Roger Ebert

It is a spellbinding enigma, and one of the damnedest films Morris has ever made.

The whole program could make a nice introduction to moviegoing for a small child.

This movie is impressively staged, the dialogue is given proper weight and not hurried through, there are surprises which, in hindsight, seem fair enough, and "Harry Potter" now possesses an end that befits the most profitable series in movie history.

Sara Forestier is uninhibited in the role and has great comic energy. She won the Cesar for best actress for this performance.

The movie suggests that humans benefitted little from Project Nim, and Nim himself not at all.

The performances are pitch perfect, even including Gabriel Chavarria as Ramon, the man who steals the truck. It adds an important element to the film that he embodies a desperate man, not a bad one.

It's not the romcom that's so entertaining, anyway; it's the slapstick.

Funny and dirty in about that order.

Bride Flight takes this melodrama and adds details of period, of behavior, of personality, to somewhat redeem its rather inevitable conclusion.

I enjoyed the film very much. It was a visceral pleasure to see a hard-boiled guy like David Carr at its center.

The screenplay carries blandness to a point beyond tedium.

It's chirpy, it's bright, there are pretty locations and lots happens. This is the kind of movie that can briefly hold the attention of a cat.

A visually ugly film with an incoherent plot, wooden characters and inane dialog. It provided me with one of the more unpleasant experiences I've had at the movies.

Of these characters, the rival played by Lucy Punch is the most colorful, because she's the most driven and obsessed. The others seem curiously inconsequential, content to materialize in a scene, perform a necessary function and vaporize.

A lot of Trollhunter - but not enough - is funny. I imagine the best way to see the movie would be the way it was presented at Sundance, at a "secret" midnight screening at which the capacity audience allegedly has no idea what it is about to see.

A film like The Last Mountain fills me with restless anger. I have seen many documentaries like this, all telling versions of the same story.

What I was left with was the goodness of Buck Brannaman as a man. He was dealt a hand that might have destroyed him. He overcame his start and is now a wise and influential role model. He does unto horses as he wishes his father had done onto him.

This is not to say Conan O'Brien is a bad man. In fact, after the movie, I rather admired him. What we are seeing is a man determined to vindicate himself after a public humiliation.

Cars 2 is fun. Whether that's because John Lasseter is in touch with his inner child or mine, I cannot say.

Pleasant and well-acted and easy to watch.

This is a great deal more entertaining than it sounds, in large part because the two actors are gifted mimics - Brydon the better one, although Coogan doesn't think so.

The movie stars Jim Carrey, who is in his pleasant mode. It would have helped if he were in his manic mode, although it's hard to get a rise out of a penguin.

Green Lantern does not intend to be plausible. It intends to be a sound-and-light show, assaulting the audience with sensational special effects. If that's what you want, that's what you get.

Here is a film that invites philosophical musing. Made without dialogue and often in long shots, it regards the four stages of existence in a remote Italian village.

If someone could give you a pill that allowed you to live for 500 years, would you take it? Not me.

A consistently entertaining documentary bringing together a remarkable variety of surviving performances on films and records, going back to circa 1900.

A film that little kids might find perfectly acceptable. Little, little, little kids. My best guess is, above fourth-grade level, you'd be pushing it.

Unfortunately, I was also convinced that trapped within this 98-minute film is a good 30-minute news report struggling to get out. Shearer, who is bright and funny, comes across here as a solemn lecturer.

A film like this can end honestly in only one way, and Ku is true to it. Life will go on, one baffling day after another. There can be no release, only a gradual deadening.

This film is an affront. It is incoherent, maddening, deliberately opaque and heedless of the ways in which people watch movies.

Submarine isn't an insipid teen sex comedy. It flaunts some stylistic devices, such as titles and sections and self-aware narration, but it doesn't try too hard to be desperately clever.

One of the pleasures of Beginners is the warmth and sincerity of the major characters. There is no villain. They begin by wanting to be happier and end by succeeding.

A wonderful film, nostalgia not for a time but for a style of filmmaking, when shell-shocked young audiences were told a story and not pounded over the head with aggressive action.

A remarkable documentary that's also one of the most beautiful nature films I've seen.

The only other film I've seen with this boldness of vision is Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and it lacked Malick's fierce evocation of human feeling.

X-Men: First Class is competent weekend entertainment. It is not a great comic book movie, like "Spider-Man 2," or a bad one, like "Thor." It is not in 3-D, which is a mercy.

What it comes down to is: Pierre is a lousy adulterer. He lacks the desire, the reason and the skill.

The film is terrifically entertaining, an ambitious big-budget epic, directed with great visuals and sound by Takeshi Miike.

The animation is elegant, the story is much more involving than in the original, and there's boundless energy.

Owen Wilson is a key to the movie's appeal. He makes Gil so sincere, so enthusiastic.

Is this some kind of a test? The Hangover, Part II plays like a challenge to the audience's capacity for raunchiness.

Here is a good and joyous man who leads a life that is perfect for him, and how many people do we meet like that? This movie made me happy every moment I was watching it.

The movie is fun until they set sail.

Meek's Cutoff is more an experience than a story. It has personality conflicts, but isn't about them. The suspicions and angers of the group are essentially irrelevant to their overwhelming reality. Reichardt has the courage to establish that.

At the end, I was expecting more of an emotional payoff; making a movie calm is one thing, and making it matter-of-fact is another. But make a note about Will Ferrell. There is depth there.

Bridesmaids seems to be a more or less deliberate attempt to cross the Chick Flick with the Raunch Comedy. It definitively proves that women are the equal of men in vulgarity, sexual frankness, lust, vulnerability, overdrinking and insecurity.

The bottom line: I am convinced this message is true.

Here is an unsuccessful movie with some surprisingly successful scenes. It has moments when it is electrifying and passages where it slows to a walk.

A charming documentary about the finalists in the Teenage Magician Contest at the annual World Magic Seminar in Las Vegas.

As good as Gibson is, his character is still caught between the tragedy of the man and the absurdity of the Beaver. Fugitive thoughts of Señor Wences crept into my mind. I'm sorry, but they did.

The cast is large, well chosen and diverting. The ceremony is delightful.

All of the characters are treated sincerely and played in a straightforward style. It's just that we don't love them enough.

He is one of the most prolific and generous of directors, and there is no word that summarizes a "Tavernier film," except, usually, masterful.

What I enjoyed was the way the film summons up the pure obsessive passion that chess stirs in some people.

Siskel and Jacobs focus on the performances, which are inspiring and electrifying.

What it all comes down to is a skillfully assembled 130 minutes at the movies, with actors capable of doing absurd things with straight faces, and action sequences that toy idly with the laws of physics.

Spellbinding.

Director Jim Mickle, who co-wrote the film with his star Nick Damici, has crafted a good-looking, well-played and atmospheric apocalyptic vision.

Most people do not choose their religions but have them forced upon themselves by birth, and the lesson of Incendies is that an accident of birth is not a reason for hatred.

Reeves has many arrows in his quiver, but screwball comedy isn't one of them.

Give Shadyac credit: He sells his Pasadena mansion, starts teaching college and moves into a mobile home (in Malibu, it's true). Now he offers us this hopeful if somewhat undigested cut of his findings, in a film as watchable as a really good TV commercial, and just as deep.

This question, which will instinctively occur to many viewers, is never quite dealt with in the film. The photographers sometimes drive into the middle of violent situations, hold up a camera, and say "press!" - as if that will solve everything.

The movie is quick and cheerful, and Spurlock is engaging.

In an age of prefabricated special effects and obviously phony spectacle, it's sort of old-fashioned (and a pleasure) to see a movie made of real people and plausible sets.