Mick LaSalle

Child actors usually seem either vacuous or snotty, but 8-year-old Max Pomeranc qualifies as a find. As Josh he comes across as a genuinely nice kid, and his intelligent, watchful eyes make him a believable chess talent. In fact, Pomer anc is a highly-ranked chess player who has competed in the national finals. [11 Aug 1993, p.E1]

It’s sincere and intelligent — but it’s weak as a social statement and even weaker as drama.

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is a bladder-buster of a movie with no obvious bathroom break, no section where the story starts to sag. This makes it, almost by definition, a good and admirable piece of work. But Killers of the Flower Moon is also a lumbering mess, an ungainly and tonally odd film that, for all the strength of its parts, has little cumulative impact.

One of the most powerful romances of recent years, it is as generous as they come.

Verhoeven creates an elegant frame for his lead actress and lets her fill it, and what we end up with is Huppert’s best collaboration with a director since the death of Claude Chabrol.

It's screamingly, hysterically, laugh-through-the-next-joke, laugh-for-the-next-week funny. It's so inventive…This is a film by an original and significant comic intelligence.

This is one of Kubrick's best, not gimmicky or arch, not somnambulant or mannered, just finely detailed, measured, richly photographed and, at every step of the way, entertaining and interesting.

The Farewell has a special feeling about it. It’s full of truth and emotion, and lacking in sentimentality. It has an eye for absurdity and for the telling detail, and it marks Lulu Wang as a director with the rare but essential ability to make you care about what she cares about. It will go down as one of the standout movies of 2019.

In retrospect, Levinson might secretly wonder if the bizarre casting was the right move after all. But at least he got strong performances from his lead actor, and he took a good script by Pileggi (“Goodfellas”) and made a good movie out of it. You can’t ask for much more than that.

The most coolheaded of the Iraq war documentaries, the most methodical and the least polemical. Yet it's the one that will leave audiences the most shattered, angry and astounded.

Not a stirring piece of drama, and it does not altogether work in the ways it was intended to. But in its own shambling, elliptical way it's an entertaining, memorable movie whose 2 1/2 hours go by without strain.

The Power of the Dog is a beautifully composed work by a filmmaker at the height of her powers. It deserves our attention.

In many ways - in all ways - The Artist is a profound achievement.

All this makes Zama interesting and unique and something to be respected. But none of this translates into anything resembling a satisfying narrative or even entertainment as we know it. Still, as bleak experiments go, Zama is the real thing.

The film presents a compelling portrait of mental illness, but looking at Bale may make audiences feel as though they're watching a documentary.

Wallace’s 2008 suicide informs the film and Jason Segel’s performance. What Wallace wants to say, tries to say but can’t quite say is that, having reached the summit of success, he sees an even bigger mountain in front of him. His anxiety about holding it together in the face of newfound celebrity is no affectation. He’s frightened of it and probably has good reason to be.

This screen version, directed by Lewis Milestone, is the one to see. Burgess Meredith is George and Lon Chaney Jr. is Lenny. Chaney never got to do much in movies, except rapidly grow hair as the Wolfman, but this movie proves that the younger Chaney inherited some of his father's genius. [24 Feb 2002]

What results isn’t a straight autobiography, obviously, but rather the autobiography of a career and, most importantly, the autobiography of a spirit.

The movie is long, and here and there it seems to meander. But when it arrives at its anguished last scene, there's no doubt that Eustache knew where he was heading all along.

An excellent film noir.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that conveyed with such vividness and precision the helplessness of childhood.

Far superior to its companion piece, "Flags of Our Fathers," released earlier this year, "Letters" is a grim and humane film that has to be counted among the director's better efforts.

I lost patience with a widow who is grieving one month and then making out with a guy in a bar the next. This is an emotional recovery even Hamlet's mother might have found unseemly.

Anomalisa may simply be a brilliant one-off, but it’s pointing a new direction for animation, if anyone cares to follow it.

The 1931 version, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, is the standout, featuring two great performances, one by Fredric March (who won the Academy Award for the title role) and the other by Miriam Hopkins, as Ivy, the lovable trollop. [28 Dec 2003]

The movie is funny, definitely funny. But underlying the humor is a vision so bleak, so despairing and so utterly hopeless as to make "No Country for Old Men" almost look cheerful.

A triumph that goes well beyond Hoffman's tour de force performance.

A unique and hilarious British comedy.

The movie represents a leap forward for writer-director Martin McDonagh. Three Billboards is as clever and imaginative as McDonagh’s “In Bruges,” in terms of how it makes characters collide in delightful and unexpected ways.

Hardly a riveting experience. It has slow patches, but it has a cumulative effect, thanks equally to Hansen-Love and Huppert. We come away feeling enriched and expanded, without exactly knowing how or why.

That perception of Fiennes and Gustave is central to the whole enterprise. Without it, the movie just breaks off and flies away. But with it, The Grand Budapest Hotel becomes something wonderful.

There is plenty that’s wrong with it, and there’s plenty that’s right with it. But the truth is, in the moment, no one is balancing pros and cons. I just loved it. It’s a film that combines an overall feeling of modernity and relevance with the glow of old-time glamour.

"Human Resources" was a good, straightforward tale, but Time Out is better. It's haunting. It's like a poem.

Hopkins makes himself transparent. He lets us see both who this man was and what he is now. There’s dignity in the crumbling facade and child-like terror in the eyes — and a warning to those who’ll be lucky enough to live so long.

There's such a thing as smart angry, and such a thing as stupid angry, and after seeing Inside Job, audiences will be smart angry.

What keeps us glued to our seats are a series of unexpected plot turns, little and surprising story moments that create curiosity and sometimes anxiety. Just as one of these elements resolve, Almodóvar presents another, so that there is no point in Parallel Mothers at which the audience can become bored or complacent.

Has some great movie moments but also boring stretches.

The verdict is sad but unavoidable. Poor Things is a 141-minute mistake.

Chadwick Boseman commands every moment of this film, radiating probity and purpose, and it’s only later on that you realize that, with another actor, this wouldn’t have been a sure thing. The Black Panther is a superhero with lots of uncertainty.

The magic of Brooklyn can’t be analyzed, but something in the richness of its relationships puts an essential truth before us — the brevity and immensity of life. We know all about that, of course, but that’s the beauty of great art: It takes what you already know and makes you feel it.

So what's wrong with Joshua? Two things: The audience is ahead of the movie, and the movie never catches up.

Yet as ridiculous as Hefner's life sometimes seems, he has been an exemplary citizen, as this documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Brigitte Berman spells out.

This is the world through the idiosyncratic eye of Cassavetes, which is both all-forgiving and inexhaustibly, passionately nosy. [28 Jun 1991, p.F8]

An outstanding effort that maintains the integrity and purpose that distinguished "The Fellowship of the Ring."

Perhaps because Jenkins can’t translate to the screen the incisiveness and music of Baldwin’s prose, he brings on real music from other sources. Over and over, and increasingly as the movie wears on, Jenkins drowns his film in mirthless jazz and pop interludes to the point that the action feels stuck in cement.

This is a remarkable feat, not only of cinematography, but of choreography. Just to film Michael Keaton and Edward Norton walking down a Manhattan street, everything had to be timed as in a dance — when the camera swirls ahead, when it goes behind, when it swoops back around. It’s all accomplished so smoothly that it would be worth doing merely as a stunt, except this is no stunt. This method carries the mood and soul of one of the best movies of 2014.

A breakthrough for McCarthy and a highlight of the movie year.

This expands an already long movie to more than three hours, but this time there's no getting enough of a good thing. [2002 Director's Cut]

Economically and stunningly, Almodovar combines a high sense of style with a deep sense of humanity, along with a touch of erotic beauty that has always characterized his work.

The film is always at least mildly interesting, because international arms dealing is a fairly compelling issue, but it's never as informative as a good documentary nor as engrossing as a good narrative. It's a hybrid that's frustrating in two distinct ways.

It's a film of sensitivity, observation and humor - a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else.

How many doubts can Lee possibly cram into one motion picture? Red Hook Summer has almost too many to count: moments that go clunk, followed by others that go clang; actors who talk as if reading their lines off cue cards or rehearsing them for the first time; and set pieces that lie there.

Cruise and McQuarrie have made the best film in the franchise’s history and the most enjoyable and exciting action movie in several years.

Nomadland is too singular a film to dismiss on technicalities. It’s very much its own thing, very much an original experience, and must be counted as some odd kind of good movie.

It is not a pleasure to sit through, not even remotely, not even by some stretched definition of the word “pleasure.” It’s work, but it’s ultimately rewarding work. It tackles some truths that other movies wouldn’t touch, not even with a stick and thick gloves.

The experience of watching Daniel Day-Lewis in this role is nothing less than thrilling. This is Lincoln. No need for a time machine, there he is.

There's no music to tell you what to think. It's just three good actors and one director's merciless powers of observation.

The best thing about The Banshees of Inisherin is Kerry Condon as Pádraic’s sister, an intelligent woman with an even temperament and a good sense of humor who finds herself marooned in the wrong part of Ireland and in the wrong half of the 20th century.

Love & Friendship looks splendid. If the costumes by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh (“Cavalry”) were any more beautiful, they’d be too beautiful.

The Fugitive is the best movie of the summer and one of the best of the year. It's an action film that delivers everything a modern audience expects, and it's also a serious drama with strong characters and intense performances. [6 Aug 1993, p.C1]

Masterful documentary.

Carries a lot of emotional power.

What it means in practice is that, with a Dardennes movie, nothing much seems to be going on - until everything seems to be going on. We watch events at a remove, and then, at a certain magical point, we are in the story, and we don't quite know how they did it - again.

Clark Gable was at his most virile and Charles Laughton at almost his most vicious and sneering in director Frank Lloyd's vigorous adaptation, the first and best screen version of the Bounty story. [22 March 1998, p.52]

Everything about Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is striking and remarkable — except Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. This is not to say that they’re terrible, because they’re not. They’re better than decent. If you saw them in a regional stage production, and you didn’t know who they were, you might go home saying you saw a pretty good show. But neither is quite up for their role nor quite right for it.

The Shape of Water is brilliant, but sick — or maybe it’s sick, but brilliant. In any case, it’s something to see.

In the important things, in all the ways that really count, Caché is a handsome fraud.

With its dry, throwaway humor and constant stream of chuckles, it creates its own category of stealth comedy.

With Diane, as in life, it feels like nothing’s going on, but everything’s going on.

Saint John of Las Vegas was a bad script that somehow got made into a bad movie with good people in it.

The kind of picture to whip out the clichés for: Surprisingly original. Delightful. Brilliant. Funny as all heck. When 1989 is through, sex, lies, and videotape may well be remembered as the best film of the year. [11 Aug 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

An irresistible movie about a guy who goes on a journey, the kind an audience can't wait to take with him.

By the way, The Tillman Story has an R rating because of language. Think about that one, too: Lies are rated G and can be heard around the clock on television, but try saying the truth with the proper force and you end up with a restricted audience.

In the end, the film shakes down as a kind of eat-your-spinach exercise, a movie that’s worthy and perhaps good for you, but is labored and only enjoyable intermittently.

The film's tone is extraordinarily flexible, holding within the same reality elements of the absurd, the ridiculous and the comic while sustaining a sense of tension and dread throughout. This is, of course, one of the classic Pacino roles - he's so appealing - but don't overlook the late John Cazale as his accomplice, who gives us a character who's stupid and scared, troubled and dangerous, and disturbingly inscrutable.

An authentic piece of Americana. There's no lying or condescending from this director. Nebraska feels pure.

A good rule of thumb for Richard III is that if it's not fun, somebody's doing something wrong. Nothing's wrong here. Some of the unexpected visual touches are brilliant, others simply entertaining. But the picture never stops coming at you.

Ages well in memory because it gradually seems to mean more. Its meaning can't be summed up in a sentence, but it has to do with a view of life as inexpressibly sad and yet always right.

The music links it all together, creating the sense of some overarching, unseen logic connecting all human activity and making everything inevitable. Indeed, it’s that last impression that elevates Dawson City: Frozen Time to the level of poetry. The story of the town is interesting, without being scintillating.

The movie is as interesting as spying on your neighbors during the most interesting 85 minutes of their lives.

With Boogie Nights, we know we're not just watching episodes from disparate lives but a panorama of recent social history, rendered in bold, exuberant colors.

Like her (Cholodenko) other movies, this one has vivid characters and strong performances and flows like a slice of life set in an appealing, interesting world. But this one also has a good story and, if you're paying attention, a distinct point of view.

It's a one-of-a-kind experience -- dark, bleak, twisted carnival noir.

The movie is about a sculptor, played by Michelle Williams, in the days leading up to a gallery show. That’s all it’s about, and yet it’s enough. The pleasure of Showing Up is in being dropped into this woman’s life and, more profoundly, into her consciousness.

This is a beautiful film, full of gray-and white-haired men who grow in stature before our eyes.

The murder plot is a cheap turn that says nothing about the nature of Suzanne's ambition. Without Suzanne's media-obsession as its focus, To Die For becomes just another fairly good black comedy.

Its virtues are velocity, energy, innovative storytelling - and something that seems even more the province of young directors: a certain heartlessness and ironic distance in the tone.

A lively experience.

May December is light and amusing, but also profound and serious. See it once — and then think about it for a long time.

The best American movie about women so far this year, and probably the best that will be made this year.

More than the standard, cranked-out genre piece. Its characters linger in your mind, and the quality of its actors lift the movie into another league. [14 April 1989]

Still, no matter how flat “The Lost Daughter” can sometimes seem, there’s always something to hold our attention. The movie is never great, but it’s never exactly dull. There’s always a reason to stick around for the next scene.

Nanjiani is engaging throughout, though the scenes of his standup routine are a little confusing. He’s not funny, not even slightly. Is he supposed to be? That’s not clear.

Audiences watch Summer Hours and then, a week later, remember it as though they've lived it.

This is Almodovar's stab at serious drama, and the result is bizarre and affecting but also unsettling in ways that the filmmaker may not have intended.

If it were just a middling effort, The Master would be a lot less frustrating. But the latest from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has greatness in it - two extraordinary performances, intuitive and revealing photography and scene setting, and a distinct directorial sensibility that hovers between sobriety and satire. Yet all those virtues are undermined by a narrative that goes all but dead for the last hour.

Shrewd, highly controlled little film from Belgium that builds to an unexpected emotional climax.

Does a number of sly things.