Rene Rodriguez

The result is one of the most visually astonishing martial-arts fantasies ever made.

It's a punchy, straight-up genre picture, a crime drama that might have once starred Charles Bronson or Steven Seagal.

By the time its open-ended conclusion rolls around, you've forgotten you're watching a "comedy." All you can see in front of you are complicated, impetuous real people -- and that's about the biggest compliment any filmmaker could hope for. [06 Feb 1997, p.5F]

The movie ultimately plays as a dead-on snapshot of the much-maligned post-Baby Boomer generation. In 10 years, Reality Bites might seem dated and irrelevant. Right now, it feels remarkably astute. [18 Feb 1994, p.G5]

Attention all geeks (and geeks at heart): Get ready for two hours of serious awesome.

Maps to the Stars is haunted by ghosts, the way the film industry is haunted by its past, and Cronenberg gradually tapers down the dark humor and starts to amp up the ugliness of these blank, superficial lives.

There's nothing "big" about Trees Lounge : Its comedy, as well as its drama, is purposely understated, culminating in a long shot that uses an actor's face to speak volumes. It has the spirit of Cassavetes in it, only it's not nearly so self-indulgent, and its emotions are so real they hurt. [25 Oct 1996, p.5G]

Like the best coming-of-age stories, I'm Not Scared (Io Non Ho Paura) is, in part, a work of horror.

The summer movie season has barely begun, and already we have its first big surprise.

Madrid, 1987 operates on a dizzying number of levels - as a romantic comedy, a sex farce, a study of culture clash, ageism and idealism - and the highest compliment you can give this ridiculously talky movie (which plays better if you speak Spanish) is that you're a little sad to see the characters go on their way once they part, probably forever.

Its lingering hangover, however, is decidedly pleasant.

The relentless pace is a big part of the fun. Who ever heard of a slow rollercoaster, anyway? You'll have to ride this one in the theater, though. It simply won't be the same at home.

Nowhere Boy is great at depicting the birth of Lennon's love for his art.

It's a strange kind of spiritual movie -- one that aims for the gut more often than the heart.

The movie moves at a relentless clip, and the characters react intelligently enough to their situation to make it crackling good entertainment -- with bite. [15 Oct 1993, p.G5]

To lump in this smart, subtle, deviously effective thriller with "The Omen" or "The Good Son" is neither fair nor entirely accurate.

You have never seen a movie quite like this one.

There's no denying the intelligence at work here, or Braff's skill at weaving off-the-wall humor and sight gags into a story that, at heart, is profoundly sad.

This is easily Bay’s best movie, the work of a filmmaker with a cracked sense of humor that he is able to share with the audience.

Delivers an even bigger sugar rush than the hit Broadway musical.

Although not quite as over-the-top visually as his Oscar-winning The Great Beauty, Youth is still spectacular, filled with tableaux (a group of people sweating silently inside a sauna, a naked man and his prostitute inside a hotel room) that juxtapose the desires and personalities of young and old without dialogue.

It's an unabashedly square picture, and proud of it. It is also a warm, funny, earnest movie, a stand-up exercise in a kind of Hollywood melodrama -- the feel-good weepie -- that has long been out of fashion.

It's a shrewd, poignant drama disguised as a comedy.

The movie also glows bright with life and hope, celebrating the innate human instinct to push onward and persevere, even in the face of incomprehensible evil.

Primer is obviously not for all tastes, but if it connects with you, prepare to be obsessed.

Lacks emotional depth and sweep -- but the movie still delivers the type of rousing, large-scale adventure that marked the best films of its kind

Although the characters are all cartoons, Ritchie still invests them with enough personality to make them stand out as real people, which is what makes RocknRolla much more involving than your typical Tarantino ripoff.

Cassel, who won a Cesar (France's equivalent to the Oscar) for his performance, invests the character with a grounding of humanity and honor that imply there are certain lines even Mesrine would never cross.

Not all of the characters in the movie get just and fair send-offs, but Virzi’s stylish picture argues that’s the price we pay when a capitalist society trains us to place our own selfish interests above everything else. It’s a rat race that ultimately has no winners.

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.

Initially sounds perverted but ends up being just the opposite.

Humpday sells its admittedly far-fetched premise by illustrating how men often can't help but behave like stubborn children in the company of their friends -- even when the stakes are raised to ridiculous levels.

It's a mean, incendiary picture that, below the surface, relies on racial hatred (as in white vs. black) to propel its story. But Trespass does deliver a roller coaster ride of blazing guns, heroic machismo and bullet-riddled bodies. The unsavoriness that propels some of those thrills is simply part of the game. [26 Dec 1992, p.E4]

You come away from Mud fondly remembering those two boys, especially Ellis, who has taken his first steps toward adulthood and discovers it suits him just fine.

The result is a rare live-action Disney movie that merits comparison to its beloved feature-length cartoons.

The movie is so cheerfully, furiously relentless, its contagious silliness wears you down.

A brisk and lively cinematic Cliff's Notes of the 2005 nonfiction bestseller that made the lofty promise to reveal "the hidden side of everything."

The movie leaves you feeling angry and frustrated anyway. And justice for all? Hardly.

Will Noah anger some rigid purists and scholars because of the liberties it takes? Perhaps. But the point to take home is the message the movie leaves you with, which works regardless of your faith (or lack thereof). Humans are inherently flawed. How we deal with those defects is what truly matters.

What ensues is a love story ringed by barbed wire and etched in blood with the jagged neck of a broken beer bottle.

By film’s end, everyone has been transformed for the worst. Heli is a troubling and upsetting picture, a portrait of a broken country that seems to be beyond repair and a depiction of how violence and corruption, when left unchecked, taints saints and sinners alike, sparing no one.

The film seems simple and facile at a glance, but these characters and their dilemmas stay with you. These days, any of us could suddenly be Larry Crowne.

This long, gorgeous, occasionally maddening movie is the work of a hopeless romantic who knows there is no pain as bittersweet -- or as haunting -- as the pain of a broken heart.

A thoroughly satisfying and engaging children's picture that never forgets those kids probably didn't get to the theater by themselves.

The movie has an exhilarating energy that is never exhausting, and the filmmaker’s trademark excesses, although toned down, are still at play. The meek should be wary; for everyone else, it’s party time.

A savage, insane movie - in the best way possible.

What Sunshine State lacks in momentum, it makes up for with a Dickensian sprawl of characters -- 50 in all -- who possess the depth and humanity that has become a Sayles trademark.

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

With Moore’s formidable, Oscar-bound performance, the picture transcends the usual cliches of the genre to become something far more moving and profound.

The most dangerous evil of all -- the kind fueled by plain human greed -- lurks behind every twist of Red Rock West, proving once again it's often the simplest stories, when told with intelligence and creativity, that work best. [16 Sep 1994, p.G4]

Joy Ride is also surprisingly funny, thanks mostly to Zahn.

Feuerzeig presents an unyieldingly sympathetic but always fascinating portrait of an artist whose mental illness became inseparable from his art, with one often fueling the other.

The movie is not without its pleasures. Chief among them is Sean Connery's robust performance.

Using a semi-documentary approach, Glatzer and Westmoreland circumvent the considerable potential for sentimentality inherent in their story, instead taking a frank and direct approach to kids who, while far from hardened, are nowhere near innocent, either.

It's the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner, and even if it's nonsense, its claws dig surprisingly deep.

Abel is a man with ideals in a world that has no use for them: If he’s going to succeed, he’s going to have to use his wits instead of bullets, and although the odds against him are formidable, watching his struggle is riveting entertainment.

In the movie’s best scene, Bisset lays into Depardieu with the rage and anger of a woman who has tolerated bad behavior for too long (there’s a fiery spontaneity to their verbal sparring that makes you wonder if the scene was improvised).

Style is the main attraction in The Limey -- it's as close to experimental filmmaking as mainstream movies get -- but the film works well when taken simply as a pure revenge drama, too.

Scott Cooper, who directed and co-wrote Out of the Furnace, empathizes with people who feel their lives have hit a dead end (his previous film, "Crazy Heart," earned Jeff Bridges an Oscar as a washed-up country singer who had given up on himself). These are difficult characters to dramatize.

The Hangover remains unrepentantly irresponsible and hilarious throughout, culminating with what could be the funniest montage ever to grace a picture's end credits. The summer's first sleeper hit has arrived.

Written and directed by James Mottern with more attention to character than to plot, Trucker is a simple, unadorned study of a loner forced by circumstance to embrace the world again -- but only on her terms.

This is a thriller that embraces stillness and silence where others prefer noise and bombast. It thrives on the hush before the explosion instead of its aftermath, and it's that eerie sense of expectation that gives the film its thick aura of suspense.

Even if the movie loses its nerve at the end, that doesn't take anything away from Washington's performance.

The best way to approach Joel and Ethan Coen's eagerly awaited True Grit is to lower your expectations, then lower them a bit more. The problem is not the movie, which is a terrific, no-nonsense, straightforward western. The surprise – or vague disappointment – is the prevailing lack of Coen-ness in the movie.

The movie ultimately turns out to be less about sex than it is about the point in a friendship where two people decide they will both be better off if they part ways.

Because Kitano also wrote and directed the movie, Zatoichi also features all kinds of beguiling, if admittedly bizarre, subplots and forays into nonsequitur territory.

If Ray fails to present a genuine portrait of a complex man's essence, it does leave you with an even greater sense of awe for Charles' accomplishments, both in his personal and public lives.

The most ingenious thing about the movie is how it plays to diehards and neophytes alike. Every Simpsons character gets at least a fleeting appearance (and occasionally, director David Silverstein uses the widescreen format to cram in as many of them into one shot as he can).

It's big, exciting, ambitious, and it makes you cry in all the right places.

With a steely, unblinking resolve, Downfall stares into the abyss, but does not pretend to comprehend it.

Gosling continues to prove he may the best actor of his generation. His performance in The Ides of March, following his comedic turn in "Crazy, Stupid Love" and his portrayal of a stoic loner in "Drive," proves this actor is capable of practically anything.

Catching Fire is a work of thoughtful, emotionally engaging sci-fi — everything that its predecessor The Hunger Games was not.

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

This is a small, intimate movie bound to get lost in the holiday shuffle, but its pleasures are worth seeking out.

An uncommonly playful fright machine -- a fun house factory of scares.

The Neon Demon is a voluptuous provocation, a stylish free-fall down a gonzo rabbit hole that is as entrancing as it is maddening. Here is a rarity in this season of summer movie doldrums: A film that is guaranteed to elicit strong reactions.

A sparkling exercise in movie cool.

Love makes us do all kinds of crazy things, but in Crazy Love, crazy seems too mild a word.

The Broken Circle Breakdown manages to pull off a small miracle, using joyous music and tenderness to tell a tragic story that moves you but doesn’t depress you.

Shaped just like the murder-mystery its title promises, the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? introduces us to the victim, then rounds up the suspects most likely responsible for its demise.

De Palma never achieved the box-office and Oscar glory of his contemporaries (Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese), but this documentary is a testament to a talent that merits a place at their table.

That’s one of the great accomplishments of Ascher’s film: Intercutting his interviews with fictional recreations of what the subjects are describing allows you to see a version of what they saw, and you don’t need to believe any of it for The Nightmare to give you a major case of the creeps.

A funny and constantly surprising exercise in comic tension.

Reminiscent of Showgirls minus the sex, nudity, sleaze, bad acting and horrible dancing, Burlesque is a typical A Star is Born story.

A joyful romp, devoid of the tiresome pop-culture references.

What makes Whatever Works so enjoyable, aside from the unusually high number of effective one-liners the script contains (this is Allen's funniest movie since Mighty Aphrodite), are its supporting characters.

Black Book takes a brave, if odd, approach to a WWII historical drama, but one thing is certain: No one in the theater will be bored.

Often grim, but never nihilistic: Even at its darkest, Dizdar gives the movie an optimistic bounce. The movie is often shockingly funny, too.

Guaranteed to beguile anyone who can remember the joy -- and agony -- of anticipating the first time.

Exhausting at times, frustrating in others, Magnolia is mostly just exhilarating, the product of a raw, vibrant talent finding his footing in an adult world -- and unafraid to make mistakes.

There are a few surprises lurking in Cloverfield, and director Matt Reeves has an uncanny ability to time his jolts and scare when you least expect it.

For anyone interested in the art of comedy, it's a veritable primer on the vagaries of humor.

The movie asks tough, unflinching questions about America's responsibility to maintain world peace -- and the price we are willing to pay in order to accomplish that. Timely stuff, indeed.

The most amazing magic yet for the wildly popular franchise: It is genuinely engrossing.

Doesn't sugarcoat the painful realities of Alzheimer's or the difficult decisions faced by relatives of its victims, but by film's end, its clear-eyed melancholy winds up feeling strangely uplifting.

The movie is funny and scary and touching in all the ways the best children's pictures are, but it is also fast and compact, running a perfectly paced 93 minutes (including credits).

Hunt gives this funny, touching movie its soul, and the actors elevate the material into something more resonant and memorable than the story promises.

A brazen stunt that pays off. Writer-director Michel Hazanavicius, simultaneously channeling "Singin' in the Rain" and "A Star is Born," tells a story about 1920s Hollywood made in the style of that era.