Mick LaSalle

Cagney, the film's best asset, is irrepressible. [07 May 2006, p.34]

Extraordinary.

At times you may be moved as by no other foreign film this year - and then 10 minutes later be leaning forward in the seat just to stay awake.

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.

A shrewd satire about stardom and the cult of celebrity.

The film is long, empty and bogus.

Incredibles 2 was 14 years in the making, and it feels almost that long watching it.

To think of how people thought and acted just 45 years ago is to realize that the women in this film were the advance guard of the modern era. That makes them important, and they make this documentary important.

Casino Royale is fresh, actually fresh.

One of the most original thrillers of the 1980s. It's a lurid, twisted film that brings you into its world and completely works you over.

Neither funny nor exciting. It’s at best incongruous, the kind of incongruity that seems delightful on the page but not in practice.

You leave Cinema Paradiso with that feeling that's kind of like getting kicked in the stomach, but nice. It's one of those breathless, swept-away-by-a-movie experiences that you might have once a year, if you're lucky. [16 February 1990, Daily Notebook, p.E-1]

Bergman has not gone soft, not emotionally, philosophically and certainly not artistically. This is as tough a film as he has ever made.

It’s not boring bad, but flashy bad. It’s not “I’m sick of this, already.” It’s “I can’t believe what I’m looking at.”

Love & Mercy captures with striking immediacy the unbound power of the artist in his element.

It's long; it's expensive, and it was clearly created with the intention of being a great film. I've got nothing against bloated epics, just as I have nothing against blockbusters. But as bloated epics go, Bugsy is not particularly special. [20 Dec 1991, p.C1]

In its modestly comic way, the movie delves into the question of when it’s better to lie than tell the truth.

If there's one big difference between this version and the old, it's in the attitude toward violence. The new version may be more graphic, but it doesn't present violence as inevitable or necessary, just ugly.

It's a modest and mildly funny effort, with good scenes and touches of incisive satire, but it's not quite funny enough, and it's undermined by its camera technique.

Jarmusch's presence as a director is always felt, from moment to moment, in ways that are small but never random. Even establishing shots -- exteriors of buildings -- suggest his sardonic, quietly despairing vision. With Mystery Train, Jarmusch comes of age. [21 Dec 1989, p.E1]

The storytelling in The Force Awakens is masterful, in that it seems to be taking its time but is always moving relentlessly forward and coming up with surprises.

A good movie that has been sitting in a film can for two years waiting for a miracle. The miracle came -- Suvari's sudden popularity.

By the end, a sense settles in that Whale Rider could have accomplished as much -- and been considerably more powerful -- as a 25- minute short.

Barbie is an impressive and original work of the imagination. Its story holds up most of the time and for most of the way, with the unifying through line being Barbie’s existential crisis.

This is the kind of pure entertainment that, in its fullness and generosity, feels almost classic.

Few who see it will be sorry. Sometimes being humane means not being squeamish.

As Mister Rogers, Tom Hanks does something very important, besides looking and sounding enough like Fred Rogers that we can accept him in the role. He captures the supreme self-confidence it takes to be that nice and giving.

The first measure of Arteta's shrewdness as a storyteller is in the no-fuss way he reveals the nature of the father's business.