Steve Persall

Not much happens to Woody in Payne's movie, compared to modern penchants for rushed narratives and easily defined characters. Yet patience pays off, with a suitably minor triumph for such an unassuming man. And a major acting triumph for Dern.

Director Alphonso Arau directs this adaptation of the Laura Esquivel novel with a light touch, even in the film's most bizarre twists and passionate turns. [07 May 1993, p.8]

What is missing is some balance; Pauline and Juliet are portrayed from their own idealized point-of-view, while parents and others who object to them are as silly, pompous and uncaring as the girls obviously perceived. Crime doesn't pay in Heavenly Creatures, but it's rationalized in expert, provocative fashion. [6 Jan 1995, p.7]

What makes Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right remarkable also makes it a tad humdrum, which may be the filmmaker's point.

Nobody's Fool is an actors' showcase and a dramatist's doodle. But what an actor. Newman's eloquent, understated portrayal of a jovial heel ranks among his greatest. [13 Jan 1995, p.8]

The cinema grew up when Penn crafted this movie. Beatty was never better playing boyish insecurity while Faye Dunaway was a smoldering newcomer. Essential viewing for film lovers. [27 Sept 2001, p.14W]

The pointlessness of Jep's journey is Sorrentino's point, richly made.

This movie doesn't play any of its themes cheaply.

Argo works superbly on two levels, first as a white-knuckle re-enactment of events in Iran and scrambling strategies in Washington.

This is a rapturous cinematic experience, a spellbinding expression of shrouded ideas and exposed talent, top to bottom.

Style is the substance of Edgar Wright's inventive heist flick, a fresh, masterful synching of music and getaway mayhem, as if La La Land's traffic jam was moving, armed and dangerous.

Hushpuppy carries a lot of emotional weight on her slender shoulders, and Wallis makes one wish to climb into the screen to lighten the load with an embrace. Do not miss this performance, or this quietly astonishing, life-affirming masterpiece.

Considering Parts 1 and 2 of Deathly Hallows as a single enterprise, as they should be, this is a rare franchise that just kept getting better.

Shannon is perfectly cast, a creepily magnetic actor with an otherworldly calm, tight jaw and piercing, set-apart eyes. The performance and movie stick with you, with masterful construction and muted psychological horror.

Get Out loses its nerve winding down but it's a rare horror flick not wasting all its brains on splatter.

In some moments, Amy feels like another intrusion on the singer's privacy, like the gossip vultures circling her drug and alcohol binges, awaiting her 2011 death. Those uncomfortable moments are far outweighed by sympathetic ones.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is boldly dull in protest to modern movie tastes, and that alone may earn it more praise than it deserves.

Everybody Wants Some!! is as playfully raunchy as any sex comedy doubling down on exclamation points can be.

With The Past, Farhadi again displays a gift for poking into corners of nondescript lives and discovering unique drama.

Ponderous and perplexing, a somberly audacious film to make viewers swoon or snore, take your pick. It is defiantly opaque, a free-form meditation on nature and nurture across millennia with a tinge of biblical grace.

Restrepo is about soldiers, not politics. The question of whether U.S. troops belong there isn't posed. Their devotion to duty and each other is unquestioned.

A movie as direct and devastating as a point-blank bullet to the back, like the one that killed Oscar Grant on the first morning of a new year, 2009.

Every fallen-star cliche director/co-writer Brett Haley employs goes down smoother with Elliott's baritone and unforced cool. He has deserved a spotlight role for years and now deserves a finer one.

Young, old, black, white or whatever: This is one Bus you can't afford to miss. [16 Oct 1996, p.1D]

These characters don't realize they're funny, and the actors are determined not to push it. Willis fares best, playing against in-control type; Murray fans expecting a comedy explosion won't find it here.

While it is a visually dazzling epic, Farewell My Concubine rarely rises above the level of a sumptuous soap opera. [22 Dec 1993, p.7B]

Eggers' chilling debut is a small masterpiece of atmosphere.

Johnson keeps it simple, yet never stupid. Looper is a puzzle engaging your brain, rather than frying it, as one character describes the process. Obviously he has seen enough movies on the subject by 2024 to know how frustrating that is. This one plays fair with the fantasy.