F. X. Feeney

We're afforded the illusion of an omniscience so complete as to mark a pioneering breakthrough in movie storytelling, one not to be missed.

The deeper strength of Smoke Signals rests on the sensitivity and truthfulness of Farmer’s performance as the ebullient, self-hating alcoholic father, and that of Irene Bedard as the young woman he knew in later life.

Byrne is a stand-up poet the way some actors are stand-up comics. His innate depth prompts The Usual Suspects to transcend its own cleverness--and this is the movie's smartest, least predictable surprise.

Above all, Oshima has fashioned a tale of men among men that feels familiar at first, then moves boldly into more enigmatic terrain.

Director John Dahl ("Red Rock West," "The Last Seduction") has a pronounced knack for snap reversals and out-of-the-blue shocks.

The film's discretion short-circuits any impulse we might have to regard Glennie as a handicapped person who has “overcome.” Instead, we're led to experience her life as she does - as an adventure in which setbacks are not challenges, but illuminations of untracked paths.

Moll ratchets his suspense with impressive mastery, wringing a maximum of excruciating terror out of the humblest everyday materials.

The alchemy of good acting under the pressure of sublime film sense makes for a miracle in the hearts of the audience.

Surprisingly moving -- prompting lumps in the throat over what was, after all, a historic moment of the most luminous hope.

Cleverly structured, fast-paced, funny, even moving.

This is the deepest of Jewison's three racially themed films, the other two being "In the Heat of the Night" and "A Soldier's Story."

Breakdown recalls so many good movies, in such unpredictable order, that by the end it simply stands on its own, a solid, logical, edge-of-the-seat sluiceway of escape and pursuit.

The fun is in getting there, and in the mechanics, charted by writer-director Francis Veber.

The Proposition is a very hard and harsh movie, but it also has a hypnotic, lyrical velocity. As Arthur, Huston exudes dead charisma.

Whaley successfully balances his scenes on a knife-edge of tenderness and anger that was Truffaut's trademark.

Zhang's work is always worth watching, but this is the first of his films in which the sorrows are so heart-rending, its many comic moments so laugh-out-loud human.

Cox's own directorial style is innocent, in the sense of being original without ever straining for effect.

Here, the volcanic villain behaves like a smart terrorist, taking over almost immediately and holding a collection of excellent actors (Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Don Cheadle) hostage for two hours of "real time."

Overall, Whitely's debut film may just fill you with an unexpectedly deep elation.

Yet Waiting for Guffman is never mean-spirited. Its weird warmth is perfectly embodied by Guest himself, whose flamboyant, stagestruck choreographer, Corky St. Clair, could have (in less ingenious hands) been a cruel, gay-bashing caricature, but instead becomes a hallucinatory Everyman.

Penn's own gifts as an actor seem, in turn, to bring out the best in Nicholson, as well as the rest of the cast.

Everyone plays their role (and the roles within their roles) to perfection, and writer-director Mamet keeps us guessing what's what and who's who right up until the final minute.

Has such perfect pitch in small matters that, as it builds, it proves no less capable in tackling bigger issues--and what begin as chuckles become deep belly laughs.

Nearly three and a half hours in length, but owing to its freedom of movement, the film feels weightless.

What makes Sunshine unique, what rewards a first viewing and lives in the mind long thereafter, is that Szabo has attempted to place Judaism and Christianity on a continuum that is both historically truthful and highly personal.

Funny and light, all the more potent for seeming so effortless.

eXistenZ gives us Cronenberg at his wittiest, and Leigh at her most vulnerable and fascinating.

(Herzog's) tribute to Kinski doubles as a life-affirming monument to creation in all its variety.