Jonathan Rosenbaum

Much of this is hilarious as long as one can stay sufficiently removed from the realities of Siamese twins.

Some of the results ring false, but the memorable theme song and some equally memorable character acting (by Thomas Mitchell and Lon Chaney Jr. more than Lloyd Bridges and Katy Jurado) help things along.

Given the talent on board, there's an undeniable flair and effectiveness in certain scenes (such as Pacino dancing the tango with a stranger in a posh restaurant), but the meretricious calculation finally sticks in one's throat.

To Towne's credit, he's a thoughtful and conscientious romantic. He skillfully makes the two main characters a hot, volatile couple, deftly staging their courtship as if it were an erotic grudge match.

Neither the characters nor the events are exactly the same as those of the novel, but some of the same spirit comes across.

The overall effect is disturbing yet mesmerizing.

But the material is still powerful, and the offbeat story of the patients remains both engrossing and moving even after all this abridgment.

The film's storytelling and heartfelt pantheism are both impressive.

This is like a Ferris wheel--the ride's enjoyable but you've gone nowhere once it's over.

This isn't a visionary western like "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (2005), but in its own quiet way it delivers the goods.

Klapisch self-consciously throws fistfuls of quirky film style at us, as if he were Francois Truffaut, but his characters are still interesting and his party sequences are especially good.

For my money, this version doesn't match the Siegel film, though it's a lot scarier and more memorable than Kaufman's low-key, New Agey version.

Torturously dull.

Jay Craven's stilted adaptation of a novel by Howard Frank Mosher lacks the urgency, the poetry, or the feeling for period that might have brought the material to life, while the cast seems to be largely squandered.

Not really a Cassavetes movie, but worth seeing anyway.

Assisted by Gordon Willis's cinematography and John Houseman's performance as the demanding Professor Kingsfield, director James Bridges manages to do a fair job with the semihokey material.

For me the film creates more embarrassment than sympathy, but at least it's a kind of embarrassment that's instructive.

On a mindless exploitation level this is pretty good, but on other levels it seems to make promises that it fails to deliver on; none of the deaths carries any moral weight, and the climactic special-effects free-for-all tends to drown out all other interests.

Director Jonathan Kaplan clearly has a feel for the material, but he's at the mercy of a pedestrian script by David Arata and producer Adam Fields.

The late 300-pound transvestite Divine, John Waters’s most enduring muse, makes his/her first star entrance in this 1969 feature—the first Waters movie to play outside Baltimore—driving a 1959 Eldorado to the strains of “The Girl Can’t Help It.”

The power and reach of this undertaking are formidable.

The story's resolution isn't very satisfying, but I considered most of this movie time well spent.

Even though it's scripted by a woman (Kelly Masterson), this tale of buried family resentments rising to the surface as the brothers plot to rob their parents' jewelry store is concerned only with the guys, and it's marred by an uncharacteristically mannered performance by Albert Finney as the father.

Elliptical, full of subtle inner rhymes...and profoundly moving, this is the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since "Dr. Strangelove," as well as the most horrific; the first section alone accomplishes most of what "The Shining" failed to do.

This 1981 release is one of Brian De Palma's more interesting and better-made thrillers, though it's even more abjectly derivative than his Hitchcock imitations (borrowing mightily this time from Antonioni's Blowup, as the title suggests).

As usual, Lee tries many kinds of stylistic effects and uses wall-to-wall music (by Aaron Copland and Public Enemy); what’s different this time is how personally driven the story feels.

The whole thing's so worthy that I wish I liked it more. It makes time pass agreeably, but Square John still seems about as innocent of fresh ideas (aesthetically and otherwise) as most of his characters, and for this kind of leftist multiplot I found his "City of Hope" more engaging.

Just about everyone in this sharp, passionate feature is chillingly good.