Kevin Thomas

Rush Hour effectively teams Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in a formulaic but funny action comedy that should please fans of both stars.

The way I Went Down, with its lovely score, plays out under Breathnach's gentle, compassionate touch becomes wryly amusing, ironic and entirely satisfying. Its cast is a glory, adept at setting off a sly humor with a touch of pathos, and it brings to the fore Brendan Gleeson, so good in so many supporting parts, as a seriocomic powerhouse in the central role. [1 July 1998, p.F4]

The Mean Season makes deft use of the thriller form to examine the relationship between those who report the news and those who make it, and how that line can blur dangerously. The film is very honest about how seductive a byline can be.

A handsome period production of fluidity and subtlety, intimate and large-scale.

Brutal yet lyrical film.

At once hilarious and serious, cruel and tender, and bristling with vitality, Holy Smoke is the right movie for the millennium, envisioning new possibilities in the way people view and relate to one another.

What counts here is the acute psychological validity with which Gordon evokes a coming of age that's seen with a darkly outrageous sense of humor--and no small amount of compassionate detachment.

In his sleek, punchy and altogether captivating Sonatine, Japan's fabled writer-director-tough guy star Takeshi "Beat" Kitano makes it seem as if we've never seen such a tale on the screen. In doing so, Kitano creates one of the most effectively anti-violence violent movies since The Wild Bunch. [10 Apr 1998, p.F10]

The strangest and most delightful of the many collaborations of those joint exemplars of neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini: a Chaplinesque fable about a purely innocent and good young orphan who leads the inhabitants of a Roman shantytown in angelic revolt against their cruel evictors. [10 Nov 1996, p.4]

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.

Loic's journey is rich in incident and detail, and Garçon Stupide retains its dynamic momentum throughout.

It is to González-Rubio's credit that he can celebrate nature so joyously, yet suggest neither the preferred lifestyle of either parent is superior to the other.

With its lovely images of wintertime Paris and its lyrical Michel Legrand music, La Bu^che does take the cake.

A splendid example of pure cinema.

A beautiful and consistently engaging film, but that the filmmakers dared cast all three lead roles with actors who are over 40 makes it especially rewarding.

Down Terrace is long on talk but generates its own internal rhythms and pace that makes it feel bracing and vibrantly alive.

A film of flowing, redemptive beauty and poetry, at once immediate yet classic in its simplicity of form.

Fixing Frank is "good theater," and in the writing and in Butler's quietly chilling, ever-so-civilized portrayal, Apsey emerges as a veritable Svengali.

Illuminating, poignant and heartening.

Honest and wise enough to strike the right bittersweet note.

Has a sense of humor that is intellectual, even academic, at heart.

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

A work of such charm and imagination it should enchant, as the old circus phrase goes, "children of all ages."

Structurally, High and Low, which is remarkable in many ways--the camera work alone could serve as a primer in film technique--is quite a departure for Kurosawa.

It's fast, light and funny and not top-heavy with special effects and epic-scale destruction.

Set in a noirish, gleaming Montreal, this handsome, captivating, well-paced and stylish film is fully realized in every aspect.

Manages to honor the theatricality of the source yet becomes a fully cinematic experience. A gem.

A documentary made with rigor, humor and no small amount of honest emotion.