A small film that packs a big wallop.

Exquisitely captures the irony and hopefulness of the era.

Mankiewicz's classic Hollywood backstage tale of a tragic sex goddess/superstar (Ava Gardner), her gloomy, intellectual director (Humphrey Bogart) and the retinue of glamorous and/or exploitive movie types around them. [05 Nov 2004, p.C6]

The most stylish comics-derived entertainment of the year...It's paced and designed for people who won't shrivel up and die if two or three characters take 45 seconds between combat sequences to have a conversation about world domination, or a dame.

Announces the arrival of an undeniable talent (Meshkini) that has come of age.

A sign of O's effectiveness is that it works regardless of whether you know Shakespeare's play.

The film is a remarkable experience on a purely sensory level, and the best of its archival footage - on the track, in private meetings with drivers before the races, from the white-knuckle, over-the-shoulder perspective of Senna himself - is pure gold.

There’s something of the harlequin in Leigh’s conception of this bright, manic young woman.

The film itself isn’t dorky in the least. It’s an elegant and witty rumination on one woman’s quest for romantic fire.

Marlon Brando returns to the movies with one of his funniest performances as, in essence, Don Corleone with a screw loose.

A powerful symbolic drama.

Second-best of the "Thin Man" series, after the unbeatable first entry, this sparkling sequel boasts a breezy San Francisco setting and an even better cast, topped by William Powell and Myrna Loy. [30 Dec 2011, p.C2]

One of the year's finest documentaries, a remarkable example of the conjunction of a burningly topical and newsworthy subject with a brilliant filmmaker.

It sneaks up on you and shakes you: a tale of the cold hell surging up beneath that windy, sensuous Wyeth landscape.

It is played out in such a special, gentle way that you will want to anticipate and savor it for yourself. [31 Jan 1986, p.30N]

As directed by the Briton Mike Figgis ("Stormy Monday"), "Mr. Jones" is a muscular sort of movie, imposing action on characters who are feeling much but actually doing very little. Figgis' constant camera cuts are almost as animated, as jazzy, as Jones' highs. The director shows a daring sense of rhythm in his edits and, for this story, anyway, it works. [8 Oct 1993, p.D]

A voluptuously shot horror movie, with Piper Laurie (as Carrie's fanatically religious mom) and some nasty teens played by Amy Irving, Nancy Allen and John Travolta.

Shooting largely on New Zealand’s South Island, Caro has a beautiful knack for fluid transitions: the witch entering the body of an unsuspecting traveler in silhouetted shadow, for example, or a simple, fixed composition of Mulan riding from one side of the screen to the other, in extreme long shot. The dizzying wuxia martial arts action, with warriors sprinting up, down and sideways, defying gravity, propel the action scenes without overwhelming them.

Manages to find the magic through its documentary style, and manages to find the erotic in the commonplace. Not since the glory days of Italian neo-realism has lust among the peasants looked so good.

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter just keeps growing up. So do the Potter movies, in size, in ambition and in visual splendor - and with increasingly stunning results.

The courtroom scenes are terrific, with brittle dialogue expertly delivered. And Wilder milks Christie's surprise denouement for all it's worth. [21 Nov 1986, p.92]

The story is not sensationalistic, although its love scene could not be more emotional. It`s a gentle story of someone being brought in from the cold.

Think "Mad Max" in wheelchairs.

People always complain that movies aren't as entertaining, entrancing or outrageous as the best of the old Golden Age. Yet, memorably and magically, here's one that is. Don't let it dance away unseen. [22 Jul 1994, p.C]

A triumph that deserves a broad audience.

If The Image Book is just a great whatsit, like the thing everyone’s trying to find in the Mike Hammer picture, why is it bracing and finally very moving?

The Human Stain has those qualities we often want but rarely see in our films: intelligence and ambition, decency and humanity, poetry and pity, fire and ice. Watch it and weep.

I can't imagine Anvil! not appealing to anyone interested in any aspect of showbiz, and the drug of fame, and the lives people lead in pursuit of the next fix.