A satisfying and movingly acted story.

Directed by Julian Jarrold and co-written by Tim Firth ("Calendar Girls"), the movie is quite enjoyable, effortlessly well-done on every level, even moving at times, but relatively light weight.

Feig stylishly waltzes us through this steamy, twisty mystery with ease, but not necessarily sophistication — this is the kind of frothy entertainment that you can still enjoyably comprehend after a glass or two, which in fact might enhance the experience.

It may not work for everyone, but those for whom it works will find much to savor and puzzle over in The Turning.

This is one of those films that can accurately be described as small. Mostly, you just appreciate the time spent with these particular people in this particular place.

Magnetic, beautiful stuff.

The result is both a success and a disappointment. It's Kind of a Funny Story, divided into neat little daylong chapters in Craig's stay, lacks the staying power and bittersweet layering of "Half Nelson" and "Sugar."

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.

What Kasdan's "Earp" needed was more humor and better villains. "Wild Bill" has the humor and villains, the flash and energy, the fire and style. And when, at the end, Hill seems to throw it all away, it almost hurts. But you can say one thing about "Wild Bill": Unlike most movies, it has a lot to throw away. [01 Dec 1995, p.C]

The action is brilliant, the combat sharp and rattling, and the film follows the historical record more closely than most Hollywood films.

Classic low-budget '50s sci-fi thriller, brilliantly scripted by Richard Matheson from his novel. [01 Sep 2006, p.C7]

The Abyss is at its best during such moments of reverie-when the abstract metaphors and the unique physicality of the deep sea setting come together to produce powerful, unvoiced meanings. The film does have its beckoning depths; what it needs is a more polished surface. [9 Aug 1989, Tempo, p.1]

A surprisingly insightful, non-judgmental meditation on a troubled marriage-with-kids.

This is a very strong midlife-crisis movie about women. [28 Sep 1990, p.C]

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

Enough talk; enough flashbacks. Sometimes the best thing a mystery can do is give its protagonist a reason to run like hell.

Swayze is persuasive in his role as an Appalachian boy sufficiently assimilated to big-city life to have married a classical violinist, and Baldwin makes a slick, icy villain. But it is Neeson as Briar Gates who steals this movie. Wily, saturnine, exuding a bitter familiarity with failure, he paints a portrait of a man whose actions are simple but whose feelings are complex. The part offers few lines to play with, but Neeson inhabits the role physically, the twang and the scruffiness never betraying his classical training at Dublin's vaunted Abbey Theatre. It's an enduringly poignant performance. [24 Oct 1989, p.3]

Breaks through as a delightful, surprisingly fresh comedy.

While liberally dosing the action with humor, Underwood is able to preserve an undertone of genuine menace and substantial suspense. His shooting style is clean and classical, distinguished by camera movements that emphasize the line of the action without becoming conspicuous in themselves.

This film would be an excellent companion piece to Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire," which deals with angels looking down on this scarred city. Berlin Babylon isn't nearly as lush, but in its own curious way, it's every bit as spiritual.

Unabashedly designed to blow its audience away.

Scott Thomas can play these sorts of ice queens in her sleep, but I've long thought she's a more effective and nuanced performer in French-language projects than in English-language ones. The performance is laced with just enough wit to make it sting.

Species is an Alien ripoff, but that doesn't make it a bad movie--not when it contains a plausible premise, a great-looking female villain, a wonderful supporting cast of good guys, and genuine tension. Only a routine chase sequence in sewer tunnels limits the excitement at the end. In other words, we're talking about a solid, surprisingly intelligent action picture here.

Skates over depravity when, like Crane, it should have dug down deeper.

It is the aviation scenes that make the movie memorable. The story around which they are built is just another story, similar to, but not so gripping as "The Rough Riders." But any lack here is made up for in the airship maneuvers. They are magnificent. [01 Nov 1927, p.37]

A bomb? Not quite. Anyone who gets a kick of train thrillers should get knocked off the tracks by this one. [17 July 1995, p.N2]

It's an odd film in some ways. The porn milieu is detailed in ways at once sparing, in terms of actual screen time, and bluntly explicit. The odd-couple relationship guiding the story has its familiarities. But where it counts, 'Starlet' ... allows its characters room to maneuver within the potential cliches.

Genuinely odd in its mixture of bluntness and indirection, screenwriter Angus MacLachlan's study in biblical temptation is saved from its own heavy-handedness by a fine quartet of actors.