Mick LaSalle

Maestro exposes a truth about marriage that I always knew but could never quite articulate: To be truly known and understood can actually be scary.

The goal of this review - why not just say it? - is to disclose as little about the story as possible while instilling a ravenous and even rabid desire to see Love Crime immediately.

Alan Rudolph's direction is active but unintrusive, highlighting some of the more chilling moments with slow-motion sequences and odd cross-cutting. [19 Apr 1991, p.E1]

This movie is seriously funny, surprisingly funny, not funny in a way that you ever decide to laugh, but funny like you couldn’t keep quiet even if you wanted to. The laughs, as they say, keep coming.

A disturbing film about grim subject matter, but the overall experience is more exhilarating than saddening. There's just something satisfying about seeing a movie so well made.

It’s a deep and moving investigation into one woman’s inner struggle as she goes about looking for true love.

An intelligent, well-made film about a seemingly well-adjusted, likable and loquacious woman.

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.

Anyone with any doubt as to the importance, in a functioning democracy, of American newspapers - with working newsrooms full of professional, paid journalists - needs to see this movie.

A tennis match can be a personal battle, a clash not only of athleticism but of mind, and Guadagnino gives every game and set the gravity of gladiatorial contest.

All this is dramatized expertly and with a lightness of touch in Simon Beaufoy’s screenplay and in the direction of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the team behind “Little Miss Sunshine.”

In Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan takes an eggheady topic and, without insulting anyone’s intelligence, turns it into a gut-level experience. He shows that the kind of hyper, jacked-up, ultra-modern filmmaking associated with the action and superhero genres can be harnessed in the service of a smart, serious movie.

A work of art such as A Good Person cannot be the product of some casual connection. It’s the product of a soul connection, and I hope Braff and Pugh get another chance to work together.

Almodóvar presents this material in a way that never splits our attention, even as he’s giving us a deluge of sensory and emotional detail. It’s as if he’s internalized the story so completely that he can’t make a gesture — can’t move the camera, can’t shape a moment — without saying something true.

This is what Hopkins has been showing us for decade after decade: the deepest, rawest and most tortured feelings of private, dignified men. His is nothing less than a glorious cinematic legacy, and the miracle is that he keeps building on it.

Structured like a 17th century comedy of manners, the picture is a social critique of the idle rich that's part comic and part tragic, that's light and airy and yet haunted with meaning. [08 Feb 2004]

Lindon is a strong, sensitive actor, heir to the stoic French working-class tradition of Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura. And not enough can be said for Kiberlain, an actress willing to be seen in all her ranges.

Director Bernard Rose has created a committed, intelligent and fascinating piece of work with no irony about it.

Christian McKay who, as Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles"gives what I believe is the most exact and uncanny screen portrayal of an historical figure, ever.

This is the legal movie that lawyers most often praise for its realism, in terms of not only story but also tone and atmosphere. It's full of great scenes. [08 Apr 2012, p.P19]

A film of audacity and total gut-level appeal.

In this small and very smart film, Cronenberg does several things at once and makes them all look effortless, capturing various shadings of consciousness and versions of reality.

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 story is minimal, just a series of events in the life of a young man and his circle, but every scene is rendered with such authenticity that it’s riveting, almost like it’s a privilege to be stepping back in time.

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is a perfect thriller. It may not be as good a movie as ''Cape Fear,'' which is a sort of cinematic extravaganza, but in many ways I liked it more. It's stripped- down and lean, without a moment wasted, and the plot works like a delicate machine. [10 Jan 1992, p.C1]

Out of the Past is cinematic perfection, a Hollywood classic that's as great and as enjoyable as its reputation has promised.

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.

It's a special movie that can make you laugh out loud numerous times at gross comedy and then make you think and feel something, too. There’s also something to be said for a movie that seems like the most fun these actors ever had.