Forgetting Sarah Marshall lacks snap, tension and bravura...Yet the movie is novel and big-hearted. It often succeeds at substituting a smorgasbord of psychological confusions for comic architecture.

The cascade of ideas proves to be both pleasurable and frustrating. As the movie retreats into a happy-ever-after ending, even its outrageous lies seem more like little white ones.

Schwartzberg sees the homegrown innovativeness and grit still standing beneath the glossy media version of the American personality.

It's a clear-eyed, unsentimental portrait and indelible for that very reason.

These guys are funny.

Oshii is able to knit together action sequences with extraordinary power and conviction.... Ghost in the Shell is absolutely terrific.

Takes a great idea -- what if the inhabitants of a museum came to life at night? -- and milks it for every drop of fun it's worth.

Like "Anais," the only surprises Breillat has in store for us are bad ones. In the willfully perverse final act, she delivers a sadistic blow to the audience -- with a sledgehammer.

A twisted little comic gem.

Foxx is magnificent, taking a role that could be exorbitantly showy (actors playing the mentally disabled tend to forget the word "restraint") and turning in a performance that's controlled and mesmerizing.

In some ways, Thank You for Smoking does not bemoan smoking as much as it bemoans people's willingness to be duped by smooth-tongued orators.

Buy your ticket, sit yourself down, and let ol' John take you for a ride. You'll have a blast.

It offers top actors in Fiennes and Richardson, plus a rare joint appearance by the sisters Redgrave.

There's a power to Woman Thou Art Loosed that transcends its limitations, a determined, heartfelt belief in the possibility of redemption.

The movie's main strengths are its use of the real United Nations as its prime location and Pollack's ability to stud this movie (as he also did "The Firm") with players who do supporting-character equivalents of star turns.

What proves the validity of Kandahar is that, by the end, all these scenes are human ruins of the same nightmare world.

The Summer Olympics may offer more intricate, arduous and high-stakes spectacles, but nothing will top the last half-hour of Gunnin' for That #1 Spot for adrenalized high spirits.

Suffused with a sophomoric sensibility that belies its more serious underpinnings.

It's not another rah-rah football film. Thanks to Nolte, it has its own form of true grit.

There's a moving, complicated love story at the center of Angel Eyes. It's too bad a peripheral plot line draws attention away from it.

The movie never seems to force its connections or its revelations upon us, but merely discovers them in their provocative places; in short, it doesn't seem to be working very hard, but the apparent simplicity is deceiving: There's a grand, clever and ultimately satisfying plan under all the running around and bumping into each other. [27 Sept 1996]

The performances of Luna and, especially, Reilly, make the film more enthralling than it perhaps deserves to be.

A slick sci-fi thriller that comes complete with enough twists to keep audiences satisfied and enough moral quandaries to keep the thinkers happy.

The film's action doesn't disappoint; if anything, it ups the adrenaline ante considerably.

It wouldn't stick in the memory were it not for Matt Damon's audacious, baggy-pants portrayal of corporate whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, the antihero of this reality-based farce.

Barrymore gives a performance that's nuanced, assured and captivating.

A bawdy, brainy sex comedy geared toward smart people with a sophomoric streak.

Possesses moments of fleeting grace, pathos and beauty, even if it ultimately doesn't amount to much.