Writer-director Lisa Krueger displays some talent in creating the Mary Kay Place character; I expect more daring work from her next time. [30 Aug 1996, p.2]

Vox Lux is the sardonic yang to the sincere, heart-yanking yin of this season’s big awards fave, “A Star is Born.”

After playing one too many sullen poseurs it’s clear Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes had a ball making an inky black comedy seething with grandiose invective.

A John Hughes-ish teen drama unaccountably complicated by politics and method acting.

It's a modest but highly enjoyable tribute.

There may be less than meets the eye here. But what meets the eye is pretty striking.

Russian Dolls, like "L'Auberge," has an excellent cast (mostly the same one, in fact) and an impish style and speed that gives it more obvious audience appeal than the average French film.

It's a seriously withholding action comedy, stingy on the wit, charm, jokes, narrative satisfactions and animals with personalities sharp enough for the big screen, either in 2-D or 3-D.

What emerges is a far more accurate, complete and endearingly human portrait of Mozart than any documentary has ever painted.

Outrageous-plus, but often hilarious.

The Door in the Floor feels more about a situation than actual people. It's sensitively rendered, filled with those necessary evocative details, and it never rings true.

Lyne indulges in baroque touches-he is fond of open-grate elevators and water, be it rain or from faucets-but mostly he tells the story in well- tailored vignettes that range from horrifying to humorous. [21 Sep 1987, p.5]

One of the most hopeful movies I've seen recently--not just for its humane, realistic story line, but in its very being.

This film would be an excellent companion piece to Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire," which deals with angels looking down on this scarred city. Berlin Babylon isn't nearly as lush, but in its own curious way, it's every bit as spiritual.

Its fascination may be limited to those already very familiar with his works and collaborators - and his sensual, highly subjective style.

A horror movie with a Hitchcockian veneer of the everyday, a story that taps into our fear not only of the paranormal but also of insanity and the secret evil that may lie beneath ordinary lives.

This movie, the subject of controversy, is a defiantly personal statement on what the war really is--laced with that now-familiar "Roger and Me" mix of homespun wit, pop culture playfulness, populist heart twisting and "gotcha" guerilla film-making tactics.

It's a movie of uncommon eloquence and elegance, acted by a truly gifted cast.

It's such a knowledgeable work and so pleasantly obsessed with its subject that it will interest even audiences whose attraction to wine is only casual.

A smart, spectacular and rousing piece of work, one that strains against but can't quite escape the natural limitations imposed by a sequel. [4 July 1990, p.C1]

Blaze is a high-spirited, though slightly botched follow-up to Shelton's appealing Bull Durham of 1988, drawing on the same combination of enthusiastic heterosexuality and cozy male bonding. Politics here takes the place of baseball in the earlier film: another all-American team sport, with its veterans and rookies, official rules and unspoken scams, high idealism and casual corruption. [13 Dec 1989, p.1C]

The Wall is no endurance test; rather, it presents the facts of the case, adding an eerie low hum to the soundtrack whenever Gedeck's character edges near her outer limits.

It’s a fairly engrossing bit of fan service, boasting many clever touches and a few disappointing ones. Director and co-writer David Gordon Green’s picture veers erratically in tone, and the killings are sort of a drag after a while, en route to a rousing vengeance finale.

As a director, Kaufman isn't yet his own best salesman. He's not enough of a visual stylist to sell his script's most challenging conceits. But the cast rises to a very strange and rich occasion.

In Edge of Seventeen, a sensitive if racy evocation of coming-of-age in Ohio of the mid-1980s, writer Todd Stephens and director David Moreton show a gift for solid, emotionally realistic storytelling. [02 Jul 1999, p.B]

It is well made as far as it goes. I wish it went beyond its own carefully prescribed limits of the commercially acceptable.

Canvas is a thoughtful, sweet film that handles its difficult topic--schizophrenia--with tact and tenderness.

It never should've been OK'd in the first place and never should've gotten past the first day. This has a mixed effect on the movie itself, which inevitably fights against its own sense of dulled outrage and methodical role-playing. But it's pretty gripping all the same.