A daring but flawed achievement, diluting its emotional power and satirical bite with a self-consciously jagged structure, and a calculating, sometimes chilly untertone. [1 Oct 1993]

The parody would be more memorable if it satirized a broader section of the folk-music scene instead of limiting itself to commercialized acts of the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary ilk. But it is as accurate as it is funny.

A comprehensive and compelling film that does justice to the anguished history of Cambodia.

Sheen is startlingly good here, and so is Timothy Spall as Clough's trusted and much abused lieutenant.

Directed by Ulu Grosbard, who has never done a better job of filling the screen with superb acting, and shows great ingenuity at interweaving music with other aspects of the story.

Rigorous and riveting.

Riveting, suspenseful, and a perfect antidote to the too-tricky documentary "Super-Size Me."

Unless there’s something truly momentous going on, I prefer my sci-fi to be a lot more weightless than weighty.

At its best, Juno is about the messy things in life that are not so easily summarized.

The picture has enough assets to please moviegoers willing to put up with its many four-letter words and the bursts of violence that spring from nowhere at unexpected moments. [27 October 1995, Arts Film, p.12]

The film's time structure is splintered into shards of past and present, which is probably just as well – a strictly narrative chronology would make this wallow seem even sloggier.

This is a rip-roaring adventure combining edge-of-your-seat battle scenes with vivid historical details and more fascinating characters than most action movies dream of. Add heartfelt acting and Russell Boyd's atmospheric camera work, and you have the adventure movie of the year.

For an ostensibly soul-deep movie like this to work, we need more than smirks and scowls.

Sensitive performances and intelligent storytelling keep the sometimes-violent tale involving from start to finish, marking a giant step for director Raimi, previously known for action stories and over-the-top fantasies.

It lacks the delirious inventiveness and irreverence of the best Pixar movies (which for me would be the “Toy Story” trilogy, “The Incredibles,” and the first 10 minutes of “Up”), but there’s always something spacious to look at, and the songs, mostly by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, aren’t bad either.

Solid and uplifting, but it doesn’t extend Spielberg’s range. Perhaps one day he will make a movie about a historical character whose complexities are not quite so untainted.

The story is so powerfully observed that it does indeed become larger than itself – an American tragedy.

All of this has its value, but Plummer, in rollicking good form, without a shred of sentimentality, is primed for greatness, and Mills keeps cutting away from him just when things are getting interesting.

Her social activism often left her children, some of whom are interviewed, in the lurch. It’s a contradiction the film could have more sharply explored.

For a movie so sensuously mounted, it's remarkably grounded.

King was not a perfect man. But as this film so powerfully demonstrates, he forced a reckoning with America’s racial history that, more than ever, resonates today. It’s a reckoning he gave his life for.

The disjointedness of The Headless Woman might be the result of narrative complexity or of directorial ineptitude or (my favorite) of narrative complexity mangled by directorial ineptitude. If the residual fog ever clears, maybe I'll be able to tell you for sure.

This meta-biopic is more about Jackie Kennedy as perceived in the popular imagination than it is about the woman herself. And what Larraín has to offer on this score is not terribly enlightening.

Weerasethakul's latest has received mixed responses on the film-festival circuit, yet while it's anything but commercial, it's also anything but unadventurous.

The movie's intentions are as serious and thoughtful as its content is timely and sometimes horrifying. For adventurous viewers only.

Would Caro’s books have been any less great if he and Gottlieb had never met? Who knows? But as this bracingly affectionate film makes clear, it was the gift of a lifetime for both that they did.

R.M.N. is one of the most searing cinematic examinations of xenophobia I’ve ever seen.