Shawn Levy

Whether your tastes are delicate or coarse, whether you prefer the ballet or horror movies, there is plenty in the film for you.

There's a touch of second-rate playwriting about it that imparts a flattened feel to the end of an otherwise crackerjack picture.

I give the slight edge to the first movie because I prefer Boyle's craft to Fresnadillo's, but the action is more intense here, and I greeted the thought of a third film -- virtually assured in the closing shots -- with a little yip of "Yes!" Likely you will, too.

About as good a movie as you could have hoped for. Really good. Hole-in-one good.

Can a movie about such a fellow and such a fate be lovely? And can it uplift? Control is and, in its artfulness, does.

Anderson, possessed of an eerily Edwardian aspect, is superb, luminous and knowing and convincingly proud and desperate as the situation requires.

Fact is, Starting Out is pretty dry stuff as a movie, even as it's enlivened by vivid acting.

Built on an absolutely marvelous idea but manages to make only about two-thirds of a good movie of it.

Precious can’t be endorsed as entertainment: the circumstances and incidents and emotions in the film are far too dark and painful. But there is exhilaration in its daring, in its craft and in the powerhouse work of its principal actresses.

The sheer volume of amazing things that del Toro is able to mine from his unconscious and render plausibly on the screen is remarkable. Hellboy II feels pretty sequel-y, as these things go, but there's a lot in it that has no precedent of any kind, anywhere, ever. That stuff makes it worthwhile.

There are laughs and moments of pain and many instances of embarrassing (and deeply human) behavior throughout, but there's also delicacy and grace.

The film is masterful in many ways, and brilliantly acted by its lead player, Eriq Ebouaney, but it's often overly dense and fast with information, background and ideas.

Anderson delivers a satisfyingly quirky, cinematically masterful valentine that contains more seeds of truth about the human heart than a hundred big fat Greek comedies.

The Dark Knight Rises is reasonably accomplished as a gigantic superhero movie; as a meditation on capital and its personal and social discontents, it's strictly from the funny pages.

The film has visual and verbal flair, spry energy and deep wit.

We've seen documentaries with more daring themes, greater drama, sharper craft and timelier subject matter. But few have been as affecting as The Real Dirt on Farmer John.

Although there is some gimmickry, this is one of the most straightforward versions of the Tempest ever filmed, making it edifying as well as -- when Taymor hits a groove -- dazzling.

You should come out of a film like Apres Vous with your heart as light and fluffy as a souffle. But this farce, credited to four chefs, er, writers, is as heavy and leaden as meatloaf.

Shot on location in New York by director Ted Tetzlaff, it's tense and fresh and, at 73 minutes, remarkably taut. [14 Sep 2012]

If the result doesn't make dazzling watching, it nonetheless has the power to haunt.

If you thought "Boogie Nights" blew it in its final third, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The result is a genuinely pleasing kung fu movie that kids and grown-ups can enjoy.

One of those undeniably beautiful things. The film is, in fact, an encyclopedia of beauty -- the beauty of desire, the beauty of nostalgia, the beauty of music and clothing and smoke and pain, and, chiefly, the beauty of women.

It's a visual feast that only a crack director could provide, and it's mounted within a story and setting that, played utterly straight, might still have made a good movie.

The Aviator, though, if not prime Scorsese, is the closest thing in a long time to the old Scorsese. What a splendid year-end gift!

Sirk freighted this material with surprisingly delicate art: gorgeous photography and staging, a fluency of camera work rarely seen even in A-level movies, and an earnest tone evident in the music, dialogue and acting. [17 Oct 1999]

For all its flaws, Hitch largely comes off as a light romp.

Beautiful, thoughtful and engrossing.

Possesses a tone that wobbles masterfully between whimsy, dread, affection and horror, building on rich performances and an understated showiness to cast a queer and tingly spell.

The resulting film is a labor of love with all the strengths and weaknesses you might expect from such a designation.

Although the plot might sound like the stuff of a soap opera, a smart script, strong performances and an ideologically determined lack of filmmaking niceties result in a shattering, deeply felt work.

While the urban texture and the unapologetic work of Basinger impart a sophisticated air to what is essentially a downtrodden-teen-makes-good film, that is, finally, just what 8 Mile is. That's not a bad thing, but it's nothing to rap home about, either.

Ferrific fun and rousing proof that there’s still vital life in an aging master filmmaker.

If film is an art, it's because it's possible for somebody to make films like this.

The film does leave you with the lingering regret that you missed a hell of a good party. It is, as the kids used to say, a trip.

Director Bart Layton's film takes us to such strange and emotionally-charged places that we cannot believe that what we're seeing is real, even though it demonstrably is.

Built around Firth’s fine work, A Single Man is a handsome film that, like its slender source novel, is stylish, quiet and sure.

You wouldn't want to be Daniel Johnston, or even know him too well. But see this film and you won't forget him.

In all that empty space, the film gets a bit lost.

It's inconsistent fun, and it's a little too layered with self-congratulatory irony to be truly transporting.

Among the film's highlights are an interview with Grand Wizard Theodore, who is generally uncontested in his claim to have invented the idea of scratching vinyl.

A staggering movie about a reality so dark and painful and real that it almost crushes the mind to think about it.

Gets its hooks into you in ways that are hard to explain or to ignore.

A winning, grown-up film that benefits from fine, homey performances, a steady directorial hand, and the sense that everyone involved was invested in the story and not just the job.

There are strange variations in the mood of Three Burials that may strike some viewers as flippant. As gritty and real as the business of toting a corpse at gunpoint gets, the tone occasionally veers into farce. But it's never too long before the focus returns to Jones' weathered eyes.

The film is somewhat scattered in construction, but it's an eye-opener.

Had Williams chopped away more pointedly at the rambling script, he might've had something memorable.

So emotionally overwhelming that its aesthetics seem almost beside the point.

An audaciously unique and exciting film, not as successful as an A-to-Z story as it is mind-expanding as a vision of what the cinema can do.

It's a teeming, steaming, bubbling stew, a tremendous good time, a rich entertainment and a heck of a lesson in music, human etiquette and the politics of making it (or not) in show biz.

In Almodóvar and Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time.

The Dardennes are talents, clearly. Watching Rosetta is like watching them flip you the bird.

The laughs in Adventureland aren't as outlandish as those in "Superbad," but they seem more based in experience and truth. You could want something more raucous, I suppose, but that wouldn't necessarily be an improvement.

An unexpectedly charming little film.

Working with someone else's material and a story outside the mainstream of his (Lee) work, he delivers laughs, puzzles, tension and the immense gift of fine actors at their delicious, familiar best.

It's hot and sweet and made with inspiration and cheek. And it is not your children's animated fare -- which, in this case, is a recommendation.

Though the fiction doesn't quite equal the documentary in razzle-dazzle impact, it's a credible, handsome and engaging entertainment.

It's a fresh-hearted film that only frustrates when you sense how close it is to being exceptional.

Hara-Kiri is low on blood and shock, emphasizing performance and atmosphere.

There is such a thoroughgoing nastiness to the plot and dialogue that the film almost achieves a level of buoyancy.

It's a funny thing: On the one hand, you fault Taymor for going out of her way to create some of the more disposable sequences. On the other, you can forgive her: Who wouldn't get carried away given the opportunity she has been given here to play with one of the world's greatest song catalogs?

A fine and sturdy picture, capable of standing alongside the many such films made when Westerns were one of our chief entertainments.

Is it dreary, stingy and strained? Well, yes: it's Jane Eyre, after all. But it's also robust and full-blooded and forceful: it's Jane Eyre, after all.

The character who emerges in the breezy, somewhat meandering Buck is plain-spoken, heartfelt, compassionate, witty, and wise. His horse-training technique is based on understanding the psychology of animals and on attuning his human and equine clients with one another.

An absorbing, entertaining, amusing and wrenching film.

A gripping movie about espionage, loyalty and betrayal.

The film is gummed up by Bruno Ganz as an intelligence officer who wants not only to capture the bad guys but to understand them -- and to explain them, hand-wringingly, endlessly.

The film is like a lot like Effie: It occasionally vexes or disappoints, but -- I am telling you -- it dazzles.

The overall effect is awe and affection -- and a strange urge to get on a board and, uh, shred, dude.

An altogether astounding testimony to the band's longevity, vitality and verve.

For a picture about a stalker, Chuck and Buck is rather sweet, funny and winning.

A unique and masterful film, filled with surprises and felicities and moments of transporting visual power.

The film is shot (by Dan Lausten) with a credible creepiness, and it teems with clever touches. [17 Apr 1998]

It's best seen as a breezy entertainment and a reminder of how potent some of these performers -- many of whom are dead -- were in their primes.

There's a breeziness to Soul Kitchen, good performances by Moritz Bleibtreu as Zinos' slippery brother and Birol Unel as his fanatical new chef, and a peppy soundtrack.

Genuinely breathtaking.

The film does a lovely job of balancing emotional clarity, formal trickery, pop sweetness, and heartfelt narrative. It is, yes, cute, and it is, yes, quirky. And it is entirely justified, estimable and loveable in being those things.

Refreshing and disorienting movie.

Campbell Scott and Hope Davis, both of whom work with such subtlety and depth, rescue the film from Rudolph's seemingly native inability to keep it steadily on course.

It would've been nice to hear Robinson or Wonder reciprocate the affection of the band, and it would've been even more interesting to hear Gordy try to defend himself -- as if he could.

It may not be a great movie, but the acting in it is amazing.

The result is a gripping film about a subject almost too good to be true.

Because nothing says 'holiday fun' quite like an intellectual struggle between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung peppered with a few vivid episodes of S-&-M sex, voila A Dangerous Method.

This impressive film feels more like a display, if an often dazzling one, than a genuine experience.

Filled with nasty, nasty stuff.

It's a refreshing sensation, even if it makes you feel a touch seasick at first, and the fittingly eerie conclusion to a lavish and unsettling movie.

Why would you watch a film about a creep like Greenberg? Well, aside from the fact that it’s well-done and intense and occasionally funny (in a dark, dark way, mind you), there’s the sneaking suspicion that there’s a little of this fellow in all of us, and self-knowledge of that sort is a gift that, often, only art can give.

Among the many documentaries about the Iraq war, this one stands our for its intelligence, variety and measured emotionalism. [06 Apr 2007, p.26]

Though it's handsomely made and peppered with seamlessly achieved visual glories, Narnia is ineptly acted, crudely staged and burdened with a score that only a masochist could love.

A rousing and agreeable movie that resurrects a small but important episode in baseball history that parallels the larger history of the nation.

Bouncing giddily from subplot to subplot and wisecrack to wisecrack, Mamet and company (and this is one of the truest ensemble works in years) satirize the slippery morals of the film racket and the surface-only decency of small town America.

This is a first-class film that will appeal to anyone who wants to see a plausible, witty, absorbing human story told well -- indeed, told gorgeously.

Tangled is a lively, funny, deft and delicious musical in the vein of Disney's 1989 classic "The Little Mermaid."

In an unassuming way, the film sizzles -- a perfect embodiment, as it happens, of the marriage of the bad man and the man of letters.

The film sometimes feels like the kid brother of “Fog of War,” Errol Morris’s far more compelling account of the mind of Robert McNamara, Ellsberg’s one-time boss. There’s reality and depth here, but a chill, too, that the filmmaking never quite manages to melt.

If Leo's situation seems like a typical opening gambit by the director of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!", little else in this tight, quiet, razor-sharp film will feel familiar. [12 Apr 1996]

A gentle movie with heart, spirit and wit.

Beautifully shot and cut, written with a visceral aversion to cliche, deftly skirting sentimentality, sensationalism and simplicity, it continually surprises, engages and satisfies. For a small, unheralded film, it's a knockout.