G. Allen Johnson

Excited with the possibilities of the relatively young film medium, Russia's Dziga Vertov took to the streets of Moscow, Odessa and Kiev to give us a portrait of an ever-changing world that is more essay than documentary. It's a 1929 silent film that added its punctuation in the lab - jump cuts, dissolves, split screens, etc. - to create an indelible work in cinema history. [13 Apr 2017, p.E8]

Classic in feel and loaded with sumptuous performances.

Perhaps a bit miscast, and with a penchant for too many double-takes, Perry nonetheless is game.

It is an important work, and a very good one.

What could have been an insightful, irresistible movie is instead a simple, self-contained fable, pleasing to look at but meaningless

A work at once detached and thrillingly intense, an experience where intellectualizing turns to a raw emotion so overwhelming, unexpected in its power, that you sit in your seat as the end credits roll, unable to move.

Playtime is sharp and colorful, and visually makes quite an impression.

A warm-hearted valentine to old traditions in China that are being obliterated by modern - and admittedly more efficient - technology.

A demanding, rewarding (if overlong) and - yes - a personally felt experience.

Kurosawa pulled out all the stops with Ran, his obsession with loyalty and his love of expressionistic film techniques allowed to roam freely.

SORRY, SALLY. I didn't like it. I really didn't like it.

Like sitting on the beach under a cozy, warm afternoon sun. The view is beautiful, but not much is happening and soon you drift peacefully to sleep.

You would think Towne would identify closely with a big young talent who flames out too early. But when Pre turns to Mary and says, "I can endure more pain than anyone I ever met," it seems forced, empty. Towne just doesn't capture his subject.

Cause for celebration. It's not only a cracking good film, but it is the first by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien to gain a national (though limited) release.

It's simply terrible.

No amount of excellent period costuming and brilliant set decoration can substitute for a good story and decent acting.

An idiosyncratic, oddball movie that is funny and moody.

De Sica has to be considered one of the great directors of children, and the film, which won the first Academy Award for best foreign film and has been championed by Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese, is as valuable for its location shooting as its storytelling. [03 Jul 2011, p.P22]

Spoof both of P.I.s and independent filmmakers is languidly paced and not very funny.

Misses some creative opportunities to really drive this story home, but it's a naturally haunting story nonetheless.

About as warm, pleasing and inviting as a film about divorce, infidelity and terminal cancer can be.

It's a more intelligent and dimensional epic than, say, "Anna and the King." Emperor is worth every single penny.

Kiarostami's genius is elusive. His films may be unknowable, but they are undeniably hypnotic, charismatic.

Not much of a plot, but the trouble is that Shana Larsen's script, as directed by Risa Bramon Garcia, isn't very deep. Worse, none of the self-absorbed characters are that likable nor are they funny.

The weird thing about the films David Mamet has directed is that they have about as much emotion as a cyborg in a science fiction movie, yet by the end of the picture it isn't necessary; by then the audience has supplied their own.

The effect is riveting and frightening. You feel you are under siege with the combatants.

Quickly degenerates into a grueling piece of unpleasantness.

POSITIVE vibes aside, Down in the Delta is fairly simple stuff, with acting that at times sinks to the dialogue-of-agreement level of those after-school specials a network used to run a while back. But it will go down in history as the first film to be directed by Maya Angelou, and it isn't a bad one at that.