Kevin Thomas

Alternately heart-wrenching, dismaying, raw and even funny, Solas is ultimately a wonderfully warm and embracing experience.

Timelessly elegant and charming 1957 musical with a Gershwin score. [20 Nov 1994, p.6]

McLeod was in charge of the mayhem, S. J. Perelman had a hand in the script and Monkey Business is just as funny as it was in 1931. [25 Mar 1986, p.7]

Philadelphia filmmaker Cheryl Dunye has such a light, easy touch both in front and in back of the camera that you're in danger of not noticing how skillful a craftsman she really is or how deftly she raises serious issues of race and sexual orientation in The Watermelon Woman.

Haneke illuminates beautifully the lives of his people with an eye for the revealing nuance and detail.

José Cancella's original score complement the tremendous wit, vitality and sensuality of the dancers.

This graceful and wise film moves to its denouement with subtlety and, at its end, strikes a note that seems just right for all that has gone before.

A remarkably rich documentary possessing depth, range, insight and compassion.

Western is a delightfully subtle and perceptive blend of romantic comedy and road movie. [07 Aug 1998, p.F8]

Demands the utmost concentration, for to look away from the screen for even a brief moment is to risk losing a plot line or a crucial bit of information, but its cumulative, transporting impact makes it worth the effort. Above all, it has an overwhelming sense of reality atypical of the American cinema.

Long and Midler are so good they almost make us forget that Outrageous Fortune is yet another elaborate chase movie with the usual comic CIA and KGB stooges and vast, familiar stretches of Southwestern deserts.

For so brisk and entertaining a film, sharp in its observations but light in its touch, Cooking has unexpected substance and is a formidable accomplishment in that it brings dimension to its nearly 40 principal characters.

Sachs has pulled off a film of inferences and intimations, thanks largely to the casting of accomplished actors.

It's hard to imagine a more serious or persuasive indictment of the horrors inflicted on children by sexual abuse than Mysterious Skin.

A comedy of the most delicately balanced perfection.

Above all a man's confrontation with self in middle-age and his need to accept the fact that his children, beyond their mixed ancestry, are after all native-born English citizens.

Everything falls into place and seems exactly right: the brisk tempo, the crisp, witty performances, the slightly sooty touch.

Has a sitcom format, but complex emotions and perceptions keep breaking through the surface in an engaging, thoughtful manner.

A moment had come that had to be seized, which in turn gave birth to the gay rights movement. On June 28, 1970, New York held its first gay parade, and as one of its participants remarks, "Stonewall lives on" in all the gay parades ever since.

Little Otik is too outre not to turn off some, but for those who can go the increasingly macabre distance, its sheer power to confound can be enthralling.

Filmmaker Jessica Yu, in In the Realms of the Unreal, outlines Darger's lonely life and interviews Lerner's elegant, sympathetic widow Kiyoko and other Darger neighbors -- highlighted by enchanting animation of some of Darger's exquisite scrolls.

Offers breathtaking comic-action fantasy….Exhilarating and sharp, it never stops for a second. [9 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-6]

It unfolds in a hearty, good-natured Australian comedy that affectionately depicts how the citizens of a small town become connected to the Apollo moon flight.

Stone covers territory all too familiar to most Americans old enough to remember the JFK assassination.

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.

Very strong stuff, and Sistach has inspired such young actors as Ayala and Gutiérrez to give sustained and harrowing portrayals.

Cocoon: The Return is the best kind of sequel: It doesn't merely cash in on the success of the original but actually continues its story in new directions, eliciting fresh meaning and emotion. [23 Nov 1988, p.C1]

This complex, sophisticated and increasingly suspenseful tale of love and betrayal, intrigue and redemption, is as elegant as its star and its settings.