In true Chris Smith fashion, he seems far less interested in the homes themselves than in the touching relationship between homeowner and abode.

Small but sure, this low-keyed actors’ feast marks the feature directorial debut of writer-director Elizabeth Chomko, who grew up in Chicago and the western suburb of Hinsdale, among other stops in a relocation-heavy childhood.

A genre movie with an agenda that's too packed. Inevitably, some of the many balls it's juggling get dropped -- (but it's) one of the most entertaining and original actioners in several years.

It's an admirable attempt, though a less than completely successful one. The film's disappointments lie not so much in Almodovar's controlled, respectful direction as in the strange gaps and displacements of his screenplay, which never seems to supply the scenes we most want to see. [20 Dec 1991]

The Brave One is "Death Wish" with a guilty conscience, and while it may be a bit of a hypocrite as vigilante thrillers go, the internal contradictions of the thing make for a very interesting picture.

For all its craft and achievement, The Gift -- which has a script that may have needed more rewriting and deepening -- is a good, minor effort; it has some real conviction, even anguish. And it has Blanchett, whose gift as an actress is sometimes transcendent.

A caveat to viewers: This brand of movie sex, as directed by 30-year-old Lionel Baier, is emphatically not for the puritanical.

Director Yann Demange's film White Boy Rick balances these details, both outlandish and intimate, carefully.

You find yourself tricked and having enjoyed the experience after all.

The film, despite some over-obvious stretches, is mostly sad, lovely, moving, haunting. It's a striking and promising debut from a fine new filmmaker. [21 Aug 1998]

As entertaining as The Goonies finally becomes--and its last hour is mostly one pleasure after another--it's a shame that Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus and director Richard Donner felt the need to take the low road in terms of language. [7 Jun 1985, p.A]

The sights, sounds and traffic in Red Lights are oppressively ordinary; the people are unnervingly real. That reality doubles the suspense we might feel in a more slickly made but thinly plotted thriller.

The latest, produced by Abrams and directed by "Fast and Furious" alum Justin Lin, isn't quite up to the 2009 and 2013 movies. But it's still fun, you still care about the people and the effects manage to look a little more elegant and interesting than the usual blue blasts of generica.

The writing isn't always up to the actors, who all give the kind of expert, theatrically ingenious performances that often seem director-proof.

Typical tough '40s Walsh noir. [08 Aug 1997, p.M]

Mainly it's about fast and brittle talk, a lot of it peachy. The dialogue has one ear on the screwball '30s, the other on the way people actually speak when their minds are racing faster than their lives can carry them.

The consciously campy A Simple Favor is as bright and bracing as an ice cold gin martini with a lemon twist, and just as satisfying.

Fine ensemble performances and a tight balance of the supernatural against the historical make The Devil's Backbone a well-crafted, white-knuckled cinematic journey.

A satire is only as good as its subject, and in the very funny I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Keenen Ivory Wayans has found a rich and relatively untapped one. The wit and openness of I'm Gonna Git You Sucka has more to contribute to race relations than the smug piety of "Mississippi Burning." As a positive image, a good, shared laugh is hard to beat. [14 Dec 1988, p.1]

It's like watching a slow multi-car pileup on an icy road: Everyone can see what's about to happen, but nobody can stop it.

It’s an efficient, well-acted thriller from the writing-directing team — relative newcomers to features — of Danielle Krudy and Bridget Savage Cole.

What no plot summary of Darkman can provide is how much director Raimi ("The Evil Dead") brings to the party. In addition to giving us a conflicted hero - more disturbed than Batman - Raimi fills every action sequence and even routine plot scenes with fresh images that reflect his Darkman's rage. [24 Aug. 1990]

Succeeds as a paean to movies and movie-watching.

Palmer and Bello really do seem like world-weary, spook-addled daughter and mother, and they play the stakes just so, favoring neither blase understatement nor yellow-highlighter melodrama. They're strong enough to take your mind off some lapses in narrative judgment.

My only major criticism of Cocoon is the ending, which needlessly places the film in familiar extraterrestrial movie territory. Without giving too much away, either most of the characters should have made a different decision or the film should have had courage to jump off into a completely different direction. Special visual effects are wonderful, but the human being is still the greatest special effect of all.

Every effect, each little detail in the “Blade Runner” sequel’s formidable arsenal, creates the texture of a wondrously hideous near future, full of holographic accessories, slave-labor replicants and, as one character puts it, products and services of “the fabulous new.”

Once "Backbeat" catches the beat, it keeps it up, drives right through to the last soul-shattering coda and fadeout. [22 Apr 1994, p.01]

Mom and Dad may be a blood-soaked lark of uneven quality, but it has the good sense to use Reagan Youth’s punk anthem “Anytown” as an accompaniment to Cage’s parental … change of heart, let’s call it.