Rene Rodriguez

A dreamy, ravishing ode to romantic longing, and it is bound to frustrate people who like their movies to get to the point, or at the very least have one.

It just requires an open mind, a love of film and a willingness to dream.

One False Move is by no means a "big" film. Its goals are admittedly modest, and that's the reason it works so well. If you're a fan of Jim Thompson novels (After Dark, My Sweet, The Killer Inside Me ) or Southern-style film noir, don't miss it. [26 June 1992, p.G5]

Like "A Separation," which used the story of a dissolving marriage to illustrate the unexpected consequences of a rigid, inflexible society, About Elly turns what starts out as a breezy comedy into an engaging and substantial exploration of human nature and how sometimes, without intending to, we hurt the ones we love most — including ourselves.

This is a quiet, powerful film about the lengths we'll go to for the sake of the people we love - and the depths we'll sink to for the sake of the ones we hate.

All is Lost is more fun to think about than it is to actually watch: It’s a testament to a great actor, an experimental piece of cinema and a bit of a bore.

Shot in the style of a documentary, which lends the movie an aura of utter realism, Maria Full of Grace derives an unsettling power from the clinical details of Maria's ordeal.

The most compelling -- and horrifying -- portion of the film, which interweaves archival footage and stylish graphics with the interview segments, centers on the firebombing of Japan during World War II.

This poignant, wise and subtle picture -- which, yes, happens to be the best movie of the year -- should be approached with humble expectations. Lee's approach to this delicate material is suffused with melancholy, metaphors and small, telling touches that favor subtlety over exclamation points and rough-hewn simplicity over grandiloquence.

As usual for the Dardennes, the plot is slight but loaded with hairpin turns of tremendous emotional power.

The movie is such an intense, disturbing and exhilarating experience, even five more minutes might have felt like too much.

By shunning the clinical mumbo-jumbo, the movie allows the viewer's imagination to fill in the gaps, making Microcosmos a delightfully entertaining -- and often hilarious -- celebration of nature. [27 Nov 1996, p.4D]

Murderball invokes fascination toward its protagonists, because it views them with the same confidence and acceptance they view themselves.

“Movies are a machine that helps us generate a little empathy,” Ebert said about films. Life Itself is a lovely, eloquent tribute to a man who devoted his existence to showing us just that.

What really makes Hidden so involving is Haneke's sometimes maddening insistence on keeping things vague.

The work of a talented filmmaker coasting on his own fumes.

The movie is an absolute triumph of culturally relevant filmmaking – a film that will thrill and fascinate sport junkies and non-fans alike. If you like baseball, you will love this movie. If you hate baseball, you will still love this movie.

Raunchy, provocative and often very funny.

Like the type of music it celebrates, Rock Star is just a lot of posing, adding up to very little.

He just wasn't the sort of hero the government pretended he was. This eye-opening, inspiring movie is a permanent corrective to that deception.

The movie has a longing melancholy that leavens the humor — it’s a surprisingly sad, gentle comedy.

Heavenly Creatures uses its special effects ingeniously, and unlike Jackson's previous credits (the cult gorefests Dead Alive and Bad Taste), it's a movie with serious artistic ambitions. He immerses you in the heightened, giddy mindset of these two girls so completely, you can understand why they'd fight so ferociously to defend it. It's a strange, vivid movie, with moments that capture the texture of dreams -- and the fervor of teenage friendship and romance -- with thrilling precision. [9 Dec 1994, p.G5]

One of the many pleasures of this beautifully composed, measured movie is how it reminds you of the power of pure storytelling -- an art that's too often overlooked in contemporary films in the rush for sensation and excitement.

As a director, Woo never hesitates, and the result is exhilarating. [22 Oct 1993, p.G6]

This is a dark and shivery story about motherhood, a common subject for horror movies, but one that’s rarely treated with such intelligence or seriousness of intent.

The Straight Story truly is one from the heart, and it is wonderful.

The best teen horror flick ever made, an emotionally involving, sublimely acted tale of an archetypal ugly-duckling loner (Sissy Spacek, who earned an Oscar nomination) who wreaks revenge on her tormentors, with apocalyptic results. [24 Aug 2001, p.21G]

A treat to anyone who already cherishes Varda's films and a perfect primer for those who haven't yet discovered her work.

This is a talky picture, based on a historical incident where the outcome is already known – yet it still proves much more engrossing than crime dramas or bank robberies.

Where Traffic stumbles is in its inability to engage the heart with the same fervor it engages the intellect.

This rich, emotionally complex movie finds Almodóvar venturing into trickier, more fascinating territory, even if his themes.

The Master has become a contest between two gifted actors trying to shout each other down. The commitment to their roles is impressive, but it's tethered to a weightless, airless movie, a film so enamored of itself, the audience gets shut out.

A remarkable movie that merits a place alongside "The Executioner's Song" and "In Cold Blood" as an unforgettable depiction of tragedy in the heartland.

Formidably stupid.

Watching this essentially good but misguided kid slide into a hopeless future is both transfixing and heartbreaking.

Even by Miyazaki standards, Ponyo makes less narrative sense than it should, and the pat ending is a bit of a letdown.

One of the first things that strikes you about these courageous people, who constantly confront volatile, gun-carrying thugs, is that they outgrew their violent pasts and now live contented lives with their families.

It's a beautiful, strange tone poem about childhood and innocence, set in a strange but still recognizable world where the polar ice caps are melting, crayfish shacks float down rivers and enormous aurochs, an extinct breed of bison, are sloughing their way toward our tiny, adorable narrator.

A dreamy, passionate ode to freedom -- of thought, of expression, of every person's innate right to simply be.

Might have been unbearable if Linklater hadn't filled it with so much self-deprecating humor, undercutting the pretentiousness whenever it threatens to become too thick.

It's an action picture that's been distilled and compressed to its tightest, barest, almost abstract essence, and it's absolutely thrilling.

And so the saga of Harry Potter comes to an end - not with a whimper but with a rousing thunderclap of incident, emotion, suspense and old-fashioned movie magic.

Take Shelter is paced slowly and deliberately, which is necessary to make believable whatever is tormenting Curtis.

The Salesman doesn’t have the same precision and emotional wallop of his previous films: The plot hinges on a couple of convenient contrivances, and the first half meanders a bit.

One of the most rewarding and engaging movies of the year. Don't miss it.

If The Pianist isn't quite as devastating as "Schindler's List" -- the movie with which all other Holocaust movies must be compared -- it's because Polanski isn't interested in an expansive view of the war.

The Savages is ultimately about two siblings, both around 40, in the midst of learning it's never too late to start embracing life, no matter how rotten a hand you were dealt in the past.

The film wouldn't work at all, though, if Sarsgaard didn't strike the perfect balance between snaky predator and love-struck fool.

Harrowing and grueling, Lebanon ends on a gentle, hopeful note.

What makes Exit Through the Gift Shop so fascinating -- and it is riveting, regardless of your interest in the art world -- is the eloquent way in which it illustrates how beauty and meaning really are in the eye of the beholder and how that eternal phrase still holds true: There's a sucker born every minute.

A marketable counterpoint to last year’s "Boyhood."

Knocked Up is filled with comic exchanges and bits of business that, while not essential to the central plot, keep the movie's comedic energy chugging (like Debbie's throwdown with a doorman at a popular nightclub who won't let her in because she's too old).

By the end, Turtles Can Fly becomes a lyrical and heartbreaking reminder of the human toll of war.

This is the most vibrant, exciting and invigorating movie-movie of the year.

This delicate, transporting movie, which keeps dialogue to a minimum to tell its story primarily through images, is also a triumph of sheer cinematic craft that mirrors its characters' contemplative natures while extolling the virtues of lives simply led.

A big, bold movie that gets at undeniable truths about the way no one, no matter how powerful, is immune from manipulation.

Ever the satirist, Payne mines humor from his characters, be it Randall's cockeyed pyramid-scheme ideas or the banality of a ridiculous wedding toast.

There's a lot more at work in this raucously entertaining movie than cross-dressing clichés.

Holy Motors is wild and unfettered and playful - the work of an artist who carries his love of cinema in his bones, and knows how to share that affection with the audience.

The Dark Knight is dark, all right: It's a luxurious nightmare disguised in a superhero costume, and it's proof that popcorn entertainments don't have to talk down to their audiences in order to satisfy them. The bar for comic-book film adaptations has been permanently raised.

The movie is essentially a vehicle for Smith, but the actor more than rises to the challenge. Rarely has attaining the American Dream seemed so impossible or daunting or so intensely, profoundly satisfying.

This is a smart, wise and compassionate movie about young people in the act of finding out who they are and not always behaving properly but never crossing the line into cruelty or crassness. If you happen to have been around during 1980, the soundtrack is just a bonus.

Unlike "A Separation", in which Iranian culture and mores played critical roles, the theme in The Past is more universal and spelled out in the title.

If you're going to direct a piece of crass, nonsensical junk, at least have the decency to release it straight to video, where it belongs.

The movie plays out as a series of memories, so exact and evocative that watching it becomes an immersive experience.

It's Leigh's rawest, most self-indulgent film to date. At times the movie seems to go on and on, noisily spinning its wheels. There's no dramatic arc to speak of, and the scenes in his girlfriend's flat are much less involving than Johnny's street experiences... Whenever the movie lets Johnny loose to wreak his own brand of hellish emotional havoc, however, Naked seethes with primal fury. [25 Feb. 1994, p.G5]

Although it strikes a perfect balance between otherworldly, slimy menace and 1950s B-movie cheesiness, The Host's computer-generated mutant isn't what makes this frantic, wild picture so much fun.

Restrepo makes time to observe these men during brief off-duty stints -- at one point four use an iPod to form an impromptu, joyous dance party -- but the bulk of the film centers on their insanely dangerous and heroic work.

To call Meek's Cutoff slow doesn't begin to describe its pace. There are stretches that are, frankly, boring. But the vivid details and intimacy you develop with these travelers sticks with you.

What The Long Day Closes lacks is a narrative thread, however slim, to match the perfectly realized setting and wonderful visuals Davies has crafted. The whole thing feels like a chapter of a much larger work, one that, if finished, would doubtless prove more intriguing than what we get here. [7 Aug 1993, p.G5]

Coogler occasionally overplays his hand: The scene in which Oscar says goodbye to his daughter for what we know will be the last time is prolonged to the point of overkill.

A portrait of a family reeling with pain and resentment -- and rising to the challenge of dealing with it head-on.

This may not be Park’s best or gravest picture. But it might be his most entertaining.

A terrific yarn, one so engrossing and surprising that the nature of the story's structure -- each question Jamal gets asked on the show corresponds with a traumatic or momentous moment from his childhood -- never feels like a contrived framing device.

The story of Paranoid Park may center on an extreme and unusual case, but it's Van Sant's understanding of -- and compassion for -- the hell of growing up that makes the film such a profound and lasting pleasure.

Seeing the Earth from the point of view these men saw it -- ''like a jewel hung in the blackness'' -- tends to put things in perspective.

Movies that demand to be seen by everyone -- not only for their entertainment value, but for what they say -- are precious rarities. Spike Lee's Get On the Bus is one of those films. You walk out of it feeling the world's axis has tilted ever so slightly: No matter who you are, or what your perspective was going in, the movie will make you look at last year's Million Man March -- and all of black America -- through different eyes. [16 Oct 1996, p.1D]

Children of Men is thrilling, both for its groundbreaking style (there are action sequences here unlike any filmed before) and its complex, vividly realized ideas.

The film is precious and adorable, but it isn't naïve, and the movie breathes so deep that Anderson even gets a real performance out of Willis (this is his best work in years).

The rapturous power of music has rarely been captured as purely and joyously as it is in Calle 54.

By focusing on his two young protagonists, Chang is able to explore the cultural differences between China and the rest of the world, resulting in sequences that are alternately humorous and eye-opening

There's some genuine suspense in Lantana, including one unbearably tense moment that is worthy of Hitchcock. But the movie's most unnerving aspect is the way in which it suggests true happiness may be impossible to regain once you've lost it.

Remarkably astute and devastatingly funny.

It feels wholly artificial, and your eyes never tire of drinking it all in.

A searing, heartbreaking metaphor for the futility of war.

An artsy bore.

As it winds down to its quiet, haunting finale, Oslo, August 31st illustrates how all of us, even the most damaged and broken people, have a purpose to fulfill.

This is an exciting, exceptionally well-made futuristic thriller that also happens to be loaded with lived-in touches and punchy ideas.

One of the amazing things about Volver is that Almodóvar once again manages to make a preposterous, overloaded plot seem sublime and organic: It's his profound empathy for his characters and their very human dilemmas and flaws that allows him to fling them into all sorts of odd places without ever losing sight of them as people.

Forget all that accuracy business and just enjoy the movie for what it is: a large-scale, passably engrossing tale of valiant knights doing valiant deeds.

All of Payne's films have been driven by the anger and frustration of his protagonists, but The Descendants is the first one in which sadness lurks behind every frame.

Pay attention, Michael Bay: This is what thrilling summer movies look like.

The first of this summer's would-be blockbusters that deserves to be a hit.

Weiner tells a different story — a riveting portrait of a man so consumed by hubris and confidence that he is utterly blind to his failings.

Deals with themes Eastwood has often explored before, but never so delicately or with as much sad wisdom: The way in which our past haunts our present, the lasting repercussions of violence and the cruel inexorability of fate.

The most horrific -- and heartbreaking -- scene of any movie thus far this year comes at the climax of The Cove.

As filler for the long, dry winter movie season, the movie is more than passable, and its sense of humor has a wicked, unforgiving spin that is decidedly pro-rodent.

This is a rare breed of crowd-pleaser: a big-hearted, generous movie that never patronizes the audience.