Kevin Thomas

It's a film of high energy, punctuated by rock music and a dark wit, yet it is capable of profound reflection and tragic irony.

Chop Shop"exudes a sense of joyousness amid harshness. Bahrani celebrates those who never give up, no matter how badly their dreams are shattered.

Irresistible 1969 Hal Wallis-Henry Hathaway Western that won John Wayne his long overdue Oscar as a rip-snorting federal marshal who meets his match in Kim Darby's doughty little girl. [06 Oct 1991, p.8]

This 1939 William Wyler version of Emily Bronte's passionate and inspired novel of l'amour on the lightning-lashed moors and gloomy heaths is the best and most successful on screen. [16 Oct 1994, p.65]

It's enjoyable, thanks not only to its charismatic duo, but also to the skilled comedy direction of Rod Daniel, whose strong sense of pacing is enhanced by Miles Goodman's driving but not overpowering score.

A brilliant, often grotesquely bizarre allegory on life in Hungary from World War II to the present.

In an instance of director, stars and material melding flawlessly, Spider is a brilliantly realized depiction of a mentally ill individual.

Once again Chabrol's son Mathieu has composed a crucially evocative score, and Renato Berta's cinematography is gleaming. Merci Pour le Chocolat crackles with wit and elegance, humor and pathos.

From Russia with Love, the second of the Bonds, remains one of the best. It finds Sean Connery's 007 going up against a diabolical Lotte Lenya and a psychopathic bleached blond, Robert Shaw. All the usual ingredients have been blended in just the right proportions under Terence Young's direction. [10 Apr 1988, p.2]

Ozu uses his austere style to express warmth, occasional humor and and a spirit of reconciliation; as usual, his repeated shots of people crossing a corridor suggest the passage through life. [19 Jan 1990, p.F10]

This anti-nuclear war, science-fiction parable is something of a minor legend, beloved by '50s buffs and cinephiles. Robert Wise directed what turned out to be one of his best-liked movies and a personal favorite of his. [04 Jun 1995, p.66]

The Sting, that unalloyed delight...A pure entertainment film, it is impeccably crafted and well-deserving of its immense popularity.[25 Aug 1985, p.5]

Birot is an engaging storyteller who can inspire luminous, spontaneous portrayals, but her ending is so drastic that it feels unearned, a note of bleakness struck merely for its own sake.

Thumbsucker aims high but swerves too frequently between the engaging and the credibility-defying to be satisfying.

Finds Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien at his most intimate and romantic. The deceptive simplicity of these vignettes, written by Chu Tien-wen, throws into relief Hou's formidable storytelling strengths and visual acuity - his way with actors, his subtlety and expressiveness.

Superb -- Crammed with incident, and bristles with passion and energy. Tavernier treats his actors, every last one of them impressive, as an ensemble.

Watching Marwencol, Jeff Malmberg's probing documentary on Hogancamp's undertaking, is an exhilarating, utterly unique experience.

At 100 minutes Careful begins to bore, whereas at half that running time it might well have been unalloyed fun. [05 Nov 1993, p.F12]

It's been brought to the screen by director John Schlesinger and writer Malcolm Bradbury with such deftness, giving it a life of its own, that it's not necessary for audiences to be familiar with the literature it satirizes.

A stunning, stylish detective mystery in the classic Raymond Chandler/Ross Macdonald mold. [02 Sep 1990, p.72]

Filmmaking at its most fearless, with Ostergaard creating a suspenseful, harrowing account of his original key subject, known only as "Joshua."

Late Marriage will assuredly rank as one of the cleverest, most deceptively amusing comedies of the year.

In its subtlety, complexity and dexterity, Requiem is a notably original work.

Sentimentality and violence have gone hand-in-hand from the beginning of the movies, but seldom have they been carried to such extremes and played against each other with such effectiveness as in writer-director John Woo’s The Killer (Nuart), an example of the highly addictive, supercharged, go-for-broke Hong Kong cinema at its most deliberately outrageous.

Ten Canoes is nonetheless audacious and impressive, but challenging work, requiring steadfast concentration.

Has vast scope, unflagging energy, a rousing Jerry Goldsmith score and a horrendous disaster sequence that conveys much in discreet fashion in keeping with post-Sept. 11 sensibilities yet is needlessly evasive in telling us the precise extent of its magnitude.

Minor reservations aside, The Man Without a Face is a moving and substantial achievement. [25 Aug 1993, p.1]

My Twentieth Century (Times-rated Mature for sex, complex style and themes) remains on the whole buoyant and beguiling--and is surely among the most distinctive films to arrive this year.

A triumph of stylish, witty Grand Guignol, it allows Price to range richly between humor and pathos as a crazed Shakespearean actor. It's not too much to say that if horror pictures were taken seriously Price would have been a 1973 Oscar contender. [24 Mar 2005, p.E15]

Bamako is an attack on globalization that is endlessly cogent, confrontational -- and, best of all, as captivating as it is illuminating.

Not the supernatural horror picture its title suggests, but this subtle, elliptical film evokes its own kind of nightmarish situation.

Mysterious and original.

Like a preliminary sketch for a vast and splendid mural, it unfolds Fellini's wonderful vision of life in all its joy and sadness, hope and fear, triumph and defeat, that emerges fully in the later movies. [20 May 2004, p.E13]

Too lethargic and strung-out for its own good. Thankfully, it casts a pleasant, amusing and touching spell anyway, but more energy and a markedly shorter running time might have turned a sunny diversion into something more special.

Imamura's mastery of tone has always matched his capacity for compassion and acuteness of observation. [18 Sep 1998, p.F16]

You, the Living suggests that we would do well to discover the joy we find in each other that so often goes along with the pain.

An exquisite period film from a script Akira Kurosawa did not live to direct. It has a softer edge than the master probably would have delivered, but it is deeply affecting.

Identifying herself with other minorities (whose members she mimics outrageously), Cho shatters racial and sexual stereotypes with merciless wit.

In recording life as it unfolds in the course of a year, On the Ropes not only defies prediction as to its outcome but is in some ways downright confounding...as involving and suspenseful as the best fictional films.

Mixes satire and suspense in unexpected ways in a film that is as darkly amusing as it is bitterly critical of bourgeois society's indifference to suffering.

Directed by George Marshall, Destry revived Dietrich's waning screen career, and her barroom brawl with Una Merkel is a classic. [25 Aug 1996, p.74]

Oldman, working with ace cameraman Ron Fortunato, has a real feel for the cinematic, and Nil by Mouth has a driving, jagged style that is complemented by Eric Clapton's often melancholy score. Oldman's key achievement is to make you feel for people you wouldn't want to know in real life. [06 Feb 1998, p.F12]

For Fernanda Montenegro, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Italy's late Giulietta Masina (Federico Fellini's wife and frequent star) in appearance and talent, "Central Station" is a personal triumph and a rich cinematic experience.

A modest pleasure that accomplishes its goals with ease and confidence.

As worthy and moving as The Color of Paradise is, it is not entirely free of the manipulative, the arbitrary and the downright punitive.

Deliciously funny and fiendishly clever con-man comedy that begins on a note of ingenuity that it then sustains with the tension of a high-wire act.

That rare episode film that actually accrues a cumulative power and doesn't merely proceed from one segment to the next.

There's a strong elliptical quality to Kiarostami's style, which underlines the filmmaker's ability to maintain focus with considerable emotional force and depth and with great precision. [27 March 1998, p.14F]

No one is likely to rank "Boss" on the same level as his more somber and ambitious efforts, but Von Trier admirers will be pleased to discover that, even while working in a far less consequential mode than usual, the ever-uninhibited filmmaker's distinctive flair is in full force.

A clever, entertaining stunt, no more, no less.

Assayas displays an intimate, informal style and a sharp sense of proportion that allows him to have some fun, score some points and then wrap it all up before overstaying his welcome. Irma Vep is as effortless as a shrug and boasts a film buff’s dream cast.

An exceptionally adroit adaptation of a play to the screen. As a film, it flows beautifully under Randa Haines' direction and has considerable humor as well as dramatic intensity. It is a classic love story--romantic, passionate, involving vibrant characters.

Bold, acutely observant and universal in its wide-ranging concerns and implications.

A gritty, deceptively low-key, no-fuss, no-frills movie of consistent originality and surprise in which suspense arises straight up from the heroine's evolving character.

This is a demanding, intelligent film of considerable complexity and of sufficient seriousness to justify its 128-minute running time.

Working with cinematographers Giorgos Arvanitis and Andreas Sinanos and composer Eleni Karaindrou, whose beautiful and stirring score greatly reinforces the film's impact, Angelopoulos has created another masterpiece, one that recalls such classics as Bergman's Wild Strawberries and Kurosawa's Ikiru (To Live). [28 May 1999, p.F6]

In only his second feature, Frammartino has found a fresh and ravishingly poetic and beautiful way to explore the relationship between the spirit, man and nature.

There's a beguiling throwaway quality to Flirt that has the effect of making it stick with you.

It is one of the simplest of Bunuel's films but is also among his most powerful and subtle. [17 Sep 1995, p.6]

The Piano Teacher will surely be too strong for some audiences and is best left to those who like films that take big risks and get away with them.

Effortlessly graceful and burnished to a glow, Dinner Rush is surely as satisfying as any of the delicious-looking food served at Louis' restaurant -- and is as full of surprises as any dish Udo ever concocted.

Spring Forward is so fully realized and so moving that you wish you could get away with merely saying: "Go see it for yourself."

A film of rare, delicate sensibility.

An unforgettable experience from yet another filmmaker who is making South Korean cinema one of the most vibrant of any emerging on the international scene.

Cage's naturalness as a nice guy in a big jam lends the film considerable substance while Hopper's wily foil, Boyle's tough dame and Walsh's minor-league baddie provide much amusement. With Mark Reshovsky's sleek camera work, authentic locales and William Olvis' mood-setting score, Red Rock West has style to burn.

To watch this film, in short, can be a transforming experience.

Well-nigh flawless, with scarcely a moment's lull. [18 Dec 1990, p.F1]

Im Kwon Taek's exquisite Chunhyang brings to the screen one of Korea's most cherished folk tales, a timeless romance in which the lovers are challenged by differences in class.

Gung Ho goes after that ever-so-elusive Capra-esque spirit of communal triumph over adversity, but both sides too often verge on stereotypes for this to pay off as richly as it should.

Boasting one of the most exciting all-star casts ever assembled, glittering with authentic glamour, this MGM hit is one of those happy instances when art and entertainment are one. [17 Jun 1991, p.F9]

A period chamber drama drawn from a Joseph Conrad short story and of such intensity and passion that it transcends a specificity of time and place to achieve timelessness and universality.

Lives up to its ambitiousness in all its aspects.

Inevitably poignant but also often amusing and always deeply touching.

The filmmakers' special triumph lies in the inspired way that in the nick of time it draws its story to a close, with Nora and Joyce struggling toward a new level of understanding.

A fast and clever con-gone-wrong comedy that reflects the writer-director's characteristic blend of the intellectual and the criminal. But it lacks anyone to care about--even the repellent characters are less than fascinating--and the result is a crisply made movie that is no more than mildly amusing.

As audacious as it is compelling and as dark as it is erotic. Its sexuality is explicit, alternately teasing and brutal, and one that is ultimately a cautionary tale.

Thieves further assures Techine's place in the front rank of international filmmakers. [27 Dec 1996, p.F2]

It’s a sprawling, rowdy, vital film laced with both outrageous absurdist dark humor and unspeakable pain, suffering and injustice.

Complex, challenging and richly rewarding, it glows with the kind of wrenchingly selfless portrayals that are the hallmark of the Bergman classics.

A wholly unexpected and ultimately gratifying experience.

Morris pulls off a genuine shocker to cap his film, but his method exacts its price. It takes fully a third of the film's 109 minutes to become involved in it, thanks to Morris' deadpan tone and the initially jarring effect of his intercutting between straightforward talking heads and his B-movie reenactment of the crime. [2 Sept 1988]

There is something reassuring in seeing free-thinking individuals express their personalities so emphatically yet invitingly in the places they live.

Taut, corrosive and compelling, Gangster No. 1 has the galvanic appeal of "Little Caesar" and "Scarface" in its full-sized portrait of a brilliant but twisted and savage criminal.

With the ambitious and ominous The Devil's Backbone, Del Toro rises to a new level of accomplishment, adding history and politics to his distinctive blend.

Feeble and unfunny.

Above all else expresses the timeless impact of Lily Bart's plight.

The singular achievement of Jonathan Karsh's graceful and rigorous documentary is that he enables his audiences to see his heroine's family through her very clear but always loving eyes.

The Boys is so heartfelt that it elicits a sense that complex creative relationships may ultimately elude explication, leaving Jeffrey Sherman to speculate that the friction between his father and his uncle was what brought their songs alive.

Take this picture literally and you're in trouble; better to view it as an allegory on youthful despair in which Araki deftly scores serious points without taking himself too seriously.

An eloquent, heart-tugging Civil War epic about the first black infantry regiment to march off to battle for the Union. And epic is the word. Not since John Ford has a film maker created such dramatic large-scale Civil War battle scenes in a major theatrical film.

It could have done with fewer plot devices, but it is ultimately far more satisfying than countless less ambitious and risky films.

David Lynch's superb and subtly ironic 1980 film reveals the shining humanity in a horribly disfigured--and horribly mistreated--young man who actually lived in England in the late 19th Century and was rescued by an enlightened Victorian physician.

It is impossible to watch this warm, wonderful film without becoming aware of the enormous impact the Yiddish theater has had on every aspect of American show business.

Chungking Express ravishingly, seductively exudes the immediacy of everyday life as its spins its classically timeless tales of love lost and almost regained.

Unfolds in the satisfying fashion of classic Hollywood movies that strike a balance between grit and heart.

A film of simplicity and power, beautifully shot and effortlessly acted by nonprofessionals.

Ramsay reaches out boldly with a film that is as unsettling as it is minimalist.

Martel's sharp observations of the foibles of human nature are expressed perfectly in the telling images of cinematographer Hugo Colace and tight editing of Santiago Ricci.