Powerful as the archival material is, the most loaded footage is of these survivors back on the pain-drenched turf of their Hungarian origins and the blood-drenched soil of the former concentration camps they outlived. Given the moral authority of their presence, the film doesn't need extraneous drama, and wisely avoids it. [26 Feb 1999, p.D4]

Riveting tale of family dynamics packed with as much drama, conflict, and poignancy as the best feature film.

Such moral outrage, apart from the artistry in which it is embedded, tells us that the forces of change are stirring in Iran.

What an amazing presence Gorintin has. Never mind her hunched back and white hair, she's no crone. She makes Eka needy for happiness but susceptible to heartbreak. It's a great performance, full of both joy and the quiet, disappointing parts of being alive that come with knowing change is part of life.

Elegantly depraved and immaculately degenerate, Park Chan Wook’s The Handmaiden is an astonishment. The filmmaking is masterful, very near to Hitchcock in its sly, controlled teasing of the audience.

The majesty of this film comes from how the director and his team use an often surreal mix of music, editing, sound, and image to allow the viewer to experience the world as we assume EO does.

You may even feel like dancing in the aisles yourself. Sure, the real world doesn't always work this way. Have you forgotten that this is one of the reasons why we go to movies in the first place?

Even when the meager story line falters — more on that in a bit — the music and visuals mesh into a dazzling whole.

With at least nine primary characters and running two and a half hours, it's a big, fat novel of a movie - a domestic epic that fuses bitterness and forgiveness in completely satisfying ways.

Slight but fascinating.

It's so simple, so obvious - and a revelation.

Shining with freshness and commitment, Get On the Bus is one of the far from overwhelming number of films you owe it to yourself to see in 1996. [16 Oct 1996, p.F1]

Fremon Craig has made a completely satisfying crowd pleaser full of first-rate performances.

The movie, a balm for the senses and the soul, celebrates and discreetly mourns an activity that stretches back to antiquity and is slowly being snuffed out by global market forces.

This is an extraordinary artistic breakthrough from a Mexican director who was already fearlessly good to begin with.

A ferocious and first-rate drama.

Broadcast News grows in your memory. It recalls an era when movies were made by, for and with three-dimensional characters you cared about. Let's hope it doesn't take James L. Brooks another four years to make another one. We can't wait that long. [25 Dec 1987, p.53]

Revanche was a foreign-language Oscar nominee this year, and it's a better movie than most of the films in the main race. The word "revanche" means "revenge" in German, but "waiting" would have been just as good.

It's a quiet little gag homage both to Boris Karloff and to the set up of shelf-loads of pulp novels and films noir. And Peltola, with his flat, serious face and damp, oil-black hair, happens to look, at times, like Richard Widmark and Kirk Douglas.

It seems more a geek show than a slab of marketing wizardry.

Yet, paradoxically, the fact that almost every line becomes a double entendre confirms the fact that the movie is one of Allen's best. Although Allen, like the character he's playing, may self-destruct, the movie emerges triumphant. It holds us from start to finish - a rueful, ironic, wrenchingly funny study of yet another set of mixed Manhattan doubles dedicated to the belief that there's no marriage or relationship so bad that it can't be traded for - or transformed into - something worse. [18 Sept 1992, p.51]

The byplay between DiCaprio and Pitt is delicious and finely drawn — you’d better believe Tarantino knows he’s dealing with two of our last old-school movie stars and sneakiest actors.

A small-scale, satisfying human drama that backs gradually into larger matters.

Moonrise Kingdom is Anderson's seventh movie, and it's the first since "Rushmore" that works from the opening shot to the final image.

Filled with affection and verve and will do very nicely until the next shipment of Latin jazz comes along.

In his masterful and haunting documentary Up the Yangtze, Yung Chang shows the old China drowning helplessly under the weight of the new.

Thanks to Chen's eye and the strong central performances, Farewell My Concubine comes together with historical resonance and stirring, full-blooded sweep. [29 Oct 1993, p.51]

If “Sinners” commits one sin (forgive me), it’s a tendency to overexplain itself during the film’s climax. Still, Coogler and his excellent cast have created a sexy, funny, boisterous, and very bloody crowd pleaser, one that features a mid-credits sequence that adds another wrinkle to its intriguing mythology.