Shawn Levy

It's a celebration of American female screen acting, it's a study of early feminism that feels relevant today, it's a carefully mounted exercise in period filmmaking and it's a beloved novel come to life for the fourth time. [23 Dec 1994]

A near-perfect movie.

The timing and cutting of the film are terrific, the build-up to an absurdly hilarious climax is just right, and the performances are near perfect.

It is affecting, accomplished, witty, poignant and memorable.... Unstrung Heroes is one of the year's best films. [22 Sep 1995]

A stunning film.

Almost more valuable as a piece of foreign policy than as the highly accomplished work of cinema it is.

Eastwood has crafted one of the most powerful American dramas in years.

A spell-binding, engaging and often breathtaking work in which exquisite sets, costumes, photography and music combine with top-notch acting and out-of-this-world fighting scenes.

After Life is a thoroughly original, wholly realized work that leaves a profound and nagging bug in your brain for days after you've seen it: What in your life is worth holding on to? What one thing would you wish never to forget? It's a question as relevant to the lives we live each day as it is to our final moments. [24 Sept 1999, p.26]

This edition -- clean and tight as Scott would have it -- presents a strong case for Alien as both the greatest horror film and the greatest science-fiction film ever made.

In many respects, it's Kurosawa's most sumptuous film, a feast of color, motion and sound: Considering that its brethren include "Kagemusha," "The Seven Samurai" and "Dersu Uzala," the achievement is extraordinary. [01 Dec 2000, p.26]

The animation is even more mind-blowing, if that's possible. The characters and objects seem even more palpable and real than last time. There's a thickness to bodies of the human characters and an amazing attention to detail throughout.

Films don't get more essential than this.

It's so full-blooded, smart, sexy, tense and absorbing, so cleverly written and shot and cut, so filled with superb acting and music, so perfect in its closing moment, that it surely ranks with the most impressive debuts in world cinema.

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

Demanding, harrowing and very, very real. You won't shake its impact easily.

Not a masterpiece, but still fabulous.

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.

It's a fine, absorbing work, built with brilliance and without excessive showiness or flash. It feels, in fact, like a classic virtually upon its arrival.

An exhilarating slap in the face, bracing and sexy, smart and visceral, stylish and raw -- the advent of a fabulously exciting new moviemaking talent.

Not only does this film make you think, it makes you want to think. Few films -- few works of art of any stripe -- can claim that.

The result is a film that outrages and fills the viewer with poetry that's at once epic and intimate, scandalizing and life-affirming -- a real work of art.

It's hard to recall the last time a big-ticket summer movie delivered so fully on its promise.

Heart of Gold feels like an ample slice of the real America, the one truly worth caring for. And it's such a rare thing in this benighted age that the simple clarity with which it's presented feels like nothing less than a miracle.

I am here to tell you that Greengrass has fashioned one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, and that watching it makes you value your loved ones and your privileges more, perhaps, than you ever have. He has made a film that makes you feel, makes you think and makes you want to connect. And that, finally, might be the greatest thing that art can do.

It's quite possible that Titanic is one of the greatest romantic epics ever filmed.

The film reveals itself to be not so much a historical allegory as an Iliad of the heart. It's sad and smart and beautiful and true.

Brimming with bittersweet wit and emotion and built with deceptively fluent craft.

One of the most joyous, diverting and original mainstream American movies in years.

One of the best films ever made in this country, filled with our proudest national virtues, cognizant of our deeply rooted human weaknesses and frighteningly able to evoke emotions.

Bad Education, in this light, is Almodovar's "8-1/2" or "Day for Night," a lens through which all of his movies appear as a seamless whole. It's not the story of his actual life but, more excitingly, the deft, witty, bittersweet story of the life of his art.

It is a pure, streamlined delight, the advent of a talent with no exact equal in modern film.

As a fable, The City of Lost Children may not have a resonantly significant moral, but as a film, it is without a doubt the most incredible thing that the cinema has brought us this year. [22 Dec 1995]

From the acting to the special effects to the landscapes to the cinematography, editing and music, to the details of decor, wardrobe and armaments, we never once feel that we are in anything but the hands of an absolute master of the medium.

It is, in its quiet, precise, classical way, nearly perfect.

The film, built around McKellen's magnificent performance, is a sleek and deceptively artful work, a bio-pic that manages to encompass the whole of a man's rich life by concentrating solely on the final months of it.

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.

Directed, written by and starring Allen Baron, it's a totally absorbing picture: dark, curt, rancid and lean in the best noir style. [28 Apr 1998, p.C01]

It has the feel of something slaved over lovingly in merry isolation, and it is virtually the only thing I've seen this year that conveys in the viewing the obvious enjoyment its makers had in whipping it up.

In absorbing drama and staggering emotions, it renders an issue too often seen as black or white in heartbreaking gray.

Shot to shot, scene to scene, The Social Network nearly never puts a foot wrong or, really, does anything to make you feel less than compelled.

There's so much to say, but let this suffice: See it; it's a sweet taste of the best of what cinema can do. [16 Mar 2007, p.28]

One of the greatest films about the civilian experience of war ever made anywhere.

A gorgeous, engrossing, utterly alien and fresh movie that has the human truth and impact of classic Greek myth and the overwhelming beauty and mastery of the greatest epic films.

This is Mel Brooks' finest hour. [28 Jan 2005, p.11]

Audacious, gorgeous and unique.

Teems with pot smoke, body parts and profane outbursts -- you ride a giggly wave throughout, jokes and turn-ons and shocking sights alternating in buoyant fashion.

In exchange for a small piece of your life, you receive an infinity.

It's a bento box of shifts, feints, hints and small, sharp insights, built around a surprisingly deep core of feeling. And it confirms Coppola as an artist to watch and relish.

Made with brisk energy, shot with Powell's limitless ingenuity, written with fairy-tale echoes and steeped in a love for northern Scottish folkways, it's apt to become a favorite film the first time you see it. [02 Mar 2001]

A truly powerful, masterful work.

This is a deeply felt work of art in the form of a big, brassy movie-movie.

One of the great marvels of the medium, a film that you cannot miss if you hope to be literate in cinema -- or, indeed, if you seek acquaintance with the great works of modern times.

Far From Heaven would have been one of the great American films of the '50s; it is certainly the finest American melodrama of our time.

The protagonists have subsumed their identities to the collective, and they rise and fall in their hearts as the collective prospers or suffers. Their effort is absurd, but their intent is pure. Watching it evokes a combination of pity for their naive idealism and awe at Melville's uncanny brilliance.

It's a delicate and ingenious film that skewers modern life without ever baring its nails or turning sour. [17 Dec 2010]

Miyazaki is a genius, and this film is a masterpiece; go see it.

It's a purely winning film.

Movies don't get any more real than this.

Fight Club -- cue the blurb machine -- is a knockout.

This is an awesome performance in an outstanding film, a film worthy, if you can imagine, of the book at its heart.

But the human elements -- jealousy, anger, weakness, fortitude, loyalty, vengeance and honor, all acted out by a resolutely realistic cast -- make the movie extraordinary.

The film is one of the great portraits of the artist as impossibly gifted young snot. [31 Dec 1999]

Flynn is sexy, valiant, athletic and true: a movie star in every sense of the term. [13 Sep 1996, p.30]

It's a triumph of the film that it manages to make Jeffrey Dahmer a human being -- at least a member of the species -- without ever bending toward empathy with or excuses for him.

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 masterfully varied set of images, paces and moods.

A masterful treasure trove of hilarious gags and inventive moments. It's so good that a single viewing it might awaken you to the charm of snails, frogs legs and -- heaven help us -- Jerry Lewis. [14 Jul 1995, p.E01]

There aren't many works of art out there that so rupture your sense of the familiar. It may play slowly, but it blazes its way into your head. [14 Jul 2000]

There are levels of complexity and nuance and intellectual rigor in The Hours -- it's clearly a film into which you could gain continued insight after several viewings.

It's so spry and lively and warm that you want to dance to it.

The result is a rare and precious work. The Motorcycle Diaries is an epic road movie with everything you'd want from such a film: laughs, kicks, adventures, pathos, poetry, natural beauty, strange encounters and friendship tested and strengthened.

Del Toro presents one dazzling visual spectacle after another.

The acting is so persuasive as to be transparent.

It's a wonderfully crafted work, handsome, lively, stirring and utterly convincing in its depiction of the perils and thrills of sea life. But I'm not sure that my personal enthusiasm for it will translate entirely for viewers whose favorite movie about the high seas is, for perfectly good reasons, "Pirates of the Caribbean."

So good at what it does that it can exhaust you: In the later going, one big number follows on the heels of another so quickly that it feels more like an opera than a regular musical.

Malle, only 25 when the film was released, bounces confidently among several threads -- classic French policier, juvenile delinquent film, doomy tale of tragic love, clock-ticking thriller.

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 the type of film that may be forgiven its imperfections when they are compared with the vastness of its accomplishments.

One of the most alluring and bizarre shapes that Godard's itchy search for truth and meaning took in those heady long-ago days. In comparison, most Hollywood movies are like tiddlywinks.

Beautiful, poetic, mournful, at once rich and spare, Brokeback Mountain takes a daring conceit and creates of it an overwhelming work of art that should speak to anyone capable of love.

Working toward its refreshingly light but utterly apt ending, the film teems with insights into the human condition revealed by an unusually smart script and a wonderfully committed cast. It's a truly fine work.

Watching it isn't easy, but it is definitely worth having waited for.

It's raw, visceral stuff that precious few movies are capable of equaling.

It’s a story that begins in an ancient riddle and ends, perfectly, in the rumble of an oncoming storm. It’s about life, A Serious Man is, and it’s as close, I think, as any American narrative movie of recent vintage has come to touching on the uncanniness of it.

It's a sexy thriller, tautly constructed, deeply acted and heartfelt, despite a cool and knowing tone.

A purely cinematic experience. You've got to see it, in other words, to understand.

It's a movie about having a sibling and all of the pain, joy, love and anxiety that that entails: a movie, in other words, for almost everyone.

Burstyn is astonishing, forsaking all vanity to make silly biddy Sara a fully dimensioned human being.

It's no wonder that Polanski, himself an artist who has survived a series of nightmares, should tell it so naturally and powerfully.

Brings you into a world you didn't know existed with a closeness that the movies almost never achieve. If that constitutes exploitation, then it's a crime which all works of art should aspire to commit.

Like "In the Bedroom," the film is studded with brilliant acting, and it's all rendered with gorgeously fluent technique. The result is a film that skirts cruelty and easy satire for deep, troubling realities -- a nearly thorough triumph, in short.

In the wake of everything we've seen on TV and in movies in recent decades, it's amazing that something as harmless as language can still stupefy us. As The Aristocrats demonstrates, there is real humor in the confrontation of taboos.

It romps along with infectious good humor but continually imparts a sense that underneath all the surreal frivolity lurks a scathing allegory of modern-day Balkan troubles.

It's a raw and honest film, and it keeps its feet firmly on the ground, even as The Ram flies through the air to deliver -- or receive -- another beating in the squared circle of life.

Emotionally brutal, ferociously acted, crafted with unflagging expertise and relentlessly locked in its vision of human darkness, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is as grim and despairing as any tragedy by Sophocles or Shakespeare.

Reigns as the most assured, provocative film so far this year.

To follow up his superb "The Host," director Joon-ho Bong has crafted a remarkable film about love, faith, determination, guilt, and honor, a full-blooded, constantly inventive movie that enthralls, entertains, horrifies and never lets go its grip.

If it touches up against the syrupy at a very few moments, it's nevertheless consistently clear-eyed and convincing.

Gets under your skin without you quite being able to say when or how. It has the tact to let you draw yourself in to it.

Simple enough for children, deep enough for adults, clever enough for cynics.

It happens to be splendidly acted and to be poised, as a narrative, on a knife's edge (the final shot, at a great moment of indecision, is utterly haunting). But, chiefly, it's a portrait of an essential and sympathetic human dilemma, and in that it's both real and timeless in ways that transcend borders, cultures and languages.

An extraordinary thing, and one that I shall likely esteem for a long time. Philosophically, though, it's still mired in the primordial ooze in a way that will, I suspect, forever make me hold it at arm's length.

The result is as much a revelation of the artist's craft as it is of the man's heart and mind.

An utterly convincing portrait of the sort of person willing to strap ordnance to himself and decimate scores of strangers in pursuit of his religious and political ideals.

The Matrix slams you back in your chair, pops open your eyes and leaves your jaw hanging slack in amazement.

A hilarious, touching, profound and inspiring film about art and dreams and self-belief and the goggle-eyed hope that you can will a miracle into reality through sheer effort and desire.

An exquisite, ecstatic film, crude in its characterizations and plotting, yes, but extraordinary in its capacity for elation and its hard-earned sentimentality.

It's a film of sneaky power, peculiar delights and, finally, the ability to dazzle.

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

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!

It's as full and rich a portrait of the lives of athletes as we've seen since "Hoop Dreams."

It's a film in which complex issues are boiled down to human essences, not so much simplified as dramatized in the very best way.

It isn't in the same league as the director's best work, chiefly because it lacks the bravura flourishes of cinematic craft that helped make his name. But it's so vital and bloody and funny and wicked and tense and unapologetic that it feels kin to those films, which little of the director's work of the past decade has managed to pull off.

A spry and appealing film that throws off comic sparks with aplomb.

All you could hope for from a summer movie: dazzling action, jaw-dropping effects, cool clothes, steamy romance and more of the nifty "Matrix" mythology introduced in the 1999 original.

A mature, tense, frightening and altogether masterful film.

In a film culture in which contrived tomfoolery and overinflated emotions stifle in their effort to provide comedy and romance, something as light and precise as The Puffy Chair feels like more than an exception; it feels like fresh air.

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.

An unforgettable movie with a message that is likely to add wrinkles to your conception of what it means to be a good steward of the Earth.

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 ends on an absolutely sick-making note, with live-action footage of the massacre and its aftermath.

Slight but terrific. The intertwining of the sharply tuned actors and the guileless (and often hilarious) townspeople is seamless, the tale is sometimes despairing but never heavy, and the blend of drama, comedy and music is brisk and fresh.

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

For long stretches, the film is just as funny as the first -- which is saying something, since the first is one of the funniest comedies of the decade, the only film in years to truly infiltrate our communal language and sense of humor.

It breaks so sharply from the practice of contemporary horror film that it requires us to return to the most basic understanding of what it is to be frightened by a movie.

This is some of the finest acting you will see on-screen, maybe ever. Single-handedly, Washington turns The Hurricane from so-so to must-see.

One of the best children's movies in years. Spunky, inventive and filled with life and wonder.

In Volver, the latest marvel to emerge from his sharp and joyful mind, Almodovar blends autobiography, gossip, melodrama, music, the supernatural and the suffocatingly quotidian in a story about a woman -- indeed, a tribe of women -- struggling through a life of pain and disappointment.

Gorgeous and saddening, Osama makes the human-scale claim for the overthrow of governments ruled by the iron hand of religious fundamentalism far more persuasively than any of the rhetoric coming out of the White House or No. 10 Downing St.

Undefeated puts us inside his locker room, and you simply cannot fail to be moved by the human affection, commitment and passion you feel there.

As someone new to the material, I found Jackson’s film soulful, respectful, masterful, horrifying, rending and emotionally true. It may not be the Lovely Bones that you have in mind, but it’s a fine and powerful one.

Amir Bar-Lev shows in the absorbing, eye-opening and sometimes enraging film The Tillman Story, if there was one thing that you could count on Pat Tillman to do it was speak his mind: loudly, intelligently, and often in salty, pointed language.

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.

This is the sort of film for which the phrase 'movie-movie' was coined -- and coined as a term of highest praise.

Recoing's performance is chillingly low-key -- sometimes you can swear that he believes his own fictions -- and Livrozet, making his film debut, has a perfect long-in-the-tooth charm.

An empathetic portrait of humanity on a house-by-house, heart-by-heart basis.

We laugh, yes, but we're touched, too, a delicate balance that the film manages again and again, right through to its bittersweet conclusion.

It's the most charming and buoyant film Spielberg's ever made.

This is grand, inspiring entertainment of a sort that Hollywood aspires to and rarely achieves.

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.

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.

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

Along the way it provides the grand, intelligent entertainment of a superior cast playing smart people amid a compelling plot. It may not be perfect, but it's decidedly a cut above.

A riveting and impeccably researched documentary.

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.

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

Delirious. Hilarious. Absolutely one-of-a-kind.

It's an entirely conceived work of art, dark and hopeless and maybe even callous, but glittering and wonderful in its determination and in its craft.

Phantom may not be the best entry in the series, but it's the most technically accomplished, and it makes you as hungry for the next film as you've been for this one.

With its sweet soul and sharp mind, it's one of the most heartening films of the year.

Exciting spectacle of a master director reining in his abilities to create a work that is etched in acid, burnished in smoke.

This is harsh and acid stuff, but it's exhilarating on a number of counts. For one thing, Jenkins moves with real authority between scenes of low life, tender intimacy and gripping violence; made on the cheap, her film has the iron certainty of the best art.

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

It's a horrific tale, filled with fear, confusion, anger, disfigurement, and loss. Weissman and Weber don't milk the pathos and they don't have to. Their interview subjects are brilliantly chosen, not only for their specific vantage points on the events but for their eloquence and depth of feeling. Time and again, the spoken and visual record of what happened overwhelms you.

In the main this is a muscular, exact and thrillingly cool movie.

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.

Crowd-pleasing, feel-good stuff.

Mathieu Amalric, best known as an arms dealer in "Munich." In a role that strips him entirely of vanity and denies him virtually every expressive tool, Amalric makes a genuinely touching impression.

[Murphy] makes a thrillingly flesh-and-blood creature of Kitten, with her yearning, her droll, self-deprecating wit, her breathless romanticism and her puckish vibrancy. It's easily the most fun bit of screen acting this year, and as rich and nuanced as the lead in any drama.

Leconte's signature on the film alone makes it worth seeing.

The performances are universally good, the 3-D is utterly gorgeous, and the nutshell history of the early days of movies is inspiring.

There are ample opportunities for the film to soak in pathos, righteousness, farce, or pictorialism, and Payne manages to nod at those pitfalls without falling into them. In a way, it's just like Matt King's world: enviably plush but filled with the real pain of real life.

V for Vendetta puts its ideological intent first, and happens to provide smashing entertainment only as a vehicle for delivering its message.

At once spare and dense, chilly and thrilling, literate and visceral, it feeds in gray areas, teasing ambiguities and conundrums out of shadows and making strengths of inconclusiveness and uncertainty.

Adventuresome, melancholy and exhilarating.

It's a wonderful debut, despite all the pain you may feel watching it.

It's witty, gripping good fun.

A pure, sweet romance that moves along with bouncy comedy and a touch of grown-up realism and rue.

If you think the "Star Wars" prequels are a disease, then Serenity is the cure.

Moves at a stately pace; it's a long film, to boot. But there's real drama and pathos in the story, in the blend of matter-of-factness and potential catastrophe, in the depiction of innocence imperiled.

Genuinely breathtaking.

Music aside, what finally puts Once over and makes it a film you can watch more than once is its slight but thoroughly credible realism.

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

Full of life, wit, smarts, thrills and sheer gratifying entertainment that it launches the mind on a stream of merry somersaults.

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]

This film insists on being taken on its own terms -- the sort of demand, in other words, that defines the best art.

One of the most vital and strangely gripping films in recent years, a thriller more opaque, involving and realistic than just about anything that Hollywood is capable of.

Feels as true as a documentary, as painful as a blow to the heart.

Don't go if "Star Wars" isn't your bag: You'll only resist and resent it. But if you're a fan, it's hard to see how you'd be disappointed. Me? I can't wait for May 2005. "Episode III": Hot diggity!

The combination of immediacy and intimacy in Armadillo is exceedingly rare.

So filled with riches that it seems a bit unfair to single out Szabo and Fiennes, no matter how outstanding their work.

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.

It's surreal, erotic, creepy, frustrating, absorbing, transporting and torturous in the way only a Lynch film can be.

Oacks more heat, acid, danger and drama into its brief running time than most films of nearly double the length.

It's as full a movie as you can imagine -- exhausting and exhilarating and continually fascinating.

A man can be a treasure just as a work of art can be, and O'Toole is one of the handful of living film actors worthy of a museum of his own. Venus would make a brilliant final exhibit.

Its got a deliciously audacious and cheeky tenor.

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.

Thoroughly unique work of art.

Babies will capture your eye -- and, probably, your fancy.

Coogan makes tremendous sport of himself, taking on a role as an adulterous, vain, anxiety-riddled, alcoholic and truly comic creep. Brydon is exquisitely droll as the straight man to this ugly comedian act.

The film that results from Jacquet's application is gorgeous and even inspiring, a tale of loyalty hard-tested and hard-earned, a sumptuous travelogue, and a reminder that some of the critters with whom we share the planet are, in ways, as complex in their feelings as any human being.

One lucky guy, on a roll with rock.

And while it may be true that Almodóvar doesn't have Hitchcock's way with terror, it's not clear that Hitchcock could leave the real world behind so wholly and convincingly as Almodóvar does here.

The Queen is all-together remarkable not only for what it is but for what it isn't.

It's a bit precious, yes, but its earnestness and joy carry you along, and its climax simply delights.

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

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

A deep and extraordinary film that isn't afraid to look evil in the face -- or, for that matter, to acknowledge that evil can be more complicated and even attractive than we'd want to admit. It's very, very difficult to watch, but you shouldn't miss it.

The film is exquisitely realized, with a tremendous, naturalistic performance by Michelle Williams at its heart and a pervasive, assuring sense that Reichardt and Raymond have distilled everything nonessential from their story and imparted exactly the impact they wished.

The exquisitely exact photography and sound design represent the highest level of craft of Van Sant's career.

It's not orthodox Dahl but it's pure Burton, and, as it's been such a very long time since moviegoers have been afforded that particular treat, it's entirely welcome.

Cronenberg has, as Guillermo del Toro did in "Pan's Labyrinth," crafted both a drama and a fairy tale -- and he's done it in an entertainment as cracking as you could wish for.

It’s a fascinating story about ambition and vanity and pride, and in Sheen’s performance and the atmosphere capture by Hooper it contains truly fine and rare things.

It gives you all that you could ask for when you buy a ticket to a thrill ride.

It's one of those works that presents the deeds of both humans and animals and leaves you wondering which is the more civilized.

This is hair-raising, clever and winning entertainment. Even if his protagonists aren't entirely what they seem to be or think they are, Mr. Jones is, it's increasingly clear, the real thing.

When it all comes to a head, what seems ordinary blossoms into something deeply complex and emotional.

An engaging exercise in mature poignancy, existential consciousness and deadpan drollery, Broken Flowers is a return by Jarmusch to the road movie structure of such films as "Stranger Than Paradise," "Night on Earth" and "Dead Man."

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.

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.

That rarest of movie biographies: a warts-and-all exploration of the life and times of its subject.

Watching this tender little movie with its teasing humor, its deeply felt performances and its focus on slight moments rather than gigantic sea changes is like hearing a tasteful sonata instead of the usual vulgar symphony that the cinema offers up.

Long and sometimes grueling, but it never feels indulgent or excessive. In order to be subtle about the horrifying transformation he records, Audiard needs to let it unfold slowly, so that only when we reach the end can we see Malik as a new man who has come unimaginably -- and terribly -- far.

Letters isn't a fun night at the picture show. It's slow and gloomy and achingly tragic. But it's a truly impressive achievement both in moviemaking and in its understanding of history.

Some things in Sin City are almost too much to watch: the violence, the cruelty, the irredeemable evil. But it's irresistibly magnetic because it serves as a barely distorted mirror to our world.

Wide-eyed, deadpan and, more often than not, note-perfect.

You will be heartened by the amazing sensation of watching one of the greatest works in the history of the medium unfold in front of you, piece by piece, year by year.

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 darkest, most operatic, and technologically richest "Star Wars" movie to date, "Sith" is grim, stirring entertainment and a nearly complete vindication of everything its creator has been saying for six years about where the series was heading and what its final shape would be.

It's first-rank filmmaking, through and through, even if it struggles to find closure.

Between the tart dialogue, the compelling lead performances, the vivid violence and the stunning cinematography, it's complete and satisfying all on its own.

Like "Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers," it fills in our sketchy impression of that famously reticent generation of ordinary young men who were asked by a frightened world to accomplish an extraordinary feat. In this case, the homage takes the form not of a photograph or a statue but of a deeper, more sympathetic understanding of their experience. A finer tribute is hard to imagine.

It's Cronenberg's most mainstream work, and yet it has all the power of his creepiest nightmares.

It's built of such exquisite craft -- the acting, the decor, the photography, the music -- that to refuse it is to refuse the very sensations that draw us to art, romance and maybe even life itself.

A hard and bright and tough film in all the best ways.

The film combines farcical and sinister tones, as well as textures of high polish and captured-in-the-raw neorealism, and it simply brims with energy and surprises.

Hilarious. And more proof that Pixar is in a class of its own.

It's a film possessed of its own force, wit and style, and it builds to a rousing climax that absolutely pays off in crowd-pleasing fashion. It knows what it is, doesn't try to be what it's not, and hits you with drop-dead force. In short, it's terrific.

A gripping account of grown-up sensuality, obsession, loss and hope.

This isn't much of a plot, but as in the "Toy Story" films the combination of a varied cast of characters and a vision of the human world from an unlikely perspective make for consistent amusement.

In effect, Caden's life passes before his eyes while he is living it. And Kaufman shares this effect with us through a strange process he achieves with invisible strings; it's a knockout.

This is a delicious premise, and Blomkamp, who first played with it in a 2005 short called "Alive in Joburg," has magnified and improved it with ferocious energy, wit and style.

What makes The Last Days stand above the many similar films about the Holocaust and its survivors, though, is the fluidity with which Moll structures and passes through his material. In this, he's ably accompanied by Hans Zimmer's eloquent score and the crisp, simple photography of cinematographer Harris Done. [19 Feb 1999]

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

There's drama here, and moments of genuine tension, but there's fun, too, which is the point of a movie like this. To Ratliff's credit, he never lets the considerable craft get in the way.

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, a veteran of low-tech Dogme films, work wonders with a digital camera, pausing to take in the beauty of the countryside or an eerily empty London…It's virtuosic without ever quite being showy.

This fascinating and occasionally transporting film never quite transforms into something really great.

It's a lively, charming film, and if it gave us a little more of the band's history, it would be perfect. As it is, it's a perfect introduction to some great songs and fascinating characters.

It ends on a random note, making an awkward plea for better ecological stewardship of the Earth, which looked so small and frail to the astronauts regarding it from the moon. But otherwise it's a satisfying and heartening reminder of what a glorious thing a small group of men once contrived to do.

Credit the great Bruno Ganz with creating a vivid Hitler: furious, unsteady, crushed and frankly cracking up.

It's a justifiably G-rated film, but parents may have some 'splainin' to do.

Transcends politics and forces us to consider just what it is we ask of young people who answer the call to duty.

The film always teaches and entertains in equal, ample measure. It's a treat -- and it's good for you.

One of those should-I-laugh-or-cry satires.

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

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

There's a wonderful chemistry between them -- though the film wisely allows Duplass and Delmore an equally intimate connection. Choices like that enable the modest Humpday to capture the lives of its protagonists more credibly than any Hollywood-manufactured comedy of recent vintage.

It's a dark, brooding, moody film that follows a grim narrative to a logical inevitability and is nonetheless fully infused with a spirit of humanity.

A fascinating and frustrating film in turns, created out of scorching passions and built around a fascinating performance but rambling and choppy in the telling. It can overwhelm you and puzzle and repel you, sometimes within moments.

The real star is Katz, who has stretched into a longer and more plot-driven form without diluting any of his talents or compromising his personal vision. And the other star is Portland, which is so beautifully and truthfully rendered.

Because make no mistake: The Dark Knight is many things, some of them deliriously fun, some of them deeply impressive, and some of them puzzling and frustrating. But most of all it is dark.

Rubber is engaging, brisk and smart enough that the audience wins, too. It's grand, mindless fun that makes a thoughtful point.

The tension between the comely and comforting manner of the film and its undecided and beguiling content is, arguably, Haneke’s signature touch.

A sweet and wise little film.

As slapstick, as satire, as sheer gut-busting comedy, Borat is top notch.

There's so much to impress and delight you that the time flies by.

As it unwinds, What Lies becomes both masterful and preposterous.

A grueling film in both technique and subject matter.

An entertaining and fascinating film.

Football, they say, is a game of inches, and so can be moviemaking, and Leatherheads is a completely charming film that comes a few inches from being a great one.

They have been true to a classic source, using Adams' language and finding just the right actors, sets and costumes to flesh out his vision. Only the most persnickety cultist won't appreciate the effort.

Offers a lot of laughs, a heartwarming core.

It's a film with a silly story, and it's been dubbed laughably into English. Yet it's a transporting bit of fluff, full of zest, miraculous physicality and cheeky humor.

That it's based on a true spying case seems almost incidental. The heart of the picture is the human drama.

They were fast, they were sexy, they were clean, they were the future -- and they're already gone.

Like a picture postcard vision of his life and work: absolutely accurate as far as it goes but not too keen on looking too close for fear of uncovering anything untoward.