William Arnold

This moody, progressively enthralling little French psychodrama is very much it's own thing: a boldly conceived, impeccably crafted and wonderfully enigmatic two-character study that turns out to be a most powerful showcase for its two stars.

Is it possible to have yet another expensive excursion into this genre that seems in any way fresh, original and alive? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.

Several times, Hotel Rwanda teeters on the edge of making a unique, visionary statement about our times, but can't quite do it. Too bad. If it could have pulled itself together in one brilliant scene, this may have been a great movie, instead of just a very good one.

A paragon of subtlety. Yet this message is exactly what we carry out of the theater, and it lingers on with a powerful resonance.

The film's real feat may be in its production design, in the sumptuousness and veracity with which it re-creates central Saigon and the Vietnamese countryside of the '50s: an exotic lost world of brothels and opium dens, trishaws and ao-dai dresses, Ming-deco interiors and water buffalos in rice paddies.

In a movie era when brand names mean very little, it shows once again that Pixar is a stamp of quality.

The film is magnificently mounted, it moves like a speeding bullet and it's so respectful of Superman traditions that even the pickiest of die-hard fans should love it. After a lapse of two decades, it revitalizes the franchise and makes it seem fresh and alive.

It's a richly textured, leisurely paced, visually impressionistic epic of the American past that fairly hypnotizes the viewer with its tapestry of sights, sounds and colors.

It's by far the most inspirational sports movie to come along in many a month.

It's a terrific movie -- intelligent, magnificently acted, highly compelling as a thriller, and downright scary in its implications for the corporate-run world of the new millennium.

That rare animal, a dialogue-driven comedy -- and a good one at that. While one or two of its scenes may seem a tad too talky for today's low-attention spans, the script is mostly razor-sharp acerbic and sophisticated.

Reminds us of just how exciting and satisfying the fantasy cinema can be when it's approached with imagination and flair.

A funny, rousing crowd-pleaser.

There's still nothing quite as thrilling on the screen as the spectacle of an icon movie star in a perfectly tailored role.

The movie is a delicious, consistently hilarious screwball farce that gives Clooney his best comedy role to date and should finally, forever, lift the Coens into the wide-release movie mainstream.

It's a well-crafted, intelligent, no-nonsense western epic that zips us through the famous siege and the birth of Texas with style, verve and impressive historical accuracy.

An engaging and intelligent comedy that manages to pay tribute to the conventions of its genre and still be very much its own thing. [02 Oct 1992]

Some will find the surprise pleasant, others unpleasant. Whatever it is, it's the least commercial, most somberly heartfelt movie ever made by the cinema's most commercially successful filmmaker.

So devoid of the usual coarse Hollywood calculation that it plays like a breath of fresh air.

An exhilarating musical experience.

Another slyly intelligent, extremely funny comedy of character that blazes new thematic trails and provides an irresistible showcase for its stars, Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. [12 June 1992]

A happy surprise: a timely antidote to the comic-book mindlessness of "Spider-Man" and repetitive space fantasy of "Star Wars," and an encouraging bid from the top of the A-list to once again reach very high and spit in the face of the gutless formula filmmaking that rules Hollywood.

There's nothing harder for an actor to play than a thoroughly good character, and Staunton does it with a dowdy, sublime originality.

An absorbing and fulfilling experience -- even though it ends with a question mark.

Changeling doesn't care if you love it or hate it, it makes no compromises to fashion and it's charged with that unmistakable assurance of a master filmmaker at his creative peak.

An uncompromising and ultimately chilling look at individual creativity trampled by corporate greed, and its timing could not be more appropriate.

The film is a charming little romantic comedy based on a high-concept premise - one of those fraudulent marriages whereby an alien marries an American citizen to get his green card, or permanent residency. [11 Jan 1991, p. 6]

Technically, the film is consistently impressive. It creates a grimly gothic vision of a crime-ridden and depression-ravaged Gotham City, a dandy pair of chase sequences involving the new generation Batmobile and a range of innovative visual effects.

An engrossing study in abnormal psychology, an inspirational drama that tells us a determined man really can do anything his mind can envision and is the first film that plays on what could become a phenomenon of the new millennium: World Trade Center nostalgia.

Its elements all come together with an unforced perfection, every scene feels real and alive in a way that many of his more surrealistic later films do not, and Leonard Maltin, for one, has argued that I Vitelloni is no less than Fellini's masterpiece.

It's not the most viscerally exhilarating racing saga or squishy animal movie ever made, but it's a terrific period piece. It's also a well-acted, engrossing and satisfying character drama that stands out like a diamond in this summer of sequels and comic-book violence.

It's pure fluff, but as irresistible as cotton candy.

Beneath its whimsy and sexual politics, there is a core of humanity in this movie that is deeply satisfying, and powerful enough to disarm even the most vehement homophobia. [06 Aug 1993]

The formula has rarely been done as well as it is in this goofy, audacious, visually stylized omnibus of what-ifs that operates on its own peculiar logic, and powers along with the force of a truck on the Autobahn.

Rivets our interest for its entire lengthy running time. And it does this without any of the usual war movie clichés, false heroics, barracks-humor nonsense or grandstanding absurdities.

Very much a '70s-style paranoid thriller, with a mood, tone and cascade of plot twists that are highly reminiscent of his 1975 classic, "Three Days of the Condor."

The results are being billed as a reunion of the "Titanic" star team, but anyone expecting a similarly gushy romantic idyll is in for a shock: it is an uncompromisingly dreary view of two self-deluded people incapable and unwilling to understand one another.

The sum of the movie is devastating. One takes out of it a sense that the human cost of our endless adventure in Iraq is going to be incalculable, perhaps catastrophic -- a psychological time bomb that will be exploding for decades to come.

The sharpest journalism thriller I've seen in years: an absolutely riveting drama that doesn't glorify its subject in the slightest and shrewdly says a lot of very sad things about the state of modern journalism.

That rare thing at the movies these days: a new experience. It awes us with its technological feat, it sweeps us up in its mystical spell and, with its final scene -- it takes us to an emotional climax of almost unbearable poignancy.

Not only is it an enormously entertaining study of a curiously American institution, it also manages to be a nail-biting competition film, an engrossing group character study and a wonderfully graceful comedy of manners.

I can't think of another movie that more fluently communicates the special agony and ecstasy of the game of chess.

For all its unevenness, Bobby is a powerful, poignant movie and its ending -- played over a long excerpt of one of RFK's most compassionate speeches, voiced with none of the cliches of political rhetoric -- was, for me, the movie year's single most devastating sequence.

Though it's unflinching in its depiction of homosexual affection, the marvel of the movie is the dexterity with which it transcends the specificity of its characters and gay theme to be a universal human statement and profound political epic.

In a disarmingly entertaining fashion, this multiaward-winning German bittersweet comedy seems to encapsulate all the emotion and drama of that profound geopolitical event.

For all its excesses, it's an absorbing, disturbing, savagely beautiful "trip" movie, and an extraordinary -- perhaps even outrageous -- personal vision of the one A-list filmmaker who truly deserves the adjective "maverick."

Jacob's Ladder is also undeniably spooky. It creates and maintains a mood of paranoia, its special visual effects are original and nightmarish, and it has at least three sequences as haunting as anything I've seen in some time. [2 Nov 1990, p.9]

Potter 3 is, in its heart of hearts, a teenage angst movie...Cuaron has done a masterful job of bringing off this shift in the Potter paradigm without disrupting any disruption in the established style of the series and without any pandering concessions to the teen-movie genre.

After a somewhat shaky start, the film gradually settles in to become another extraordinarily powerful and explosively acted drama that deftly probes the moral responsibility of an artist in a totalitarian society.

The Reader is significant because -- like another film opening today, "Valkyrie" -- it asks us to see not just the Jews but the whole German people as victims of the Holocaust, and to view Nazism as more a product of explicable ignorance than inexplicable evil.

An imaginative self-profile of producer Robert Evans, could well be the most totally irresistible movie of the summer.

It struck me as the most exciting and original Hollywood thriller, occult or otherwise, since "The Sixth Sense."

And, of course, the film's biggest selling point is the performance of China's reigning superstar, Gong Li. Playing a sexy, shrewd but strangely suicidal character who is a far cry from the stubborn courtesans and determined peasant women characters that made her famous, she's as enigmatic and irresistible as ever, and demonstrates once again that she is the Garbo of China. [21 Dec 1995]

For those of us who hold The Last Picture Show dear, this movie still works as a perfect sequel. It takes a different approach - humor - to enlarge the characters, to show the toll of the intervening decades of American life, to meditate on the sadness of growing old, and demonstrate the precious bond that comes to people with a shared past. [28 Sep 1990]

Unlawful Entry is a heck of a nail-biting suspense piece, and a surprisingly intelligent movie about the paradox of police brutality. [26 June 1992]

No, it doesn't exactly re-create the magic that made the original such an instant classic, but it's faster and more involving than "Reloaded" and it rounds off the premise and themes of the trilogy in a surprisingly satisfying way.

The movie is exactly what it's billed to be: the successful blending of two distinctly different filmmaking sensibilities from two different generations. But the stronger, and more pessimistic, sensibility -- Kubrick's -- carries the day.

A mesmerizingly suspenseful drama.

Hanson's real strength as a filmmaker is subtle suspense, and his film is even more eerie when his characters are out of the water. His setup of the situation is a small masterpiece of visual storytelling, and he sustains the psychological tension. [30 Sep 1994]

Almost perfect ghoulish family entertainment. [24 Aug 1990]

It's eye-filling, well-cast, often very funny and executed with great imagination and flair.

Flat-out one of the best Bonds ever.

It's a rich, engrossing ensemble drama that reveals itself very slowly, is filled with multidimensional characters and multi-layered performances, and works toward an amazingly verisimilitude. [19 Jan 1996]

An unusually satisfying and inspiring historical epic from one of contemporary cinema's best filmmakers.

With his usual intelligence, technical virtuosity (the reverse-aging effects are astounding) and storytelling panache, director Fincher gives the film a power and unity that make nearly three hours go by in a flash and pulls its diverse elements together to be something unique for a Hollywood movie -- a true spiritual experience.

Ironically, the challenge of directing a Japanese-language film with a non-English-speaking cast seems to have brought out the very best in Eastwood. His vision is alternately intimate and sweeping, his touch never seemed more light and sure, and several of his scenes are so delicate, dynamic and prototypically Japanese they could have been directed by Akira Kurosawa.

A delectable must-see.

The movie offers one authentically terrific performance: Beach as Hayes. He's so painfully sympathetic in the role that he absolutely breaks your heart, and he looks like the front-runner in the best-supporting actor Oscar race.

A clever, charming, laugh-out-loud-funny road comedy that works in almost every scene.

It's a buoyant, often thrilling piece of animation that more or less does for the Central African rain forest what "The Lion King" did for the East African savanna.

Henry and June may be as sexually explicit as any major Hollywood production since the early '70s, but it is also intelligent, well-acted and expertly crafted. [05 Oct 1990]

Though it seems long and its pace occasionally lags, it certainly struck me as a well-mounted, gloriously eye-filling and often exhilarating entertainment that brings back some of the delicious excitement of the great movie musicals.

Forget "Raising Helen" and "The Notebook," this is the movie summer's most touching young romance.

Like all great film noir, however, the real delight of this film is in its mood and atmosphere.

And the movie stands as a fitting memorial to River Phoenix, whose performance lingered in my mind for days after seeing it. [12 Nov 1993]

It's an exciting action spectacle and a thoughtful, cumulatively moving family drama.

This is still a director's movie and the real success belongs to Redford, whose overall confidence and command as a director have never been this impressive. He gets a little extra out of every scene and every performance, and he brings the film's diverse themes and story strands together with the special touch of the master filmmaker he has clearly become. [16 Sept 1994]

Broad and funny, its sensibility is very campy and it's out to be loved by everyone.

There's no denying the skill and flair with which director Paul Greengrass has restaged this unhappy event, creating an uncanny sense of immediacy and allowing us to be a fly on the wall at a seminal '70s tragedy.

It is purely and fearlessly a girl-and-her-horse movie that isn't trying to be all things for all audiences.

In his first role since turning 40, Cruise displays a likable new maturity, and an unexpected willingness to look weak and foolish.

Control Room is even more effective in showing the dilemma of the people who make up Al-Jazeera. In a sense, these are "our" Arabs, in that they're Western-educated, conduct their business in English and seem to believe in the basic American principles.

It's impossible to praise too highly the verve, skill and authenticity with which Spielberg brings off his alien invasion.

It's an absorbing, progressively unsettling and ultimately very inspiring biographical reflection that, in the interest of creating its subject's internal landscape, plays some chilling tricks on its audience.

Although it's often uneven and rambling, its sum conveys an unusual richness and satisfaction. While most films these days are about nothing, this film seems to be about everything that's plaguing the human spirit in a relentlessly globalizing world.

The film has an exciting visual texture that gives body to Brown's bestseller-ese prose, and uniformly strong performances that give dimension, depth and interest to characters that the author never entirely brought to life. In this sense, I found it much more entertaining and satisfying than the novel.

Visceral, alive and very scary.

In a Fuller film, you're never quite sure where you're going. Whether Fuller was an authentic artist may be open to debate, but it's impossible to deny he was a first-rate storyteller. [15 May 1998]

Melancholy, haunting and riveting true-crime saga.

It's not so much a sequel or even a remake for a new generation of moviegoers as it's a retranslation for the old one: an irresistible statement that "Yo, life ain't over till it's over."

It's a beautifully crafted, almost perfectly sustained little drama that skillfully makes a subtle, bittersweet point.

Yet, as good as it is in so many ways, there's no getting around the fact that this briefest Harry and first directed by an unknown filmmaker (David Yates) is the least substantial of the bunch.

For all of its genre awkwardness, "I Am Cuba" has to be considered as one of the most striking visual epics of the 1960s - in the same imaginative league as "Spartacus," "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago." [23 Jun 1995]

Flies so gallantly in the face of what's supposed to work at the movies these days that you just have to love it.

Skillfully crafted, flawlessly paced, intellectually challenging tension of classics like "Bad Day at Black Rock."

The film's added enigma makes the play's title even more appropriate, but it results in a more ambiguous and perhaps less satisfying dramatic experience.

The supporting performers all shine, especially Irons in the thankless role of the clueless cuckold husband.

The film is downright repulsive in places, and otherwise pushes the envelope for an art film, but it's a dazzling piece of filmmaking that wins us over with its boldness and artistry.