Nunez has a gift for finding the essence, the soul, of his actors.

This is a movie that knows it is absurd, and does little to deny it.

The Pillow Book, starring Vivian Wu, is a seductive and elegant story.

It is always a problem in a love story when the rival seems more interesting than the hero, and that's what happens here.

Steven Spielberg, a gifted filmmaker, should have reimagined the material, should have seen it through the eyes of someone looking at dinosaurs, rather than through the eyes of someone looking at a box-office sequel.

Brassed Off is a sweet film with a lot of anger at its core.

Yet Love! Valour! Compassion! has power and insight, and perhaps what makes it strong is its disinterest in technical experiments: It is about characters and dialogue, expressed through good acting--the very definition of the "well-made play."

This movie is knowledgeable about the city and the people who make accommodations with it.

La Promesse was written and directed by the brother duo of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who were previously known as documentary makers. They bring an unblinking realism to the story, but aren't limited by documentary-style objectivity. They tap into the interior lives of the characters with tremendous subtlety and originality. [22 Aug. 1997, p.36]

Depp is one of the very best of America's young actors, but "The Brave" is a lightweight and unbelievable story that takes itself with terminal seriousness. [14 May 1997, p.45]

I would not have missed seeing this film, and I recommend it for its richness of imagery. But at 127 minutes, which seems a reasonable length, it plays long.

A brainless feature-length sitcom with too much sit and no com.

For all the outlandish style and heaps of energy in Nowhere, Araki's most expensive and mainstream film, it can be reduced to one big pessimistic shriek. How do you spell Life is a bummer? Apparently, by never shutting up. [06 June 1997, p.32]

A funny movie that only gets funnier the more familiar you are with the James Bond movies, all the Bond clones and countless other 1960s films.

Breakdown is a fine thriller, and its ending is unworthy of it.

It is enormously ambitious -- maybe too much so, since it ranges so widely between styles and strategies that it distracts from its own flow.

If the rare vitality and wit of Irma Vep weren't enough to shake jaded viewers in their seats, its climactic blast of optically enhanced images will. The only new world Assayas is prepared to accept is a brave one. In and out of film, that's the only kind to pursue. [13 June 1997, p.32]

It has charm, a sly intelligence, and the courage to go for special effects sequences.

This is a surprisingly cheesy disaster epic.

Pesci has a lot of scenes that strike just the right note.

A lot of Murder at 1600 is well -done. Characters are introduced vividly,; there's a sense of realism in the White House scenes, and some of the dialogue by Wayne Beach and David Hodgin hits a nice ironic note. But then the movie kicks into auto - pilot. The last third of the film is a ready-made action movie plug-in.

The screenplay by Jim McGlynn, which plays a little like something Eastwood might have made, is subtle and observant; there aren't big plot points, but lots of little ones, and the plot allows us the delight of figuring out the scams. [25 Apr 1997]

McHale's Navy is an astonishingly bad film. Even if you never saw the early '60s TV series on which it is loosely based, you'll hate it. [18 Apr 1997, p.39]

The film takes the form but not the feel of a comic thriller. It's quirkier than that.

A slick, scary, funny Creature Feature, beautifully photographed and splendidly acted in high adventure style.

One of the more completely entertaining movies I've seen in a while--a well-crafted character study that, like a Hollywood movie with a skillful script, manipulates us but makes us like it.

But what the movie lacks is a story arc to pull us through.

While the surface of his film sparkles with sharp, ironic dialogue, deeper issues are forming, and Chasing Amy develops into a film of touching insights.