The only question his movie doesn't ask is "What do you want your next car to run on?" That's up to you.

A sweetly acted and neatly executed social comedy.

Even when its wires are showing, the movie's soul is always evident.

As a production, Fados is pretty with its reflected surfaces and many projected images. But at times it hurts for the bite and texture of life outside that studio. For all the dolorous singing about and shots of streets, it'd be nice to hit one.

Sentimental and has its heart on its sleeve, but never heavy-handedly so, and its delicacy and tenderness will get to you if you give it half a chance.

A long crawl from inception to climax.

Begins and ends as a fulsome Kerry campaign bio along the lines of the famed Bill Clinton convention short, "The Man From Hope."

Sitting through Lethal Weapon 2 is like dating a jackhammer. It's a slick, cynical, high-speed assembly line of car chases, jokes, sex, explosions and blood. [41 Jul 1989, p.41]

The documentary is good on the gay aspect of 54, and disco generally. Schrager became highly successful as an impresario of boutique hotels. Still, when he talks about Studio 54 there’s a touch of wonder in the tough-guy growl.

If the new Wuthering Heights makes you uncomfortable, that's part of Andrea Arnold's game plan.

A dinner-from-hell comedy about a pretty Jewish Spaniard who brings a nice Palestinian guy home to her outspoken Madrid family.

The penultimate moments of “Bombshell” are moving, re-creating the lost Vienna of Kiesler’s childhood and overlaying the voice of the aging Lamarr, interviewed by an Austrian news team in 1970, as she speaks of never being understood in America. Adrift in the Land of the Lotus Eaters, she spent a lifetime being looked at and never once being seen.

Long on mood and moodiness, but at a loss as how to break any interesting human ground.

Subtle, it’s not. But it is effective. The days when Al Gore could mobilize a nation with wonky charm and a PowerPoint presentation are over. As Marc Morano says, “keep it short, keep it simple, keep it funny.”

The Lady in the Van ultimately presents a number of facts that would seem to “solve” Mary Shepherd. I’d like to think Smith knows better than that. In her hands, the lady in the van remains complex and unknowable — a mystery to the end. And that, friends, is acting.

For all the talk, there's not a lot of chess here, and the game remains stubbornly on the level of metaphor. You don't feel rooked, exactly, but by movie's end you're more than ready for the check.

Warmly shot (by Yves Sehnaoui) and comes with a strong, burbling soundtrack of Arab pop; it slides down easily and occasionally too easily.

Something to see and little to remember, an acrid character study undone by narrative implausibilities and its own lack of purpose.

Creative, colorful, and unexpectedly wise, The Painting is the latest offshore animation to show to kids burned out on computer-generated Hollywood toons.

Along with an equally superb Scott Ellis Watson, who plays Davidson as a teenager, Aramayo is the best thing in this movie. Unfortunately, the rest of it is Biopic 101, which at times makes the story feel too simplistic and thin.

Don’t be surprised if you come out wishing that there actually were a late-night comedy show starring Emma Thompson instead of just a movie about one.

Billy Crystal's wit and sweet energies carry it past what could have been a fatal degree of mushiness. Although there's rather too much redemption for one cattle drive, and the film's attitude toward women is at best opaque, Crystal brings warmth and ease to his sharp timing and edgy comic style as he and his pals entertainingly usher us into their brotherhood of schlepdom. [7 June 1991, p.53]

Akerman, though, is her own best spokesperson as she discusses her films at locations where they were shot.

[Verhoeven's] cold, slick, funny, high-powered movie is informed by a humanism this genre almost always abandons in its chase after vigilante splat. [17 Jul 1987]

It's practically a primer on how to rework a literary classic into an impressively restrained movie with something fresh and intelligent to say.

A proudly Calvinist work - I mean the comic strip character, not the philosopher - that understands the delights of deep play.

As directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Old Guard is assured and textureless: competence doing the work of inspiration. The movie is like an extended trailer for itself.

It's affecting, and the tone, which is polemical, is also rueful and realistic.