Edward Guthmann

A dark, unsettling drama from Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone.

It's not a bad film, but Towne and his star, the charismatic Billy Crudup, never fire the imagination in the way their inspirational, respectful biopic is obviously intended to.

Crowe and his movie leave you with a good and generous feeling. As the Matt Dillon character might say, it's a pretty good hang. [18 Sept 1992, p.C1]

It's a simple story, reminiscent of the Iranian film "The Wind Will Carry Us."

The story of an elaborate con game and the wholesale betrayal of an innocent man, it's also an unusually cold film that ends with a feeling of hollow soullessness.

Could use more background and personal detail on Rijker, but Bankowsky's tight, no- frills approach is always compelling.

It's the versatile Miranda Richardson (the terrorist in ''The Crying Game,'' the repressed housewife in ''Enchanted April'') who gets the juiciest scene. Shattered by the news of the affair, and by the tragedy it precipitates, she beats her face with a knotted towel, and then vents her rage on her foolish husband...It's one more triumph for an actress who has no trouble channeling a kind of supernatural intensity in her work. If anyone's looking for the perfect Lady Macbeth, they needn't look any further. [22 Jan 1993, p.D1]

When Ross gets serious and grasps for allegorical import, Pleasantville bogs down in mixed ambitions.

It's a passionate, beautifully mounted film -- but the agenda she sets for herself is too large and the conflicts she portrays too complicated to be illustrated in a single drama.

Manhattan Murder Mystery is splendid good fun, and especially gratifying for those of us who've missed the harmonious Allen-Keaton combo. [20 Aug 1993, p.C1]

Burton has trouble sustaining the briskness of the first half. But the brilliance of many individual scenes, and the extraordinary performance by Landau, are more than enough to justify this goofy, tender ode to eccentricity. [7 October 1994, Daily Notebook, p.C1]

What Happened Was . . . isn't always easy to watch. Like a Beckett play, it doesn't spare its characters, but strips bare their insecurities, their fear of rejection, their essential isolation and foolishness. [07 Oct 1994, p.C3]

Sexual curiosity is a very dangerous thing in Rain, a dazzling mood piece from New Zealand filmmaker Christine Jeffs.

I think what I like best about Light Sleeper -- more than Dafoe's peculiar magic or Schrader's wise, sympathetic writing -- is the fact that it gives you so much to chew on. So many contemporary films seem to evaporate as soon as you walk out of the theater. Light Sleeper resonates. [04 Sep 1992, p.C1]

The best reason in years to reconsider (Woody Allen).

A showcase for Wang's greatest strengths as a film maker: a chance to explore friendships, connections and random serendipities.

The movie belongs to Rodriguez: A gorgeous woman with a powerful body and the face of an Aztec princess, she's also a natural talent who instinctively understands the importance of economy in good acting.

Rich with physical and psychological texture, and boosted by Thomas Newman's muted score, Unstrung Heroes is that rare mainstream film that doesn't shout in our ear to make its points. It draws us in, subtly and gracefully, and casts a lingering charm.

May provide a service by making gay issues innocuous and funny and more acceptable to a broader audience, but Rudnick's play-it-safe script and Frank Oz's antiseptic direction manage instead to trivialize the subject.

Grease isn't a four-star musical. It's fluffy and unimportant, and it gets tedious toward the end with the car-racing sequence that Kleiser staged in the paved-in-concrete Los Angeles River. The friskiness of the performers, the choreography by Patricia Birch and most of all Travolta's phenomenal charm give it its value.

A clever look at con artists and their games of deception.

Loose, buoyant and bracingly original.

van der Groen, described as "Belgium's national treasure," is especially terrific as Pauline.

Talky, emphatically unsteamy psychological drama.

Dark and beautifully directed melodrama about the strange intersection of racism and emotional need.

By far Elvis' best post-Army flick, and you can thank Ann-Margret for that distinction. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

A wonderfully twisted comedy.

The quality of acting in September, coupled with Idziak's images, warrant a visit.

Demonstrates, if nothing else, that there's a genuine person -- chastened by mistakes and more compassionate, perhaps, for all she's suffered -- beneath the war paint and the stardust.

A big, gorgeous, sprawling swashbuckler that delivers its diversions in grand, uncomplicated fashion.

Joyously unhinged and outrageously inventive.

They're great, every one of them, but the real joy of Little Voice is Horrocks: her impeccable evocation of a timid soul and that eerie voice that sounds so surprising coming out of her.

Nossiter's premise is good, and he intrigues us with stylish conceits, but he makes a crucial casting error. Alec ought to be someone we care about.

If they weren't so funny and real, and if Linklater hadn't done such a good job in writing their dialogue and casting them, their lack of ambition might seem depressing, and the movie might come off as some smug hymn to negativity. [9 Aug. 1991, p.F3]

Nicely performed by a quintet of actresses, but nonetheless it drags.

Jay and Claire are exquisitely played by Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox.

Gorgeous and optimistic.

A goofy genre-buster that takes its amateur criminals as seriously as ``Pulp Fiction'' or ``Run Lola Run'' did theirs.

One of the most impressive actor-to-filmmaker transitions in recent years.

In Sorkin's vision, this is what ought to happen when a political progressive occupies the White House -- provided he has principles, guts and more on his mind than voter-approval polls and re- election prospects.

Both halves of the film are exquisitely acted and written, both are emotionally true, and yet they don't quite fit together.

Heartfelt and passionate and brave in what it attempts to explore.

A sexy, mildly entertaining import.

It's Eric Bana, a popular Australian stand-up comic, who justifies our interest with a dazzling performance of blunt humor, unpredictability and an edge of menace.

In its sober, nonassertive way, Bopha! takes on the tone and weight of a Greek tragedy. [24 Sept 1993, p.C1]

A movie by a man who adores film and relishes its potential.

A mystical tale of two souls, joined in love but divided in society, seeking redemption and understanding before they pass to another plane.

I don't want to damn Holofcener's efforts with faint praise, but the best way to describe Walking and Talking is to say that it's pleasant and charming.

Manages to be affectionate without drawing too deeply from a well of sugar and schmaltz.

A wonderful, cockeyed sex comedy.

The photography is strong, the performances sympathetic and the sex plentiful.

One of the most effective thrillers in years, Attraction did an excellent job of mixing its suspense with trendy issues of sexual paranoia and monogamy. [27 Dec 1987, p.19]

Director- writer Oliver Parker saps much of the juice from Wilde, slows the pace and directs his actors in an inappropriately naturalistic style.

Edge of Seventeen is sweet and affectionate, but it also has "first effort" stamped all over it. Director David Moreton never made a feature before this, and has yet to learn how to compose a shot or block his actors.

It's one of the most violent, shocking and bitterly funny movies ever released. In terms of body count and graphic violence, it rivals ''Reservoir Dogs,'' ''Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'' or, going back several years, Sam Peckinpah's grisly ''Straw Dogs.'' But that's half the story: Man Bites Dog also has method in its mayhem. By spoofing the trashy ''reality TV'' phenomenon -- a soul-numbing entertainment form that's found even greater popularity in Europe than the United States -- the film exposes the desensitizing effects of television violence, and questions the extent to which the media not only feeds the public hunger for violence, but ultimately creates it. [15 Jan 1993, p.C9]

Stettner approaches this material with a playwright's incisiveness and structural sense. His dialogue is cutting, often surprising.

A bit of a soap opera, but still compulsive watching. [22 Aug 1999]

Any movie with Meryl Streep is an occasion, but when you add Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hume Cronyn and Gwen Verdon, you've got an embarrassment of riches.

Disarms with its sincerity and frankness.

Private Parts is witty and fast-paced and makes Stern's raunchy, breast-obsessed, lesbian-fetishizing, big-penis-envying, arrested-adolescent outlook seem like harmless fun.

The great thing about Reality Bites is that each of the characters comes across as real, and not some glib concoction by a screenwriter who's watched them from a cloistered distance. Childress obviously knows their world inside out, and shares it with insight and a prickly, original wit. [18 Feb 1994, p.C1]

The movie, directed and written by Gregory Nava ("My Family/Mi Familia"), is only so-so but Lopez, who appeared recently in "Jack'' and "Blood and Wine," is so vibrant that you almost forgive the movie's paint-by-numbers script and moldy formula.

Her direction is weak, her dialogue is cliched, and her acting lacks energy and focus.

A pleasant but conventional film.

It's that compelling sense of mystery, of the endless search and its undercurrent of loneliness, that sets this great filmmaker apart.

A compelling, sympathetic portrait.

Deliciously witty and entertaining… A first-rate thriller, one that's likely to generate as much word-of-mouth as “Alien,'' “Carrie'' and “Psycho'' did in their time. [23 Aug 1991, Daily Notebook, p.F1]

His (Seidl) camera is shocking in its intimacy, his film surprisingly casual in its depiction of extreme behavior and the randomness of violence.

A silly Hong Kong action flick from actor-turned-director Corey Yuen, fits nicely in the "bimbo fu" genre.