Surely the gentlest American film ever made about home-grown revolutionaries.

It becomes clear that Safdie is intentionally denying a big, flashy “win the game” kind of film, offering instead a cerebral examination of the quotidian, workmanlike drudgery of being a professional athlete who never became a superstar household name, still shouldering the work, the struggle, the bad days, quibbling over contracts and rules, taking every hit without complaint.

Probably the best thing you can say about We Were Soldiers is that it does justice to an awful conflict.

Klapisch frequently uses voiceovers to express Xavier’s thoughts, and Duris expresses those thoughts beautifully, with a quirky open face, tuned perfectly to whatever his character is thinking.

Most of all, it's a film for moviegoers who love powerful stories and ravishing imagery: timeless, eternal, the kind of tales handed from one generation and culture to the next -- and alive in all of them.

My only major criticism of Cocoon is the ending, which needlessly places the film in familiar extraterrestrial movie territory. Without giving too much away, either most of the characters should have made a different decision or the film should have had courage to jump off into a completely different direction. Special visual effects are wonderful, but the human being is still the greatest special effect of all.

With that kind of financial imperative it's something of a miracle the Potter films have been, on the whole, good. One or two, very good. One or two (the first two), less good. This one's good.

It’s not great superhero cinema — the verdict is out on whether that’s even possible in the Marvel Phase 6 stage of our lives — but good is good enough for “The Fantastic Four.”

Jacobson, whose earlier film is a docudrama about Jeffrey Dahmer, is clearly fascinated with men who would be monsters. It's a ripe and infinite topic to explore, but without Norton, theme alone could not have sustained Down in the Valley.

This wise, clever Israeli film reintroduces the once-popular concept of film as allegory, as it follows a Christian pilgrim on his bumpy road to salvation.

While 100 Nights of Hero sports compelling actors and beautiful visuals (often best seen in montage, animated by editing), its storytelling about the power of storytelling is unfortunately less than riveting. The urgency of the message remains, but the delivery leaves something to be desired.

Greenaway is a unique filmmaker in that he layers images upon one another in a single frame and doesn't require dialogue to make his films arresting. [18 Jul 1997]

The film's pretty good about saying why so much in the culture encourages a political life in the closet, either tacitly or directly. But even The Advocate had a problem with calling it a brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy.

Here and there, the actor invests the kind of feeling that makes The Way come alive in human terms.

A wildly overwritten melodrama about the sins of the press. Newman's character is compelling, but Field's reporter is such a lamebrain that we know she would be fired at any major newspaper. [25 Dec 1981]

It's a joy. Altman does Dallas the way he did "Nashville" in Nashville or Hollywood in "The Player."

It's fairly entertaining--but not the second coming of indie comedy some notices might lead you to expect.

Conran has got himself a looker, with Paltrow in soft focus, the whole world larger than life and a title that, said in the proper low-pitched voice, conveys the tone of the film: exuberant, idiosyncratic and timeless.