Michael O'Sullivan

His story is sad, compelling and morbidly, tragically watchable.

Part of the spell cast by this magical film is its ability to make an unvarnished political statement about economic reality and social alienation while, at the same time, seducing its audience into believing in the transformative power of love and the almost supernatural beauty of the everyday.

May be a fish tale, but its story of the paradox of love -- knowing when to hold on means knowing when to let go -- is profoundly humane and human.

One thoroughbred of a movie. Sleek, well-muscled and brisk, director Steven Soderbergh's newest offering delivers just about everything anyone could possibly want from filmed entertainment -- except deep thought.

Gorgeously animated and stirringly told, Disney's Mulan is a timeless story that will delight kids and divert adults with its sweeping scope, emotional intimacy and screwball humor.

The fantastic and at times deliciously nihilistic world of X2 is fully, believably three-dimensional.

Neither wholly cynical nor wholly romantic, Kaufman's story is a balance of smarts and sentiment. It's the most fully realized working out of his two favorite obsessions: the subjective nature of experience and the psychological mysteries of pair bonding.

What the movie may lack in "Saving Private Ryan"-style gloss, it more than makes up for in authenticity, or, in other words, heart.

It's a kind of 18th-century "Dead Man Walking" but with that earlier film's foreground arguments against capital punishment pushed to the background here.

A gift for those already in the fold, for those who get the joke and just want to savor it with other like-minded fans.

Psychological suspense at its finest.

Scorsese creates a film so resonant that it is both a work of great art and an anthropological document.

Really, really good -- Yes, it's over the top, giddy and parodistic (God bless it). But it also takes a thoughtful, if surreptitious, look at what eight women might act like when men aren't around.

A small film of surpassing beauty and sadness. Yet its bittersweet flavor isn't artificial, but rather the product of the slow ripening of character.

Their characters' desire (Scott Thomas and Zylberstein) -- no, need -- to repair their fragile bond feels as achingly real as the mother lode of hidden pain that gets exposed by the work of these two great actresses.

Old-fashioned moviemaking at its best.

Part of this success is due to the exquisitely cast ensemble-composed of actors, not movie stars. To a man, woman and child, the unforced performers are spot-on.

It is incomplete, contradictory, as multifaceted (and as brilliant) as a diamond.

The events of the movie are filament-thin and insubstantial but, like fine silk threads, they weave together a fabric of surpassing warmth and texture. [25 Sep 1998, Pg.N.63]

Works on two levels. First, it's a pure celebration of riding the waves. -- Second, Blue Crush is a clear-eyed portrait of the unique kind of power that women possess, a power that shows us that victory doesn't always mean vanquishing someone else. Either way, it's thrilling.

Troubling and powerful film, lingering on screen well into the final credits and in the minds of its audience long after the house lights have come on.

In almost every way that I can think of, L'Auberge Espagnole is a perfect movie... It is a film that feels alive.

Tells a tale of fortitude that comes not from muscle but from the ineffable, bungee-like sinew that is the human spirit.

The nail-biting quality of Shackleton's true story outdoes any dramatic fiction on the market.

Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right: You can't go home again

It's part sugar, part spice (cayenne, not nutmeg) and all-around brilliant.

The pretentiousness of acting is a fun thing to lampoon, and “Official Competition” does it with surgical precision.

The problem, as “Table” shows, isn’t that the next meal never comes. It’s that when it arrives, too often it is filled with empty calories.