Michael Wilmington

The simplicity and idealism of The Color of Paradise are part of what makes it so attractive to near-jaded palates here. There are no evil characters in the film.

Two suggestions as you watch it: Never take anything for granted, and keep your hand on your wallet as you leave the theater.

Based on an Elmore Leonard story: the classic suspense western in which a desperate farmer (Van Heflin), trying to save his spread, hires on to transport a sardonic outlaw chief (Glenn Ford) to Yuma. [25 Jul 2008, p.C8]

It's a shining valentine to the movies--full of homages, collages and swooningly romantic Ennio Morricone music--and it gets right at the messy, impure, wondrous way they capture and enrapture us. [16 February 1990, Calendar, p.F-1]

If it's not an actual masterpiece, it's at least the next best thing, a fully characteristic, fully alive work by a master of his art.

A socially conscious prison picture (written by Richard Brooks) that sometimes deliriously suggests a Brooklynesque mating of Jean Genet and Warner Bros. [20 Apr 2007, p.C8]

Stirred by the winds of nostalgia, lapped by its ocean of dreams, "The Secret of Roan Inish" is one of the loveliest surprises of the year. [03 Mar 1995, p.C]

A disturbingly frank look at people and relationships in contemporary Los Angeles and a thrilling dramatic showcase for a brilliant cast.

Watching Taste of Cherry and following its path of fear and redemption, living through this strange day with these foreign but utterly recognizable and deeply sympathetic characters, we believe in them. We feel with them. We care what happens to them. And, knowing them, we know a bit more, as well, about ourselves. [29 May 1998, p.D]

It's a jewel-like, minimalist film about a group of crisscrossing wanderers and outlaws on one lyrically strange day and night in Memphis--where haphazard-seeming events slowly merge into entrancingly complex figures and patterns.

Larger Than Life is far closer to Murray's worst than his best. It's a truly senseless, erratic, if occasionally charming comedy that manages to waste Murray, a fine cast, good location photography and a terrific actor: Tai, the 8,000-pound trained pachyderm whose considerable stuff was strutted in 1995's Operation Dumbo Drop. [03 Nov 1996, p.11C]

You probably won't find two more fascinating camera subjects, two livelier conversationalists or two richer, more rewarding, more engaging and inspiring companions in any movie, fiction or non-fiction, this year.

May show both director and star working at their professional peaks, but I don't think it's as good as that underappreciated masterwork "A.I." It's not as resonant and daring, not as full of magic and marvel. Spielberg stretches himself technically here but not emotionally.

Shows us a filmmaker, unafraid of her emotions, unafraid to mine her past, someone clear-eyed, non-egoistic, full of life and warmth.

I loved this movie madly, and so will many of you.

Capable of enthralling.

Movies about moviemaking usually fall into one of two categories: ones that satirize or debunk the film industry or ones that celebrate it. Irma Vep, a sometimes dazzling French film by writer-director Olivier Assayas, does both. [13 June 1997, p.I]

Justly renowned as the most realistic movie on pro football, this is the iconoclastic portrait of savvy, rebellious receiver Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) who finds himself a target for coaches, owners, players and fate itself. [14 May 2000, p.33]

Somber, meditative and visually magnificent, this film, about a famous Greek author ruminating on his past, is a piece of cinematic poetry: calm, beautiful and chilling as the eternal sea against which much of it is set. [22 Oct 1998, p.2]

As a ride, this Tarzan succeeds. As a pop myth, it needs more jungle fever. [18 June 1999, Friday, p.A]

The movie itself, defying all odds, comes close to a knockout.

A noir with a smile, and after all these years, its deft mixture of darkness and light still makes us smile.

A promising film rather than a fully realized one.

A rich, shining valentine to the British theater and the eternal joys of Shakespeare,

The greatest rock concert movie ever made -- and maybe the best rock movie, period.

I liked Flirt better than any of Hartley's films since "Trust." The playfulness he shows here seems better integrated, more meaningful, than the strange narrative whimsies of 1992's "Simple Men" or 1994's "Amateur." [08 Nov 1996]

It's a movie that literally makes your mouth water. A smart, sprightly, lip-smacking comedy about a Taipei master chef who's lost his sense of taste and his tangled family problems with three romantically troubled daughters. It crackles with iridescent style and wit.

You will not forget The Piano Teacher. Nor will you forget Isabelle Huppert, a brave, brilliant actress who here plays her masterpiece.