Peter Stack

Director Jacques Audiard beautifully lays out the story of a charming nobody named Albert who becomes a master of the half- smile and nonchalant gestures of deceit. But the story is also a cogent metaphor for French collaboration with the Nazis.

A poetry of love, longing and affirmation bleeds through the music of Cuba, and some of the best sounds the island ever created are captured with embracing humanity.

Subliminally speaking, you may not like this movie because it goes so far. Or, you may not like it because it stops short. Or you may like it for one of the above reasons. [21 Feb 1986, p.68]

The movie keeps a snappy pace and the suspense pot boiling. The snippy interplay between the two cops adds enjoyable twists of comic chemistry. Constant rain and slick streets, though a cliche, set a moody tone. [07 Oct 1996, p.D2]

I laughed so hard, my eyes watered. I laughed so loud, I lost track of whether anyone else was laughing. I laughed so much, I ached afterwards. [29 July 1988, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

Both a delightful story and a great food movie that ranks with "Like Water for Chocolate'' or "Babette's Feast.''

It's a lyrical, lulling, beautiful film that children may relish.

An inspired mix of spirited family entertainment and harrowing drama.

Although the movie goes too far, you can hardly get enough of its delicious atmosphere - and of Turner, in particular, who has never looked better on the big screen. [8 Dec 1989]

Though the dialogue is laced with the colloquial, the film has an inviting tone that even stuffiest of old fogies may find refreshing. Everybody gets put down, but with affection.

El Cid goes for the big scenes as well as any Hollywood epic, but sometimes the smaller, more intimate ones work better, partly because the architecture is stunning. [17 Sep 1993, p.C3]

Achieves a rare interweaving of the darkly poetical and raspy, cockeyed comedy.

The action is so fast that the viewer almost breaks out in a sweat...Ultimately vapid. Lola never does develop as a character, and the fuss seems ultimately pointless.

A rare spectacle on the big screen.

One of the great movies -- a triumph of storytelling and character development, and a whole new ballgame for computer animation. Pixar Animation Studios has raised the genre to an astonishing new level.

Kinda cute, occasionally amusing and very, very slow... I just wish [it] had more momentum, more oomph. [9 Oct 1987]

It's a stunning, delightful image adventure like nothing done before on the big screen.

Denzel Washington is riveting.

Coppola infuses her movie with a dreamy poetic tone, and deftly translates the essential metaphors of youth, sexuality and death without sacrificing an earthy humor.

Director Leon Ichaso (A Kiss to Die For) is intent on presenting the Harlem story in near-operatic terms, but ultimately the beautifully rendered, photographically engaging Sugar Hill is crippled by its own self-importance. [25 Feb 1994, p.C1]

Haunting in its charm, Children of Heaven opens a window on both contemporary Tehran and the hopeful heart of childhood. This lovely, amusing film deserves a big audience -- especially families. It touches on the innocence of children with tremendous affection.

Zellweger has the most interesting new face in film, and she knows how to use silences to say what the heart wants to get across.

They fractured Greek myth but slapped mountains of comic muscle on the hunky hero in Hercules. What fun! The great old Greek is turned into a '90s-style athlete who gets endorsements, sandals named after him and a chance to stand tall among nymphs and muses after whipping the villainous lord of the underworld, Hades, personified as a Hollywood movie mogul type.

Mixed Nuts, opening today at Bay Area movie theaters, is laced generously with chuckles, though it neglects one little detail that helps make movies satisfying: a plot. [21 Dec 1994, p.E1]

Kirikou and the Sorceress is definitely a sunny spot in the mire of frenetic, violent and often dopey cartoon films produced by Hollywood. It's also far more imaginative that most.

Sloshes between comedy and drama, never quite hitting stride as either.

The kind of little film you can get cozy with, laugh at in odd places even when nobody else is laughing - and yet people will not turn around to glower at you because they understand. [12 July 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Beautiful in both its brevity and its vision of contemporary Indian culture, the film abounds in easygoing humor.