Robert K. Elder

Has the shelf life of a dented milk carton. Pop-culture movies in general age rapidly due to ever-changing slang and fashions.

Delivers the perfect union - a vivid, sublime parody and valentine to the superhero genre.

If "Nightmare" was a jazzy pop number, "Bride" is a waltz--an elegant, deadly funny bit of macabre matrimony.

With 20 additional minutes of screen time, the director's cut of Richard Kelly's genre-splicing "Donnie Darko" offers new viewers a second chance to discover his mind-bending masterwork.

Odd Man Out is the extraordinary thriller about a botched IRA bank robbery and the badly wounded and increasingly feverish rebel, Johnny (James Mason), who wanders Belfast with both his mates and the police on his trail. [29 Feb 2008, p.C8]

Takes a simple story and molds it into something eloquent and menacing.

Think "Mad Max" in wheelchairs.

It's a terrific mix of screwball comedy and detective story, full of wit, romance and suspense. [23 Nov 2007, p.C10]

Bad decision after bad decision occurs over 93 minutes.

Bette Davis gave one of her best and nastiest performances in Wyler's stylishly sordid 1940 romantic murder-mystery from W. Somerset Maugham's story. [02 May 2008, p.C5]

In the tradition of indie films "Girlfight" and "George Washington," Sollett's emotive, sub-improvising style leads to pitch-perfect performances from a watertight cast in a loose, joyfully fresh film.

The best of Brooks' movie parodies: a high-style sendup of Universal's James Whale-directed Boris Karloff "Frankenstein" movies. [26 Oct 2007, p.C3]

A sweaty, vital masterpiece that's always one step ahead of its audience.

So well cast and well captured is Touching the Void that it suspends disbelief, making us feel as if we're actually watching Simpson's own icy version of Dante's "Inferno."

More effort could have been made to fully flesh out the international perspective on this "people's president," but as a play-by-play look at a modern coup, it's an amazing, insightful film.

If only Bad Education engaged the heart as much as the head, Almodovar's fractured tale might have risen above its alienating noir conventions.

If you don't believe film can change the world, you haven't seen the documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till.

The kind of well-crafted, character-driven work that wows regional film festival crowds and public television audiences but seldom gets seen outside those circles.

Characters are so well-drawn, so human - that even in the harsh light of history - it remains difficult to understand how Australia allowed such inhumanity to become institutional, mechanized and accepted.

A noir masterpiece with Oscar-caliber performances, Sexy Beast slowly turns up the heat until we squirm.

Jimmy Stewart's signature role as amiably soused Elwood P. Dowd, who navigates his way through a contentious and mercenary world with the aid of his best friend, the invisible 6-foot-3-inch rabbit Harvey. [27 Jun 2008, p.C2]

Fine ensemble performances and a tight balance of the supernatural against the historical make The Devil's Backbone a well-crafted, white-knuckled cinematic journey.

Able to provide insight into a fascinating part of theater history, spanning from Russia to the New York Catskills.

Diamond Men's potential as a diamond in the rough turn out to be more "rough" than "diamond."

Chow's savagely funny cinematic love letter places Hong Kong legends Yuen Wah, Leung Siu Lung and former Bond girl Yuen Qiu in well-cast pivotal parts, establishing Kung Fu Hustle not only as an endearing homage to a genre's history, but an astonishing piece of cinema in its own right.

An emotionally honest character piece that avoids moralizing or offering soggy excuses.

Minor but irresistible MGM musical capturing '20s college life through the prism of the jivin' '40s era. [18 Jan 2008, p.C2]

It lays the groundwork for such collaborations by suggesting that all forms of music must come full circle before evolving into something new.