Eating is an eventful afternoon with a bunch of colorful characters. They're oh-so-enlightened, and they're oh-so-miserable. [10 May 1991, p.29]

With his fondness for long takes and unobtrusive camerawork, Panahi has a real knack for maintaining a balance between comedy, usually courtesy of the younger son, and deeper feeling.

All drama asks you to suspend disbelief, but Come From Away asks you also to suspend cynicism, aiming to move and uplift you. It’s not a bad bargain, and Come From Away holds up its end.

Like the title characters and the performances that go with them, Being the Ricardos has real zip. It’s a virtue of Sorkin’s tendency to glibness. His writing can be irritatingly slick, but never boring.

Few directors lavish as much tenderness upon life's bruised survivors as Kloves does, and many a more prominent director has failed to find in the dust-choked West Texas plains the wistfulness with which Quaid and Ryan fill their most solid and shtick-free work yet. [05 Nov 1993, p.42]

Lightyear overcomes gravity of the physical sort. That’s what Space Command specializes in. It has a harder time with the emotional kind.

In both senses of the word, Posse is a colorful outing that fills a real gap, a film you can respect as well as enjoy. [14 May 1993, p.45]

The Bad Guys takes the cute kid with a fishing pole in the DreamWorks logo and replaces him with a rather raffish-looking wolf who sneaks his way up onto that crescent moon. Right off the bat, we’re being told to expect irreverence and inventiveness. Those expectations will be met.

Blue Beetle is a watchable time-waster made better by the actors and the cinematography by Pawel Pogorzelski.

There are many twists and turns to the story, and the documentary is consistently surprising.

Stephen Frears' Hero is a slyly entertaining reinvention of the old newspaper comedy - Frank Capra's Meet John Doe, William Wellman's Nothing Sacred, Howard Hawks' The Front Page - on the altar of TV. In an image-dominated age, what does the concept of heroism mean? Not much, once TV gets hold of it, Hero says. But it's peachy, not preachy, celebrating energy, resourcefulness and cheerful amorality. [02 Oct 1992, p.45]

Directed by Melvin Van Peebles as the '60s writhed to a close, it's very much a product of its time: unsubtle, psychedelic, truly weird, occasionally very funny. [08 Dec 2002]

The finished film, which was completed in about 11 days, has the tidiness and optimism of a fable. But it showcases certain hard facts of life in a war-torn country whose scars have yet to heal.

When the movie stays focused on the three characters in the bank, it has a taut energy that glosses over some of the bumpier dialogue and easy grabs for emotion.

The comedy is largely episodic and breezy, bolstered by strong support from Debra Messing, Amanda Bearse, Bowen Yang, Jim Rash, Kenan Thompson, Amy Schumer, and Kristin Chenoweth.

With so much going on, that means a lot of balls need to be kept in the air. Some of them drop. Of course they do: The Adam Project is entertaining but no masterpiece. What’s unusual, and impressive, is that the dropped balls often keep bouncing. That’s a tribute to the movie’s wit, energy, and imaginativeness.

In “Vengeance,” Novak proves his chops both as an adept filmmaker and skillful satirist of contemporary mores.

Hurwitz takes a terrific subject and treats it with undisguised, and justified, affection.

It’s not as memorable as the original, but like a good piece of chocolate, Wonka is at its most delectable when you’re consuming it.

Nobody does a better job of putting animals and people in the same movie than Carroll Ballard, and he does it again, humanely as ever, in Fly Away Home. [13 Sep 1996, p.D8]

The Woman King lets its excellent cast weave between hubris, shakiness, and strength, achieving not just richer representation but more thrilling fight scenes, too.

She Said is successful where it matters most: It shows just how easy it is for predatory men in power to be kept there by an equally corrupt system of people who either look the other way or protect them.

The backstory between Donny and Dame is too heavy and complex for a movie that aims to be a crowd-pleaser, but Majors and Jordan do their best to balance the material.

In its sweet, slightly melancholy, gently humorous way, it fills the screen with the freshest, most winning love story we've seen in ages. [14 Feb 1992, p.39]

The solid cast cements over the more noticeable cracks in the story. The result is a pleasant diversion that’s worth a rental.

Though it occasionally pulls its punches, the blows Chevalier does land sting and leave a mark.

TÁR is ambitious, unusual, forceful, and ultimately frustrating, an emotional epic that’s also a nose-against-the-glass view of classical music and unconventional take on the #MeToo movement in that world.

How much you enjoy yourself depends on whether you’re a fan of the original, or of Amy Adams.