The movie is slight and, at 75 minutes without end credits, barely qualifies as a feature-length film. But Tomlin is a wonder.

The Road Warrior shows what happens when filmmakers learn something on their way to the sequel. Though the action here follows a predictable course (it's high-tech Shane), the milieu is fascinating, the story sophisticated where Mad Max was crude. [25 May 1982, p.D5]

Where Planet Terror is all hollow, self-conscious homage, Death Proof is the work of a director striving to make something original while remaining true to the movies that influenced him. It is also, once it gets going, terrific, sensational fun -- precisely the vibe Grindhouse aims for, but only sporadically attains.

Ruby in Paradise, which is really about nothing more than a woman's quest to succeed as a cashier in a boardwalk gift shop, never rises about the nearly staggering banality of its plot line. [12 Nov 1993, p.G15]

Filmed around stunning County Sligo on Ireland’s west coast, Calvary is a thoughtful, atmospheric movie despite the awkward parade of suspects and the fact that everyone seems a little too conveniently hostile.

The House I Live In is a work of journalism, not propaganda: Jarecki has done his research and leaves it to you to decide what to make of it.

Chan's string of chop-socky films were never boring. Shanghai Noon is.

Mesmerizing.

The emotional connection we develop with her as the movie unfolds pays off in the final 20 minutes, which is about as happy of an ending as anyone could imagine, except this one really happened.

Tender and sentimental, a little schmaltzy, and ultimately too slight.

This is the first film Gray has made with a female protagonist — he wrote the part specifically for Cotillard — and he gives the character the same resilience and resourcefulness usually reserved in movies for men.

Its social consciousness aside, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is really a simple love story between men set in the American West, although unlike "Brokeback Mountain," this love is purely platonic -- nothing more than the bond of brotherhood between two dear friends, a classic Western theme.

The Best Intentions is more plodding than Bergman's earlier works, but its characters are sympathetically and richly drawn. It succeeds as a macabre family portrait. [02 Oct 1992, p.G4]

In Logan, the clawed mutant Wolverine finally gets to slash through the constraints of a kid-friendly PG-13 rating, and the result is bloody, vicious fun. The squeamish will avert their eyes, and young children should not be allowed anywhere near this movie, no matter how many X-Men action figures they own.

Lurking just beneath Water's serene, storybook surface is an unmissable, defiant passion.

Dogme films don't have to be bleak to be effective. They can be -- imagine! -- fun. Scherfig may have taken the discipline in an entirely new and welcome direction.

Ebullient, joyous film.

The movie offers just the right amount of spectacle.

Shows us a man who not only derives great pleasure from devoting himself to his job but also, in the process, has helped shaped the greatest city in the world.

A decent ride. It has a boogeyman, exploding teen-agers and blood by the vat; it's part of the oeuvre. It is also, alas, no significant advance of the sub-genre some of us feel, however improbably, attached to. Teens-and- slash may be a form full ofhack work and dim bulbs, but so long as that form stays within reach of young and relatively unsullied directors, there is hope. [6 March 1985, p.C5]

DiG! is raw, just as the band members themselves.

With this gorgeously melodramatic ode to cinema, the filmmaker comes dangerously close to losing himself inside his celluloid dreams -- and leaving the audience behind.

The world's newfound familiarity with the region's troubles only make Kandahar more compelling.

Frears uses the story of one relationship, intimate but exploitive, to mirror England's racial strife. By turns tender and angry, it's a film of distinctive, commanding voice. [28 Mar 1986, p.D2]

Blue Caprice only spends a few minutes reenacting their crime — the movie shows us exactly how they did it in just a couple of scenes — because the facts of the case aren’t the movie’s focus. Instead, this lyrical, frightening film is a portrait of a man consumed by self-hatred who decided to take it out on the world.

Gerwig and Hawke are outstanding reasons to see this movie, but your patience — just like Maggie’s — will be tested before it’s over.

The only problem with the movie is that it really has little to say beyond the acknowledgement of young love. By contrast, Benjamin's Racing With the Moon, was so careful not to be clever -- in the process telling a good deal more about real feelings -- that The Sure Thing feels lightweight. It's nicely made and well-acted, and it is a bauble nonetheless. [1 Mar 1985, p.C11]

Mottola softens his approach, and Adventureland turns out to be more like "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist" than a Judd Apatow creation.