Terrifying and darkly funny. [13 Jun 2004, p.C4]

Testament does manage to convey in its surprisingly quiet and non-theatrical way the very point that its creators surely wanted to make: that human stupidity can destroy the world, but it cannot erase human dignity. [08 Nov 1983]

There is little to dislike in The Mighty Quinn, but neither is there any compelling reason to see it. [17 Feb 1989, p.C]

For much of its length the picture is brilliantly successful-light, surprising and, because it asks the audience to participate in its creation, unusually engaging.

Manhattan Murder Mystery is of absolutely no consequence save for the regular laughs it provides. However, it provides enough so that even the most virulent Woody-haters may smile, if they can bring themselves to the theater in the first place. [20 Aug 1993]

The film is a clever if increasingly mechanical suspense contraption, yanking our sympathies this way and that, before turning into a different sort of movie entirely.

The best of Molly’s Game, however, is more on the “Social Network” level, edgy and rhythmic. This is Sorkin’s feature directorial debut, and I’m happy to say it doesn’t look that way.

Nimoy directs the comedy in a loose, relaxed, almost sketch-like manner, but when the film moves into its multiple-cliffhanger climax, he's still able to generate some genuine dash and tension. The only drawback is that the Enterprise gang is starting to look a little long in the tooth for such strenuous action.

This is a movie that rocks and socks you, and has a performance by Washington that's ruthless and scary. But in the end, it leaves you unmarked.

If Beyond the Gates were merely a well-intentioned bore, the reality might seem jarring. As is, the coda fits and feels like the only possible ending--proof that surviving to help tell the story of a genocidal nightmare is the best revenge.

All in all, it's a fascinating, kid-friendly journey.

Much of the film`s charm resides in the fact that there is no reason for any of this to happen, except for the director`s sheer will that it be so.

It's a funny-sad portrait of fame and its junkies, and of an era and its music.

Whatever you think of Gehry's architecture, if you have any interest in art, or the interplay between light and shadow, or the way buildings create space and community, you're likely to enjoy this film.

In several scenes, the camera stays close to Dyer’s dazzling array of expressions at the computer keyboard, while Alice processes the latest rabbit hole or interior dilemma. Maine knows a pitch-perfect performance when she sees one.

Tape may not be a great movie, but it's a great demonstration of creativity within severe limitations.

The movie scrambles our responses and covers so much ground, with such zest, that its two and a half hours race past like a firestorm.

An unusual, agreeable heist picture with just enough feeling behind the style to make it stick, Lucky Grandma rests almost wholly on the withering glances of Tsai Chin.

All the women turn in funny performances — it's great to see Pinkett Smith cut loose, and the charming and radiant Hall displays a faculty for physical comedy — but this is Haddish's movie, and will make her a star.

One of those rare films that communicates the exquisite joy of the moviemaking process. [7 October 1994, Friday, p.B]

A nostalgia movie that doesn't get sticky with false sentiment.

A small jewel about a most common experience-a first date. Writer-director Tom Noonan also stars as a quirky, shy guy who comes over to the Manhattan loft apartment of a co-worker (Karen Sillas) for a first date. Their dance of engagement is absolutely riveting and sad. Created as a stage play, it also works on film. A true sleeper. [09 Dec 1994, p.B]

This comedy-romance about a mermaid who falls in love with a man does have one thing going for it, the lithe shape and pleasant underwater smile of actress Daryl Hannah. Otherwise, it's a desperately unfunny film that wastes the talents of SCTV favorites John Candy and Eugene Levy. [08 June 1984, p.12]

This is straight-up commercial comedy, low-keyed diversion, and while it can't hold a candle to recent, dark-comic Israeli achievements such as Joseph Cedar's "Footnote," the actors more than save it.

The skillful quartet at the center of Drinking Buddies reveals the weaknesses in the material.

The movie's pretty light on matters of science. It works best as a study of human vulnerability and love's way with us all, and as such, a handsomely mounted, slightly hollow picture by the end becomes a very affecting one.

An eliptical puzzle that comes together beautifully in the last five minutes. Challenging, disturbing and at times brilliant. [21 Oct 1994]

By the end, despite the film’s beautiful cinematography, persuasive subjects and ironically upbeat soundtrack, we just feel bludgeoned.

You either go for a movie like this or you don't. But though I didn't like it much, I've got to admit that The Descent is a nerve-jangler.

Starts out slowly, unfolding a family history through the poetic use of black-and-white photographs -- blending the figures of Rana's ancestors into the frame as if they still watched the family.

What are they trying to accomplish and is this really the best way to accomplish it?

A Perfect World proves again, if it needs proving, that Eastwood's directorial signature is among the strongest and surest in American movies. [24 Nov 1993, p.1C]

Usually I am so turned off by mayhem that I turn away from the screen during knife attacks and the like. But for some strange reason I wasn't sickened by the violence in Dawn of the Dead. Even when one zombie gets his head lopped off by a helicopter blade...Dawn of the Dead has some staying power. [4 May 1979, p.3-3]

What lingers are the unsettling feelings, inexplicably potent images and realization that some of life's key crossroads are visible only in the rearview mirror.

An incredibly ambitious film and one of the most highly accomplished of the year.

So what is it? Primarily it's a showcase for Vincent Cassel, who dines out on the role and won a Cesar award (the Gallic Oscar) for his efforts.

Get on Up hits all these high points. But the Butterworths fracture the order, fruitfully. They're more interested in making musical and dramatic connections across time and space — something in the '70s triggering a childhood memory, for example — than in laying them out predictably.

Cross-cutting between son and mother, and their constant efforts to reunite among the carnage, flames and rubble before it’s too late, director McQueen keeps the screws tight, blowing past realism for a trickier realm of historically grounded but highly stylized imagination.

The self-taught man behind the griddle, his wife, Eve, and their five seen-it-all kids emerge as the ensemble of the year.

Just another self-absorbed teen chronicle, with the added twist of a little time travel and a surprise ending.

The Great Buster, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich’s fond if slight appreciation of Buster Keaton, serves as the centerpiece of the Gene Siskel Film Center’s weeklong “Best of Buster” mini-retrospective starting Friday.

Bannon may think he's constantly manipulating the media, but in this film, Klayman uses the tools of documentary filmmaking to reveal his inherent emptiness.

There are many tragedies and accomplishments here, without the engineered uplift afflicting any number of lesser documentaries.

The best of the movie lies in its hangout factor, when Levi and Grazer are discovering what Billy can do with electricity, or when the young actors playing Billy’s step-siblings — Grace Fulton, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand and Faithe Herman —get a chance to establish a rapport.

Ghostbusters is a hoot. It's Murray's picture, and in a triumph of mind over matter, he blows away the film's boring special effects with his one-liners. Spotting a lusty, totally transformed, fire-breathing Slgourney Weaver, whose body has been overtaken by a spirit, Murray walks past her saying, "That's a new look for you, isn't it?" Thank you, Bill. And don't get outta here, you knucklehead. We like you in this kind of movie.

Proves, unhappily enough, how U.S.-style media politics is spreading around the world.

A recently resurfaced noir classic, in which an ex-con (Gene Nelson) is trapped between his criminal ex-buddies (Charles Bronson, Ted De Corsia and Timothy Carey), pulling him back into the underworld and the tough, toothpick-chewing L.A. cop (Sterling Hayden) who wants to make him a stoolie. Harsh, rough, sharp as a knife. [24 Oct 1997, p.L]

A dear film, sentimental and fond, full of beautifully acted British resolve.

Much-loved 1942 piece of super-romantic schmaltz. [19 Jul 2005, p.C3]

For all of Schrader's capacity for spectacular self-laceration and spiritual agony, Light Sleeper finds him able for the first time to express a certain peacefulness, and the effect is delicate and discreet.

A great movie? Hardly. Stallone as the next Brando? You've got to be kidding. A nice little fantasy picture? Maybe. That's the hype and reality of Rocky, the flatout schmaltzy saga of a Philadelphia club boxer who, on New Year's Day of our Bicentennial Year, gets a chance to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world. . . .

Most of the film's action takes place on the base, where Fox smartly concentrates on how this relationship -- tormented at times, lighthearted at others -- exists in Israel's military bubble.

Some will take it and like it, all the way to the heart of darkness. Others may feel they've been jacked with, manipulated. Villeneuve collaborates with unusual sensitivity with his actors. The script operates on one level; the interpreters on another, higher level.

In Year of the Dog, there are dark moments that are both strangely poignant and bizarrely hilarious. The ending took me by surprise. In a way it's a cheat, a redemption that arrives out of nowhere. But it's also a cosmic joke, a perfectly funny, sincere salute to dog and pet-lovers everywhere.

The problem is that we never see Dex employing the Steve technique to bed a female.

Kaufman's startling Quills gives us an anatomy of fear, images both silken swift and molten hot, scenes that disrupt and inflame the imagination.

What is most impressive about Kurosawa's direction is how he uses the entire frame, complete with expository background action, to fill in the story blanks. His eagerness to suggest, rather than declare, marks him as a director with confidence to spare.

This is the Paris -- and the mad, beautiful young Parisienne -- we look for in dreams.

As Almereyda unrolled his modern Gotham version, the story became gripping, the characters fascinating, the events mesmerizing, the resolution shocking and piteous.

Nolan is a fascinating, offbeat choice for a huge movie franchise such as this. Just as Bale turns Batman into a near-tragic obsessive -- a Scarlet Pimpernel with the soul of a Hamlet and Monte Cristo -- Nolan turns Batman Begins into something much closer to Miller's "Dark Knight" interpretation.

Joseph Cotten as a killer, Monroe as his adulterous wife slithering under the sheets and Jean Peters as the unfortunate witness in this taut Niagara Falls thriller. [09 Jun 2006, p.C7]

Few adventure movies have such a heightened atmosphere of beauty, excitement and fun. [25 Jan 2002, p.C1]

The movie doesn’t need higher stakes, really, or more conflict; what’s there is fine, but the flights of deadpan insanity only fly so high.

It's gut-grinding, to be sure. But a misjudged degree of cinematic dazzle obscures the outrages at the core of Standard Operating Procedure.

What works best is whatever's completely incidental to the story, such as the totes-magotes/slippy mcgippy jive talk.

The new Israeli movie Ushpizin, a film about man's clumsiness and God's grace, is a touching and amusing tale that expands our horizon and also should open our hearts.

I cannot say how I'd feel about The Walk if I'd never seen "Man on Wire," because I did see "Man on Wire," and I can't un-see it. I love it. I can only say The Walk struck me as an honorable good try of an also-ran, though with some lovely things to offer.

A brilliant entertainment, full of bemused skepticism and reckless, prodigal love -- for these people and their vanishing era and lives.

The actors, by and large, are first-rate. And the songs don’t hurt.

A freewheeling, up-with-kids-down-with-high-school picture featuring punk rock stars, The Ramones.

Thanks to director Howard's casual grace and humanism and the cast's talent and agility, The Paper is an entertaining show. But, maybe the reason it looks so real and sounds so phony is that, while it's set in the world of today, it really wants the kick of the old movies, and it never hits the right fluctuating tone between drama and farce. It may have tabloid ambitions and a tabloid look-even a tabloid soul. But it doesn't have tabloid reflexes. [18 March 1994, p.A]

There isn't a bad performance here, but besides Thornton, Luke stands out.

By imitating the gestures and outlines of a vanished cinema, Berri can only provide a cold simulation. The surface is smooth and refined; the insides aren't there. [23 Dec 1987, p.A]

Nichols has yet to make an uninteresting film; this one’s a stimulating collision of myth and realism, and keeping Comer at the core was a very smart move.

With such skilled filmmaking and committed acting on display, Narc is far more a score than a bust.

It's a clever premise but not one that lends itself to an hour and 42 minutes of high jinks. You get the joke quickly.

Immersed here in both the fair, dreamy air and chilly, deeper waters, Rampling and Sagnier make Swimming Pool a fine sunlit noir, oozing sensuality and menace.

Exquisitely designed, lovingly executed, beautifully scored and played, every hair and note in place, it's a movie full of irony, passion and bluesy riffs.

Like a Visconti epic gone mad, explosive, beautiful, unforgettable. [08 Dec 2006, p.C8]

The documentary carrying the same name as Schiele's painting works like a suspense drama and a slippery chronicle of ownership, theft and vaguely unsettling resolution.

The anecdotes weave an entrancing narrative, though the movie could have benefited from more vintage performance footage of Butterfield’s band at the height of its powers.

Michael Caine became a front rank star -- and actor -- when he played the title role in this smart, salty, subtly moving adaptation of Bill Naughton's play about a Cockney Casanova on the loose in Swinging London. [30 Jan 2000, p.41C]

A breezy diary from a pair of first-time farmers, as well as a wry rebuke to a nation devoted to eating cheaply but not necessarily well, King Corn makes its points without much finger-wagging.

I enjoyed it as much as any Allen film of the last 20 years.

It's a fascinating bundle of contradictions -- authentic in a million details, deeply romanticized in others. Cool, calm and collected, this is more love story than gangster picture.

Rebecca Hall makes Maggie’s past and present states scarifyingly real. The film is often good; never for a moment is Hall’s performance anything less.

It's compelling material, even if you don't completely buy Tsotsi's transition.

Seems small in subject and scope, but it's large in spirit and implication.

Like Charles Ferguson's excellent Iraq documentary "No End in Sight," "Countdown to Zero" has an agenda but has the cogent, reasoned rhetoric to support it.

Some of the dialogue is on the clunky side; much of it comes straight (or nearly) from Lord’s memoir; and Hammer has yet to find a fully easy-breathing way of behaving naturally on screen. Rush, by contrast, has so much fun with Giacometti’s tetchy, restless qualities, you don’t always buy the “tortured” part.Yet Rush is such a formidable technician, he creates a Giacometti of substance both real and theatrical.

Otto Preminger's adaptation of Leon Uris' best seller about the founding of the state of Israel occasionally threatens to collapse under its own weight, but a strong cast, including Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Lee J. Cobb and an Oscar-nominated Sal Mineo, helps maintain focus. [08 Nov 2008, p.C10]