Rene Rodriguez

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.

For all its cross-cultural hijinks, Japanese Story winds up as a tale about the fragility of human beings and the lasting strength of the bonds we form during times of crisis.

The filmmakers capture enough of the book's essence -- and the power of its knockout, transcendent ending -- to more than justify the movie's existence.

Nolan, who has become an assured, stylish filmmaker in the span of only a few films, keeps the complicated plot spinning.

A mature, insightful and extremely well-acted study of a boy at a crossroads in his life, and a doomed, tortured man who, consciously or not, longs for some kind of redemption, before it's too late.

Ratner is canny enough to close the movie with a devilish tease that will send the Lambs faithful out with a delirious smile. What Red Dragon won't do is haunt your nightmares. Who could have guessed Hannibal Lecter would ever become such a crack-up?

If I hadn't seen the original, I might have gone ga-ga over Reeves' version. But even with the shock of novelty gone, the film still draws you into its chilly, demonic heart.

The Wave builds up a nice bit of genuine tension and hits some surprisingly dark notes.

You may not remember The Crazies in a month, but you'll have a grand time watching it.

It's almost startling to see a film that believes in itself and its characters so deeply.

One of the chief pleasures of My Week with Marilyn - which should not be approached as anything other than fluffy entertainment - is watching Williams bring to life Monroe's inner demons and her movie-star allure with equal aplomb. By the time the film's book-ending closing musical number comes around (That Old Black Magic), the illusion is astounding and complete.

Swinton single-handedly carries The Deep End past its nagging ambiguities.

Precious without ever being cloying, All the Real Girls is a wise, delicate and immensely touching romance.

A high-wire act of storytelling, tone and old-fashioned chutzpah.

Jackson's dazzling vision turns the story into a real movie-movie -- one that, unlike too many fantasy films today, is genuinely transporting.

Although the movie never so much as flirts with melodrama, there is still a bittersweet undercurrent.

La Promesse (The Promise) makes filmmaking look easy. The movie is deceptively simple, a tight little drama about guilt and conscience in which the creators' strings are completely invisible. It's fine storytelling in its purest form. [31 Jan. 1997, p.27G]

This lively, infuriating and occasionally moving film certainly leaves you thinking, and there isn't a dead spot in it. That's the mark of a real filmmaker, not just a muckraker.

It is to director Tykwer's credit that, although you never come close to understanding Jean-Baptiste, you don't turn your nose up at him, either.

Don Jon is nominally a love triangle between a woman, a man and his laptop, but the movie is much more thoughtful and substantial than that, and it takes a compassionate and humane approach to all of its characters, even when they’re at their most despicable.

By turns endearing and hilarious, Lilo & Stitch is proof the folks at Disney should break their own rules more often.