Jonathan Rosenbaum

Breillat may be serious about creating period ambience, but she also can't resist patterning her heroine after Marlene Dietrich's Concha in "The Devil Is a Woman" (even though Argento sometimes suggests Maria Montez in the pleasure she takes in her own company).

Guy Maddin has reached a new expressive plateau with The Saddest Music in the World.

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

A quantum leap in ambition from "Hard Eight" and "Boogie Nights" and is, to my mind, much more interesting.

Miraculously, De Niro and Grodin turn this sow's ear into a plausible vehicle for a buddy movie, and thanks to both of them, this movie springs to life.

One could have plenty of quarrels with this as an adaptation of the Herman Melville novel, but it’s still one of the better John Huston films of the 50s.

Not always successful, but packed with energy and a lively Oscar-winning performance by Burstyn.

Wong uses his brief evocations of the future mainly as a way of poetically lamenting the past.

This meticulous but ultimately rather pedestrian drama gradually won me over as a minor if watchable example of the "victory through defeat" brand of military heroism that John Ford specialized in.

The style is so eclectic that it may take some getting used to, but Van Sant, working from his own story for the first time, brings such lyrical focus to his characters and his poetry that almost everything works.

Lots can be said for The Aviator as entertainment, though not much for it as edification.

Initially this seems naive and archaic, but it conceals a Buñuelian stinger in its tail.

A grand-style, idiosyncratic war epic, with wonderful poetic ideas, intense emotions, and haunting images rich in metaphysical portent.

But with all due respect to Smith, the movie--a performance piece with an unbelievable bare-bones plot--belongs to Kevin James.

The tragic tale that emerges is full of powerful lessons and impenetrable mysteries

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.

This curious ecological parable was directed by George Miller (Babe: Pig in the City), who still has an eye and a sense of humor but on this particular outing can't get the script he wrote with three others to make much sense.

Fascinating documentary.

This is a good, solid, intelligent drama about the ambiguities of what does and doesn't constitute courage under fire

A very curious and eclectic piece of work--fresh even when it's awkward.

None of the characters or ideas is allowed to develop beyond its cardboard profile.

It still holds up as splashy fun of a sort, if you can handle its sexual politics and its depictions of Native Americans.

This isn't always adept as storytelling, and Block's coming to terms with his own denseness occasionally tries one's patience, but he manages to make the overall process of his reeducation fascinating and compelling.

Misogynistic claptrap about a divorced husband (Dustin Hoffman) fighting for the custody of and learning to cope with his little boy (Justin Henry) - a movie whose classy trimmings (including Nestor Almendros's cinematography) persuaded audiences to regard writer-director Robert Benton as a subtle art-house director.

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

Not only Waters's best movie, but a crossover gesture that expands his appeal without compromising his vision one iota; Ricki Lake as the hefty young heroine is especially delightful.

The movie has some of the braggadocio of its white-trash hero, building to its competitive climax as if it were a gladiatorial sporting event, and it carried me all the way.

At once upsetting and highly involving, it packs an undeniable punch.