Kevin Thomas

A solid genre film that offers the satisfactions of the familiar while deriving its resonance through its specific and telling references to the '60s.

So strong and secure in its remorseless movement that you buy into what's happening, its people so firmly gripped in the vise of fate and their own character flaws.

Replete with superior acting and visual splendor, the film is a fine instance of the overly familiar made fresh.

Sweet, however, are the uses of melodrama in the skilled hands of Tornatore, for he transcends the lurid and the coincidental with range, depth and insight, and a bold, confident, suspenseful style, to create a fable of love and redemption.

The filmmakers have brought such breadth and depth to the material. Everyone counts in this film, not just Julia Lambert.

An elegant work, Food of Love is as consistently engaging as it is revealing.

Plays out like a Frank Capra movie with the "little people" taking on corrupt and indifferent officials. In the process the film strikes a strong blow for the dignity of labor and introduces an array of brave individuals.

Village of the Damned is a good-looking, well-wrought film with some knockout special effects, some dark humor and crisp portrayals.

Relatively accurate as a period piece, looks great and boasts a bevy of vintage numbers, some original recordings and others performed in an authentic manner by Ian Whitcomb and His Bungalow Boys.

This endearing picture is proof that it is still possible for a major studio release to be fun, smart and heart-tugging and devoid of numbskull violence and equally numbing special effects.

Beguiling and poignant.

What Radford above all accomplishes in his filming of The Merchant of Venice is to suggest that, in essence, it is that most modern of entertainments: a dark - indeed, very dark - comedy.

Revolution #9, which is absorbing and terse, has some subtle, welcome comic relief from Spalding Gray.

Has the gritty, intimate feel of an Eastern European film--and packs the power of a genuine revelation.

L.I.E. has embraced tragedy, folly, perversity and outrageous dark humor. Like "Happiness" and "American Beauty," it takes an unflinching look at the darker aspects of life in American suburbia.

Called the Holy Grail of the Hong Kong martial arts movies of the '70s, and now that it has been lovingly restored and given a regular theatrical release, it's easy to see why.

In short, Bound is admittedly derivative, but it's such an amusing low-down entertainment it really doesn't matter.

A satisfying story of love and marriage told with humor and insight.

Kusturica works marvels with his endlessly amusing cast, and his film has an appealingly free and easy tone.

This sleek and sunny comedy is an all-too-rare example of smart and inventive Hollywood filmmaking.

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.

At a time when crassness and dumbing down pervade popular entertainment, especially movies aimed at youthful audiences, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen dares to be smart.

Wenders’ ideas, emotions--and his characters--eventually do converge in a stately manner, rewarding the patient with a stunning, enlarging vision of human experience, a melding of the material and spiritual worlds.

No Man’s Land is such a modest, low-key thriller that you’re caught up in it long before you realize it. A contemporary Faustian tale, it’s one of those nifty little movies that arrive without much notice but prove to be far more enjoyable than many more highly publicized pictures.

Wise, understated, warm and witty, it presents stars Michel Serrault and Mathilde Seigner in roles that fit them so perfectly they could have been tailor-made.

Cohn has assembled a quartet of gifted actors who are captivating under Prasad's perceptive direction.

Assured, vital and well wrought, the film is, arguably, the most accomplished work to date from Hong Kong's versatile Stanley Kwan.

Thoroughly engrossing.