Jonathan Rosenbaum

I don't much like movies about junkies...but this is easily the liveliest and most inventive I've seen since "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989).

The high-powered drive of both the storytelling and the music is riveting.

The movie overall may be routine, but Donner gives it some spark and polish.

The broad Italian family humor gets so thick at times that you could cut it with a bread knife.

It's gripping and provocative, making effective use of Charles Berling and the music of Sonic Youth, though I wish it were a little less indebted to David Cronenberg's "Videodrome."

Duke is a superb director of actors, and, as in "Deep Cover", Fishburne manages to suggest a lot with a deft economy of means.

Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith's script has its witty moments, and some of the secondary characters--such as Larry Miller as the father and Daryl "Chill" Mitchell as an irritable teacher--are every bit as quirky as the leads.

Absorbing and intelligent.

As storytelling it isn'’t always as clean as it might be, but this 1998 first feature by writer-director Lisa Cholodenko is an interesting debut for its nuanced sense of character and its terrific sex scenes--scenes that actually serve character development for a change.

Francis Coppola's stylish and heartfelt tribute to the innovative automobile designer Preston Thomas Tucker turns out to be one of his most personal and successful movies.

The portrait of Carter has been described as hagiography, but it isn't a stretch to view his quiet integrity as saintly next to the track records of his successors.

This 1955 example of kitchen-sink realism about the awakening love life of a Bronx butcher (Ernest Borgnine) and his shy girlfriend (Betsy Blair), directed by Delbert Mann, has never been popular with auteurists, but Paddy Chayevsky’s script, adapted from his own TV play, shows his flair for dialogue at its best, and the film manages to be touching, if minor.

The disparate themes never quite come together, but with many fine performances—John Turturro and Lonette McKee are especially good—you won't be bored for a minute.

This may have its occasional dull stretches, but in contrast to "Saving Private Ryan" it's the work of a grown-up with something to say about the meaning and consequences of war.

Its brutal take on living under totalitarian rule periodically suggests Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Mullan makes the authority figures (such as the nun played by Geraldine McEwan) grimly believable, but as in "Orphans," there are times when he doesn't know when to quit.

An entertainingly offbeat blend of 19th-century science fiction and Hope and Crosby Road comedies.

It's been a long time since I've seen a teen movie as lively, as unpredictable, as generous, and as tough-minded as this one.

Based on the real-life exploits of Frank W. Abagnale but played more for myth than believability.

Terry Gilliam's third fantasy feature (1989) may not achieve all it reaches for, but it goes beyond Time Bandits and Brazil in its play with space and time, and as a children's picture offers a fresh and exciting alternative to the Disney stranglehold on the market.

As adapted by Michael McDowell and scripted by Caroline Thompson, this 1993 release is at worst a macabre Muppet movie, at best an inspired jaunt. The set designs are ingenious and the songs (music and lyrics by Danny Elfman) are fairly good.

Fortunately, this time around the Ivy League characters project less of a glib sense of entitlement, making them more fun to watch, and Stillman himself gives more evidence of watching rather than simply listening.

It clocks in at over three hours, but Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic is gripping. The film rethinks the characters, turning the original's stark Jungian fantasy into a soulless but skillful set of kinetic and emotional effects.

What's most memorable about it is the period flavor, including a detailed and precise account of the jim crow complications blacks had to contend with.

Fortunately, the script by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow isn't half bad, and both Barry Levinson's direction and the performances are agreeably restrained.

Alternately superficial and profound, the film also enlists the services of Oja Kodar, Welles's principal collaborator after the late 60s, as actor, erotic spectacle, and cowriter, and briefer appearances by many other Welles cohorts. Michel Legrand supplied the wonderful score.

As long as Spacey is singing, the movie soars.

A movie to savor.

Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios join forces on an entertaining computer-generated, hyperrealist animation feature that's also in effect a toy catalog.