Peter Brunette

Not a film for everyone. And though I deeply admire it, it's not a film that even I want to see again in the immediate future.

While most reviewers will accuse it of sentimentality (a charge that is justified), audiences, who don't feel the need to appear rigorous and tough-minded all the time, will flock to it in droves.

The fact that this film, so sensitive to woman's plight, was made by a man is perhaps cause for a little hope.

With Before Night Falls, Schnabel has moved to an entirely new plane of cinematic achievement.

It plays lots of cool mind games with the audience -- if in an occasionally incoherent way -- and ends up providing a surprising amount of fun.

Always consistently watchable, but you get the feeling that in the novel --- the treacle is cut with the nasty edge that Irving's writing is capable of.

As a primer on the arcana surrounding the profession of personal injury lawyer (more familiarly known as ambulance chaser), A Civil Action is deeply, and even passionately, informative. As a drama and character study, though, it mostly misses the mark.

Compulsively watchable and its occasional lapses into that familiar Polanskian overkill are almost charming.

Wargnier is also a lousy storyteller who seems not to understand how to shape a narrative.

It's witty, entertaining, often funny as hell and even, at times, surprisingly wise about the human condition.

It just doesn't work. Worse, it's downright offensive.

It's a masterpiece, a sublime tone poem that shows what cinema is capable of when it tries to do more than just tell a story.

One of the weirdest, hardest-to-place studio films I've seen in years.

We marvel at the almost perfect realization of a character whom we're not necessarily meant to like.

Sure, the territory is not exactly fresh...but the chemistry between the two leads is so explosive yet assured, and the comic timing so perfect, that the cliches are given new life.

The titillating sense of out-of-controlness provoked by the camera is echoed in the film's narrative situations, and you simply, and deliciously, haven't a clue as to what he's going to throw at you next.

By no means a bad film, but rather a way too over-eager one.

The real problem is that it's not a very good Hollywood film, and its flaccid style, cardboard characters, and paint-by-the-numbers plot make watching it a chore.

Far too deliberate for many--I found its generally contemplative spirit, punctuated at regular intervals by some exciting battle sequences, superb.

Gorris has beefed up the role of Natalia (Watson), with the end result that the film's emphasis is appropriately divided between the two characters in an emotionally satisfying way.

It makes us realize, suddenly, and with immense regret, what the rest of contemporary cinema so sorely lacks.

Starts off brilliantly and then gradually -- actually, not so gradually -- peters out.

It's blatantly manipulative pairing of an adorable young boy and a selfish, honesty-challenged older woman [is] so calculating that I could never get emotionally involved.

A Melancholy Delight. Its pacing will undoubtedly seem too deliberate to some, but I found first-time director Deborah Warner's The Last September a delight from beginning to end.

An insistent, insinuating film -- both in terms of its plot and characters, and in its impact on the viewer -- Harry's effects are small-scale but so perfectly pitched that they never seem small.

This kind of film, in its various manifestations recurring through the decades, gives us confidence that cinema can ultimately get to the heart of things.

A deliciously romantic story, in all senses of the word.

The new dud from Miramax's Dimension label.