There’s no trace of Hollywood glamour or gloss to the story, no hint of actor-y flourishes in the deeply resonant performances. Just a lean, finely crafted, memorably real story announcing the presence of a major new filmmaking talent — and a young actor with the promise of limitless potential.

The film leaves no doubt Ted Hall was a brilliant man, and that he and Joan had a beautiful marriage. His legacy beyond that remains a subject of intense debate.

What’s missing is musical or cultural context for the Beatles’ explosion.

The way this unfolds is surprisingly engaging.

Clocking in at a bloated 2 hours and 20 minutes and featuring a VERY slow build before we get to the good stuff, the gorgeous and weird and ludicrous horror film “Midsommar” tests our patience more than once before delivering some seriously grisly and wonderfully twisted material in the final act.

It is a stunning work of visual style - the best version of a comic book universe I've seen - and Brandon Lee clearly demonstrates in it that he might have become an action star, had he lived.

The Stepfather has one wonderful element: Terry O'Quinn's performance.

A demonstration of the way time can sometimes give us a break.

Koyaanisqatsi is an impressive visual and listening experience, that Reggio and Glass have made wonderful pictures and sounds, and that this film is a curious throwback to the 1960s, when it would have been a short subject to be viewed through a marijuana haze. Far out.

Bacon is a strong and subtle actor, something that is often said but insufficiently appreciated. Here he employs all of his art.

This is a great act of filmmaking and acting. I don't believe I would be able to see it twice.

Keke Palmer, a young Chicago actress whose first role was as Queen Latifah's niece in "Barbershop 2," becomes an important young star with this movie. It puts her in Dakota Fanning and Thora Cross territory, and there's something about her poise and self-possession that hints she will grow up to be a considerable actress.

The Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris is famous for its "erotic chic" revues, but I found nothing either erotic or chic in this reduction of body parts to geometrical displays.

This movie leaves me looking forward to the director's next film; we can say of Rian Johnson, as somebody once said about a dame named Brigid O'Shaughnessy, "You're good. You're very good."

Death and the Maiden is all about acting. In other hands, even given the same director, this might have been a dreary slog.

This is more of a do-over — a mulligan — than a reboot, with writer-director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) delivering a darkly funny, blood-spattered, cheerfully gross, violent and bat-bleep crazy mashup of wisecracking humor, elaborate and CGI-infused action sequences and even a rom-com interlude that ends with one of the participants quite dead while the other expresses regrets but there was no other way, this being a Suicide Squad movie and all.

A lightweight rom-com elevated by its performances. It is a reminder that the funniest people are often not comedians, but actors playing straight in funny roles.

It's hard enough for a director to work with actors, but if you're working with your own family in your own house and depicting passive aggression, selfishness and discontent and you produce a film this good, you can direct just about anybody in just about anything.

To look at Bringing Out the Dead --to look, indeed, at almost any Scorsese film--is to be reminded that film can touch us urgently and deeply.

Passes the time pleasantly and has a few good laughs.

What adds boundless energy to Walk the Line is the performance by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash.

Adapted with unusual faithfulness from John Guare's much-heralded 1990 play, the movie, directed by Fred Schepisi with a screenplay by the playwright, is nothing if not frenetic. And yet it attempts to explore a slew of profound ideas -- about race, social class, art and the whole nature of experience among a very particular and unusually sophisticated segment of contemporary urban American society. [22 Dec 1993, p.48]

Antal's visuals create a haunted house where the lights are off in most of the rooms and there may, indeed, be a monster in the closet.

Movies about high school misfits are common; this is an uncommon one. Terri, so convincingly played by Jacob Wysocki, is smart, gentle and instinctively wise.

You might think a documentary about the obituary writers at the New York Times would be a depressing, sobering, scholarly work — but it’s anything but.

One reason for the fascination of Woody Allen's Match Point is that each and every character is rotten.

Moore delivers a performance that should win awards. We believe every inch of the performance, every movement of Moore’s eyes when she gets the news of her condition, every scene in which she experiences another level of deterioration. It’s beautiful work.

Pour a cup of cheer and toast filmmaker Dana Nachman for telling the stories of some of these elves and the families who have benefitted from the fruits of their tireless volunteer labor in Dear Santa, a sprightly feel-good documentary that comes at a time when we could use a lift — and serves as a reminder there are an awful lot of truly good people in this world.