Not up to one of the greatest of all novels, of course, but a terrific movie romance with a great ballroom scene. [16 Mar 2007, p.C4]

You may watch Frances Ha relating to little of it, or a lot of it, but this "road movie with apartments," as the director (shooting here in velvety black-and-white, recalling Woody Allen's "Manhattan" in its texture) so aptly put it, is informed by a buoyant, resilient spirit.

Scene after scene in Calle 54 just knocks you out.

Washington, typically, is rock-solid in front of the camera, conveying ample warmth and sympathy. Behind the camera, he's a relatively straightforward storyteller, strategic in his use of lyrical touches.

Ozu is often wrongly characterized as a "soft" director preoccupied with middle-class home life, but this late film tackles extreme subject matter--spousal abuse and abortion--with unflinching skill. [18 Nov 2005, p.C6]

Michael Patrick King's screenplay hits all the right notes, building on the warmth and familiarity of the series (which King also wrote).

It's a refreshing spin on this type of film that's usually quite white and heteronormative.

Grace and Quaid imbue what could have been caricatures--with heart, intelligence and great comic timing.

As in last year's "Bridesmaids," an authentic, dimensional human element animates the jokes and the characters with whom we spend a couple of highly satisfying hours.

A lovely, sprawling romance that turns out to be as much a success story for Keanu Reeves, as he matures into stardom, as it is for Mexican director Alfonso Arau, who proves equal to his first big Hollywood budget. [11 Aug 1995, p.B2]

A funny valentine by an old master, woos us into the dance.

A horror-comedy about cute little Christmas toy/pets who turn into murderous monsters wreaking havoc on a Norman Rockwellian town. There's a moral there someplace.

Though it's not the great film "Grand Illusion" is, and though it may strike some as a little schmaltzy, it still has some of that earlier film's deep feeling and empathy for soldiers trapped in the jaws of war and for the joys of Christmas--for believers and non-believers alike.

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.

The perfect bait-and-switch of a film. Its light, sweetly frisky exterior and easygoing pace camouflages what a subtle and brilliant piece of bracing social commentary it is; a deft portrait of sisterhood existing under the thumb of capitalistic patriarchy.

Acutely perceptive and slyly quick-witted.

It's one of the most comforting science fiction films in years.

The new martial-arts picture The Last Dragon is first and foremost a romantic comedy, and a very sweet one at that, and that's why it's martial-arts combat scenes work so well. We've been given enough time to care about who's kicking the stuffing out of whom.

Happy Valley might've fleshed out some of these larger implications. The film could've benefited from another 15 or 20 minutes of detail and nuance. What's there, though, is strong, thoughtful and disturbing.

A Prophet pushes its protagonist into circumstances he did not choose but in which he watches and learns and kills and eventually becomes all he can be, albeit criminally. Certainly Muslims living in France have embraced the movie and Malik, played by Rahim

Howard does a fine, loving job tracing who he was as a gay Jewish boy growing up in Baltimore; as an aspiring playwright and theatrical impresario, schooled at Boston University, Goddard College in Vermont, the summer theater program at Tufts University, and a graduate student at Indiana University; and as a hungry young New York City transplant, eager to make his mark.

Actually, if "Fast 6" shows any new ambitions, it's by enthusiastically embracing its inner-Telemundo, its heated, knotty "Game of Thrones" melodrama.

John Wayne as the gutsiest sarge and top kick on Iwo Jima, in one of his most prototypical war yarns. Vintage Duke. [09 Jul 2000, p.23C]

It’s somewhat challenging and methodical in its pacing, but if you respond to it — as I did — this ghost from Iran’s 1970s New Wave is a reason to give thanks.

The tensions inherent in Honnold’s singular life are many. Free Solo gives you just enough of that life on terra firma to make the heights truly dazzling.

These girls can cook, and Yamashita captures them with an austere, unhurried visual style that has been rightly compared to rock aficionado/filmmakers Aki Kaurismaki ("Ariel") and Jim Jarmusch ("Mystery Train"). [8 Dec 2006, p.2]

Thanks to Echer, Nettelbeck and this delicious movie, I was able to hear "Country" and the other Jarrett tunes in scene after scene - heightening moods, lyricizing action and making Hamburg seem like a wintry love song. Predictable or not, that's often as good as it gets.

The performances are all superb, but special mention should go to Melanie Lynskey, a first-time film actress, who brings a frightening calm to the role of Pauline, and Sarah Peirse as Pauline's mother, whose main fault seems to be exhibiting too much care and concern for her strong-willed and imaginative daughter. [25 Nov 1994, p.M2]