William Arnold

Winner of the top prize at the last Berlin Film Festival, the film is sporadically powerful, sensitively acted and full of music, used with imagination and flair.

Almost perfect ghoulish family entertainment. [24 Aug 1990]

Ultimately successful at what it sets out to do, even if it's not as much fun along the way as the original.

It's a nicely crafted little ensemble piece, but -- like so many films that have become the rage in France in recent years -- it's surprisingly light and forgettable.

Hypnotic and fun.

It definitely gives us our money's worth in the sheer volume of its imaginative fantasy creatures and it's that rare superhero-movie sequel that's better than the original.

The artist's life and times were turbulent and tragic, but the effect of the movie is the opposite: it's somehow a very calming, almost Zenlike experience, and it left me with a peaceful glow that I managed to carry around for the rest of the day.

Writer/director Raoul Peck never gives us enough intimate moments to let us feel we know the man on a personal level, and he doesn't have the narrative skill to economize the necessary exposition or steer a clear storyline.

Forster carries the movie with an effortless grace and professionalism, creating a character of surprising nobility who is the very opposite of the Willy Loman caricature that's been the de rigueur salesman stereotype in movies of the past 50 years.

Indeed, it is a uniquely dreamlike, lushly romantic, highly erotic and prototypically Coppolaesque version of the story - a movie that does for the vampire genre what "The Godfather" did for the gangster saga, and what "Apocalypse Now" did for the war movie: raises it to the level of grand opera. [13 Nov 1992, p.5]

A gripping, unusual and suitably harrowing -- if, in the final analysis, not particularly satisfying -- concentration camp drama.

A highly original and unusually powerful drama that deserves comparison to the great Scandinavian films of the past.

By most of the standards by which we judge movies, Jungle Fever is pretty bad. Scenes seem structured solely to provide an excuse for characters to deliver speeches, everything seems heavy-handed, obvious and didactic - and false. [7 June 1991]

"Clouds" fills its exteriors with the glory of the Utah mountains and its interiors with the work of the late Hopi artist, Dan Lomahaftewa -- a pleasing combination that gives the film its own special visual style and magic.

No one does this genre better than actor-writer-director Christopher Guest.

An immensely enjoyable cross-cultural parable full of appealing characters and well-crafted performances. [14 Feb 1992]

Seems like very tame stuff, with little in the way of graphic sex and all the baggage of a run-of-the-mill art-house costume drama.

Like Spielberg, even if the content is questionable or the performance is missing, his scenes always manage to be visually thrilling.

Make no mistake: This not high art. But it does its job without insulting our intelligence or unpleasantly jangling our nerves.

The stars ultimately carry the day, the film cumulatively builds both an emotional power and tender wisdom that's very affecting.

It's not an instant classic, but it's imaginatively drawn, full of charming characters, alive with action sequences and blissfully free of the snickering scatology and endless pop-culture references.

"James" is both genuinely exciting as an adventure and genuinely charming as a fantasy, plus it doesn't look quite like anything we've seen before. [12 Apr 1996]

When movie historians talk about the greatest Hollywood comedies of all time, they invariably mention this classic, 1937 screwball romp that showcased Carole Lombard's most endearing movie performance. [19 May 1995]

A nifty little neo-film noir that's a lot more intriguing and watchable than half the films that make it to the multiplexes.

It's not his (Scorsese) best film, but it's his most accessible and most thoroughly entertaining.

Grueling but ultimately rewarding new documentary.

A perceptive, fascinating and relatively evenhanded look at the most radical arm of the American student rebellion of the Vietnam era.

Harris genuinely seems to be at one with the character, and his movie is eerily alive.

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]

It captures the excitement of a breaking star, it generates a raw and unsettling emotional power and it honors the aesthetic of hip-hop in way that's never quite been done on film before.

The mock trailers are for impossibly schlocky Z-movies with titles like "Machete," "Don't Scream," "Thanksgiving" and "Werewolf Women of the S.S." They're by far the funniest part of the program, possibly because they're mercifully brief.

In the latest of what is getting to be a booming genre of Iraq war documentaries, director Deborah Scranton gives digital video cameras to five members of the New Hampshire Army National Guard so they can intimately record their year of service in the Middle East.

A film with the epic scale and fearless common-sense vision of Water is a revelation.

Manages to squeeze by on Angelina Jolie's surprising flair for self-deprecating comedy.

In the film's stronger moments, the artist in her definitely seems to be saying that the impulse to retreat into cultural fundamentalism carries dire risks, that much of what is old and traditional needs changing and there are some things about the detested process of globalization that are wonderfully liberating.

Its strangely paced narrative line, its rich texture of eccentric characters, its high-contrast black-and-white photography - and its very '60s air of innocence and possibility - make this a surprisingly enjoyable little time capsule from a vanished world. [16 Feb 1990]

In no way is this a serious movie. Still, it's hard to resist.

It induces a serious case of sensory overload that left me drained and edgy.

A fairly routine heist drama and a never especially believable puzzle film.

It has its charms, but fails to strike a similar emotional chord.

The film is a strange, nostalgic, suitably outrageous ode to a very real revolution in consciousness.

The result bears so little resemblance to the original that you have to wonder what happened. It seems more a remake of "How the West Was Won" than 3:10 to Yuma.

It's simply not a very good movie. Its story line is populated with so many characters and meaningless names that it's nearly impossible to follow, and its author's message doesn't amount to much more than a cry of despair.

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.

An exhilarating musical experience.

The movie works amazingly well as a historical epic.

The biggest failing of the film is that it's the lamest possible excuse for a whodunit. [17 Apr 1998]

The style is dated, and its neorealism seems forced and ineffective, but it's still delectable, and mostly for the things Pontecorvo hated about it: its delirious '50s color, and its stars, particularly Montand at the peak of virility.

There's not a vaguely sympathetic character in sight; Kureishi ultimately seems prudishly disapproving of his heroine's last gasp of sexual adventure; and what another writer might have found liberating and healing, he finds distasteful and destructive.

A riveting piece of movie storytelling, mounted with a genuinely epic flair, shot and edited in a no-nonsense, classic style.

It makes for chuckling entertainment and it's fun to watch as it's happening. But its New York characters are not a bit believable, there's no real bite to the humor, and the film never adds up to be more than the sum of its parts.

This is still Reiner's worst movie since 1994's "North." Wilson is lackluster, the film's depiction of the collaborative process is (unlike "Adaptation") tortuously false, and it's so disrespectful to the realities of writing and publishing that it has no satiric bite.

Casts a dreamy romantic spell that lingers pleasantly in the mind for a long time after experiencing it.

Very surprisingly, Meryl Streep is not wonderful as Schreiber's scheming, incestuously possessive mother. She gobbles up all the scenery but, for whatever reason, she's just not half as chilling a portrait of demented mother love as the original's Angela Lansbury.

Working for the first time in live action, under the constraints of a classic novel, he (Andrew Adamson) proves himself to be a capable visual storyteller but no Peter Jackson.

It's hard to figure exactly what the point of this movie is -- except maybe to expose the myth of samurai machismo.

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.

It's not nearly as good as "Women," but it's still his most likable film since, and there is some definite magic in it. [5 Apr 1996]

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

Reportedly, Lucas has been tinkering with this "director's cut" for nearly two years, so its sound and visual elements -- which were fairly impressive to begin with -- have been markedly enhanced, while new digital backgrounds give the film a more epic scale. Still, it's an extraordinarily unengaging and tedious affair.

Less a portrait of this controversial man than a touchstone "to trace the history of contemporary terrorism."

First-time director Ali Selim does an exceptional job throughout, his movie has the balance, uncluttered leanness and emotional impact of a Willa Cather short story, and it's no surprise that it has been nominated for Best First Feature in the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards.

Many will find the subject matter disturbing, but it's clearly one of the holiday season's richest and most daring movie entries.

In the end, it's not much fun to watch a brave artist getting his dream kicked out of him.

A passionate, well-made documentary that stresses how time is running out for a peaceful solution.

Absolutely riveting.

States straight off that the man's legacy has been tarnished in most of the liberal world's eyes by his being the spoiler of the 2000 presidential election. "It will be engraved on his tombstone," says his friend Phil Donahue.

It's as absorbing as a train wreck, and its brand of heavy drama is so rare in movies these days that everything about it seems amazingly fresh.

It’s a comedy, a romantic star vehicle, a thriller, a horror movie and a quasi-environmental parable that's calculated to appeal to all demographic groups. It's not enough of any one of these things to be particularly engaging.

It's hard to imagine an upbeat movie about homelessness, but Dark Days is just that.

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

Always absorbing.

As good as the film is in so many ways, it also altogether rings a bit false and contrived.

DiCaprio could hardly be better. He brings this outrageous character and his demons to life with skill, sympathy and a symphony of small, telling touches.

Hugh Grant is one of the true phenomena of new millennium moviemaking. In an era in which the broadest and most scatological comedy imaginable rules, he's built a career for himself as a sophisticated light comedian very much in the style of his hero, David Niven.

There are no fresh revelations and the film can't touch Paul Schrader's 1988 drama, "Patty Hearst," as an inside account.

Funny, muckraking documentary.

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.

The film is a melancholy but poetic meditation on the fragility of the gift of life.

There are hints of madness in all the characters, and it gets creepier and more surreal as it goes along until it finally comes to a showstopping climax that took me completely by surprise and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.

Awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall, is a curiously engaging, genuinely haunting movie that rises above some dubious handicapped jokes and strange casting decisions to be truly special. [11 Jan 1991, p.5]

The movie is an extraordinary personal adventure that views everything through the eyes of its hero as it carries him from one apocalyptic situation to another.

Cedric Kahn has caught the irrational compulsion, nail-biting tension and unpredictability of plot that is Simenon at his best.

If the new Ocean's Eleven is mostly Clooney's show, he's more than up to the task of carrying it. Indeed, this could be his career-defining role: The twinkle in his eye has never seemed more disreputable, his devil-may-care charm has never seemed so appealing, and he dominates the movie with the graceful ease of a Golden Age Hollywood star.

The casting also works. As the Khan, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano ("Zatoichi") is all effortless charisma, and Chinese actor Honglei Sun (as his best friend-turned-enemy) and Mongolian actress Khulan Chuluun (as his faithful wife, Borte) are just as effective.

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.

Bounces between funny and chilling.