull.

This film explores what low-budget films do best: the quirkiness of character, and slightly off-kilter comedy.

What keeps "Cinderella" from complete hokiness is Crowe's utterly believable performance.

Suddenly, you're looking at life in his (Thornton's) jaundiced way and laughing with a sense of vicarious liberation, even when he says the most outrageous things -- to children, no less. And I daresay you can still recover your holiday spirit when you're through laughing.

It's gotten to the point where Gooding's presence on a marquee practically guarantees we'll be bashing our heads against the seat in front of us. Bonk, bonk, bonk.

It's an exhilarating sparring match between Duvall's workmanlike fine-tuning and Penn's raw energy. [15 Apr 1988]

An enormously enjoyable gothic yarn from Mexico, transfuses the genre with wry grotesquerie, but retains respect for the old, classic films.

It's an exhaustive, and exhilarating, document of an overwhelming lifestyle.

A picture-book French film that's pretty and trite, rather than edgy and moving.

A gently stirring symphony about emotional transition filled with lovely musical passages and softly nuanced performances.

It's tremendous fun. The movie -- directed by Rob Cohen -- switches pleasingly from exciting fights to moments of magic playfulness. It's doubly touching to experience Bruce Lee's fleeting life and, in the brief depictions of little son Brandon, to fatefully anticipate the tragedy to come.

The Batblast of the summer.

Some of it is funny in a Zucker brothers slapstick way. And as the Man's geeky lieutenant, Chris Kattan has some amusingly kooky business. But there's not enough to sustain the comedy. Ultimately, the movie's short running time becomes its finest quality.

Had The Cooler stuck to its dark guns and not turned into a treacly, love-conquers-all fairy tale, this movie might have gone somewhere. In the end, you're only watching this with a sort of mercenary interest in the actors.

A movie that grows better by the minute.

The movie holds you in thrall from first frame to last. Hatred is hatred unslaked. So is racism, ugliness, love, lust and sorrow.

A mature human farce that values characters' foibles over their firearms.

Like the mysterious, bound package Goodman gives Turturro (the contents are never revealed), the Coens isolate a small area of interest, bind it with psycho-atmospheric finesse, then wait for something significant to emerge. Even after a second viewing of this movie, it doesn't.

But even though Marcos, in this film, provides enough material for a few hundred giggles and head-shakings, she also shows a pathetically human side.

Tough guys snarl at each other or dive out of the way before some explosion reduces their biceps to gymboy tuna. Van Damme still talks like a Belgian choirboy. But he’s physically awesome, of course. He can do things with his body that it hurts to even contemplate. If nature intended for men to do the splits or high kicks, boxer shorts would not have been invented. As for Rourke, I am convinced he’s made entirely of leather. He is essentially a boxing glove with a heartbeat.

More interesting for the world it evokes rather than the drama that unfolds.

Steers refreshingly clear of the usual cliches. Character takes the wheel and dictates the action, not the other way around.

A devilishly, hysterically, cacklingly, subversively funny picture that builds and builds until it literally self-destructs.

That the actor performs so effortlessly, so casually, is the real magic here. You forget about technique, and, best of all, you forget you're watching a black-and-white subtitled French movie from the dusty past.

It's painstakingly paced, but it's also entrancing.

Movie is over-the-top but enjoyable entertainment.

The scenes unfold with such unhurried delicacy, and the characters are so intriguing, you can ignore the editorial bluntness and savor the smaller, sweeter details.

As a Coen brothers fan I hate to say this, but the movie's a collection of great bits and pieces rather than a complete work.

This is exactly the kind of weird, sardonic texture the movie is aiming for - and unfortunately, most of it occurs in the first half of the story.

What makes director Roger Donaldson's movie greater than zany heist fare is that this particular robbery really happened and that this episode illuminated an almost moral clash between the haves and the have-nots of Great Britain.

Vaughn can motormouth like a machine gun, spraying men, women and children with manic, rat-a-tat outbursts of toxic insincerity. It's often dirty, yes. But it's also manic and inspired.

Serves as a fascinating exploration of racial and social prejudice; and an indictment of cultural miscegenation.

The Rookie is like one of those maddening, waking dreams when you spend the whole night thrashing in bed while tediously repetitive images batter your racing brain. But at least morning comes. This movie, directed by Eastwood, never ends.

It's the usual undisciplined, overextended Spike symphony: more fun than it is any good.

A thematically bleak yet subtly comic film.

As Benny (short for Bernadette), a big-boned, headstrong lass who strains winningly against the restrictions of family, religion and just plain growing up, [Driver's] a comedic breath of fresh air, easily the best thing about the movie.

Pleasant enough and its ecological, pro-wildlife sentiments are certainly welcome.

Based on a true story, the movie takes us through some harrowing times.

Reconfirms Tarantino's status as the master of pop cinema and puts a sense of excitement into the year. He has matched, if not eclipsed, the power and scope of 1994's "Pulp Fiction," though not its human charm.

McAvoy, so memorable as Idi Amin's doctor turned adviser in last year's "The Last King of Scotland," may be the most likable British newcomer since Ewan McGregor; his glistening eyes can seduce audiences with their ability to show conflicting emotions.

The reason for the film's success is simple. Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese and director Eastwood skirt most of novelist Robert James Waller's excesses.

Sad, sobering film.

A pleasure because of zany developments like this, and a healthy dose of amusing characters.

Far richer than you'd ever think possible.

Refreshingly free of the hyperbole of special effects...Ong-Bak will win no scriptwriting awards, but Jaa is definitely the real deal.

Even if the film is only moderately enjoyable, it can create a sort of exotic escapism.

Wittily scripted, engagingly sappy, completely implausible and unabashedly Capraesque, it's a rather wonderful crock.

Afterglow may not bestow Julie Christie with the hip imprimatur of a Travolta-style comeback. But the British actress coyly and elegantly updates the siren-ish presence she exuded in "Darling," "Far From the Madding Crowd," "Petulia," "The Go-Between" and even "Shampoo." [16Jan1998 Pg N.32]

A rambling disappointment.

It is a snapshot of a great actor in his prime and a chance for us to see one of yesteryear's great films in all its kingly luster.

To come out of the summer haze and enter the dark (and cool) wonder of Batman Returns is a pleasure not to be denied. Even more than before, this cartoon opera about cloistered personalities bathes exultantly in moody blues, gothic music swirls and a symphony of character tragedy.

A deft, entertaining story that mixes menace with charm and satire with seriousness.

Though the story line seems grim at times, it's always made lighter by Brodsky's gentle, often hilarious presence.

Shaolin Soccer is "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with soccer balls, a touch of Sergio Leone and not one microsecond of seriousness.

Davis, who won an Oscar for Best Documentary, may not have agreed with presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon on the war, but he heeded Johnson's call to fight for hearts and minds. His aim was dead on target.

Williams is hardly at his comically inventive best. And the script (adapted by Chris Van Allsburg, and a string of others, from his book) pursues the least exciting avenues possible.

O'Neal's performance, on the other hand, could incite angels to throw tomatoes from heaven. As the meek-and-noble reporter (who never seems to find time to file stories), he seems to be a confused Barry Lyndon, inexplicably whisked into this century and given a Georgetown lease, a ridiculous movie role and a byline. You get the feeling that, like this movie, his news stories need editing.

The movie’s main appeal—beyond stomach yearnings caused by its cuisine—comes from the actors, who infuse their archetypal roles with comedic appeal.

I could love it only as far as it let me. Although the movie has hilarious moments throughout, its thematic thinness is writ fairly large on the big screen.

Remember the peaceful atmosphere of bedtime storytelling? The kind that allows parent and child to take satisfaction in the story, not the teller? That's how "Charlotte" draws you into its web.

The movie does present solutions, including its urging of consumer demand for more accountability from restaurants and the building of marine reserves.

It's more of an urban fairy tale, a surprisingly charming story that -- in certain sections -- almost crystallizes into the sweetness of a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musical.

Unusual, unexpected and strangely refreshing. For this movie to have resorted to a familiar action-flick finish with everything explained, pressed and dry-cleaned would have rendered it banal.

A little too shopworn and pokey to be more than a respectable European diversion.

There isn't a dull or dumb moment in this movie.

There's a collective scintillation about its rich, distinctive characters, narrative serendipity and ineffable magic.

A touching documentary.

The scenes of destruction-apart from being great to watch-provide much-needed relief from these people's unidimensional banalities.

Where Avalon works, as with Diner and Tin Men, is where it's improvisory, comic and most artistically humble.

Extraordinarily poetic, suspenseful film.

Unabashed, streamlined entertainment, and you won't hate yourself in the morning for liking it.

The movie, however, is Pesci's. In that courtroom, he gets on a roll and stays rolling until the end. There's no one better with that New York-New Jersey corridor accent.

The words - taken directly from the book - are beautifully cast, but they encapsulate the emotions too conveniently.

Even at its least successful, Caro Diario is always watchable.

Even in his poorest work (i.e., this movie), director Jarmusch retains an appealing sense of experimentation. He fills his movies with those clumsy, unhurried moments between people. But in Night on Earth, with five vignettes to get through, he's forced to create faster, more sketchlike pieces. He's just not up to the task. Nor do performers Winona Ryder, Isaach De Bankole, Roberto Benigni and others pick up the improvisational ball.

In the end, the movie works because Grant and Roberts are disarming geniuses at playing themselves -- and then some.

Revenge was supposed to be the one that really socked it to us, about Anakin's almost biblical fall from grace. But the movie never rises to its powerful occasion.

The first 60 minutes of this black comedy are brilliantly sustained, but then director and co-writer de la Iglesia loses his way.

Straightforward but nonetheless powerful documentary.

The cast, all classically trained on the stage, is simply commanding.

The suspense and technical wizardry are the only reason to watch Jurassic Park. In a summer movie, that's more than enough, of course. But screenwriter Michael Crichton, adapting his popular novel with David Koepp, slashes almost everything that made the book an entertaining read.

Tracy is Tinseltown's annual celebration of everything that's wrong with itself: the hype, the agent-negotiated star system, the Hollywood "fun" assembly-line method of copy-cat mediocrity, etc.

In the end, what started off as playful becomes tedious.

One extended guilty pleasure.

A refreshingly tender treatment of love gone wrong -- we mean, for a movie that's got enough lowdown sexual content to start its own Kinsey Report.

A hilarious, inventive and goofy breath of fresh air.

If there's any moral to this sorry story, perhaps Lee's stealth-message is it: Even when it's not about race, it is.

Like President Kennedy, director Donaldson (who made "No Way Out," another pretty good Washington-seat-of-power thriller) has found a perfect balance of often-opposing forces: between recorded history and the demands of plain old entertainment.

You probably never dreamed a charming romantic movie could be staged against a backdrop of Scud attacks from Saddam Hussein.

There's something rather lovely about the mood and intentions of Michel Deville's French movie.

A Sidney Lumet movie is loose. It's a big vehicle, loaded with the usual artistic statement. But Running on Empty is coasting downhill fast.

Fluffily enjoyable.

Bridges can't be a whole movie. But he's the main reason to watch.

And if the movie's not particularly visual -- apart from the excerpted scenes from Fellini's extremely visual films -- it's entertaining for the ears. Fellini talks and talks. And like many directors, he talks a good life.

There's visceral horror, too, including a grisly image -- a horror-in-miniature involving a fingernail -- that located an open nerve in my jaded ability to endure screen violence.

A modern epic that fuses myth with hard-edged reality, it's a one-of-a-kind, thoroughly engaging experience.

We are amused. We are not sputtering into our teacups, but we are chortling lightly.

A potential cultural juggernaut.

Blaze turns out to be quite an amusing floor show, the kind of silly, factually irresponsible burlesque that makes you laugh in spite of yourself.

Obviously, this movie isn't for everyone. But if anyone can take a crossover audience through the gay terrain, it's Stafford. As Eric, his utter heart-stopping anticipation when he sits alone in a car with Rod, is palpable. Through his eyes, you can feel so much at stake here, not the least of which is his innocence.

Probably the most engaging Potter film of the series thus far.

The trouble is, since few characters are fully developed, it's hard to care who's doing what to whom and why.

There is enough "hit" material to make this fun. Delpy is such an infectiously appealing personality, she almost wills this movie to work.

The film's depicted cruelties (the rape and disembowelment of a woman, a pillow suffocation of a boy after Poelvoorde has chased the terrified tyke through the house) grossly overshadow their satiric purposes.

It's definitely NOT a conventional biopic about Kurt Cobain. (Nor, as its title oddly suggests, is it about the demise of writer-director Van Sant.) It's a tone poem, an elliptical, fictionalized meditation about the ill-fated rock 'n' roll superstar.

Although this movie shows Lin's promising moviemaking sensibilities, its point of view feels coldly amoral and dismissive.

Depp is a charm. He becomes his own, subtly compelling Barrie.

But for most audiences, this bittersweet family saga is going to feel like an ordeal.

Vietnam will do well on the strength of Williams' performance: He's Groucho in 'Nam, with his rapid-fire quips and cast of imaginary guests. But when it's time to mourn Cronauer's departure, after a final softball game with the locals and a farewell to buddies-in-arms, there isn't a wet eye in the house. [15 Jan 1988, p.N31]

Throws humorous fish bones to the older crowd, too.

Smells much more like real life than the immediate mating that occurs between expensive movie stars on Hollywood soundstages.

This movie is a mixed repast: good food and wine laced with enough misanthropic poison to turn any stomach.

There's a lot in this movie, simple, big, small and exciting. It's the year's first serious contender for big prizes. What's not to like about this picture?

Lilya's struggle to make a life for herself is both heartbreaking and heart-stirring.

FernGully is neither weighty nor whiny. It sings its message unobtrusively through -- and for -- the trees. And most importantly, it never forgets to be delightful, for children and their moviegoing guardians.

A special weapon unto itself. Spring-loaded with cockney esprit, it peppers its audience with aggressive, sarcastic grapeshot. That's English for "fun," by the way.

An edgy quasi-comedy, it's very funny in places, touching in others. There is a little unevenness. But for a directorial debut, it's amazingly assured.

A sweet movie that takes its time at first but soon takes you over.

Even though it sounds awfully depressing, there's something moving about watching people go at their lives with everything they have -- or don't have.

Ultimately, Brothers is a flashy, stylistic show of emptiness, intended to protest emptiness. But that's clear almost from the outset.

Unfortunately, the movie is likely to earn more money than praise. If it showcases him in all his glory, it also shows what little glory there is to celebrate.

Shows us how funny farce can be -- even with the hokiest of premises -- in the hands of the British.

It's been gunned before -- and so much better.

But if "Reality" is full of twentysomething Esperanto, it's perfectly understandable -- and enjoyable -- to anyone who speaks humor. While its age ceiling seems a little low at times (at least, for this old man), the comedy constantly breaks through. There's a rousing, engaging spirit on the loose, more than emphasized by 32 songs on the soundtrack. This is an MTV-era movie: If you don't get it, as they say of a certain newspaper, you don't get it.

There's a problem: This romance isn't developed enough to be truly satisfying -- it's fat-free SnackWell's when you want Godiva. It's not the original story we signed up for -- or thought we did.

Intriguing, oddly banal and ultimately deflating.

This handmade feel gives Zathura an appealing, childlike sense of wonder, an element too often forgotten in movies with many times the budget and technological resources.

Hedge is built for laughter rather than artistry; jokes are packed into every pixel. But despite the movie's entertaining qualities, there is something a little unsettling.

It's too short, and it doesn't delve deep enough. But it's thoroughly enjoyable.

The movie's a gas. Very funny, to a rather dark degree.

A darkly enjoyable roller-coaster ride -- Clooney and Kaufman deftly interweave the macabre with lightheartedness.

In The Russia House, an extremely pleasant but lightweight espionage drama set in the glasnost age, Connery brings that charisma to bear and, with co-star Michelle Pfeiffer's help, makes the movie work.

Even by the art film standards it apes, Solaris lacks conviction. And although it's meant to be restrained and free of emotional hysteria, the result is a movie that pretty much lies dead on the screen for an hour and a half.

Gets bogged down in sentimentality, while its wheels spin futilely in life-solving overdrive.

Flanders, which takes us from the rustic heartland of northern France to the killing fields of an unnamed foreign locale, has such a primitive poetry, we are moved even by its most gruesome moments.

At its best the movie displays a vital playfulness. But at its worst -- and there's far too much of that -- Alice continues Allen's endless, banal quest for the Big Answers. All, of course, at the mild-mannered elbow of Farrow.

Informative and entertaining.

The result isn't a fragmentary experience so much as an evocative collage.

It's a triumph of vile over content; mindless nihilism posing as hipness.

It telegraphs its emotions loud and clear, but somehow they don't reach us.

It's also genuinely moving to see disenfranchised individuals discovering self-determination from the hard ground up.

For fans of old-fashioned European filmmaking, this may have its pleasing qualities.

A crowd-pleasing combination of buoyant spirit and occasionally dark humor.

Isn't scintillating, but it's sort of embraceably funny.