Lisa Alspector

But Peter Hyams, who's both director and director of photography, forces us to constantly strain to see what isn't there, until ultimately the screen explodes in welcome light, a cathartic finale in broad visceral terms even if the drama hasn't inspired much emotion.

The dialogue reproduces infantile idiom even as it parodies the baby talk of adults, and a touching, didactic scene involving a baby blanket that’s become the object of sibling rivalry may appeal to a broad age range: it’s as strikingly elegant as it is obvious in its use of metaphor.

At a relaxed pace, accompanied by restrained pop music.

Powerful, funny romantic drama.

Persuasive stylized drama.

A black waitress and a white corrections officer in rural Georgia experience more misery in the first hour of this movie than some people do in a lifetime, and to its credit the drama doesn’t collapse under the weight.

As a ditz who's just smart enough to know something isn't right, Lyonne blends hyperbole and sincerity in perfect proportions.

Jas lots of action, drama, comedy, and corn -- and few pauses, which is striking.

The narrative--a complex structure of flashbacks and shifts in perspective that's part inspirational story, part courtroom drama, part character study, part exposé--never makes it seem that history is being oversimplified.

Improves as it unfolds.

Exciting, clever sequences driven by surprisingly little plot and culminating in a climax full of the transmogrification animation was invented for.

Potential irony is everywhere in this movie's subtly surreal situations and candy-colored imagery.

Much of this fractured drama and dark fantasy takes place inside the mind of Charlie (Futterman),

The fluidity with which the story frequently makes the transition between the different characters' perspectives is refreshing, even daring.

A persuasively feminine coming-of-age story.

A graceful, understated sense of period allows the behavior of the characters in this love story to be unusually nuanced, making their experiences seem uncontrived as well as archetypal.

The conventional ghost-appeasement scenario isn't very suspenseful, which may be part of the reason it's so gripping.

With a distinctively middle-aged zest, Carpenter retools even the hopeless cliche requiring action heroes to spout bad puns while dispatching bad guys; his eminently stylish movie proves that new blood can flow from an old vein.

Even the melodramatic score can't ruin the essentially serious tenor of this old-style non-self-referential horror story, whose characterizations are unassailable--stereotypical shtick you buy because the performers are working so hard and their faces are so skillfully lit.

At once self-conscious and generic, this smart monster movie about smart monsters -- supersharks cleverer than the scientist who created them -- repeatedly lulls you into thinking it's paint by numbers.

Though the jokey lines seem out of place, the somber tone of this 1998 action movie makes the political subtext -- nearly obscured by the expected double crosses, extravagant destruction, and incongruous-buddies shtick -- more sincere and less grandiose than usual.

Though its startling shifts in tone sometimes seem unmotivated, this dark yet syrupy 1998 romance has an adolescent charm.

It's all very clever but not really provocative - though a layer of political subtext may make the scenario seem funnier and more meaningful.

It’s not the convoluted yet obvious plot of this 1998 drama about the domestic lives and criminal careers of two childhood friends (DMX and Nas) that draws you in—it’s the splendid visuals. Set mainly in New York City and Omaha, where these drug dealers do business according to their different ambitions, the movie is an image opera that deftly turns visual gimmicks into potent symbols.

Kempner's lighthearted yet not apolitical collage conveys how Greenberg's success as an athlete in the 30s and 40s contradicted an ethnic stereotype.

The behind-the-scenes revelations are thoroughly convincing.

Intending to study the degree to which social class would determine the subjects' destinies, the series actually documents something more filmable--the degree to which the subjects believed social class would determine their destinies and the degree to which they believe it has.

A wizard at manipulating time, Kitano introduces staccato elements that interrupt the meditative pace even as they help set it.