Nair and screenwriters Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes have faithfully carried most of the main characters over from the novel but have changed its point of view.

Pattison grows on us as he grows on Bella: His weird mannerisms and nervous delivery stop seeming like quirks and acquire an intensity that's hard to resist by the end.

Reminds me of the golden retriever that lived next door long ago: endearing, consistently sweet-natured, ready for a brisk turn around familiar territory as long as no strenuous intellectual demands are ever made.

The film works best among the beasts. Their training is impeccable, their emotions are palpable, and almost all of their behavior is credible. One "Jaws"-like encounter sends a carnivorous leopard seal after a fleeing canine, and it's as tense as anything I hope to see this spring.

As warm and reassuring as grandma's hugs.

Malcolm Lee's brilliant documentary about American race relations.

The filmmakers do everything they can to balance levity and leavening. The subject says "drama," and the three supporting women deliver well-shaded, understated performances. (Howard shows us how weakness can be just as destructive as malice.)

Watchmen is a fitting tribute to Alan Moore's fascinating graphic novel, even if he refused to let his name be used in the credits.

The film contains the usual Moore plusses and minuses, now familiar to anyone who's watched even one of his films.

Because the tale is straightforward and conventional, it needed and got terrific acting.

Part of the film's failure to arouse real horror is the languid direction; not enough seems to be at stake emotionally.

That Testament doesn't wallow in cheap sentimentality or grisly detail is a testament to the talents of first-time feature film director Lynne Littman, her superb cast and screenwriter John Young. [20 Jan 1984, p.4C]

Characters in Breillat's movies often make sex their god, lose faith in it, then find their lives hollow and grim. Bergman wouldn't have been so concerned with bodily woes, but he'd have understood.

A handsome tribute to an era as quaintly distant as tail-fin Chevrolets and A-bomb scares.

I predict Northfork will give you food for reflection or a case of the hives. I stopped scratching 20 minutes into the movie, settled into its lulling rhythm and floated away into the Polish brothers' flaky, austere dreamworld.

Pavich gives the Chilean-born Jodorowski his full say in the documentary, partly in Spanish and partly in expressive if slightly fractured English.

Mangold has been smart or fortunate in casting, and personalities sustain interest even when the narrative flags.

Sitting through Source Code is like watching a chef coax a beautiful soufflé into perfect shape for 80 minutes, then drop a bowling ball on it.

Chuck and Buck: A fungus among us.

For certain movies, the adjectives "formulaic" and "predictable" are complimentary. War Horse is one of them.

Here’s a paradox: The millions of people who have read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are the panting target audience for the Swedish-language film adaptation. Yet they’re also likeliest to be disappointed by this carefully crafted drama, while people who haven’t read the book are likely to enjoy the movie and wonder what the literary fuss is about.

Denzel Washington doesn’t demonstrate how great he is with first-rate scripts such as “Flight.” He does it by elevating sophisticated pulp like The Equalizer to a higher level.

Wes Anderson's movies taste that way to me. They're dryly funny, well-acted, never less than quirkily entertaining. But they're never more, either.

By the end, a Zen-like calm that might be mistaken for stasis settles over the story. But these lives move forward slowly, inexorably, and they move us, too.

Most importantly, Shut Up & Sing is about what happens in the music industry to people who won't.

300 is a huge step forward in visually sophisticated storytelling.

There may not be much meat in Hodges' stew, but the sauce was so tasty I felt satisfied after the light meal.

Director Fede Alvarez (who did the “Evil Dead” remake) masterfully sustains a little more than an hour of shocks. Eventually, though, he resorts to the ideas lazy or unobservant filmmakers employ.