Kevin Thomas

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]