Wonderful, honest and low-key performances inform and enhance The Yellow Handkerchief, an otherwise unexceptional little drama.

This gruesome thriller set in a fogbound insane asylum is incomprehensible and fatally flawed, but having said all of that, I will also say this: It never seems anything less than the work of a skillful film buff. Mr. Scorsese may be a smart aleck, but he’s a professional smart aleck.

Has moments of heart-pounding suspense and brief glimmers of greatness, thanks to fine performances by Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams, but overall feels uneven, sprawling and strangely incomplete.

A vulgar, happy-as-cancer aberration that takes the dysfunctional family idea to a new low. Whimsical, yes. Happy, never.

But the direction by Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) sacrifices originality for computer graphics and stop-motion camera tricks, and the script, by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, bulges with real howlers: “I didn’t know you hunted monsters.” “Sometimes monsters hunt you!”

It’s a romantic piffle stuffed with so much candy that your skin could break out.

We all know how rotten today’s movies can be, but even at the bottom of the slag pit, you won’t find a load of garbage any smellier than From Paris With Love.

The best kind of horror film, about innocent people plunged into mind-boggling circumstances beyond their control.

What is truly amazing, especially in this age of Ponzi schemes and the misappropriation of people’s life savings, is the fact that Herb and Dorothy have never sold a single piece in their collection.

There is no way I would call this a good movie. But! I was indeed entertained the whole way through, and there were enough genuinely interesting scenes to almost make up for the incredibly clunky moments provided by a very wooden screenplay.

That Bond so convincingly retains his composure and sang-froid throughout all the horrors that ensue is a testament to Mr. Craig’s abilities as an actor, and to Mr. Campbell’s astuteness as a director.

In many ways, Days of Being Wild anticipated the overall pattern of its writer-director-auteur's haunting career, with this genuinely wild story of casual sexual encounters and obsessions across East Asian locales traversed by rootless characters crammed up in Hong Kong's dream factories. [29 Nov 2004, p.27]

Die Another Day is the most thrilling, lavishly designed and imaginative Bond picture in years. It is also the most preposterous.

In my own very humble opinion, In Praise of Love lacks even the most fragmented charms I have found in almost all of his previous works. [9 Sep 2002, p.25]

There is much violence in The Devil’s Backbone , but there is also catharsis and redemption. As ghost movies go, The Devil’s Backbone is much less self-indulgent than the wildly overrated The Others.

Late August, Early September comes closer than any movie I can remember to capturing the nuances of relationships between overarticulate characters who can't figure out where they really stand with each other. [12 Jul 1999]

There are moments here and there with potentially eloquent points of departure, but they dissolve in the mists of the director's ultimately aimless estheticism. [21 May 1999]

It roars and ignites and hits the ground running.

Saving Private Ryan is a masterpiece. It cements Steven Spielberg’s reputation as one of the seminal filmmakers of the era. It tells a gallant story of honor and duty and courage under fire. It shows you things about war that have never been seen on a motion picture screen.

The writing (by Todd Stephens) and direction (by David Moreton) are untidy, but the film gets along on its own sweetness and sincerity before everyone removes the masks and realizes it's O.K. to be who and what you are in life. [10 May 1999]

You have to see all 10 not because they add up to a coherent whole, but because each is excellent in a distinctive way. I don’t want to go into each of the plots in any detail because one of the joys of Decalogue is its flair for storytelling in the most enjoyable way imaginable.

For all Mr. Schlesinger's misapplied conventionality, these characters remain too abstract in the film, and the violent climax feels bombastic and preposterous rather than meaningful. [21 Jun 2004, p.27]

Writer-director Milius's brilliant directorial debut presents the Depression era gangster and 'Public Enemy Number One' John Dillinger (Warren Oates) as a social outsider and self-made legend. Oates is at the top of his form... Ben Johnson is equally good as his nemesis, FBI Agent Melvin Purvis, and Harry Dean Stanton and Richard Dreyfuss lead a fine supporting cast. [12 Oct 2003, p.9]

Ozu never moves his camera but invariably moves us. [05 Dec 2004, p.13]

Such relaxed filmmaking combined with artistic rigor is no longer feasible. [27 Aug 2001, p.15]

Baby Doll doesn't go as deep as A Streetcar Named Desire or even On the Waterfront. But it's the most seamless melding of Kazan's abilities as an actor's director and a filmmaker. [12 Jun 2006]

Minnelli's direction never lets the farcical aspects get out of hand, walking a perfect line between comedy and sentiment that's sometimes heartwarming without ever becoming mawkish -- a delicate balance to achieve and maintain. [28 Jun 1999]

The Asphalt Jungle is the greatest, most influential heist movie, and has a superb performance from Sam Jaffe as the middle-aged German-born criminal mastermind behind a million-dollar jewel robbery in an unidentified American city. [12 Feb 2006, p.17]