Though “Berberian” bogs down a bit in its infernal spiral, Strickland proves himself to be a rising talent — a master of sound and fury both.

Nick Nolte electrifies the football-cum-drugs saga with a remarkable performance as Phil Elliott, a pot smokin', beer swillin', cocaine sniffin' tight end for the North Dallas Bulls. But the erratic direction of Ted Kotcheff and the wayward script are strictly second-string. [10 Jun 2014, p.G15]

Tokyo Sonata, in so many senses, is about an allergic reaction to the very idea of what it means to be Japanese. The characters misplace their belief in etiquette, politesse, dignity, and propriety - or they struggle to maintain it.

In short, the film removes any possible shred of gloss or glamorization of the situation. It's gritty, honest and admirable. Sarandon is perfect as the combative mother. You can't take your eyes off her. And Nolte eventually is touching as the dogged father determined to find a cure in the Library of Congress. [15 Jan 1993, p.45]

The movie's still a wickedly droll put-on. Better yet, beneath the fun lurks a dry and weary sigh at life's refusal to match the tidiness of art.

A puzzle: a hermetically sealed period piece so intensely relevant to our current state of affairs that it takes your breath away.

Terrific French film about that most universal of subjects - work.

While Crosby is painfully frank throughout this documentary about his knack for destroying friendships and driving people away (we learn in one brief aside that there’s a daughter who hasn’t spoken to him in years), one senses that it’s easier for him to say these things now than to have done the hard, human work of repair. David Crosby: Remember My Name is a testament of achievement and a portrait of ego, but it never quite gets past its subject’s illusions to properly consider his art.

As often happens in Guzmán’s films, The Pearl Button keeps returning to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship of 1973-90, during which thousands of Chileans were “disappeared,” taken away and never seen again alive.

Deep Water, which had seemed like a sort of Conrad novel, takes on the aspect of Dickens at his darkest.

The Dardennes resist the expected cliches: The climactic scenes gather force and purpose and the movie seems headed for a breakthrough of some sort, but then it glides softly and unexpectedly to a halt.

Most of all, California Typewriter is an elegy. “The truth is, no good typewriters are going to be made again,” Hanks laments. There’s a reason that the title of the first tune on the fine musical soundtrack is “Stolen Moments.”

A meditation on fame, acting, aging, and acceptance, “Clouds” is a multilayered rapture on the subject of woman, performing. Not only does the film demand repeat viewings, it rewards them.

"The Corpse Bride" with teeth, Bruno Bettelheim retooled for the multiplex, a nightmare of daft and creative consequence. I really liked it.

It's poetic, resonant, wistful, convulsive, regretful, exultant. There also are times when it's demanding to sit through, when time passes slowly, urged on only by flickers of uncertainty on the face of its protagonist, or by his insistent peering after meanings that may not even exist. But it's also a film that offers the kinds of rewards possible only to the contemplative mindset. [25 Jun 1999, p.D5]

This is an easy movie to spoil. It's rather plotless. But things happen in precisely the way that life happens.

It looks at the all-American obsession with winning and chortles darkly. You still come out of the movie wanting to give your family a hug.

It’s unnerving in ways that elude easy explanation and that slip under your skin and stay there.

A meditative and intensely beautiful documentary.

Director David Lowery (“Ain’t them Bodies Saints,” “A Ghost Story”) did the adaptation of David Grann’s New Yorker magazine article. His direction is winningly relaxed, and his script has real flavor.

There's humor in "Le Quattro Volte," and then a deep, abiding sadness, and beyond that a larger, more graceful comedy that extends to the horizons.

This entertaining and informative documentary just might make you a fan as well.

While the “Paradise Lost” films captured events as they unfolded in the heat of battle, West of Memphis has the luxury of at least partial closure.

Despite a moving, canny incarnation of the man by Frank Langella, despite a slickly entertaining coffee-table production as only Ron Howard knows how, the movie feels cooked up.

Apologies to Conrad Rooks, but the only reason his 1972 film, Siddhartha, is getting a 30th-anniversary rerelease is the appeal of seeing Sven Nykvist's amazing cinematography restored to its full splendor.

Lee's light hand with his timeless subjects deftly, affectingly, ruefully and hilariously covers all the bases. [19 Aug 1994, p.49]

The movie's assemblage of audio interviews poured mostly over astounding race footage is fit for a shrine.

Really, The Lost Leonardo is a detective story. Like any good detective story, it’s also a morality tale. Or maybe immorality tale better describes these goings on.