Jonathan Rosenbaum

Though Hanks keeps the satirical and critical aspects of this look at show biz fairly light, there's a lot of conviction and savvy behind the steadiness of his gaze, and his economy in evoking the flavor of the period at the beginning of the picture is priceless.

Among the pleasures to be found here are some amusing sidelong glances at how movies get made and the singing talent of Streep as well as MacLaine. There's not much depth here, but Nichols does a fine job with the surface effects, and the wisecracks keep coming.

Ridiculous enough to be hilarious, but this didn't prevent me from thoroughly enjoying Philip Kaufman's silly romp.

This is why movies were invented.

A few plot details strain credibility, but the characters (particularly the friend's sister and little boy) are persuasively depicted.

A nicely shaped script by Chicagoans Rick Shaughnessy and Brian Kalata makes this independent comedy drama a pleasure to watch.

Carrey's attempted self-immolation in a men's room, which weirdly recalls certain Fred Astaire routines, may be a small classic.

The characters (both animal and human) are solidly conceived, and the storytelling and visuals are expertly fashioned.

A worthy entry in the dystopian cycle of SF movies launched by "Blade Runner" (including "The Terminator" and "Robocop"), this seems less derivative than most of its predecessors yet equally accomplished in its straight-ahead storytelling, with plenty of provocative satiric undertones and scenic details.

More than an interesting curiosity, it's one of Losey's best English efforts, and Viveca Lindfors contributes a striking part as an eccentric sculptress.

Spirited, quintessential, and often hilarious.

Provocative and entertaining.

The wonderful Richard Farnsworth plays the lead, and he was clearly born for the part...a highly affecting and suggestive spiritual odyssey.

I was wooed by its sexy romanticism all the way through to the mysterious and beautiful coda.

Leo McCarey’s 1957 remake of his 1939 masterpiece Love Affair, coscripted with Delmer Daves and shot in color and ‘Scope, is his last great film—a tearjerker with comic interludes and cosmic undertones that fully earns both its tears and its laughs, despite some kitschy notions about art and a couple of truly dreadful sequences.

Aside from one slow-motion sequence, the film treats its subject with few commercial concessions, so one hopes that the horrible and decidedly unmemorable title won’t keep people away; this may be the best movie about disaffected youth since River’s Edge and Pump Up the Volume.

An entertaining comedy-thriller directed with bounce (if not much nuance) by Barry Sonnenfeld.

This is a fairly accomplished first feature -perky, visually inventive, and unusually nast

Doesn't succeed in everything it sets out to do, which is a lot. But as a statement about the death rattle of 60s counterculture it's both thoughtful and affecting, and Daniel Day-Lewis is mesmerizing.

"Sweetie" and "An Angel at My Table" have taught us to expect startling as well as beautiful things from Jane Campion, and this assured and provocative third feature offers yet another lush parable--albeit a bit more calculated and commercially minded--about the perils and paradoxes of female self-expression.

Many reviews have suggested that this is as politically mild as a John Sayles movie, but Linklater clearly agrees with the frustrated kid who says, "Right now, I can't think of anything more patriotic than violating the Patriot Act."

Hysterically hyperbolic and unpleasant if still witty dissection of family traumas.

Not even the crude ethnic humor--Billy Crystal's Mel Brooks-ish Miracle Max--pricks the dream bubble, and the spirited cast has a field day.

This taut thriller adds so many twists of its own it might be more appropriately cross-referenced with The Manchurian Candidate, even though it isn't nearly as daffy or as mercurial.

Still about as good as Allen gets, a persuasive, nuanced, and relatively graceful portrait of an egotistical yet talented jazz guitarist of the swing era, astutely played by Sean Penn.

An adroit piece of storytelling from Irish writer-director Neil Jordan that's ultimately less challenging to conventional notions about race and sexuality than it may at first seem... The three leads are first-rate.

McDormand has never been better, but all the performances are interestingly nuanced, including Natascha McElhone's as one of Bale's fellow psychiatric interns.

In short, I never quite believed the story, but this movie is more about feeling than thinking.