Goldfinger happened upon a story far larger than he must have anticipated. The Flat is about the persistence of denial, and of hope.

Although it doesn't always live up to its ambitions, the film provides an offbeat portrait of universally relevant human issues. [27 Mar 1998, p.B2]

A pungent, powerful film that points an accusing finger not at religious beliefs but at flawed human institutions. It also targets social and cultural mores that are almost medieval in their patriarchal bias against girls and women.

Cronenberg has a distinctive style – deadpan absurdism laced with fright and all executed with slow deliberation. But too much of Eastern Promises is cultish and silly.

At its best when it gets into the cutthroat dynamics of academic competition, which are both horrifying and amusing.

Touching, transfixing, unique.

A marvelous documentary that brings home the terror and heroism brought forth by the Katrina debacle.

A considerable achievement even if, on balance, it's more of a Tim Burton phantasmagoria than a Sondheim fantasia.

Avoiding the clichés and condescension that characterize many films on religious figures, the movie is at once a compelling drama and a thoughtful look at faith-related issues on personal, social, and cultural levels.

Broderick and Witherspoon give perfectly matched performances at the head of a first-rate cast.

This unconventionally structured thriller moves at an energetic pace, spurred by a string of clever variations on conventional film narrative.

Suspenseful, surprising, and psychologically rich.

In the end, the finest achievement of Wright's movie is that it fully captures what Martin Amis, writing on Pride and Prejudice, said of Austen: "Money is a vital substance in her world; the moment you enter it you feel the frank horror of moneylessness, as intense as the tacit horror of spinsterhood." All that, and a great love story, too.

There are wonderful sequences strewn throughout, like the moment when Lazhar, at a school dance, begins to slowly sway to the music as if in a trance.

The screenplay is by Hanif Kureishi, who wrote "The Mother" for Michell and also scripted the classic "My Beautiful Laundrette." He has a feeling for outsiders.

This is Hollywood's most mature treatment of the '50s-nostalgia theme so far, and the most accurate.

A pungent pleasure from start to finish.

The film would be more informative if it put Goldsworthy into the broader context of modernist art movements. It's visually ravishing from start to finish, though.

Written and directed by a brilliant screen artist at the peak of his powers, it's an utterly original comedy-drama.

The film’s wrap-up, in which Jessica reveals some family secrets of her own, seems too engineered, too pat. Muylaert doesn’t do justice to the potential complexities of her premise. The film ends on a note of forced sunniness, but the outlook actually looks more like cloudy with a chance of showers.

As a testament to positive thinking, 127 Hours will probably stand as a ringing affirmation for reckless survivalists. For those of us not so affirmed, Boyle's paean to heroism – a better title for it might have been "A Farewell to Arm" – is merely the best gross-out music video ever made.

Canet has a good feeling for lowlife atmosphere and he works up a few fine Hitchcockian twirls. Kristin Scott Thomas and Nathalie Baye round out the sleek cast.

A breathtakingly beautiful achievement in every way.

A fine example of a director bringing just enough of his style to revitalize possibly dated material.

Directed by James Ponsoldt from a script by Donald Margulies, the film gets at the wariness and competitiveness inside the journalist-interviewee dynamic and, in Segel’s performance, captures the quandary of an immensely gifted and immensely troubled writer who disdained the celebrity he also, without fully fessing up to it, sought.

Spellbinding.

As the uptight banker, Robbins does some of his subtlest acting to date. As his hardened but resilient friend, Freeman is simply miraculous, giving the role so much depth, dignity, and good humor that you feel that you've known this man forever. [27 Sept 1994]

The film could have been improved by dropping a few battles, and I wish Caesar were not the only ape with the power of human speech. I, for one, would love to hear what Maurice the orangutan sounds like spouting the King’s English.