Lawrence Van Gelder

A smooth, skilled example of animated filmmaking.

At once admirable and deeply unsettling.

Mr. Gast skillfully blends photographs, celebrity interviews with Norman Mailer and others, and colorful forays into the Zairian countryside, where Ali fostered black brotherhood and became a huge favorite, in a film that ''gazes well beyond the ring and seeks engagement with history''.

The pleasures are familiar, but not the least bit inspired.

Mr. Tarkovsky appears so absorbed in grappling with his own demons that universality suffers. [17 Aug 1983, p.C14]

Yakusho and Ms. Shimizu deliver unerring performances in a splendid film that harvests hope from a bleak landscape.

Not often does a family film come along that is literate, clever, mischievous and just plain fun.

Short on suspense, routine in its action and monotonous in its performances.

An unusually cerebral filmed essay that demands focus and patience from its audience as it sets about the task of unearthing a secret history of the 20th century. Adam Curtis, the film's director and writer, saves the proceedings from being overly dry with his visual wit and deft touch with archival materials.

Propelled by a captivating, wrenching performance by Karine Vanasse as Hanna, a 13-year-old girl adrift in a sea of powerful emotions in Montreal in 1963.

Experience filmgoing joy.

If it were medically possible to overdose on claptrap, Orca would be compelled to carry a warning from the Surgeon General.

An intriguing and entertaining introduction to Johnson through his varied art; the mystery surrounding his death, which may have been his final performance piece, and the reminiscences of contemporaries.

Mr. Beesley, an Oklahoma City native who has been following and filming the Flaming Lips for 15 years, is far too close to his subject to offer a critical perspective, but he achieves a level of intimacy with the band members that most rock documentary directors can only dream of.

No more than a sentimental little comedy.

Jeff Feuerzeig, who won the best-director award at the 2005 Sundance festival, cobbles together a moving portrait of the artist as his own ghost, using a wealth of material provided by Mr. Johnston, from home movies to audiocassette diaries to dozens of original, and often heartbreakingly beautiful, songs.

The kind of movie most independent films strive in vain to be: a small, beautifully faceted gem.

Simultaneously fascinating and vexing in ways that might tax informed devotees of both baseball and film.

The Devil's Rejects is a trompe l'oeil experiment in deliberately retro filmmaking. It looks sensational, but there is a curious emptiness at its core.

Of these four plots, the story of Carmen's blended family is by far the most consistently engaging, largely because of the vibrant presence of Ms. Ferrera.

There is an explanation for everything, but it is a long time coming and not worth the wait.

Lavish in its depiction of surfaces -- clothing, furniture, lighting fixtures -- Flowers of Shanghai proves deficient in its revelation of inner lives.

This mediocre sci-fi horror film about an Ohio high school being taken over by thirsty space aliens intent on world domination breaks no new ground. But it has an engaging cast.

A beautiful and devastating meditation on war, history and loss.

The innate suspense and charm of the spelling bee, along with a trio of crack performances, turn what is in essence a formulaic sports picture into something more satisfying: an underdog tale that manages to inspire without being sappy.

Vampires aren't the only things in Bordello of Blood that can't stand up to daylight. Neither can the plot.

In a very real way, The Great Dance constitutes an act of preservation and a requiem.

A fine and loving memorial that preserves his charm, his intellect and his splendid body of work.

It keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek, offers a few genuine laughs, moves swiftly, if not at warp speed, and is led by a talented cast.

For a film about death-camp survivors Forgiving Dr. Mengele is surprisingly uplifting and, at times, even lighthearted.

Children who revel in clean-cut heroes, villains given to spells and incantations and the kind of special effects that breathe life into mandrake root, ships' figure-heads, centaurs, griffins and statues of Kali (always a deity beloved of evil forces) will probably find it a happy concoction for passing a rainy afternoon.

Filtered through tears, laughter and affection, the results -- are touching and fascinating though, by their nature unilluminated by dispassionate analysis.

Juvenile comedy targets a gallery of imperfect women.

An earnest study in despair.

Candleshoe, with its beguiling English countryside settings, languid pace, defanged Dickensian villains, compassionate butler, down-at-the-heels nobility, hidden treasure and orphaned children engaged in a plot to outwit swindlers, keep up appearances and save the old manor from foreclosure, is the fiction of a bygone era.

Plods along, never catching dramatic fire, sometimes suffering from amateurish acting and often relying on its intrusive and treacly music to impart mood and rhythm.

Mr. Toledo's performance as the shallow and cowardly, yet strangely sympathetic Rafael is a wonder of comic timing, while Ms. Cervera is unforgettable as Lourdes, the ugly duckling who becomes not a swan, but a monster.

With Christopher Eccleston as Jude and Kate Winslet of ''Sense and Sensibility'' as his great love, Sue Bridehead, and with convincing evocations of 19th-century England from locations in Edinburgh and the north of England, Jude remains a handsome if gravely flawed film.

Though it is occasionally talky, and though its plot takes a while to crank up, The Last Starfighter, directed by Nick Castle, is more often than not good-humored, bent on action and even touching. [13 July 1984, p.C5]

Intelligent, insightful, touching.

Mr. Drake can be rivetingly angry, intense, frenetic, frank and touching.

Though Three ... Extremes may seem tame to jaded fans of what has been termed New Asian Horror, it serves as a fine introduction to the genre for those who are curious but squeamish.

The director, who also served as producer along with Lisa Comforty, his wife, spent 12 years compiling the archival clips and photographs that make up this compact and elegant film.

Impressive, unsettling, deeply felt film.

A rare hybrid: an underdog sports picture that's also a transgender fairy tale.

Mr. Jewison, filming mainly at Fort Chaffee, Ark., has opened up the play by using such interiors as the bar where the troops hang out and exteriors on and around the base. But perhaps most commendably, he has let Mr. Fuller's drama speak for itself, applying the skills of a film maker to polish the facets that lent such substance to the drama.

However fascinating the source material, there's something less than cinematic about 90 minutes of watching people read letters in front of windows.

Within that narrow framework, the film is quite successful, using archival photographs, clips from pornographic films and television commercials, and interviews to evoke the period between June 1969, when the Stonewall riots brought homosexuality out of the shadows, to June 1981, when the AIDS epidemic began.

Though it is marred by an implausible climax and a cloying conclusion, this movie's quiet intelligence sneaks up on you, marking the director as a talent to watch.

Neither approves of nor condemns the choices made by its headstrong protagonist; rather, it quietly observes her transformation from naïve schoolgirl to wary but proud single mother.

Quite simply a treat for the ear.

It's an intimate chamber piece, dialogue-heavy and at times claustrophobic, but the four central characters are so deftly sketched, and their shifting alliances so intricately choreographed, that the film never feels talky or staged. The actors are consistently excellent.

Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, this glossy melodrama, mixing references to Indian mysticism and the epic poetry of the "Ramayana" with late-20th-century feminism, teeters unsteadily between sociology and soap opera.

It is probably hopeless in the presence of Trekkies to do anything but sit back -- amused, bemused and astonished -- and watch the devotions of fans of the various incarnations of "Star Trek."

An engaging and colorful but somewhat overbalanced documentary.

While instructive on environmental concerns about the impact of logging, Butterfly does not reward those who seek dispassionate psychological insight into the zealous Ms. Hill.

A rare and often chilling glimpse into the culture of North Korea.

Some may be offended by this film's use of Sept. 11 as a plot device, but ultimately The Friend is less concerned with the politics of terror than with its psychology.

Brigham City, like "God's Army," may proselytize for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Brigham City is also an example of concise, skillful filmmaking.

Such a joyous celebration of sex and filmmaking that viewers will forgive its director for taking time out to enjoy a little of both.

With top-drawer voice talent including Joan Plowright and Dick Van Dyke, original songs by Jack Johnson, and old-fashioned two-dimensional animation that echoes the simple colors and shapes of the books, Curious George is an unexpected delight.

While the animated characters, bright colors and an appealing Randy Newman score may keep the children content, Cats Don't Dance is no saccharine fantasy. Its Hollywood references and dark satire constitute its real strengths.

Notable chiefly for its eye-catching urban backgrounds and an eclectic score that ranges from jazz and country to classical and choral.

Harrowing yet hopeful film.

What makes the film worth watching are the extraordinary performances by the more than 250 children cast as orphans.

Lots of people will probably like The Kentucky Fried Movie, just as they like Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's hamburgers. But popularity is still no reason for deifying mediocrity.

Five-year-olds who have read their Shakespeare will recognize that Turbo is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Rather than seeming classic, Freeway appears to be another film maker showcase, a derivative apprentice work.

These tales of upward mobility seem at odds with Mr. Pérez-Rey's choice to include a clip from the 1983 remake of "Scarface," in which Al Pacino, playing a Marielito thug, introduces a machine gun as his "little friend."

Richly atmospheric and suspenseful.

Literate and handsome.

Though it could do with fewer talking-head interviews and more extended clips from these impassioned live performances, Young Rebels is essential viewing for anyone interested in rap music, free speech issues or the youth culture of contemporary Cuba.

An inspiring film about an inspired teacher. It should leave all viewers with an ounce of curiosity eager to hit the streets with Dobsonian telescopes of their own.

Sometimes amateurishly acted by the appealing younger cast but is nonetheless a neat blend of well-drawn major characters and drama, music, dance, romance and humor that generates considerable charm and achieves a heartwarming resolution of its generational conflict.

Manages to capture firsthand the danger, fatigue and sheer tedium of an arduous illegal border crossing from Mexico without ever becoming tedious itself.

The boys, particularly Mr. Webber as Pete, are astonishingly good, and Ms. Monaghan, who looks like a slightly more tomboyish Liv Tyler, makes a deep impression in a minor role. Mr. LaPaglia, of the television series "Without a Trace," brings a tender gravity to the shell-shocked Jim.

The film, at least 20 minutes too long, has too many competing story lines to succeed as more than an oddball mood piece.

It's easy to be seduced by this film's warmhearted, if slightly utopian, vision.

C.H.U.D. makes no pretension toward serious theses about government or the environment. It is meant to be light commercial entertainment, and in the category of horror films it stands as a praiseworthy effort.

Brims with understanding of the complexities of relationships, the frailties of humankind and the possibilities of joy.

Like Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso," Just One Look is a tribute to the formative power of cinema, a coming-of-age film that nimbly interweaves the adolescent hero's struggles with clips from the movies that shape his romanticized notions of life.

Astringent and unsentimental, it is a case study of losing, its clear eye focused unwaveringly on the realities of commerce and kinship.

Weighing in at almost exactly one pound and unable to breathe or eat on his own, Nicholas James Baba-Conn seemed doomed to a very short life; his chance for survival was calculated at close to zero.

The Time We Killed has the raw intimacy of a filmed diary, but as with reading a stranger's journal, it eventually gets dull.

Mr. Caan's debut film is not quite a whole thing, but it offers up enough promising fragments to make his sophomore effort worth watching for.

Where "Ringu" derived its power from the simplicity of its premise and the purity of its execution, One Missed Call staggers under the weight of its director's taste for baroque excess.

High-spirited entertainment .

The characters...are well cast, well directed and skillfully acted, if not a particularly admirable lot.

The story is told in faux-documentary style, echoing the films of Christopher Guest, and if the cast never quite matches Mr. Guest's ensemble in comic inventiveness, they nonetheless manage to invest a very slight story line with a loose, scruffy charm.

Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin are appealing performers, but none of the energy, professionalism and gameness they display -- can surmount the mess that surrounds them in this misguided comedy.

Its winning cast, spirited music and mordant view of establishment figures, from the police to cocaine-sniffing record industry executives, make Bandits a stylish, buoyant entertainment.

The kind of silly summer fun that gives family entertainment a good name.

The overall effect, especially given the gorgeous setting and liquid-gold cinematography, is less a discussion of the divine than a commercial for it.

Instead of sending up their cinematic sources, the creators of Muppets From Space rely too much on this spent screen fuel. Frenetic movement and loud music overwhelm warmth and compassion, and the balance of character, plot, irreverent humor and innate decency that made some of the earlier Muppet movies so welcome is lost.

The portrayals by the fetching Ms. Yoshikawa and Mr. Takeda are consistently absorbing, and Mr. Limosin's plotting, though essentially gimmicky and manipulative, packs mystery and tension.

May not be dispassionate filmmaking, but it is certainly entertaining.

But while rooted in British sensibilities, Bean is not to be confused with a Noel Coward comedy. Not every gag in Bean succeeds, but compared with most comedies, this one is a keeper.

Amounts to recycling rather than reinvention.