Graced by bleak, stylized direction and an insightful ending that suggests that nothing ever really ends, this first feature film by "Northern Exposure" and "Homicide" writer and producer Bromell is a promising debut.

Sumptuously exciting, glowing with expertise, seething with life, gorgeously designed and thrillingly articulated.

A Secret Love doesn't dwell much on queer history or activism, as laser-focused as it is on Terry and Pat, and the bond between them. The film beautifully illustrates each of their spirits: the sweet and bubbly Terry, always ready with a signed baseball card, and the stern and protective Pat, who only lets her guard down under duress, but wrote pages of love poems to Terry, and still asks for a morning kiss from her love.

All I can tell you is this: It’s more than movie enough to justify the theatrical experience.

One of the most remarkable English-language feature debuts of recent years.

It's a great film that, sadly, may be ignored by all but the most dedicated, knowledgable filmgoers.

Loony, but spellbinding. [28 Apr 2006, p.C9]

A film driven by an elusive plot buried like a cryptogram under the action. It's a delightfully screwy ethnographic murder mystery, beautifully photographed in translucent naturalistic color.

The story isn’t complicated, and it’s one we know well, rendered with spooky, atmospheric aesthetics and intensely gnarly violence that provide cover for the thin premise, nagging plot holes and flimsy characterization in the script, which traffics in poorly explained archetypes. It’s sufficient enough, but the strength of the filmmaking is not in the writing, but in Barker’s command of style, pace and performance.

The best, eeriest parts of director Jordan’s Peele’s third feature, “Nope,” are as good as anything in “Get Out” or “Us,” and they’re very different from either of those earlier triumphs of imagination. This one is a three-fifths triumph, which means whatever you want that to mean. To me, it means go.

The visual personality of the movie is fantastically vivid and bright, the story itself, less so.

Kubrick's contributions are his wit and his eye. The wit, too much at times, is as biting as in "Dr. Strangelove," and the production, while of another order, is as spectacular as in "2001." [11 Feb 1972]

Rescue Dawn is Herzog's first English-language screenplay, and this is part of its problem: The hushed conversations between prisoners sound only fitfully idiomatic. Also--crucially--Herzog can't find a way to make his own big finish feel authentic, even if things did happen roughly this way.

No Way Out emerges, paradoxically, as a film that is better than it has to be and not as good as it ought to be, but there is skill here, as well as an admirable willingness to try something new.

A lot of director George Miller's film is gorgeous and exciting. Its craftsmanship and ambition put it a continent ahead of nearly every other animated feature of the last couple of years.

Notoriety, they won. The revolution, they didn't. That perhaps is the secret message of the film. Dylan was right. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Sleeper has plenty of bald spots, lacks the inspired silent comedy of Take the Money and Run, but, these days, comedy beggars can't be choosers.

We meet a variety of interdependent characters, from tuna vendors to rice experts, all in thrall to Jiro and his sons. I really wish Tokyo were closer.

All three leading performers are scarily convincing on the film's own tight, clammy terms.

The three people we meet here have worked every side of every street, by necessity: They’re artists of self-invention, activists of serious intent and just plain good company on screen.

Perry may never make a movie for the masses, whoever they are. But his truest work burrows into weird, blackly comic places few other filmmakers would dare explore.

Any movie that manages to work in a dig at the National Theatre's heavier pretensions — in a subway sequence, Paddington trots by a National poster for a (fake) play with the amusingly dour title "Damned by Despair" — is OK with me.

Reynolds and Mendelsohn could not be more different actors, but in this pairing they are perfect.

It's quite funny, though not in a predictably irreverent way, and it moves along briskly - a little too briskly toward the end.

Has an assured air, rich with scenes of affection, anger and reconciliation, along with moments of unfeigned humor.

Harris and Harden have real on-screen sympatico, in their nasty battles and good times alike.

The film has a compelling way about it. All five of the immediate Block family members emerge in full and affecting portraits.

Both the man and his times resist a compact 93 minutes. This much anguished history, and Aleichem's inspired literary response to that history, has difficulties being confined to conventional documentary feature length. Yet Dorman's touch is sure, his pacing fleet and his chorus of voices marvelous.