The film operates on a peculiar, somewhat languid rhythm, and there are times when the story’s needs take a back seat to the visual detail. But “Nightmare Alley” has nerve and relentless, fantastic style.

Part "Law & Order" morality play, part "Wall Street" with a dash of the more recent and topically pertinent "Margin Call," Arbitrage hums along, complicating its narrative without tying itself in knots.

An offbeat, genial western parody that has some surprisingly effective low-key humor. [30 Aug 1991, p.C2]

The Cats of Mirikitani seems all too short; it has enough meat to be turned into an excellent dramatic film.

Without insult to either film, Anger Management could be called "Punch-Drunk Love" for the masses.

Smith carries it, even after the story loses its nerve. This film is the opposite of “Transformers”: It’s all about the unsettling silence, not the noise.

In addition to being a good-looking movie with a pumping Foo Fighters anthem, "Score" is actually a philosophical argument against our culture of tests.

Proves to be more than just a gimmick, and it doesn't skimp on any of the quirky wackiness that you might expect from a film about blob-shaped, flightless birds battling pigs.

The plot's the same old thing. Mad, mad, mad, mad science; imminent apocalypse; parent/child issues; blah blah blaggidy blah. The tone of Ant-Man, however, is relatively light and predominantly comic.

The first hour is terrific; the second one, disappointingly, grows weaker and more conventional.

Spins a fairy tale web that is hard to escape.

The racial and sexual politics of Heading South may trouble some audiences; Cantet is definitely not a moralist in the usual sense.

Does it matter that Wolfs is about literally nothing except itself and its star packaging? Maybe not. On the other hand, Watts hasn’t written a single fleshed-out character. It’s about genre tropes, distilled to minimalist quipping amid maximalist mayhem.

This movie lets the characters and tropes borrowed from the original Stan Lee comic live and breathe.

Not everyone can act his material with ease. But Ejiofor, who brings a serene gravity to every exchange, was born to do Mamet.

With Rooney Mara as the woman in question — a poised, tense Manhattanite prescribed anti-anxiety medication by her psychiatrist with newsworthy results — Side Effects finds its ideal performer.

A moody psychological thriller with a stunning performance by Christian Bale at its core.

Garris, filming mainly in a bobbing and weaving, hand-held camera style, keeps the scenes pared down to their functional essentials, wisely substituting speed for nuance. Sleepwalkers gets the job done. [13 Apr 1992, p.5C]

The film's surprising, enveloping jazz score is often deliberately at odds with Niko's moody outlook.

Mingling a frank trashiness with unexpected ambition, Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow emerges as one of the more commanding horror movies of recent months.

A lyrical work of sporadic great power, Neon Bible captures both the neon and the spirit, the heaven and hell.

Amos & Andrew, written and directed by E. Max Frye, relates the intersection of these two different destinies, in a style that ranges from roaring farce to biting satire. [05 Mar 1993, p.C2]

Flaws and all, it really does show a star being born.

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. . . .

It’s a surprise and a small wonder, then, when The Best of Enemies starts getting good and pretty much stays that way to the end. This may be an apples/oranges comparison, but: For a true-ish story of racial animus, bone-deep prejudice and the American South in the civil rights era, it’s a better, more nuanced and more interesting feel-good movie than a certain, recent, less interesting Best Picture Academy Award winner we could mention.

Made with a flashy hit-and-run-style, the documentary too often tries to record too much of the overall campaign, instead of concentrating more on the details of insider baseball-or, as it were, the fun-and-war games.

When Aster lays off the easy comic despair in favor of more ambiguous and dimensional feelings, interactions and moments, Eddington becomes the movie he wanted. His script has a million problems with clarity, coincidence and the nagging drag of a protagonist set up for a long, grisly comeuppance, yet Eddington is probably Aster’s strongest film visually.

The Beguiled probably could've benefited from a little more energy in its telling. Still, Coppola offers some gorgeous images of the past made present.