Milk is steeped in the street-level details of acquiring and applying power, and a few early episodes show how clearly Milk understood the economic component.

The result is grimly "effective," but it made me long for Hollywood junk.

For my money, still the best Bond, with a screwball plotline that keeps the locales changing and the surprises coming—even when reason dictates that the picture should be over. Lotte Lenya and Robert Shaw make a creepy pair, and Daniela Bianchi embodies the essence of centerfold sex, circa 1964.

Ripping entertainment overall, with just enough meat for amateur sociologists.

This 1958 film by Yasujiro Ozu (his first in color) is gentle, spare, and ultimately elusive, in a quietly satisfying way. [07 May 2009, p.28]

The 3-D element is unobtrusively handled, except when it perfectly re-creates the woman who's always perched on her boyfriend's shoulders in front of you at a concert.

What can I tell you about a film that begins with a bald prostitute beating a man unconscious with her handbag? Except that it's undoubtedly Sam Fuller's vilest, sleaziest masterpiece.

The characters (both animal and human) are solidly conceived, and the storytelling and visuals are expertly fashioned.

This installment delivers more of the pleasures that made Tarantino the wunderkind of 90s cinema: offbeat scumbag characters, narrative sleight of hand, an extraordinary visual sense, and affectionate genre pillaging.

Much of the film's potency derives from its personal edge -- the passion for precise period decor, the title dedicating the film to Leigh's parents (a doctor and midwife), and even the childlike classification of many characters as either good souls or villains.

You may not leave the theater having switched sides, but you'll probably respect the other side more, and that in itself would be a victory for human life.

Miyazaki never really explains why his aviator hero has been transformed into a pig (all the other characters are human), and the perfunctory climax fails to tie up any of the themes Miyazaki has developed. But this is masterful storytelling in every other respect, good-humored and frequently suspenseful, with a vivid setting.

Its brutal take on living under totalitarian rule periodically suggests Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Mullan makes the authority figures (such as the nun played by Geraldine McEwan) grimly believable, but as in "Orphans," there are times when he doesn't know when to quit.

With his perfect pacing, elegant narrative design, and depth of characterization, Richard Lester has made as good a matinee movie as could be imagined: it's a big, generous, beautifully crafted piece of entertainment, with the distinctive Lester touch in the busy backgrounds and the throwaway dialogue.

The resulting portrait shows a seriously troubled man whose brutality was bred into him on the punishing streets of Brooklyn and whose modest wisdom seems as hard-won as any title. Tyson's fight career may be over, but his battle with himself has many rounds to go.

This was the last Disney animated feature that Uncle Walt lived to see through personally; it can't be a coincidence that it's also the last Disney animated feature of real depth and emotional authenticity.

The cast - including Derek Jacobi as the modern-dress chorus, Paul Scofield, Judi Dench, Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, and Robbie Coltrane in an effective cameo as Falstaff - is uniformly fine without any grandstanding.

The Chicago locations are well used by veteran director George Roy Hill, and the wonderful 30s movie style (lots of horizontal and vertical wipes, flipping screens, irises in and out) enhances the sense of good, harmless, nostalgic fun.

Cronenberg's follow-up to "A History of Violence" -- starring the same lead, Viggo Mortensen, in a very different part -- lacks the theoretical dimension of its predecessor, but it's no less masterful in its fluid storytelling and shocking choreography of violence.

More action oriented than the other Dietrich-Sternberg films, this 1932 production is nevertheless one of the most elegantly styled.

This 2004 video documentary by Werner Herzog arrives in town while his hair-raising "Grizzly Man" is still playing, and it's a fascinating companion piece even though his manipulations are more obvious.

It's a damning indictment of a national disgrace, but it also reveals the incredible faith and resilience of people who have nothing to rely on but themselves.

Well-crafted if relatively impersonal adaptation.

A terrifically entertaining comedy-thriller, perfectly crafted by Stanley Donen from an ingenious screenplay by Peter Stone.

This is fun but, compared with Kurosawa’s other 60s efforts, relatively slight.

The final shoot-out remains a classic study in mise-en-scene, as Mann transforms a jagged landscape into a highly charged psychological battleground.

The sexual tensions build slowly and subtly, and when they explode into violence, it seems to be the desired result.

Duvall’s direction of a mix of professional and nonprofessional actors, especially in the extended church sessions, is never less than masterful.