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.