Kenneth Turan

Efficient and effective in Eastwood's experienced hands, Sully has interwoven a crisp and electric retelling of the story of the landing we know with a story we do not.

What My Country, My Country does best is show us that while both the Americans and the Iraqis care about the country's future, their cultural backgrounds and world views inevitably make them seem alien to each other.

Approaching the world in his own specific visual way, Geyrhalter also gravitates toward exploring big ideas, and here he takes on one of the biggest, an exploration of, as he puts it, “the wounds we are inflicting on the Earth.”

Assisted by a well-crafted script by the veteran William Goldman and a masterful performance by Anthony Hopkins, Hicks has turned two King short stories into a somber meditation on the dreams and frustrations of childhood and the ways the adult world makes its darker qualities known.

Both completely fascinating and intermittently frustrating; however, as with Fellini's own films, the downside is far outweighed by the pluses.

Thank You For Your Service is more effective, more disturbing than you may expect, and that is very much a good thing.

Has both bark and bite. Its low-key but sharp and amusing sense of humor is a nice fit with the frenetic world of competitive dog shows.

A brooding meditation on the unnerving power and terrible cost of emotional and political masquerades, the Chinese-language Lust, Caution gets under your skin with its examination of what qualifies as love and what does not.

Small, smart and inescapably independent, People Places Things has its own offbeat and charmingly low-key way of seeing the world.

Their (Kim Bartley and Donnacha Ó Briain ) remarkable true-life footage makes this 74-minute film as potent as behemoths twice its size.

The Usual Suspects is a maze that moviegoers will be happy to get lost in, a criminal roller coaster with twists so unsettling no choice exists but to hold on and go along for the ride.

This is a gentle comedy, both funny and melancholy, about a timid soul who discovers the necessity of embracing life in all its absurdity and unlooked-for joy.

An idiosyncratic, metaphysical meditation on tennis, cinema, human behavior, maybe even life itself, "Perfection" at times risks being too pleased with itself for its own good, but its one-of-a-kind credentials are never in doubt.

While Europa Report does quite well dramatically without breaking any new ground, its great strength is how striking it is visually and the stratagems it employs to make itself memorable.

Novitiate sure-handedly takes us inside the world of belief with care, concern and a piercing, discerning eye.

Energetically entertaining if a bit one-sided.

Even though it ends up falling off the tracks--maybe even because it falls off the tracks-- Homicide absolutely holds your interest with the passion that powerfully felt but ultimately screwy efforts often have.

What happens to Charley, the film posits, the bad and the good, is not so much the fault of specific individuals but of the indifferent dead ends built into America's despairing culture of the underclass. Your heart goes out to this striving, yearning young man, and that's a tribute to the fine filmmaking on display.

Even with its flaws, this latest Disney animated feature once again delivers what its audience wants.

It's a display of phenomenal dexterity and nimble grace that's a joy to watch. That, friends, is entertainment.

Maysles' portrait of Iris Apfel, a 93-year-old self-described "geriatric starlet," is surprisingly memorable, graced with an unforced but unmistakable charm.

Though the Meru climbing and outdoor footage is spectacular, it is the personal struggle of each of the climbers, and the candid way they talk about them on camera, that give this film its considerable impact.

No film with as many elements as Happy Feet is successful with all of them, and the romantic-emotional elements of this story feel overly familiar. But the music and dancing are fresh and new, and this strong an ecological message has not been seen since Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke."

Very much of a guilty pleasure. A nifty piece of teenage romantic piffle, it combines two strong and attractive performances.

The result is a compelling but chilling film, one that is inevitably disheartening and disturbing as it details both how Ailes came to understand the nature and power of fear and how he honed his craft until he could sell fear to his fellow citizens like it was going out of style.

Disturbing, infuriating yet undeniably effective, less a motion picture than an impassioned. [20 Dec 1991]

Interests us in ways we don't expect. It has a mordant sense of humor and a gift for character and incident that has attracted two of Australia's best actors -- Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths -- as well as an excellent supporting cast.

Though Holofcener's films invariably make us laugh in rueful recognition of the inane complexities of lives that manage to echo our own, "Steady Habits" also conveys a melancholy darkness, a more somber cast than usual. Everything seems amusing until suddenly it is not.

It's taken a dozen years for Eric Roth's smart, thoughtful, psychologically complicated script to reach the screen under Robert De Niro's careful and methodical direction, and it is easy to see why.

Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, like any old-school popular entertainment, contains sentimental moments and broad comedy as well as all that action. If you don’t already have the Ip Man habit, it’s a fine place to start.

Aside from the singing and dancing, it is the color and pageantry of India as filtered through the work of cinematographer Santosh Sivan that captivates us.

Willem Dafoe's performance in Shadow of the Vampire is so irresistible it not only breaks that cycle but turns an otherwise just adequate film into something everyone will want to take a look at.

A fascinating hybrid. A Hollywood fantasy at its most fantastic, the film is equal parts true innocence and shameless calculation. Deciding whether the glass is half empty or half full depends on which part you are willing to embrace.

An apocalyptic documentary that is as beautiful as it is damning.

In work that emphasizes the unstoppable power of a persuasive performance, Erivo not only convincingly conveys the strength of the celebrated abolitionist’s fierce personality, she creates her as a realistic, multi-sided character, a complex woman of formidable self-belief and not any kind of plaster saint.

Its nervy decision to cut as wide a swath as possible through one of the most exciting and meaningful periods of our history have created something that's impossible not to both applaud and enjoy.

The film never quite shakes its self-consciousness about just how special it is and that is a hindrance.

Overmatched by the strange and compelling true story that is its subject, this unfortunate film ends up both more disingenuous than it wants to admit and more awkward than it can easily acknowledge.

Sayles' films are always of interest, and even though the partly cloudy Sunshine State is not the writer-director at his best, even his letdowns often have more to offer than other people's successes.

It's fun to see this kind of familiar material done with intelligence and skill.

In the end, star charisma and Liman's style win us over and we relax into a sophisticated summertime diversion that is noticeably intended for adults.

Life's a Breeze is a small film with a considerable amount of charm. Comic and idiosyncratic, it takes a warmhearted view toward its protagonists while still seeing them for exactly who they are.

Beautifully put together, sensitively acted by Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue, directed by Mike Figgis with assurance and style and making exceptional use of its musical score, this doomed romance is finally not as satisfying as all of that would have you believe.

An engrossing, muckraking documentary about the retail giant that's been called "the world's largest, richest and probably meanest corporation." But if you're expecting an angry diatribe, you're going to be disappointed.

By refusing to be cheap or insincere, "Fly Away Home" allows us to enjoy our emotions without feeling we've been criminally manipulated. [13 Sep 1996, p.F1]

So though it takes important steps in that direction, the film pulls back from what seems to be its own logical conclusion.

At the end of the day, Bolt is a sweet Disney family film.

While Only the Brave is consistently involving and entertaining, that desire to be accurate about a heroic reality proves to be an at times awkward fit with the conventions of this kind of earnest and old-fashioned Hollywood film.

The less seriously the genial French comedy Populaire takes itself, the more amusing it is. Fortunately, with small exceptions, this film doesn't take itself very seriously at all.

Against considerable odds, Spider-Man: Homecoming finds its pace and rhythm by the end. Not only did figuring out how to become an effective Spider-Man require more of a learning curve than Parker anticipates, figuring out how to make a successful superhero movie mandated one for the filmmakers as well.

Stolen is about a puzzle that's resisted solution for more than 15 years, but that doesn't stop it from being a fascinating, adventurous documentary with a lively and eccentric cast of characters.

While it doesn't pay to think too hard about the plot, after four of these films, director Collet-Serra, shooting here on a 30-ton set put together from authentic discarded railroad scrap, is an expert, so to speak, at making this kind of train run on time.

The bane of documentaries on creative people is that they're often little more than a fan's note, of interest only to those who already know and love the work in question. The Universe of Keith Haring starts out that way but the force of the late artist's energy and personality is strong enough to win over the skeptics.

A genially twisted riff on the familiar alien invaders story, a lively summer entertainment that marries a deadpan sense of humor to the strangest creatures around.

Cinderella Man's key emotional moments feel as if they've been predigested for an audience that can't be trusted to feel things for itself but needs to be firmly albeit lovingly pointed in the appropriate direction.

Director Timur Bekmambetov has combined two things that never connected before. He's taken a glossy Hollywood-type fantasy thriller about the battle between supernatural forces of good and evil right here on planet Earth and infused it with a homegrown, distinctively Russian soul.

Shanley seems to have lost a certain amount of faith in what he'd written. As a director he's ended up pushing the drama harder than he needs to. He hasn't done anything fatal, but he has tampered with and hampered it.

The reality of intergenerational conflict is a given for Blinded by the Light, but nothing can stand up to the transformative power of the Boss. You can take that to the bank.

What happened to these men on that ascent is fascinating, though factors like differences in gear between 1924 and today means that definitively answering the question of how far Mallory climbed is not possible. Which seems, somehow, just as it ought to be.

Because a gradually thawing Will plays more to Grant's strengths, the second part of the film, helped as well by Rachel Weisz as a love interest, is much more fun. But it is still hard not to feel that this film is pushing us too hard, slickly trying to seem more honest than it actually is.

Has a great deal of the unapologetically broad and silly comedy.

While it's understandable that it was thought that Tess needed something more, that it couldn't go on merely being clever and fragile, this solution goes too far in the opposite direction. [11Mar1994 Pg. F9]

Israeli director Dani Menkin has been especially thorough in telling this classic against-all-odds sports story.

Stone is also a director who has often felt that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, and his weakness for bloody excesses of all sorts undermines much of his good work. You might not think that a motion picture called Savages could be too violent, too savage, but you would be wrong.

If you live and breathe Marvel, this is one of the MCU's stronger offerings. If you are a spy coming in from the cold, the answer is not so clear.

The resolution and strength of Wright's unimpeachable performance makes the whole story seem flesh-and-blood real in a way that it would not otherwise be.

This may not fit any conventional definition of entertainment, but it certainly keeps your eyes on the screen.

A warm and enthusiastic documentary.

Denial periodically plays like a standard-issue drama. But because Hare's script grapples with serious themes and singular events whose ramifications are still being felt, it is effective when it counts.

Ambitious and well-executed, The Apparition is a kind of ecclesiastical thriller. An involving and intelligent entertainment, if it ends up somewhat less than the sum of its parts, it's not for lack of attempting something different.

Though this film analysis has its interest, the most involving parts of “American Dharma” are not Bannon expounding on his political philosophy but his postmortem on the nuts and bolts of the successful campaign he helped run against Hillary Clinton.

For serenely rising above all the foolishness is Chan himself, a performer whose belief in broad and harmless fun gives his films a clear and present connection to the classic silent comedies to go along with its action fixation. For once a film's ad line has a whiff of truth about it: "No Fear. No Stuntman. No Equal." [23 Feb 1996, p.1]

You can see the stuff Million Dollar Arm throws at you from miles away, but that doesn't stop this baseball movie from being genially enjoyable.

Directed by Harold Ramis and starring Michael Keaton at his most satisfying, "Multiplicity" is the latest film to benefit from the unprecedented visual miracles that special effects can now produce. It is also one more example of a picture where technical inventiveness outstrips the pedestrian story line it's meant to animate. [17 July 1996, p.F1]

Despite its weaknesses, Changing Times ("Les Temps Qui Changent" in French) is always watchable and even poignant from time to time. What it is never going to be is the grand passion of anyone's moviegoing life.

While the result is inevitably middle of the road, it still manages to be the funniest picture Murphy has made in quite some time. [04 Dec 1992]

Nathaniel Kahn is very much a presence in this film, at times too much so. The title is properly read with the emphasis on the "my," and the work itself is a plea, understandable but disconcerting at times in its nakedness, to be linked irrevocably to his father.

Ray may be too by the numbers, but with Jamie Foxx out front, this is one film that knows how to make it all add up.

Given what it attempts, Time Out of Mind should be considered a success. An attempt to use a movie star to shine a dramatic light on the intractable problem of urban homelessness, the film's tone of austerity helps it to avoid sentimentality and simplistic answers.

A perfectly acceptable motion picture. The only thing that keeps it from even greater accomplishments may be inherent in the story itself.

Moore's scattershot is a lot more interesting than some filmmakers' focus, and many of those individual parts are classic.

Nominally about the life and career of landmark Southern California architectural photographer Julius Shulman, but it's more about the buildings he photographed than it is about him. Which is probably the way he'd like it.

One of the most successful, provocative and intensely contemporary of Israeli films, so much so that to watch it is to feel the country having a passionate argument with itself.

Audacious, bracing, uncommonly timely, Bob Roberts would seem almost impossible to pull off. So it is very much to Robbins' credit as a filmmaker that he manages to do so while rarely getting preachy and never neglecting the importance of movement and excitement in keeping an audience involved. [04 Sep 1992, p.F1]

The kind of shrewd, genial comedy it provides doesn't intend to break new ground, but its traditional satisfactions are so effectively done and so long in coming our way that to see it is to realize just how hungry we've been for this kind of old-fashioned treat.

Blends great cinematic energy with an awkwardly mixed multinational cast and aggressively over-modernized dialogue.

Téchiné is a restless director, a fastidious storyteller who is not interested in what less adventurous movies have to say about human relationships. He wants to dig deeper, even if the results aren't always clear.

This is not great filmmaking, but their story is so involving that it doesn't matter as much as it might.

By detailing the enormous pride in who they are and what they do that lacrosse instills in the Iroquois, it provides the kind of window into another culture’s belief system that sports films rarely attempt.

Perhaps the biggest bit of fakery involved is that for all its twistiness, The Good Liar’s plot, which can be more than a little frustrating, is as much of a liability as a benefit in a production where the characters turn out to be more involving than their story.

The young American actor (Derek Luke) gives such an intense, passionate performance as South African Patrick Chamusso that he just about dares you not to be involved with the tale he is telling.

Screenwriters Sigurdsson and Breidfjord are fiendishly good at imagining the complimentary ways things spiral out of control, and the actors are expert at making us believe in what the director accurately calls “a war film where home is the battlefield.” On another level, however, with situations so grotesque it is often an effort to laugh.

Effie Gray is fortunate to have enough strong performances by Fanning, Thompson and top-flight costars (including cameos by James Fox, Robbie Coltrane, Derek Jacobi and even Claudia Cardinale) to eventually overcome the doldrums of decorum and create the feeling we've been needing.

It may be by-the-numbers, but it knows that under the right circumstances those numbers can lead to a fair amount of fun.

A bit of a mess, but it is a genial mess, and one that will make you laugh. Which is the whole idea.

The best parts of "Elstree," not surprisingly, are the war stories these nine men and one woman share, their vivid memories of a shoot one calls "as primitive as it gets."

It's deftly done with an off-the-wall sense of humor joined to a real insider's sense of how the business operates.

There's a mystery at the heart of Sherlock Holmes, and it's not the one the great master of detection has been called on to solve. It's how a film that has so many good things going for it has turned out to be solid but not spectacular.

Slight but often seductive and so deliberately not in a hurry it periodically threatens to dissolve right in front of our eyes, Somewhere is more successful in creating ambience and visual imagery than it is in telling its story of a movie star bonding with his 11-year-old daughter.

Misunderstandings and hilarity ensue, as does a largeness of spirit that typifies Leisen's approach. [15 Nov 2012, p.D3]

A more effective, adult-friendly film than its predecessor.

The emphasis of Armstrong is to demonstrate that while its subject was not superhuman, he did have exactly the gifts and character the task demanded.

If you ignore the slicker aspects of the dialogue (and with a little effort you mostly can), it's satisfying to find a film that is as innocent and as much visual fun as this one is.

Life is efficiently constructed to unsettle audiences. It demonstrates both the pleasures and the limitations of doing a skillful job with familiar genre material.

With its indefinable, almost indescribable combination of whimsy, sentiment and strangeness, "Mood Indigo" (co-written by Gondry and Luc Bossi) will not be to all tastes at all times. But frame for frame, the amount of invention going on here can't be believed unless it's seen.

Essential to the success it manages is Hartnett's low-key, charismatic performance -- cool, withholding, compelling. The triumph of his insinuating Hugo/Iago is how plausible he is, how he manages to convincingly inject poison in so many minds without seeming to be trying.

Manages to evoke a complex series of reactions. It both frustrates with its unrelenting sentimentality and impresses with the overwhelming physicality of its combat sequences. These in turn are so powerful they take on a life of their own, sending a message that is probably quite opposite to the one the filmmakers intended.

Poetic and ambiguous, it manages to be magical in both the beautiful and terrifying senses of the word.

This amiable, old-fashioned film is no world-beater, but it underlines why, appearances with empty chairs excepted, it is always a pleasure to see this man on the screen.

Though Honeymoon in Vegas has one of his most accessible premises, Andrew Bergman has never been to everyone's taste and probably never will. He is something of a spritzer in the Mel Brooks mode, someone who spews out such a torrent of manic material that by definition not all of it is going to work. But in an age where screen comedy tends to fit snugly in a handful of pre-set synthetic molds, his all-natural craziness comes as a special treat. Especially if you like to laugh. [28 Aug 1992, p.F2]

Thunderheart, directed by Michael Apted, is a kind of spiritual thriller, a moderately diverting programmer in which a predictable shoot-'em-up plot is slickly intertwined with American Indian religious customs and beliefs. Though the film has a tendency to take itself too seriously, it is enlivened by some appealing acting and vivid camerawork that save it from the abyss.

Madagascar is a classical gas. It's a good-humored, pleasant confection that has all kinds of relaxed fun bringing computer-animated savvy to the old-fashioned world of Looney Tunes cartoons.

Wolf Children is rather an odd story, told in a one-of-a-kind style that feels equal parts sentimental, somber and strange.

A stunningly beautiful object offered in tribute to a holy man, a gorgeous film that is nevertheless burdened by the defects of its virtues. Careful and respectful, it is everything a movie about the Dalai Lama should be except dramatically involving.

Energized by Offerman and Clemons, the effectiveness of the music and the emotional freshness of "Hearts Beat Loud" are finally triumphant. Sometimes wearing your heart on your sleeve is the only way to go.

An involving portrait of what's called "one of the world's most powerful knowledge-producing institutions" and an examination on how that institution is coping with a significant financial crisis.

A recklessly emotional film that is so committed to feelings it occasionally overflows its banks. Which may be a little messy, but it's a lot more welcome than the drought-stricken alternatives.

Though Safe House may be too violent and nihilistic for everyone's taste, it does have several crackerjack action sequences.

The director, a strong technician whose slam-bang emphatic, occasionally operatic style seems made for comic book adaptations, has been well-served by an adept script co-written by Chris Terrio (an Oscar winner for Ben Affleck's "Argo") and David S. Goyer, which raises a number of interesting issues.

More successfully silly than non-Brady fans will expect.

There is a sense of sadness around Earth Days, a sense that opportunities were not capitalized on, that not enough was done.

Butterworth guides us through the world of chaos and romantic confusion he's created as if it's the most natural place in the world. After a while, we actually believe it is.

Trim and effective though Closed Circuit mostly is, it does fall prey to excessive contrivance from time to time, as most thrillers do. But the fact that its fictional premise dovetails nicely with what we've come to know is true is enough to hold us in our seats.

Made with care and respect, American Rhapsody manages to skirt the edge of excessive sentiment without falling victim to it.

An ambitious and provocative piece of work that is intriguingly balanced between being a warning and a celebration.

This lively and engaged documentary lives up to its name.

It's that the closeness with Dunne, as well as his complete familiarity with the boldface-names life she and her husband led in both Los Angeles and New York, has given this film a quality of personal intimacy that makes it moving and involving.

La Sagrada is always going to be a spectacular building, but cinematographer Patrick Lindenmaier does an especially fine job of showing us the play of light in the cathedral's enveloping interiors.

Helping to make these pleasantries funny is their spur-of-the-moment quality, the same quick spontaneity that characterizes chance remarks overheard at raucous movie houses. Capturing that bright and unexpected quality is what the MST3K crew does best. Too bad that's not all they do.

Fried Green Tomatoes is a folksy enigma, an ordinary film blessed with a number of out-of-the-ordinary performances. Not only does its plot deal in part with women stuck in unhappy circumstances, its very existence makes you wonder how its trapped actresses managed to make the best of a dramatically disheartening situation. [27 Dec 1991, p.F1]

It's a sad love story that's insightful at its core and indulgent around the edges, a film whose instincts are impeccable when focusing on that romance but less than compelling when it wanders elsewhere.

Numbing but not boring, it's finally more dispiriting than exhilarating, like a wild night of debauchery that leaves only a fearsome hangover for a souvenir.

More creepy and flesh-crawling than overwhelmingly gory, it nevertheless takes pride in characters who get splattered with blood as often as take-out fries get doused with catsup.

Zoo is a cool sensibility married to a hot topic, a poetic film about a forbidden, unsettling subject. Elegantly made and eerily lyrical, it deals with what director Robinson Devor has accurately called "the last taboo, the boundary of something comprehensible."

Because Ihlen was never the public figure that the often idolized Cohen was, “Words of Love” eventually becomes as much a documentary on him as a record of a relationship. But that relationship does have pride of place, and as described by the participants in vintage audio and by people who knew him in contemporary interviews, it does fascinate.

A gently humorous fable about the power of faith and the possibility of change, Ushpizin not only takes place in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, it was filmed with that media-shy group's cooperation and followed religious law at all times.

Top performances keep true-life mental ward tale Girl, Interrupted soaring, despite a script that frequently drifts into genre clichés.

This "Tristan" has its slightly silly moments, but rather like those fondly remembered epics of Hollywood past, its energy and entertainment value carry the day.

Funny as it is for a great deal of its length, Hot Shots! does, however, have its share of dull spots, and watching it inevitably makes one yearn for the good old days of "Airplane!"

Juiced to the max and drenched in style, this "Romeo," mad about its image-a-minute visual agenda, is sure to infuriate as much as it delights. But the film can't be bothered to slow down for your reaction, and it never forgets its duty to be alive on the screen. [1 Nov 1996, pg.F1]

For though it can't maintain its momentum all the way to the end, Sunshine until it stumbles is gratifyingly far from the usual space-opera stuff.

Ends up more challenging and intriguing than personally involving, and while these are far from small things, it is only human to hope for more.

It is the incendiary work of British actors Idris Elba and Naomie Harris as the couple in question that elevates our involvement in this authorized film version of Nelson Mandela's autobiography.

Energizing the entire film, in fact powering us past its more conventional aspects, is the compelling performance of veteran German actor Burghart Klaussner, who captures Bauer’s firebrand intensity exactly.

A sketchy trifle that is sporadically amusing but also off-putting around the edges.

With killing as an end in itself, combatants lose sight of what they were supposed to be taking up arms for in the first place. It's a terrible lesson, and one that Tae Guk Gi teaches with unexpected confidence.

For Liar Liar is marking time through the duller moments of exposition, wishing the film was as sharp overall as Carrey is himself.

Moore's concern about issues is genuine, and his showboating technique is often entertaining. But he is not the most organized person in the world, and there is a scattershot randomness about this film that is both its essence and a source of frustration.

Because Manville and Neeson are such potent performers, they are expert at playing out all the implications of what this experience is like.

Like the man himself, Floyd Norman: An Animated Life is genial on the surface but lets us go a little deeper into an unusual life than we might have expected.

There is genuine humor and palpable satiric intent underneath the waves of unnerving bad taste and political incorrectness.

It's an adult look at the teenage years, an examination of how personal emotions inform political action, a noteworthy change of pace for writer-director Sally Potter and, most of all, the showcase for a performance by Elle Fanning as Ginger that is little short of phenomenal.

Touch is not one of those movies that hurtles toward a slam-bang climax. A bemused gloss on the varieties of religious experience, it knows enough to take its time, making sure we enjoy ourselves along the way.

What raises this film to a more interesting level is that in addition to the food, each segment presents a personal drama that extends beyond the table.

The story it tells is such a wrenching one it cannot help but move us, especially when the performance of a lifetime by Don Cheadle is added to the mix.

Turns out to be an extremely likable vehicle with a genuine sense of fun.

Not only is Polanski very much in his comfort zone with this material, he also has cast it impressively, staying away from any of the actors who played the parts in either its London or New York productions and finding players who match up well with Carnage's juicy dialogue.

Front and center in all of this, though he clearly would rather not be, is Cunningham himself, a man of enormous good cheer who gets riled only when he fears his creative prerogatives are being infringed on.

One of the ironies of Casino is that even though Scorsese is interested in the story's wider implications, he focuses so much energy on that unsavory romantic triangle that he and the film lose sight of the larger issues.

The Optimists is filled with first-person testimony from Jews who were saved and non-Jews who saved them, people like Rubin Dimitrov, a baker who hid Jews in his ovens and says simply, "a true human being is obliged to help." As a rescued Jew says with emotion at the film's conclusion, "to be a Bulgarian is to be a mensch."

A nifty international thriller of the "what if?" variety.

Not particularly nuanced or fine-tuned, The Client, like its source material, is both gimmicky and involving, a fast-moving comic-book version of a comic-book novel. And while Schumacher has not been known as an actor's director, The Client is beefed up by a pair of satisfying star performances.

Eastwood, as always, has simply done things his own way, and the result is a leisurely old-school entertainment with a bit more edge than you may be expecting.

Though he has competition, especially from the folks playing the visiting royals, Murray is very much the reason to see "Hyde Park."

It takes a bit of doing, but when Tangled's core sweetness asserts itself and the film dares to wear its heart on its sleeve in a climactic scene featuring 46,000 paper lanterns, it's been worth the wait.

Helping to keep this ship from keeling over is the great professionalism and light touch of Deneuve and Depardieu. Costars numerous times, they go together as comfortably as an old pair of gloves. Potiche very much counts on this, and it has not miscalculated.

Succeeds as a full-bodied diversion because it takes even its silly elements seriously. If you're in the mood for impressive castles and sumptuous costumes, torch-lit processions and decorative nudity, this is the place to turn.

Dazzling and dizzying, confusing and even annoying, Velvet Goldmine is a feverish dream of a film, a riot of color and attitude that is all pop decadence, all night long.

An amusing mock documentary that spends considerable energy artfully trying to make you believe it's real as real can be. The movie is transparently a fake, but its counterfeit nature is the heart of its charm.

Elements of its plot have the standard quality of a Hallmark production, and the work of some of the film's costars is a bit too on the nose. But, with Moore and Stewart on the case, we feel the presence of something real here, something that can't be shrugged off or ignored.

Spider-Man may look like an action comic come to life, but its best feature is its romance comic heart. It's that rare cartoon movie in which the villain is less involving than the love story.

It may be unfair to ask a film like this not to be shamelessly manipulative, but wouldn't it be nice if audiences could be trusted to feel things more or less on their own without layers of unnecessary hokum entering the picture?

If the circus is a hierarchical pyramid, August is at the very top. It's a part tailor-made for the accomplished Waltz, an Oscar winner for "Inglourious Basterds," and he eats it alive.

Since Dior and I was made with the house's cooperation, the film is not exactly a slashing piece of investigative journalism, but it does give us glimpses of the reality of this kind of business.

With the former mayor currently enjoying one of the rare second acts in American political life, Giuliani Time does a strong job of reminding us what the first one was like.

Non-Stop is a crisp, efficient thriller that benefits greatly from the intangibles Neeson can be counted on to supply.

Chalamet is so good it’s worth seeing Beautiful Boy for his work alone.

Mightily impressive to look at. What it's like to listen to is somewhat different.

It focuses on how the best intentions toward humanity are not enough if an ability to actually get along with fellow human beings is not part of the mix.

The film is not without its problems, but its focus on the power of a mother-daughter bond and what can befall creative people when they no longer create generates considerable emotion by the close.

The Spanish Prisoner is the smoothest and most convincing of Mamet's elaborate charades and features intriguing performances by Steve Martin and Campbell Scott.

There's a certain pleasure in seeing a thriller that's almost a relic of a bygone era. There's nothing flashy about Blood Work, no in-your-face nihilism, no hot young actors you'd know from the WB network if you ever watched it.

At its best, A Borrowed Identity concerns itself with the malleability of self, with who we are and how society and culture can force identity choices on us.

Medem is one of the few directors who understands sensuality and knows how to make it happen on screen. Sex and Lucia specializes in pleasant eroticism, using nudity, Koko de la Rica's dreamy cinematography and Alberto Iglesias' Goya-winning score to create episodes of voluptuous lovemaking.

Michelle Pfeiffer is back, and her reappearance in Cheri, her best role in quite some time, underlines not only how much she's been missed but also how much the world of film has lost by her absence.

Returning to his roots after a stint in Hollywood, Woo has made the most expensive film in mainland Chinese history, a pleasantly traditional picture that marks a new direction for one of the world's premier action maestros.

A film as arresting and at times as frustrating as the Pistols themselves.

Dench is not the only reason to see this unapologetic crowd-pleaser, but she is the best one.

A tense thriller that also has more on its mind than the familiar genre constraints it operates under.

Even if some things have changed, spending time with an artist who's concerned, as he's said in interviews, with "the permanence of temporary objects and the temporality of permanent objects," is always worth the journey.

It's a loving and comic tribute to a musical era Allen knows well.

Part muckraking nonfiction film, part performance piece, it is a nervy documentary guaranteed, depending on who you are, to enlighten, disturb or offend. Which is what you might expect from a man who describes his work as "a strange mix of Borat and the Economist."

A genial look at what happens when a wannabe becomes a headliner, Rock Star only stumbles when it decides it has to deliver a lesson about What's Really Important.

Much to its credit, the documentary Deli Man wisely chooses not to bemoan the decline but to celebrate the robust survivors that remain as well as the culture they preserve.

Though placing the cheerleading Eckers front and center as key interview subjects gives their film a self-congratulatory, gee-whiz quality, "Outrageous" compensates by giving you a good sense of who Tucker was and how she got where she did.

An engaging documentary.

With power, intensity, remarkable range and an ability to disturb that is both unnerving and electric, it is more than Washington's most impressive part.

Though it's blessed with a strong subject and some memorable characters and situations, the drawback of this fitfully engaging documentary is that it can't settle on anything even close to a single theme or line of inquiry.

Too mannered and weird around the edges to be convincing.

Yet whenever you get too irritated at Fur's pretensions, the remarkable acting of its two stars pulls you back in and keeps you watching.

Myers has a singular talent for skit humor… You can get away with an awful lot of gross, juvenile humor if you've got that to fall back on. [11 June 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]

A strange story wrapped in a stranger one, an engrossing documentary about one of the least known and most unexpected aspects of the Nazi war against the Jews.

It's hard not to wish this film were more of a piece and less like loud music at the wrong party.

The Last of the Mohicans comes at you like a tomahawk. Hard, fast and brutal, it slashes at your throat and just about leaves you for dead. Undeniably exciting as this definitely is, however, its impact comes at the expense of some of the gentler virtues, qualities that even top-drawer barn-burners really shouldn't ignore.

With his wide, hollow eyes, nervous fingers and celebrated big hair, Spector is a haunted-looking figure whose words are always compelling no matter what unexpected dissatisfactions they may reveal.

The film is also strengthened by a pair of adroit lead performances by Brad Renfro and Kevin Bacon, actors who completely understand their characters and know how to make the most of them on screen.

Especially good at showing how unnervingly, even heartbreakingly contradictory this man could be.

Conventional but effectively so, more tense and involving than might be anticipated as obstacles pile on obstacles, this emotionally affecting story knows enough not to push too hard and reaps the benefits from its relative restraint.

This film throws an enormous amount of information at us both in terms of original interviews and archival footage from more than 100 sources, but it's too sophisticated to suggest that any one-size-fits-all solution is lurking just over the horizon.

The Great Buster briskly takes us through the stations of Keaton’s eventful life and career, mostly going the expected chronological route with one key exception.

Overly familiar material, even well done, cannot be made more intrinsically interesting than it is. Not even by Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves.

A perfectly respectable thriller that mostly manages to be as crisp and efficient as the crimes it depicts, this Roger Donaldson-directed Getaway compares favorably with the Sam Peckinpah original.

Lapid's filmmaking skill helps keep us involved, as does Policeman's philosophical underpinnings.

This is a film that knows enough not to take itself too seriously, and watching the gang wryly adjusting to each other's quirks and foibles is diverting enough to quash any lingering cavils. [09 Sep 1992, p.F1]

As far as conspiracy thrillers go, Pioneer is as paranoid as they come.

Even in an animated feature, visuals alone, no matter how successful, are not enough. And despite having this sturdy biblical tale to work with, despite being faithful enough to the spirit of the story to please a wide swath of scholars and theologians, the creators of Prince of Egypt have been unable to relate it in a completely compelling way.

A thoughtful, nuanced examination of a complex thinker.

Real enough around the edges to hold our attention even if it sacrifices accuracy for storytelling ease.

Made with taste, skill and discretion, The Daughter demonstrates both the staying power of classic material and the risks inherent in bringing it up to date.

With performers this engaging, we never want to stop watching, even as events go from grim to grimmer over four long and bitter years.

Still worth watching because it provides a showcase for a group of actors who really appreciate this kind of farcical comedy.

Revolutionary zealots who did not necessarily get along with each other, the temperamental creators of land art took themselves very seriously. But as "Troublemakers" convincingly demonstrates, the work they produced justified their attitude.

Nixon is in many ways an impressive, well-crafted piece of work. With name actors in more than 20 parts, it is as intelligently cast as any movie this year, and includes at least one exceptional performance, though not the one you're expecting.

The road to hell, the saying goes, is paved with the best of intentions, and that is very much the case with the complex art world conundrum explored in the lively, involving documentary Saving Banksy.

Feels repetitive at times, but its star power and willingness to undercut convention come through at the end.

These creations have become like family to Lasseter as well as to each other, and they never fail to make us smile.

While the uniqueness of the film's Riyadh setting and the disturbing nature of Wadjda's depictions of life for women behind the Saudi curtain are thoroughly involving, the actual plotline of a 10-year-old girl's determination to own a bicycle can be as standard as it sounds.

This Oliver Hirschbiegel-directed German drama tells a fascinating but inevitably grim story, both more interesting and more downbeat than one might anticipate.

Avenue Montaigne may not be a centimeter deeper than it needs to be, but you also won't be feeling that your pocket was picked when it's over.

It's a cautionary tale of sorts, but the story is so strange it is often not clear exactly what it's cautioning us against.

"Whitney's" story makes for strong and compelling viewing even though it has something of a cobbled together feel to it.

Vertical Limit, despite its weaknesses, finds the right director in Martin Campbell to energize this high-altitude thriller.

With a twisty, mind-bending plot that frequently changes direction and occasionally overreaches, Source Code wouldn't work at all without a cast with the determination and ability to really sell its story.

This pulpy, energetic film is a fast-moving and entertaining tale.

At times haphazard but always involving, The Last Laugh confronts a question that sounds anachronistic in today's anything-goes world:

The film's formula of following these four from three weeks before the start of things right through the competition is a tried and true one that can't help but have success.

While the film's masterful imagery — this might be the coldest, snowiest western ever — and inventive Ennio Morricone score are spectacular, less audience friendly is a nihilistic, revisionist denouement that apocalyptically subverts the genre's norms.

Nothing happens you won't see coming, but it's all so deftly done you're more than happy to wait for the inevitable to arrive.

As revealed by writer-director Aviva Kempner, it's not just the amount of money he donated that makes Rosenwald special, it's the specifics of who he gave it to and how and why he did it that sets him apart.

(To be) thoroughly enjoyed as a privileged look at one of the loopiest of late 20th century lives.

A United Kingdom is traditional, well-made cinema, with a taste for the obvious at certain points, but it has some powerful advantages. These include its remarkable story (Susan Williams’' book "Colour Bar" was a primary source), plus a director who knows how to convey its essence and a superior cast whose presence elevates the material.

Part Valentine, part memory lane, “Intervista” may not qualify as a great film, but it is the kind of film only a great filmmaker could create.

A well-researched and iconoclastic documentary that is both thoughtful and troubling, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is indeed a cautionary tale, but what it cautions against is the lure of easy judgments derived from prejudices and ignorance of the facts.

Documentaries by their nature are prisoners of their moment in time. If they are fortunate, as the makers of Red Obsession are, that moment, even if it's brief, will be able to hold our interest.

The 27-year-old Kasdan displays an ability to bring a refreshing, human touch to what could be overly familiar material that echoes what his father did in films like "The Big Chill" and "Body Heat."

The combination of restrained writing and direction and top-of-the-line acting is enough to make even confirmed agnostics want to believe in this unashamed fairy tale.

If you are willing to take the plunge and view things through Luhrmann's prism, "Australia" does deliver the classic dramatic and romantic satisfactions its ambitious advertising campaign promises.

You can go with it or resist it, be exhilarated or worn out. But forgetting the experience is not one of your options.

Difficult to experience though its finale may be, Peterloo very much gives off the sense that watching is essential. This fight for democracy is our story too, and the end has yet to be written.

Hokey though it is, with a horse-hugger ending thrown in to boot, Hidalgo has a sweet-natured appeal that welcomes sentiment without overdoing it.

Moviegoers who can make it past "Denver's" excessive violence--no small thing--and get on this film's off-center wavelength will find a grave noir comedy heavy with romantic regret, a cocky piece of work that flaunts its style and attitude and dares you not to be impressed.

Haphazard and erratic, involving only in fits and starts, Hero’s core is nevertheless so shrewdly and gleefully cynical about public heroism and the cult of celebrity it is impossible not to be at least sporadically amused and entertained.

Working as much like a circus ringmaster as a director, Joel Schumacher has brought several critical qualities to the mix, starting with much more of a pop culture sensibility and a sense of fun than Tim Burton, who directed the first two pictures, and he has a stylish visual sensibility as well.

While the result is not flawless, this is a polished, impressive attempt that pays off in the end. It may take awhile to get there, but its themes of loss, longing, heartache and betrayal, not to mention the nature and value of beautiful objects, do ultimately move us.

Too serious to be an out-and-out comedy, too funny not to be one, My Best Friend is a lot easier to enjoy than to classify.

Fortunately, both the film’s gorgeous look and its meticulously choreographed action sequences keep us more than occupied until the plot pieces fall into place.

If this beautifully made if flawed film sends people back to his book, it will have done good work for sure.

As a comedy about a young man with cancer, it needs to be serious enough to be real as well as light enough to be funny. Though it falls off the wagon at times, it maintains its balance remarkably well.

At a beefy 6-foot-4, Neeson certainly looks physically imposing, but it was the notion of casting someone who can actually act in an action hero role that was the counter-intuitive concept that made both films - Taken 2 is more a remake than a sequel - so successful.

Stiller's sensibility creates a movie that's smarter than you think it will be.

So clever, so funny, so suavely entertaining that it comes as a shock to realize that it's not nearly as satisfying as all those qualities would lead you to believe.

What makes Lipstick & Dynamite its own animal is that, intentionally or not, the director has allowed something else into the mix, a glimpse of the unvarnished and the unsanitized.

"Dawn's" vision of masses of intelligent apes swarming the screen as masters of all they survey is even more impressive than it was the last time around and reason enough to see the film all by itself.

It's a measure of how pulsating and energetic a visual style director F. Gary Gray has, and how vividly actors Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey come across on screen, that this film is intensely watchable from minute to minute, even though a lot of what's happening doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny.

If, as the Virgil quote that starts the film claims, fortune favors the bold, Alexander has not been nearly bold enough.