A lot of this horrific Little Shop is not only sweet, melodic, funny and oddly idealistic, it's even, well, tasty. [19 Dec 1986, p.1]

Like a preliminary sketch for a vast and splendid mural, it unfolds Fellini's wonderful vision of life in all its joy and sadness, hope and fear, triumph and defeat, that emerges fully in the later movies. [20 May 2004, p.E13]

Even if No is not the whole truth — and no film is — its pungent dialogue and involving characters tell a delicious and very pertinent tale. And the messages it delivers, its thoughts on the workings of democracy and the intricacies of personality, are just as valuable and entertaining — maybe even more so.

The upshot, deftly blending over-the-top violence and healing crisis management sessions, ultimately ties all the laugh-out-loud audacity and tender sweetness together with a festive Christmas bow

How the then-newbie performers’ jackpot roles in the heady, heartbreaking show informed their lives and careers forms much of the movie’s stirring narrative spine.

Vividly photographed by René Diaz and adroitly edited by Dan Swietlik, A River Below skillfully — and quite compellingly — navigates the murky complexities of contemporary reality filmmaking.

A Crime on the Bayou never explodes with fury. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel enraged while taking in the maddening series of systematic wrongs committed against Sobol and Duncan.

Made in 1979, The China Syndrome proved to be one of the most prophetic films ever made, having been released shortly before the Three Mile Island catastrophe. At once a fervent anti-nuclear protest and an edge-of-the-seat thriller. [27 Nov 1988]

Only one demerit might be charged against the picture and that is its dalliance, either with beautiful scenery, or mood, or special situation. Off and on the story is halted for peculiar and eccentric excursions of this kind. These sequences are peculiarly interesting and individual in themselves, even though Pandora and the Flying Dutchman might be a stronger film without them.

Nathaniel Kahn is very much a presence in this film, at times too much so. The title is properly read with the emphasis on the "my," and the work itself is a plea, understandable but disconcerting at times in its nakedness, to be linked irrevocably to his father.

In Fabric unfolds in a twilight zone where capitalism is a kind of dark magic, people become slaves to shopping, and the language of corporate-speak casts its own cultish spell.

Wright and Pegg are storytellers who weave their naughty bits into genuine characters and a plot. It's a ridiculous plot, but one that's absolutely in the spirit of the films they're satirizing.

Police, Adjective may not be the film you're expecting, but it's one that will stay on your mind.

Not only do Grant, Scott Thomas, Callow and company handle the sprightly dialogue with aplomb, they are also adept at the doubletakes and befuddled looks that make Four Weddings both amusing and irresistible all the way through the not-to-be-missed final credits. [9 March 1994, Calendar, p.F-1]

In "Django," Tarantino is a man unchained, creating his most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet.

Meier and cinematographer Agnès Godard make potent use of the setting's alternating highs and lows, delivering a jolt of heartbreaking hope in the film's final image.

As it follows him over a five-year period, into hotel gatherings and danger zones, James Demo's sharp-eyed documentary lays waste to any assumption that inner peace is a requisite for O'Malley's urgent work.

It is the way in which the writer-director uses the specter of vampires and vices to take an off-center cut at Iranian gender politics and U.S.-Eurocentric pop culture that sets the film apart.

Accepted is remarkably affecting, thanks to the way Chen works his way back to what his doc is really about.

Once again, the director draws upon the sketch-comedy gifts he honed on “Key & Peele” to achieve an artful, ruthless balance of horror and hilarity. Us is a tour de force of comic tension and visceral release, a movie that weaponizes our chuckles against us and reminds us that laughing, screaming and thinking are not mutually exclusive pleasures.

As poignant and pointed as it is funny (and it is very funny), it dresses up familiar forms with modern twists and ends up an assured and amusing comedy of manners. [04 Aug 1993, p.F1]

The film packs in so much information and comedy, it would be fun to see it twice: not just to take in what it has to tell us, but also to laugh all over again.

The Dawn Wall transcends initial conventional sports documentary trappings, emerging as an affecting portrait of conquering personal limitations.

15 minutes into it, you are spellbound, heartbroken and unaccountably cheered -- your faith and admiration in humanity restored.

Closed Curtain is richly allegorical, but the film succeeds even more as an exiled artist's reassurance that the law can't stamp out art.

The moral of Moana is that playing it safe can have its limits. It’s hard not to agree, even when this lovely, reassuring hug of a movie doesn’t entirely heed its own advice.

What makes The Wailing so unusually disturbing is the almost palpable aura of evil it radiates from calm start to sorrowful finish. More disturbing still is the way that evil can seem indistinguishable from compassion.

Though drawn together by the thrill of infatuation, fostered by Isherwood's penchant for emergent male youth and Bachardy's awe of fame and glitz, the pair developed a durable love strengthened by nurturing and patience. In recounting this journey, directors Guido Santi and Tina Mascara make rich use of the couple's glamorous home movies.