The Duke is a genial British entertainment that, at its best, reminded me a bit of those wonderful postwar Ealing Studio films like “The Lavender Hill Mob” and “The Ladykillers.”

Measured against family-film classics like The Wizard of Oz or The Black Stallion, to mention just two of my favorites, The Secret Garden is a bit slender, neither as ingeniously inventive nor as majestically mysterious as the best of its breed.

If the literacy of The History Boys is deemed uncinematic, then give me uncinema anytime.

Stunning.

It starts slowly, but builds to a spectacular climax with hearty sound effects and deftly directed stunts.

The sunniness of Fastball leaves out a lot, but watching it can be as pleasurable as an afternoon at the ballpark.

Invictus has an understated grace, but too often it comes across as hero-worshipy.

Tim Burton's fantasy is more original than his previous film, “Batman,'' and its colors make “Dick Tracy'' look drab. Add wry dialogue and a mischievous critique of suburban life, and you have a diverting fable that doesn't quite live up to its quirky premise. [7 Dec 1990, Arts, p.12]

It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy posing as hard-edged realism.

I suppose the relationship is Oedipal or primal or something or other, but mostly it’s just an excuse for Dolan to stage a series of gaudy shout-fests.

Amir Bar-Lev's documentary is fascinating on all kinds of levels: as a movie about the nature of art, the lure and pitfalls of celebrity, and the complicated conundrums of parenting.

Not always believable, but the film has a moody expressiveness that stays with you.

Barry Levinson's dark comedy is sly, funny, and unnerving.

A feast for Neil Young lovers and initiates alike.

The film, directed by Maria Schrader and written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, doesn’t add much to the existing record. What it does do, when it’s good, is something the news headlines could not: It dramatizes the survivors’ voices on camera.

The dialogue and acting are stagy at times, especially in the early scenes, but the characters are compelling and the Indian atmosphere is vividly sketched.

Superbly acted, cleverly written, sensitively directed.

Sarandon narrates and Ormond reads excerpts from Hahn's memoir, supplemented by archival footage and interviews with the survivor herself.

The quartet appears to be mightily lacking in the brains and judgment departments, but at least it tries to do something about its failings, employing a traveling psychotherapist whose interventions and ruminations provide some of the film's most unwittingly amusing moments.

In Source Code, the new thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, "Groundhog Day" goes metaphysical. Some people, I know, will argue that "Groundhog Day" was already metaphysical. Perhaps, but compared with "Source Code," it's "Caddyshack."

The sometimes agonizingly powerful documentary Under Fire: Journalists in Combat is built around some staggering statistics: Only two journalists were killed in World War I. Sixty-three lost their lives in World War II. And in the past two decades, almost one journalist per week has been killed.

Interviewed in the film, Juárez journalist Sandra Rodriguez offers up this grim summation: “That these people represent the ideal of success, impunity, and limitless power is symptomatic of how defeated we are as a society.”

Without Cooper's performance, Breach would have been a good, workmanlike thriller. His presence lifts it to a whole new level.

Sensitive, imaginative.

Such understated storytelling, sensitive directing, and avoidance of easy filmmaking tricks are all too rare in American movies. This is truly one from the heart.

Labors mightily to be as offensive and obnoxious as possible. It's inventive in an idiotic sort of way, though, and pauses occasionally to make serious points about movie violence and censorship.

It's not a pretty picture, but it won't be soon forgotten by thriller fans with nerves and stomachs steely enough to take its violence in stride.

Brooks endows Japanese Story with a fair measure of suspense, pathos, and romance, despite the challenge of conjuring these qualities from only two main characters and not much else to look at in many scenes but sand, sand, sand.