Peter Rainer

A disconcerting melange, Tokyo Sonata begins rather conventionally before spinning into black comic, almost fantastical, terrain.

It's all a bit precious and preening, but Coogan is marvelous, almost as good as he was in Winterbottom's "24 Hour Party People."

A solid achievement, but those in the press who have been trumpeting its greatness may be going in for a bit of self-congratulation. The movie plays very well to the choir.

There's a hushed, rapturous quality to its best parts, though, and the emotional interplay between Ricky and Marina has a scary immediacy that the movies rarely achieve. Almodovar dares a lot in this film. [4 May 1990]

By Dardenne standards this plot is pretty pulpy and unconvincing, but I rather enjoyed watching them attempt to twist it into an existentialist pretzel.

Although I Am Big Bird is no great shakes as a piece of filmmaking, and skews into treacly inspirational terrain, it’s still worth seeing to make the acquaintance of a man who, although he would probably be the last to say so, is an artist of the first rank. And a nice guy, too. What a rare combo.

The overlong but charming documentary California Typewriter is an ode to the iconic writing instrument. I have to say I feel kind of guilty celebrating it on my word processor.

If you've never experienced a Bollywood musical before, seeing Lagaan will be like watching "Gone With the Wind" without ever having seen a Hollywood movie.

This is one of the few films that captures the complex intensity of the diva/personal assistant dynamic.

Director Henry Selick is all too effective at conjuring grody ghastliness. He's less effective at giving that ghastliness a human dimension, a resonance, a reason for being beyond cheap thrills.

Starts slowly and ominously and gradually accelerates into a frenzy.

Hansen-Løve wants us to experience all this as a kind of amour fou, but all I kept thinking was that Sullivan was a prize jerk and Camille would be well rid of him.

A prime example of a dysfunctional-family comedy that also doubles as a road movie. Even the vehicle of transport is dysfunctional.

I hope this won’t be his last acting job. He’s too vital to go in for such a soggy send-off.

Some first-rate animation and some second-rate storytelling.

There is no need for Murmelstein to break down here. In The Last of the Unjust, it’s as if the whole world is weeping.

As it turns out, bearing Welles’s words in mind, it becomes almost a meta version of Welles’s movie. I would like to think that the great magician himself would have approved.

Never entirely escapes its theatrical origins, and, by framing the story so pugilistically, the filmmakers don't bring out the full richness in this material.

Unsatisfying at a very high level. It fritters away more than most movies ever offer up.

At its best in the interludes between explosions.

Crudup, whose features have the appropriate delicacy, plays Ned with complete conviction; it’s difficult to imagine anyone else succeeding as well.

No other concert film has ever expressed so fervently the erotic root of rock. Seeing it is the opposite of taking a trip down memory lane; it's more like a plunge into the belly of the beast.

Not surprisingly, a documentary constructed entirely from newsreel footage proves inadequate to the task of sounding the depths of someone as complicated or driven (pun intended) as Senna.

Haneke is an exploitation filmmaker of the highest gifts. His movies are not to be entered into lightly.

As this film amply demonstrates, in the highest realms of commerce, wielding power is paramount.

Much more kid-oriented than any other computer-animated movie thus far. In other words, it's much more Disneyish. I enjoyed it.

It has moments when the spiritual and the secular burst forth in stunning disarray.

Although stylistically and conceptually it never lifts itself entirely out of the realm of a made-for-television drama – don't expect "My Left Foot" – The Sessions is bracing. It's also one of the few movies to recognize that people with severe physical disabilities have sexual lives, too.