The film strongly asserts Ronstadt’s rock ’n’ roll bona fides as a trailblazing and wildly successful solo female artist in the man’s world of late ’60s and early ’70s country rock.

Like a series pilot, Stand and Deliver has a strong character, a promising situation and not a lot of story-it seems to be setting things up for future episodes.

Green has made two very different, extraordinarily efficient and compact movies in a row. That, too, may look easy but is anything but — unless you’re a filmmaker and writer of her particular gifts.

A thoroughly entertaining thriller about a teenage video game freak who almost starts World War III. A clever warning against nuclear weapons and too much reliance on computers. Only a preachy scientist hurts a fine entertainment. [22 July 1983, p.3-10]

There isn't a moment in Shanghai Triad that celebrates or revels in violence, and by movie's end, Zhang has portrayed the Shanghai underworld as a place of irredeemable evil.

From its opening shot-of little girls with huge hairdos-Hairspray is a relentlessly silly, crude and hilarious lampoon of modes and mores in teenage America, 1962. But it's also more than that. By closing credits, it has made some provocative observations about the influence of rock music on race relations in America, about how the '50s became the '60s and about the volatility of fashion and politics. [26b Feb 1988, p.F]

Few adventure movies have such a heightened atmosphere of beauty, excitement and fun. [18 Apr 1999, p.34C]

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

An emotionally honest character piece that avoids moralizing or offering soggy excuses.

You may not want to accept what you see here; you may be unable to accept it. But it's doubtful you'll leave this film unmoved.

Polanski turns a conventional conspiracy thriller into a triumph of tone, ensemble playing and atmospheric menace.

Murphy isn't afraid to play with color and light and text and music, or to let her characters dance like no one is watching, and often. That energy, embodied in the filmmaking and in the performances, is what puts this coming-of-age film into a class all its own.

Director Jon Favreau's voice cast for the animals is tiptop.

From its first moments, the new documentary The Hunting Ground instills a sense of dread that is very, very tough to shake.

As Cornelia's revered documentary filmmaker father, a crusty truth-teller in the Frederick Wiseman mold, Charles Grodin provides a master class in minimalism.

Dickinson, who became a heartthrob in movies like “Beach Rats,” “Triangle of Sadness” and “Babygirl,” announces that he’s much more than a pretty face, he’s got something to say, and the message of humanist compassion he delivers in “Urchin” is incredibly powerful.

Porumboiu's picture, small and pungent, lacks the resonance of "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu," Cristi Puiu's masterpiece of contemporary Romanian malaise released in the U.S. last year. But this one's less forbidding, and it has a satisfying shape and fullness.

A seriously entertaining highlight of the fall season.

The most charming comedy in town, writer-director-editor Katsuhito Ishii's 2003 piece is a modern Japanese variation on "You Can't Take It With You," with some lovely fantastical flourishes.

McConaughey is first-rate throughout, on top of every dramatic and blackly comic situation, even when the character isn't on top of anything.

The movie finds what solace it can in giving voice to those who escaped this church's grasp.

Though it's a sad, somber, deeply questioning work, it's done with a light, loving spirit.

It puts The Cockettes into social, political and popular cultural context and gives the documentary a moving resonance.

Some films are destined for nervous laughter, with enough of a pungent aftertaste to linger. This is one of them.

Some films aren't revelations, exactly, but they burrow so deeply into old truths about love and loss and the mess and thrill of life, they seem new anyway. A Single Man is one such film, one of the best of 2009

The problem may be that Scorsese, arguably America's most gifted and gritty director, is working from a script not written by one of his veteran collaborators, and so the grit is gone. All of the performances are fine. Newman is particularly effective, but he is forced to run a familiar treadmill. And so The Color of Money joins Heartburn as one of the biggest disappointments of 1986.

The Messenger is not itself grueling, which is practically a miracle. Rather, this pungent little chamber piece offers a full yet delicate range of emotions, and it humanizes its characters so that polemics are left in the background.

The cast is tremendous; these actors work with Resnais like a well-oiled stock company that knows every trick and can communicate almost telepathically.