Chungking Express is really a sly and perceptive examination of the effects of urban alienation on romance -- specifically in its scarily dense and overdeveloped setting of dazzling Hong Kong. Chungking Express meanders at times and occasionally annoys (you won't want to listen to California Dreaming ever again), but the movie is all of one mood, and it leaves you craving more. [29 Mar 1996, p.21G]

Trouble in Mind is an earthbound fantasy to match the soaring nightmares of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. It's one man's dream of romance, melodrama, life by street lamp. One surrenders on Rudolph's terms. Surrender is sweet. [21 March 1986, p.D6]

The movie doesn't really earn its big, overwrought finale, and after it's over it appears quite full of holes. But it's a handsome curiosity. [31 Aug 1990, p.G5]

Old-fashioned isn't necessarily bad. In Lean's case it can be immensely entertaining, because he knows how to build a story. At 76, he is still quite vital a force behind the camera, and he makes A Passage to India, born a comedy of manners, into high melodrama. [11 Jan 1985, p.D1]

A seductive blend of mystery, psychology and soap opera. [14 Nov 1982, p.8]

It is always intriguing as it follows the arrest and captivity of Salomon Sorowitsch (the terrific Karl Markovics), one of Germany's leading counterfeiters.

After the Wedding ends up feeling far weightier than it first appears, with its plot contrivances and unlikely coincidences generating such a messy range of emotions, they end up feeling a lot like real life.

This is not the sort of movie you can just leave behind in the theater. And like any true finale to a trilogy, the picture doesn't work nearly as well if you haven't seen the previous two installments: It's not designed to stand alone, and it pays off all that has come before with an exuberant, thrilling high.

A wrenching film.

The fact that Garland manages to cram in speculative ideas about the perils of a society that relies too heavily on technology is a bonus. In Ex Machina, love hurts, big time, for man and machine alike.

Spike Lee is one of a handful of great filmmakers working in mainstream movies today, and he has a moral vision that is pure and simply uplifting. See his movie. See it often. [7 June 1991, p.G5]

Half-Blood Prince is the franchise's “Empire Strikes Back” -- the episode in which the pace slows down a bit, the characters deepen and mature, the good guys take a big hit, and all hell is gearing up to break loose.

Doggone funny.

Tex is well-meaning, all right, but a little inept. [04 Aug 1982, p.B4]

Mississippi is full of good will, but it's not preachy, and its story of romance in an ethnic broth is fascinating when it's working right. [14 Feb 1992, p.5G]

The acting, along with a wonderfully witty script and more madcap plot twists than a gaggle of Hitchcock films, lets Ruthless People ruthlessly overshadow its summer comedy competition. In Ruthless People, Midler at long last is allowed a full stretch of her talent and is given a chance to be both the actress and the funny lady. [27 June 1986, p.D8]

Not an ordinary film.

Its loyalty to the period is the film's charm. Enchanted April is a treasure. [21 Aug 1992, p.G5]

The weirdest movie of the summer. OK, the year.

Exhausting at times, frustrating in others, Magnolia is mostly just exhilarating, the product of a raw, vibrant talent finding his footing in an adult world -- and unafraid to make mistakes.

Nelson is immensely appealing, and Busey plays off him well. The two of them ride around, locked into the wacky feud and having a bit of fun with Old West mythology. The movie is sad, entertaining and often beautiful. [25 Mar 1983, p.C1]

Brings the viewer up close and personal with the face of evil.

It's a warm, skillful excavation of what look like ordinary lives, ones that aren't so simple once you dig a little deeper.

Focusing on the contestants who make the initial cut -- two men and two women -- the film can't resist wringing some American Idol-style suspense from speculation about who the eventual victor will be. But the movie also leaves no doubt as to who the real winners are.

Paradise: Hope plays better if you’ve seen the previous two movies, so you can savor the reach and scope of Seidl’s trilogy. But the film stands alone as a tender portrait of adolescence at its most vulnerable and how we manage to survive it, even when surrounded by predators and wolves.

Dark but brilliant, James and the Giant Peach is cinema fantasy at its best. Dahl would have approved. [12 Apr 1996, p.5G]

This long, gorgeous, occasionally maddening movie is the work of a hopeless romantic who knows there is no pain as bittersweet -- or as haunting -- as the pain of a broken heart.

For all its excitement Kung Fu Hustle is mostly a marvel of comedic ingenuity and mile-a-minute creativity run wild. You've never seen anything like it.