J. Hoberman

Mesmerizingly bad filmmaking.

Best appreciated as hilarious pulp metaphor, which, not coincidentally, happens to be one of the screenwriter's specialties.

Neil LaBute on his worst day couldn't devise a scenario so primitive in its psychology and predictable in its sense of sin.

It's obvious that Amer and Usman labor under the burden of making humor at once insider-cool and outsider-friendly. And it's hard to finesse "offensive" from a defensive crouch.

Afterschool, the almost frighteningly accomplished first feature made by Antonio Campos when he was 24, is high school as horror show.

Daniel Karslake's movie is more human interest than agitprop.

The movie is an absorbing series of one-on-ones. Local courtroom protocol is based on the British system; the law itself appears to be a complicated combination of tribal tradition, Muslim sharia, and government statutes.

Ari Folman's broodingly original Waltz With Bashir -- one of the highlights of the last New York Film Festival -- is a documentary that seems only possible, not to mention bearable, as an animated feature.

For writer-director Coppola, Tetro is a cri de coeur, one more from the heart.

Zhang Yimou's impeccably crafted, all-star martial arts extravaganza, is the essence of shallow gravitas.

World Trade Center is Stone's rehabilitation. It's not just courage that's honored, it's God's Will. It isn't only men who are saved, it's their families -- and their family values.

Like "Chuck & Buck," The Good Girl is a droll, well-acted, character-driven comedy with unexpected deposits of feeling.

Even sillier than it is cynical, Drop Dead Gorgeous is a tiresome tale.

A bit of a slog at 205 minutes, World on a Wire builds up to a satisfyingly nutty finale.

Girl 6, the goofy phone-sex comedy that he directed from Suzan-Lori Parks's script, may be incoherent, but it's never boring. Juggling a dozen or more subplots and letting them drop wherever they fall, the movie gives the impression of having been invented as Lee went along. [26 Mar 1996]

Delicatessen may be junk food, but it's served with the discretion of nouvelle cuisine. [07 Apr 1992]

A fierce dance of destruction. Its flame-like, roiling black-and-white inspires trembling and gratitude.

It can feel a bit slight and, given the epic sweep of its subject's life, somewhat underplotted. But there's no denying the incendiary power of Ramos's performance -- he's present in nearly every scene. The movie is as much the story of his transformation into Madame Satã as it is João Francisco's.

Wong is sensationally expressive and projects a modern, coolly appraising sexuality. Visually eloquent and often dazzling, the movie is no less terrific. Piccadilly is both evidence of silent cinema at its rudely aborted peak and Wong's frustrated potential to have been among its greatest stars.

What's surprising is the atmosphere of sweet reason--elatively speaking--that distinguishes Kill Bill Vol. 2 from its bloody precursor.

Psychologically rich, unobtrusively minimalist, at once admirably straightforward and slyly comic, Catherine Breillat's Bluebeard is a lucid retelling and simultaneous explanation of Charles Perrault's nastiest, most un-Disneyfiable nursery story.

Opens cute and poignant, turns wildly visceral, and ends in a burst of magical realism.

A veteran of Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, the deadpan Harper puts her training to good use, gracefully eluding the attacking furniture and skillfully dodging the imploding set, as she flees—arms protectively crossed before her face—out into the night.

Painless -- not particularly funny and not even remotely moving.

Malick's long, moody, diaphanous account of love and loss in 17th-century Jamestown--shot, more or less, on location--rarely achieves the symphonic grandeur it seeks. As an epic, it's monumentally slight.

The movie is a superb riff with a boffo finale, a terrific, cynical punch line, and a crazy closing image of Bob's Plymouth on an empty beach.

This is Oliver Stone country, but Broomfield's self-effacing affect is more Woody Allen,

Stylish, funny, and smart...but only up to a point.