Things take several turns for the worse as the story plays out, and the film loses much of its charm. But it's a fascinating artifact, and never more so than when it features clips from Chinese and, of all things, Albanian propaganda films.

Oswalt captures the rabidness of the die-hard fan, the kind you can hear at any moment on the sports talk shows.

Montenegro, the star of "Central Station," and her daughter make a remarkable pair. They hold your attention even when the emptily portentous story does not.

Energetic, fun, lively. [19 Jun 1998, p.B2]

If we must endure yet another spring-summer cycle of comic book superheroes, this movie at least delivers the wham-bang goods (recycled though they may be).

In many ways, though, Gremlins is ingenious. Gizmo yanks at your heartstrings with both furry fists, then sits out a few scenes while suspense builds, then plunges back with more vim than ever. The small-town setting, right out of a gushy Frank Capra movie, manages to be timeless, nostalgic, and slightly ridiculous all at once.

Striking an excellent balance between wry cultural critique and crisp entertainment value, the picture is as smart and funny as any comedy-drama in recent memory.

Junger spins hilariously written scenes with split-second timing, although the story sags during its long middle portion.

Miller shows terrific talent as a director with a sharp eye for images, a keen ear for dialogue, and a refreshing willingness to take storytelling risks.

Deliciously acted and good-humored to its core, it's one of the summer's very best surprises.

If audiences are hesitant to believe that the fraternization in this film really happened, it will be because of the storytelling, not the story.

Should be required viewing for every concerned citizen.

It's an omnisexual variation on François Truffaut's "Jules and Jim," although stylistically, with its emphases on hipper-than-thou attitudes and moody-blues visuals, it's much closer to the early work of Jean-Luc Godard and Wong Kar-Wai.

Viewers should stay far away unless they have a strong stomach for deliberately disgusting effects.

The documentary is an attempt, in the words of those behind the film, to “investigate the very nature of family itself.” That this attempt is overreaching and diffuse does not detract from the film’s sporadic power.

Illuminating, disturbing, evenhanded.

It all achieves a loony unity by the end, even though what is being unified is not altogether palatable.

Exhaustingly action-packed.

If you have a hankering for a pretty good Woody Allen movie and want to brush up on your French at the same time, Shall We Kiss? is the ticket.

Boenish’s wife, Jean, who trained to jump with him, is interviewed extensively, and, although Strauch doesn’t provide much backstory for her, she emerges as that rarity – a perfect matchup to a seemingly unmatchable man.

Melvin Van Peebles gets the idolatrous treatment in this documentary by first-time director Joe Angio that traces his subject's career as San Francisco cable-car conductor, rap pioneer, filmmaker, Broadway producer, stockbroker, and all-around womanizer.

Van Sant gives no pat or easy answers. Instead he makes us squirm, worry, and think. That's why Elephant is a must-see movie.

Very difficult to characterize and that's why I like it. The best I can do is to call it a sunny tragedy.

Manville carries it all off effortlessly.

Along with its disappointments and its narrowness of intellectual focus, Doubt offers up the crackling pleasures of performance and a narrative that snaps shut like a mousetrap. It's the movie equivalent of a rousing night at the theater.

Jim Carrey proves that he's the most inspired clown in movies today, but parents should be warned that much of the picture's humor is extremely rude and crude.

Wong Kar-Wai, whose energetic and inventive style isn't enough to give the shallow story the substance and resonance it needs.

Hallström conveys a bit of the circuslike atmosphere of the times. But he overreaches in trying to turn the film into a commentary on the politically corrupt 1970s.

Smart and charming.

Debrauwer brings crisp conviction to what might have been an overly sentimental tale, filming it with a straightforward style and good-natured sincerity that ring consistently true.

This drama has won an armload of international prizes, including multiple honors in Spain's equivalent of the Oscar race, marking Mañas as a director with a bright future.

The most startling aspect of this slow-building horror movie is how unexpectedly it morphs from a quietly romantic suspense yarn to a flat-out tale of terror that may have some viewers hiding under their seats.

The result is a fine production with splendid singing by Angela Gheorghiu, Ruggero Raimondi, and Roberto Alagna. It joins the very short list of first-rate opera films.

Absorbing.

At the very least, look for it on 10-best lists next month, and there's every chance it will be a strong contender at the Oscars. Filmmaking so sensitive and intelligent deserves its weight in honors.

The film targets the spinmeisters, hired by or associated with corporate interests, whose job, despite their lack of scientific training, is to discredit the science of climate change doomsayers. The fact that some of these spinmeisters proudly base their method on the machinations of tobacco-industry lobbyists is doubly damning.

The remarkable thing about Smith in The Lady in the Van is that, even though the role is no longer fresh for her, the performance certainly is. She gives it everything she’s got because, you feel, she wants to honor this character. She wants Miss Shepherd to live on.

Revealing and harrowing.

In some ways, this glossily enjoyable movie is a lot closer to Hollywood than Beirut. At times, I thought I was watching some oddball Lebanese variant on "Barbershop."

Very inventive, but stay away if you can't stomach over-the-top violence.

Harrelson is effective, but the film isn't helped by the inevitable comparisons to the far superior "L.A. Confidential" and "Bad Lieutenant" movies.

The mood is often more coarse, crude, and nasty than needed to make his cautionary points and also by that "distancing effect," which diminishes whatever feelings of empathy or sympathy the story might otherwise inspire in its audience.

Kaling’s naive earnestness in the role is very winning, and Thompson makes her boss lady clichés seem almost fresh. Not quite fresh enough, though, to rescue the movie.

Isn't for everyone, but horror fans with strong stomachs will find it a memorable monsterfest that rarely loses its bite.

The action is skillfully directed by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, and there are many bursts of razor-sharp social satire. But the story amounts to a celebration of brute force in a crudely etched law-and-order context.

Tuneful, colorful, delightful.

It's a sophisticated fantasia that adults should enjoy equally. (In other words, it's the perfect family entertainment.)

Although flawed by incoherence at moments, their version is a model of literary adaptation - intensely dramatic, sharply cinematic, and full of passionate performances. In all, it's quite a turnaround from Huston's last book-inspired effort, the misfired adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's amazing ''Wise Blood." [5 July 1984, p.25]

Harrowing, informative, conscientiously balanced documentary. [14 Jan 2005, p.14]

The irony of this film is that it's all about how we need to come together to conquer a calamity that pushes us apart.

Rather than structure their movie as a chronological biography, the co-directors, Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, wisely focus on the genesis of Cohen’s most celebrated and performed song, “Hallelujah.” This approach allows them to interweave Cohen’s entire career while also avoiding the one-thing-after-another sprawl that often bogs down these kinds of films.

Herzog soft-pedals his cinematic ingenuity in this personal documentary about his love-hate relationship with Kinski, whose performances in Herzog classics...helped both of them become towering figures on the international movie scene before Kinski's untimely death.

Never quite catches fire.

The characters are so convincing and the mood so light and flaky that it's hard not to find it a delicious little hors d'oeuvre of a movie.

Objectivity is impossible under the best circumstances, and perhaps Hahn comes as close to "fair and balanced" as possible. But unavoidably there's a sense of untold stories and elided details lurking right beneath the surface.

Each man has his own distinctive style, and yet when they jam together it sounds like the most natural thing in the world.

Sentimental from the moment the title hits the screen. But it's a nice kind of sentimentality, based on real affection for the characters and real involvement with a place and time.

It may be subtitled, and the faces may be unfamiliar, but District B13 is the best buddy action movie around.

Materialists scores where it counts most. Jane Austen it’s not, but it gets at the consequences of modern romance among the moneyed classes, where self-worth is bound up in one’s market value.

It's this year's "An Inconvenient Truth."

Has an inordinate number of good laughs mixed in with the not-so-good ones.

I’ve never seen a better performance – or whatever you want to call it – from a two-year-old.

The story is dramatic and Béart gives one of her best performances, even if Téchiné's style has its usual sense of distance.

Acute sense of color and offbeat storytelling style aren't enough to make this sometimes sensual fantasy more than a whimsical trifle.

The movie is an idyllic view of life as it ought to be, rather than the way it is.

It's a lovely oddity, and one that will probably hit home for preteen audiences all over the world.

No one else in Inglourious Basterds comes close to Landa for sheer charisma.

An engaging diversion, if a hokey and predictable one. [7 May 1993, p.15]

Strangely moving and mournful, but I wish more had been made of the beauty these people are relinquishing, if only as a counterweight to all that artful drear.

It would be a lot better if it didn't lean exclusively on bone-crunching action for its climactic thrills, and the story continues long after its ideas have started to sag. [29 June 1989, Arts, p.10]

Messrs. Iñárritu and Arriaga have played this card one too many times. If they really want to appear radical the next time out, my advice is: Tell a single story and tell it well. What a concept.

The marvel of Cage's performance is that, somehow, it's all of a piece. That's the marvel of the movie, too. This is one fever dream you'll remember whole.

The real star here is the big, unmanned freight train sparking through Pennsylvania at 70 m.p.h. while carrying hazardous cargo. Best of all, the train doesn't have any dialogue.

No envelopes are pushed in Brave, which was directed by Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews, and no genres are subverted. It's a safe experience; but safe, in this case, is better than sorry.

Detailed, compassionate, humane.

A sad experience, but the sadness has no emotional heft because its people have none. This movie hasn't earned its funk.

Easily the best in the series since the first one.

Uneven but always energetic and sometimes very funny.

In Aviva Kempner's affectionate documentary Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, Berg, who once polled second only to Eleanor Roosevelt as one of America's most respected females, is given her due. Or at least her showbiz due.

In sum, the classical Ron Howard and his splendid cast have made a spellbinding movie that joins "Million Dollar Baby," as well as "Raging Bull," the first two "Rocky" pictures, and "Fat City" as one of boxing cinema's all-time heavyweight champs.

A great way to go on a safari without ever leaving the multiplex.

Rocketman is a campy, overblown, self-glorifying fantasia.

Look for realism, and you'll find The Cooler disappointing. Look for a far-fetched yarn that's as unpredictable as a throw of the dice, though, and you'll find it engaging fun.

Like all too many docs these days, it chronicles a contest while caricaturing the contestants.

Well-observed and unassuming as this film is, it glides along rather too blandly.

Coltrane’s final phase of “free jazz” is also amply documented, with stunning concert and music clips throughout.

For all the glam and swank, the film is essentially a bright, shiny, empty puzzle. The puzzlemaking by writer-director Tony Gilroy is clever but most frequently an end in itself.

The movie has a lush mysteriousness that represents a bygone, almost antique style of romanticism. It bears almost no resemblance to the current crop of mostly rat-a-tat movies. To view it is to enter a time warp, and there is some pleasure in stepping back into the languor.

Directed by John Landis with a surprising amount of class, though he lets some of his old ''Animal House'' vulgarity slip ostentatiously into the action.

He's (Giamatti) terrific throughout, although the movie, which is more clever than funny, sometimes resembles second-tier Charlie Kaufman stuff.

Michael Caine gives the most ferocious comic performance of his career, while Elizabeth McGovern is deliciously understated as the ''sorceror's apprentice'' who unwittingly helps him. [23 Mar 1990]

A powerful ending lends a strong emotional charge to this prettily filmed drama, but too much of the story is taken up with romantic clichés about the everyday challenges of childhood.

It’s an important subject, lucidly presented.

A little of Solondz's deadpan creepiness goes a long way with me. Life During Wartime is about how people are not what they seem to be, but most of its characters aren't rich enough to exhibit single, let alone double, lives.

Although the movie goes way back into Rumsfeld’s career, it is the Iraq section that is the most noteworthy – and disappointing. Morris elicits virtually nothing revelatory from Rumsfeld.

Its ethical and intellectual insights wane when the love story kicks in, weakening what might have been a much deeper movie. Still, its performances are wonderful to watch.

The movie is longer and slower than necessary, but it explores interesting questions of wartime violence, personal integrity, and what it means to come of age in a society ripping apart at the seams.

The plot is lively and the dialogue packs many good laughs.