Jonathan Foreman

The pace slackens a little after the first hour, but the photography by Remi Adefarasin and music by Magnus Fiennes keep the emotion stoked.

Often darkly funny and very well acted, it's a pleasingly subtle, Hitchockian thriller with dark comic overtones.

Fascinating, beautifully photographed portrait of a vanished community.

Doesn't have the emotional heft of his "Children of Paradise," but it's still moving.

A wonderfully acted, strangely low-key prison movie.

A quietly compelling documentary that is refreshing in both form and content.

Comes closer to what a Bond movie should be and once was.

Oddly undramatic.

Bleak, demanding stuff, and its hand-held documentary-style photography is harder on the stomach than "The Blair Witch Project."

It is often as powerful as it is elegantly shot. Unfortunately, Szabo tends to tell this rather predictable tale in an obvious yet uneven way.

Audiences may find that the deliberate, Kubrickesque pacing -- without his intellectual rigor -- causes them to tune out.

A gleefully cunning comedy.

This film of mistaken identity, murder, class envy and (bi)sexual tension doesn't live up to its own promise.

Cinematographer Darius Khonji does a superb job of conveying both the sensual beauty (there's a spectacular moonlight-on-the-water sex scene with Leo and the lovely Ledoyen), and the darkness of Richard's paradise lost.

Generally delightful, and reminiscent of two vanished ages: when men were men, and when movies were movies.

Surprisingly smart and satisfying.

Greengrass' direction is uninspired, but there is powerful chemistry between a workmanlike Branagh and (real-life girlfriend) Bonham Carter. And her original, seductive and always believable turn as the difficult-but-lovable Jane raises the movie above all its flaws. [23 Dec. 1998, p.44]

I was pleased by the forthright defense in Friendly Persuasion of Iranian cinema's use of children.

Beautifully shot and often moving.

Never less than breezily entertaining.

The sequel's battle scenes -- especially the climactic assault on the Helm's Deep fortress by the armies of darkness -- easily put those of the "Star Wars" series to shame.

So unsparingly honest in the way it treats human cruelty and resilience that it makes fashionably bleak films like "In the Company of Men" and even "Boys Don't Cry" seem unforgivably trite or exploitative.

It isn't particularly subtle or original. But it's a good-natured late-summer romp fueled by Lawrence's manic shtick.

This brisk, British-American co-production is one of the better political/historical documentaries to come out in some time.

The film is worth seeing for George Clooney's performance. More than ever he seems like a Clark Gable for our time.

It's a funny and occasionally poignant movie.

All of the characters in this story of love, guilt and redemption feel like real people, facing real dilemmas, and you truly care about what happens to them

One of those rare recent films whose emotional power resonates long after you've left the theater.