Jonathan Rosenbaum

Cunningly scripted and acted, and talky in the best sense, the film is engrossing to watch but not especially interesting to ponder afterward; it's certainly an improvement on formulaic Hollywood, but on a thematic level there's still more windup than delivery.

The movie overextends a patch of folk mysticism toward the end and then adds a silly whimsical coda, but as a comedy of errors it's often hilarious.

Thanks to a remarkable script by Bruce Joel Rubin and the directorial skills of Adrian Lyne, this works as both a highly effective stream-of-consciousness puzzle thriller offering the viewer not one but many "solutions" and an emotionally persuasive statement about the plight of many American vets who fought in Vietnam.

To my taste the only serious distraction and ethical lapse is Gibney's sarcastic, cheap-shot use of popular songs like "That Old Black Magic," "Love for Sale," and "God Bless the Child" to underscore certain points; it seems almost to celebrate the shamelessness of the creeps being exposed.

Just when I'm ready to write off the mockumentary as an exhausted form, along comes this delightful and hilarious improv comedy from the UK in which a bridal magazine sets up a promotional contest for the best offbeat wedding.

But the acting's so good it frequently transcends the simplicities of the script, and whenever Day-Lewis or Postlethwaite is on-screen the movie crackles.

If you decide at the outset that this needn't have any recognizable relationship to the world we live in, you might even find it an unadulterated delight.

One of Penn's best features; his direction of actors is sensitive and purposeful throughout.

This comedy drama is an exercise in self-indulgence for O'Toole, but an enjoyable and touching one.

Thanks to a natural and highly charismatic performance by Judd, Ruby in Paradise has a graceful lyricism--as well as a complex sense of what living in today's world is like--that will stay with you; the tempo is slow and dreamy, but the flavor is rich, and it lasts.

Whatever else it may or may not be, Primary Colors is first and last a mainstream Hollywood entertainment. And that means that viewers looking for engagement with political issues are bound to be disappointed.

A powerful piece of social protest, skillfully written, directed, and acted...Hilary Swank as Brandon and Chloe Sevigny as his girlfriend Lana are especially fine.

For better and for worse, it's still a Hollywood movie (and a white boys' movie to boot), but one with a more alert eye and feeling for American life than most of its competitors.

Unlike the classic noirs, this is grounded in neither a recognizable social reality nor a metaphysical sense of doom--just a lot of sexy attitude, humping, and heavy breathing.

This is almost as close to neorealism as to noir—the details of working-class city life are especially fine.

The movie is dominated by Maddin's usual black-and-white photography, silent-movie syntax, and deadpan melodrama.

A touching Fred Zinnemann movie (1960) about an Australian sheepherding family.

Charting the ruthlessness of an ambitious bimbo telecaster in Little Hope, New Hampshire, this staccato black comedy sustains its brilliant exposition and narration until the plot turns to premeditated murder, complete with hapless and semicoherent teenage accomplices.

There's an undeniable formal elegance in the way Ferrara, who coauthored the script with Zoe Lund, frames and holds certain shots, and Keitel certainly gives his all in this 1992 entry in the Raging Bull redemptive sweepstakes.

Especially interesting are the complex relations among the residents of the ghetto.

Woody Allen's welcome return to straight-ahead entertainment, after 15 years of slogging through art-house hand-me-downs, happily coincided with a return to Diane Keaton as his leading lady, and she deftly steals the show.

This is smooth and at times even sensual -- a well-oiled machine.

The film seems a bit studied, but the creepy plot still holds a certain fascination.

Matthew Robbins acquits himself honorably as cowriter and director of this gentle 1987 fantasy about miniature spaceships that land on a tenement in Manhattan's Lower East Side and save the tenants from imminent expulsion and disaster at the hands of greedy real estate developers.

A powerful Christian parable, painful but illuminating, about crime and redemption.

There aren't many movies that deal with middle-aged women, and this one manages to do so with a fair amount of wit and heart.

This impressive first feature by Jill Sprecher, coscripting with her sister Karen, shows that she has an eye and ear all her own.

The film's warmth and sympathy are underlined by some intelligence.