There is an old saying: Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it. The Piano Teacher has a more ominous lesson: Be especially careful with someone who has asked for you.

Monsters, Inc. is cheerful, high-energy fun, and like the other Pixar movies, has a running supply of gags and references aimed at grownups.

First reactions while viewing Time Bandits: It's amazingly well-produced. The historic locations are jammed with character and detail. This is the only live-action movie I've seen that literally looks like pages out of Heavy Metal magazine, with kings and swordsmen and wide-eyed little boys and fearsome beasts.

Beyond the Hills is an arthouse film from Romania, yet, in its slow, lurching progress toward a tragic exorcism, it is a stylistic nephew of America's "The Exorcist."

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me is a poignant, stark, lovely and sometimes devastating film — a tribute to one of the great crossover stars of his time, and an unblinking look at how Alzheimer’s relentlessly chips away at one’s memories and thought process, brick by brick. It is worthy of an Academy Award nomination.

Mark is played by John Hawkes, who has emerged in recent years as an actor of amazing versatility. What he does here is not only physically challenging, but requires timing and emotion to elevate the story into realms of deep feeling and, astonishingly, even comedy.

Mank is the kind of movie that makes you want to go back and re-watch not only “Citizen Kane” but the works of other characters featured in this story.

It's poignant to watch the chicks in their youth, fed by their parents, playing with their chums, the sun climbing higher every day, little suspecting what they're in for.

A touching and effective film.

A brave film in the way it shows two people who find any relationship almost impossible, and yet find a way to make theirs work. The problems with the film come because it overstays its welcome.

There are enough plots here to challenge a Robert Altman, specialist in interlocking stories, but the director, Bob Giraldi, masters the complexities as if he knows the territory. He does.

Garland (adapting a novel by Jeff VanderMeer that is the first of a trilogy) does a masterful job of building the mystery, dropping plot hints like so many bread crumbs, jolting us with “gotcha!” moments.

Mazursky's films have considered the grave and funny business of sex before (most memorably in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and Blume in Love). But he's never before been this successful at really dealing with the complexities and following them through.

Breathtaking and terrifying, urgently involved with its characters, it announces a new director of great gifts and passions: Fernando Meirelles.

So what we're seeing here is the emergence of a promising writer-director, an actor and a cinematographer who are all exciting, and have cared to make a film that seeks helpful truths.

Red Rock West is a diabolical movie that exists sneakily between a western and a thriller, between a film noir and a black comedy.

This film moves effortlessly from some pretty intense dramatic moments to hilarious scenes showcasing the contrasting lifestyles of the gay and straight worlds to some vignettes of incredible poignancy.

Deep movie emotions for me usually come not when the characters are sad, but when they are good. You will see what I mean.

Babygirl works primarily as an unapologetically and outrageously bold and sexy thriller.

El Cid storms past its failings by the sheer force of its visual mastery. [27 Aug 1993, p.41]

This is about the residents of Ferguson, who reacted to the killing of Michael Brown by galvanizing a movement on the streets of their town and via social media. They knew the whole world was watching, and they had seized the opportunity to tell their stories.

Planet of the Apes is much better than I expected it to be. It is quickly paced, completely entertaining, and its philosophical pretensions don't get in the way. If you only condescend to see an adventure thriller on rare occasions, condescend this time. You have nothing to lower but your brow.

A splendid movie not just because it tells its romantic story, and makes it visually delightful, and centers it on Depardieu, but for a better reason: The movie acts as if it believes this story. Depardieu is not a satirist - not here, anyway. He plays Cyrano on the level, for keeps.

Fascinating and has a lot of laughs in it.

The latest in a flowering of good films from Iran, and gives voice to the moderates there. It shows people existing and growing in the cracks of their society's inflexible walls.

Causes us to leave the theater quite unreasonably happy.

This is a wonderful film. There isn't a thing that I would change.

Ritchie has so messy targets that he misses some and never quite gets back to others. But Smile does a good job of working over the hypocrisy and sexism of a typical beauty pageant.