Abrasive at times, delving into bewildering behaviors and moral complexities that the characters sadly fail to understand. What's undeniable is the propulsive honesty and unstoppable energy of their black-and-white images and the foreshadowing they provide of later Cassavetes movies. [14 Mar 1996]

A few miscalculated scenes aside, this low-budget drama is stunningly smart and powerful, with real-as-life lead performances and a style as gripping as it is unpretentious.

This pungently filmed 1947 melodrama doesn't rank with Clouzot classics like "Diabolique" and "The Wages of Fear," but it's full of hard-boiled charm and has a musical score that adds extra dimensions to its impact.

Thompson is very good at playing imperious, and she even manages an unexpected trace of flirtiness in a few offhanded moments with Hanks.

Its amiable acting and feisty visual humor make it a must for fans of Japanese film.

For close-up views of large African animals in the wild, this IMAX spectacle is hard to beat. However, the film takes up too much of its brief running time tracking down the photogenic beasts.

In keeping with this background, the movie boldly incorporates actual newsreel footage - with authentic images of human suffering, some of them seen in TV reports on the war - into its conventionally scripted and acted story.

Solomon keeps the drama generally clear and interesting, though some touches make the film-noir plot seem too pretentious.

On the level of pure craft, Disclosure is first-rate in every department. Levinson's directing is cogent and colorful, and cinematography by camera wizard Tony Pierce-Roberts is dazzling. [9 Dec 1994]

On the action-adventure level it's a sure-fire delight for fans, a punchy entertainment for average sci-fi buffs, and a colorful rocket-ride for moviegoers who just want a good time on Saturday night.

The aliens are as gloppy and gross as ever. I especially liked the joke about Andy Warhol being an alien – except didn't we know that already?

Finkiel's filmmaking is so careful and cautious that it becomes plodding at times. The theme is powerful, though, and the movie's sincerity overrides its heavy-handed tendencies.

There's no over-the-top music or comedy sequence to place this with the very best Disney animations, though, and Phil Collins's songs won't be to everyone's taste.

The story is thin, but the film has rich emotions and a highly constructive moral sense, showing how racial divisions crumble once people recognize their artificiality.

This is a movie about how one’s passion can burn away and leave in its place a vast nostalgia.

Oliver Stone's film paints a reasonably complex portrait of Morrison's life and times. [01 Mar 1991]

It’s a gangster movie that tries to be more than that, not always successfully. In his own small-scale way, Chandor wants to expand the reach of his vision to “Godfather” status, with Abel as his shining (tainted) knight.

A documentary about the alternately celebrated and reviled German-born philosopher who gave us the catchphrase “the banality of evil.”

It’s often enjoyable and very forgettable, which may be as good as it gets for movies released in August.

More good than bad, at least until its too tidy conclusion. Since it's essentially a three-character movie, it's a good thing that the characters, and the actors who play them, can hold the screen.

Hoffman, bloated and flushed, does not look well in this film. But he is such a consummate actor that whatever infirmities he may have been fighting become a part of his performance. His portrayal, complete with a convincing German accent, is a fully rounded portrait of courage and dissolution.

This drama is richly photographed and enhanced by Binoche's steadily appealing performance.

Columbus has done a rousing job of bringing Rowling's rambunctious story to the screen. The eerie corridors and ever-shifting stairways of Hogwarts are as daunting, haunting, initially bewildering, and ultimately comforting as when Rowling painted them in prose.

If Pedro Almodóvar, especially in his early days, had directed this film, he might have brought out the black comedy inherent in the piece, which would have made both the blackness and the comedy more fully resonate.

Gentle and life-affirming, if too sentimental in the end.

Written and directed by newcomer Noah Baumbach with an excellent ear for absurdity and a keen eye for the offhand realities of everyday life in a den of unmitigated slack.

Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight is a “serious” movie attempting to be lighthearted. It deals with the same issues that Allen’s idol, Ingmar Bergman, often grappled with – namely, the battle zone of reason versus mysticism – but offhandedly.

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