Primer is obviously not for all tastes, but if it connects with you, prepare to be obsessed.

This is a comedy about imbeciles who fall blindly in love with a concept, without giving any thought to what they are doing. And although some of them eventually have a moment of self-realization, it arrives, sadly, much too late.

It's a bloodless film, however; a spy story that actually drags for long stretches in the middle. And even though it's based on fact, there's rarely any drama in it. These are odd failures. [25 Jan 1985, p.D6]

A sparkling exercise in movie cool.

Lacks emotional depth and sweep -- but the movie still delivers the type of rousing, large-scale adventure that marked the best films of its kind

Most contemporary sci-fi movies come on with all CGI-guns blazing, trying to blow the roof off the theater. Moon settles for trying to blow your mind instead.

It's terrifically funny and, for a few brief moments, poignant.

There's always something happening at the edges of The Flamingo Kid. And unexpectedly, considering the genre, there's something happening at the center, too. [21 Dec 1984, p.D1]

The more you know about the 1912 tragedy, the more you will appreciate the sights of Ghosts of the Abyss.

Manny & Lo is a gals-on-the-run film that aims to be Thelma & Louise for the My So-Called Life set. Instead it's as engaging as a public service announcement. [23 Aug 1996, p.8G]

Dry humor keeps In Bruges fresh and lively and makes it a whole lot of fun to watch.

Lumet patches his film together with a quilt of cliches. He wants you to like his characters so much -- to sympathize with their loss -- that he sticks them in unlikely situations that drip with sentimentality. [14 Oct 1988, p.E6]

The actors all suffer beautifully, but their pain doesn’t register: It’s all affectations and red-rimmed eyes.

The cast of renegades is as appealing as ever, and you'd only wish that the fictional folks of "Friends" or the cast of "Real World" were so free and nonjudgmental.

Has that formulaic, cookie-cutter feel typical of many Disney toons. The premise is inspired, but the follow-through is merely adequate.

The movie is at its best when it flirts with becoming a meta-sequel — a film whose characters know they’ve been in a movie called “Trainspotting.”

This Is the End is a marvelously sustained, high-wire goof – a movie so nutty and daring, so crazy and out-there, that it feels like a low-budget independent except with big stars and a sizable budget.

Despite the actors' admirable efforts, everyone in The Door in the Floor is too affected, too fancifully written, to come off as anything other than conceits.

A scream-out-loud movie, upsetting and deliriously effective. Problem is, Koepp relies almost entirely on the isolated shocking images, ignoring the human element at the center.

Unapologetically slanted -- and often hilarious.

A lot of the charge, the pow and zap of Earl's life seems to be missing. The performance has but a single note, and after the novelty of Newman as cracker wears off, there's not much else there. [13 Dec 1989, p.D1]

You have never seen a movie quite like this one.

Edge of Seventeen is the rare kind of film that is much larger than it seems. [30 Jul 1999, p.6G]

Has a crackling, almost farcical pace, even though its subject matter could not be more serious or complex.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid thus has considerable appeal to movie buffs for whom the black-and-white semi-classics of an earlier era are familiar treasures. For the rest of us, it is a senior thesis -- variations on a single theme, executed carefully but always to the same effect. [21 May 1982, p.D2]

Gibney even convinced Armstrong to sit down for one final interview in May. In it, he comes off as somewhat contrite but also victimized, as if he were being single out for something everyone does.

Amusingly raunchy.

Van Sant's refusal to delve into his subject in anything but an abstract way renders the movie pointless and frustrating -- a lyrical, lovely tone poem, signifying little.