The problem with the movie is that all this improvisational verisimilitude never finds its way into fully developed stories.

A movie about love, friendship and finding oneself, and it takes all its subjects very seriously while seeming to treat them with the lightest and most piquant of touches. Like its bizarre heroine, it irrigates our souls.

I find Lars and the Real Girl adorable in the worst way, bailed out only by most every member of its excellent cast.

The result is something so old it's new, so corny it's funny. And while Tears of the Black Tiger is nothing more than entertaining, at least it's that.

It's not a great movie, or one that should preoccupy you much afterwards, but it's certainly a good one. It's a fine debut for first-timer Mills.

Even if you have no interest in documentaries or the facade that is New York City, The Cruise transcends its artistic boundaries to becomes something strange and unique.

The result is a Jewish “Death Wish,” to borrow Pauline Kael’s description of “Marathon Man,” amped up to epoch-changing proportions, made by a gentile writer-director with an unlimited appetite for celluloid, right down to its highly flammable properties.

"Dragon" has an appeal beyond the buffs. Beyond the particulars of biography, it's a timeless human story told with heart and verve.

The film is a success. It works. Greatness eludes it, yes. But greatness eludes almost every film adaptation of a major novel, which we must remember when confronted by a good one.

Burton's direction rises to a Wagnerian hysteria (an impression backed by Danny Elfman`s roaring orchestral score) as the two mortal enemies fight it out on the brink of a zillion-foot drop. Burton achieves a genuine majesty at that moment-though he would need one or two more like it to make Batman a genuinely memorable film.

It's a powerhouse, demanding film that sometimes stretches the limits of credibility. But it's done with such consistent technical brilliance--and with such a first-rate cast and company.

A true feat of daring and one of the craziest films of the year.

The runaway train thriller Unstoppable is one of Tony Scott's better films.

At this point in Pixar's history, the studio contends with nearly impossible expectations itself. This is what happens when you turn out some bona fide masterworks. Brave isn't that; it's simply a bona fide eyeful.

Has such a cheerfully zingy energy that you keep rooting for it even when its jokes turn flatter than a jump shot at a YMCA pickup game.

Ashes of Time Redux remains a hermetic and rather frustrating work, dotted by lonely, windblown figures dwarfed by the sand dunes of western China.

As pure, outlandish outlaw cinema it's undeniable.

However sterling the craftsmanship, the film adaptation inflates the meaning and buffs the atmospheric surfaces of Yates' story, rather than digging into its guts.

Early in LFODH, a villain taunts our hero, calling him "a Timex in a digital world"; McClane, characteristically, takes the dig as a compliment. Two hours, countless butt-kickings and hairbreadth escapes later, we know why.

Censor is a bold artistic statement, inspired by the history of its own genre, though it’s not an uncritical assertion, posing complicated questions about media effects without offering easy answers.

For all Ricci's zingers, the actress who gets the most laughs here is Kudrow, who has an amazingly right-on offbeat comic sense and rhythm. Playing a bright, sexually repressed Indiana teacher, she displays priceless timing. [19 June 1998]

Watching Loeb opposite Berg, you're reminded of the miracles of chemistry and the luck of the draw when it comes to casting a show -- any show.

What Body Double lacks is rigorous editing that would have pared down this story to the tight, thoughtful thriller it could be. Instead, in Body Double as it now plays, De Palma runs wild with his own violent flourishes.

This likable heavenly fantasy comedy was a big '40s crowd-pleaser. [14 Aug 1998, p.M]

The beauty of Lion is that it explores and allows for the unique possibilities and power of multiple homes, multiple families and multiple selves.

Ultimately, it's Paul Giamatti ("Sideways"), playing Braddock's manager Joe Gould, who shines. In another actor's hands, Gould would be a secondary character lost in Crowe's shadow, but Giamatti outshines his co-stars at times with his everyman looks and delivery.

It's not the plot--however enjoyable--that makes I Went Down so successful as a genre piece. Rather, it is the assortment of quirky and nicely-defined characters who crop up along the way, along with some of the sharpest screen dialogue you're likely to hear anytime soon. [1 July 1998, p.2]

It moves with confidence; it’s vivid; it pulls off a riskier, full-on musical fantasy version of one pop superstar’s story.

The movie boasts one of those rare twist endings that strikes the right emotional chords, and it deserves credit for laying its bets on a sexy, sympathetic Macy. Sometimes long shots pay off.

Proves a less-than-satisfying examination of the country singer's art, career and demons.

This is a general-interest documentary, not one for the wonks or jazzbos. But the music, as we keep hearing from the cited experts, friends and admirers, covered so many different styles, Chasing Trane rides right past its own prescribed length of track.

I liked a lot of writer-director Jeff Baena's picture; it may be a one-joke movie, but I've seen comedies recently that would've killed for that many.

The look and sound of Duplicity is half the payoff.

The Chinese locations ache with beauty. And when Watts and Norton focus, intently, on Maugham's often dazzlingly vindictive characters, The Painted Veil really does feel like a story worth filming a third time.

That narrative change works fine in principle. The larger question is one of rhythm, and the diminishing returns of one jump scare after another.

It's the funniest new movie on town. [July 22, 1983]

Funny Games is an intellectual's suspense film, which ultimately tries to critique and demystify violence. But, since our responses are never all cerebral, that's not entirely possible.

The actors save it, periodically, from itself, simply by setting a natural tone and finding some truth in an extended sketch.

Guaranteed to make you think twice about what you're paying for what you're drinking.

This sincerely felt and utterly effervescent coming-of-age tale expresses a universal truth about being alive: that hopefully, you'll have the chance, and the awareness, to make and remake yourself, again and again, dusting off the old bricks you've got and forming them into something familiar but new.

An ambitious screenplay (by Andrew Klavan) is done in by wavering direction (by Jan Egleson) in A Shock to the System, an independent feature that is still worth seeing for its well-chosen cast of medium-priced performers, including Michael Caine, Elizabeth McGovern, Peter Riegert, Swoosie Kurtz and Will Patton. [23 Mar 1990, p.H]

May be a bit sentimental for some, but I found its patient examination of how the forces of optimism can be overwhelmed by a wave of cruelty to be both moving and wise.

A preposterous but beautifully polished Danish thriller.

Horror films often offer catharsis, but rarely are they also as deeply sorrowful as Keith Thomas’s The Vigil, a horror film based in Jewish faith and culture.

It's still worth seeing. This ambitious and powerful sphinx, a major force in a particular chunk of recent history, may not give away much. Watching and listening to how he doesn't give it away — that's the known known here.

A serious movie made by seriously talented people, and I never quite came 'round to it.

At a time when new westerns are in short supply, Devil a sight for sore eyes.

A work about memory and loss, His Secret Life becomes a forum of Antonia's liberation of consciousness and feeling, but there are too many contradictory moods sharing the same space, resulting in a tentativeness and uncertainty.

It's a sweet little snack of a movie that leaves the heavier courses for some other outing.

Melody Time delivers on its promise of rhythm and romance, reason and rhyme, something ridiculous, something sublime. [11 Jun 1998, p.10C]

In the spirit of previous Disneynature film voiceover artists John C. Reilly and Tina Fey, Helms contributes a winning inner-monologue voice for Steve, while also delivering the alternately threatening and comforting narration.

At times, it can feel a bit like “Clue” with so many plausible characters and motives swirling around and around, but Bana keeps it grounded, as a professional trying to do his job the best he can, while caught up in memory and trauma.

A little of Barinholtz goes a pretty good distance for me, but sharing scenes with Mann (who has the timing of a wizard) and blocklike Cena (funny just standing there, with his “cop haircut” and perpetually aghast reactions), he’s what the movie needs: a relaxed wildcard.

A crowd-pleasing hit at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, the movie may not be accurate history (welcome to the movies!). It may not even be particularly interested in one of its two main characters, for various reasons.

It`s a shame to have to knock the otherwise beautiful and haunting picture, but when you`re watching a love story and you can`t stand the character who is being loved, that makes for a very frustrating movie-going experience.

The surprising emotional amplitude of Stakeout, its generosity and conviction, proves that it's still possible to achieve something of value within the tight formulas of commercial filmmaking. It needn't all be "Cobra" and "Lethal Weapon"--not as long as directors like John Badham can find room to move. [5 Aug 1987, p.C3]

The story is dumb --Elvis is a race-car driver bellhopping and entering talent contests in Vegas to raise money for his car -- but the songs are hot. And you can't beat that chemistry with the Queen of '60s shimmy, Ann-Margret. [14 Aug 1997, p.7]

If the film is more solid and satisfying than terrific, so be it.

The movie has a deliberately screw-loose feel.

When a filmmaker can get Imelda Marcos, once one of the 10 richest women in the world, to pull out a Sharpie and draw a Pac-Man, she's alright by me.

Exhaustive and at turns exhausting.

The day after seeing it, you're less likely to fixate on the flaws than to find yourself experiencing chuckle aftershocks as you recall the most outrageous gags. In these days of mostly forgettable comedies, that sensation has become all too rare. [15 July 1998]

In many respects, Forgiving Dr. Mengele is an ordinary documentary, stylistically and technically unexceptional. But its subject enobles the work. So does Kor : determined, indomitable, and by the end of the movie, a symbol herself of both survival and mercy.

One of the best-loved of all the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation special effects extravaganzas, this kitschy version of the mythic tale of Jason's quest for the golden fleece stars Todd Armstrong as Medea's eventual betrayer and is graced with a nerve-rending Bernard Herrmann score, plus such classic visual tricks as the dueling skeletons. [01 Oct 1999, p.J]

This is a big-hearted film with admirable ambitions, and the ending is appropriately bittersweet, with victory and comeuppance occupying the same time and frame.

One of those rare movies that manages to maintain the hushed intensity and claustrophobic anxiety that is normally associated with theater or prose.

The director's lack of restraint and overabundance of ambition makes "Altar Boys" not boring, but troubled.

The quintessential Wertmuller couple--sad-eyed Giancarlo Giannini and maneater Mariangela Melato--rev up this lively, devilish Faustian comedy about a hapless industrial worker caught in the Mafia's universal machine. [17 Oct 1995, p.3C]

It’s probably best to call it after this one. But I remain astonished at the rewatchability of these “Trip to” films.

A tender and upbeat spirit informs the writing and the execution.

Munchausen is indeed a beautiful, burgeoning, madly voluptuous movie from minute to minute and image to image; it's in the aggregate that the film fails to find the weight and the rhythm it needs to truly enthrall. [10 Mar 1989, p.A]

The movie works best whenever Corden and Blunt, performers of nearly limitless appeal and sweet-natured vulnerability, take the story back from their cohorts, though Kendrick is no less beguiling.

Small but sure, this low-keyed actors’ feast marks the feature directorial debut of writer-director Elizabeth Chomko, who grew up in Chicago and the western suburb of Hinsdale, among other stops in a relocation-heavy childhood.

For sheer lavishness, attention to detail, honesty of purpose, The Great Ziegfeld is to be commended. Where the picture falls down - hard! - is in its fulsomeness. [15 Apr 1936, p.21]

It is indeed the kind of movie - crude and anarchic, filled with shotgun satire and gross-out jokes - designed to drive parents crazy and fill adolescent hearts with joy. For unfastidious adults, too, it's a great time at the movies, maniacally and often breathtakingly funny. [15 Jun 1990, p.B]

A spellbinder: provocatively conceived, gorgeously shot and masterfully executed.

Soderbergh pretty much failed in trying to evoke a noir-like nightmare world in the 1919 Prague of "Kafka," his 1991 terror film. But here, he dazzlingly hews out a noir landscape in more unlikely territory: modern-day Austin, Texas. [28 April 1995]

It seems that director Neil Jordan is trying to make some comment on the way classic fairy tales try to force adult attitudes on young, free spirits, but the method by which we are brought to that realization is tortuous. [22 Apr 1985, p.4C]

More than anything, The Princess is a documentary that makes you think about its editing choices. There’s a curious lack of clarity or transparency around many of the unidentified voices (from broadcasters, presumably) that can be heard speaking over the assembled images and you’re left to wonder if this commentary originally accompanied said footage or if Perkins, the director, is mixing and matching.

Not only does this film offer a comprehensive portrait of a fascinating and underexplored leader of the American avant-garde in the late 20th Century, it ends up making some compelling connections between his works and the rich, occasionally self-destructive trajectory of the life that forged them.

I wish Tenet exploited its own ideas more dynamically. Nolan’s a prodigious talent. But no major director, I suppose, can avoid going sideways from time to time.

De Broca never develops the transforming love onscreen and ends up with an awkward and indigestible movie.

Visually, even compared to Sayles' own best work, it's somewhat prosaic - and dramatically, it suffers from the fact that its two main characters are kept so far apart. But the screenwriting and the cast redeem this film.

If the mark of a successful documentary is its ability to make us examine a tired subject in a fresh way, then Eyes is a rip-roaring success.

A wildly original movie with astonishingly varied moods and influences.

A superbly crafted piece of humanistic cinema.

Wendell & Wild may not succeed, but I took heart from this: At least it doesn’t succeed in unconventional ways. That’s a sign of serious talents struggling with two of the most dreaded and unavoidable words in commercial cinema: “story problems.”

Still, it's a pleasant surprise about an unpleasant guy brought to life by an ingratiating paradox, a movie star who has turned into a wily character man.

There's something in Shallow Grave that is admirable, beyond its obvious display of youthful talent. [24 Feb 1995]

Slick, ice-cold and enjoyable, The Bank Job is a bit of all right.

A slightly more light-hearted version of the "Shine" story. [4 December 1998, Friday, p.A]

Talk to Me has a great subject and a great actor working in tandem, reminding audiences that once upon a time media personalities used to fight The Man, not be The Man.

Parts of The Birth of a Nation are bluntly effective and beautifully acted, though one of the drawbacks, ironically, is Parker's own performance. Even the rape victims of the screenplay have a hard time getting their fair share of the screen time; everything in the story, by design, keeps the focus and the anguished close-ups strictly on Parker.

It’s good. It’s fun. It goes out of its way to salute the visual effects armies that have made the MCU what it is today, for better or worse.

This movie gives us mostly the "what" when we need a bit of the "why" as well. In her other, better work, Denis always supplies it.

The film's greatest moments take place in space. There, words are unnecessary, the images transfixing.

The desert isn't necessarily a desolate place, and this film makes it come alive. [15 May 1987, p.65C]

The film has an easy target in poking fun at rural folks, but it also has a warm message about individuality. It's also beautifully photographed. [8 May 1987]