Rene Rodriguez

An excellent legal thriller elevated to superb drama by the actor's (Clooney) central performance.

There's nothing in the utterly enchanting Raising Victor Vargas you haven't seen before; you'd just be hard-pressed to name another movie that did it as well.

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.

An exuberant, disarming entertainment.

Has the ring of classic Disney seamlessly combined with a modern-day sensibility.

The results, for the most part, aren't pretty. The newly expanded Balseros, which adds an hour of footage to the previous film, is an even more compelling, if grimmer, work than the original.

Charles Bukowski would have loved this foul-mouthed, fiery, reckless woman. Against all odds and common sense, you will, too.

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.

What American Gangster does have -- what makes it such a commanding, exhilarating movie -- is a consummate love and understanding of story.

Burton has found a vehicle sturdy enough to indulge every facet of his imagination: His great visual flair, his sense of whimsy and humor, his fondness for horror and his love of music.

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]

As suspenseful as a full-blown thriller.

Here, finally, is something you've really never seen before.

The movie isn't just hilarious: It's witty and inventive, too, and in hindsight, it isn't even all that dumb.

Shame is fearless in the way the most ambitious art often is, and to write it off for what it doesn't do is reductive and misguided. You don't just watch Shame: You feel it, too.

Unabashedly frank in its depiction of sex -- too frank, probably, for more discreet viewers -- but it's never exploitive or seedy.

Even though it unfolds almost entirely through a child's eyes, and contains no onscreen violence, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas packs as devastating a punch as an adult-oriented drama about the subject. Its concluding five minutes are almost impossible to watch.

Michael Mann's extraordinary Public Enemies is an unusual sort of gangster picture, a near-impressionistic recreation of the last year in the life of one of American history's most notorious bank robbers.

It's a dry, mundane title. It's also the only thing about the film that doesn't blow your mind right out of its comfortable, I've-seen-all-this-before rut.

The Salt of the Earth is a celebration of the power of art to change the world, as well as an exploration of the considerable toll gifted artists sometimes pay for their talents, and their courage to push forward regardless.

The biggest compliment you can pay the much-anticipated film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that you can't imagine Stieg Larsson's corker of a story ever having existed in book form.

After the nihilistic deconstruction of Deadpool and the flattening self-importance of Batman v. Superman, Captain America: Civil War reminds you how funny and exciting these pictures can be when they’re done right — you know, like comic books. The summer movie season has barely begun, and already the remedy for superhero film fatigue has arrived.

Movies like Monsters, Inc. literally make you feel like a kid again, marveling at the joyously inventive sights before you, and that's a feat that should not be taken lightly.

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

But Tarantino isn’t glorifying the ugliness; he’s condemning it. He just wants to put on a grand show at the same time. “Are you not entertained?” he seems to be asking. Yes. Yes, we are.

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

It's a sign of just how much Coppola respects her characters that she doesn't make us privy to that final line: It is only meant for them to share. But like the rest of the ethereal Lost in Translation, you don't need to have it spelled out in order to feel it.

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