I Am Love is a cinematic orgy, a sensual Italian feast of food, sex, guilt and grief. An intimate, quiet and even slow movie, its subtle shadings veil turbulent emotions.

They (Refn and Gosling) have collaborated on a car picture that unnerves us with its idling quiet, and then pins our ears back when they stomp the accelerator.

That rare film in which every performer in it leaves the viewer in awe.

Directed by Zhang Yimou, Ju Dou is photographed in rich, burnished colors. The shots are elegantly composed and the acting is similarly fine. [04 May 1991, p.E3]

For those of us who will never go to the moon, watching For All Mankind may be as close as we'll come to fulfilling that ancient dream. If what the Hubble eventually sends back is nearly this splendid, it could actually be worth the wait. [17 Aug 1990, p.10]

One triumph of The Untouchables is the way its operatic style accommodates larger-than-life performances.

Reeves has Americanized a very good foreign film without defanging it.

A deadpan, darkly funny Korean murder mystery.

Artful, epic, operatic even, this thriller set in the world of ballet challenges the viewer with its intelligence and depth and wit.

The film doesn't go deeply enough into Hawking's theories to really explain them, and it doesn't go deeply enough into Hawking's life to impart anything but a sketchy understanding of the man. Still, considering the almost impenetrable subject matter, it's remarkable that Morris has gotten as far as he has.

Looking around, you realize that only so much is possible in this town. Fortunately, the limited range of possibilities includes a film like Gas, Food, Lodging. [8 Jan 1993]

The one really solid performance is turned in by Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch. [15 Feb 1991, p.16]

The movie may have been so structured to offer whites in the audience a central white figure with whom to identify. But it's the ultimate irony that moviemakers who want to call attention to the historical accomplishments of blacks feel that they can only do so if the hero of their film is white. [12 Jan 1990, p.6]

It’s a darned entertaining way to get a handle on a sport that can seem like a bunch of cars doing circles for a crowd that seems most interested in seeing that next epic wreck.

Brando's confusion is understandable. The Freshman is, as he said, a bit of a stinker. But it also contains those moments of high comedy he spoke of. Add Brando's statements together, divide the total by two and you have the right answer about this movie.

This modern-day vampire movie is, to be sure, no masterpiece, but its suggestive narrative and dreamlike visual style are distinct improvements over those of such recent living-dead flicks as The Lost Boys and Vamp. And if Near Dark doesn't provide a complete answer to the ''necking'' question it raises, well, heck, it's an exploitation film, not an advice column.

What really holds the movie together is Rachel Ward's exceptionally moving portrayal of Fay. [07 Sep 1990, p.7]

The Guard soars along on a script, like those by the other McDonagh (Martin wrote and directed "In Bruges" and the Oscar winning short "Six Shooter," both starring Gleeson) built out of verbal flourishes and Irish curses.

Spike Lee's ambitious, occasionally brilliant new film about an interracial relationship might have been a masterpiece if only it had been integrated. Thematically integrated, that is. The cast of Jungle Fever is racially integrated, but there's so little holding the diverse elements of the movie together that Lee could have called it Jumble Fever.

Grimly realistic. [25 Feb 2001, p.17]

If some of the ingredients in this "masala" aren't exactly first-rate, it is spicy enough to recommend. [28 Feb 1992, p.20]

The idea behind Ruthless People is just about irresistible. Much of the fun of this comedy is in watching what happens as virtually everyone in the movie tries to double-cross or otherwise take advantage of everyone else.

For the most part, you can't go wrong praising the exceptional ensemble cast, either. [28 Aug 1992, p.19]

Though this film version of James and the Giant Peach is far from a classic, it's both reasonably respectful of its source and consistently enjoyable in its own right. And it passes the acid test of children's entertainment. This movie remembers what fun is.

A thriller that grabs you even before the ironies of its plot kick in is a thriller you don't want to miss. No Way Out is that sort of movie, a thriller that's thrilling throughout.

What's special about Fly Away Home is the delicate yet unsentimental way that Ballard approaches the material. Working from a straightforward script by Robert Rodat and Vince McKewin, he seems to let the story tell itself. [13 Sep 1996, p.23]

His movie is only partly satisfying. [23 Feb 1996]

It’s not one of Polanski’s masterpieces, but The Ghost Writer doesn’t dilute his reputation as a master of suspense.

An exquisite character study in grief.

Paul Newman could win an Oscar for his strong, complex performance in The Color of Money. His Eddie Felson, so quick-witted and seemingly imperturbable in the early scenes, eventually drops his foxy pose to reveal some of the raw vulnerability of his Hustler days.

It's an unblinking look into the lives of soldiers doing the most thankless job of all.

Nunez's determined lack of slickness does have its rewards. For one thing, it allows the atmosphere of the movie's tourism-based town to emerge. And Nunez doesn't go the easy route of using the tackiness of the gift shop and the other locations for cheap laughs: He's more interested in their authenticity. [26 Nov 1993, p.20]

Tyson rose to the challenges of this demanding role with perceptive, luminous work. It remains the peak of her long, distinguished career. [22 Feb 2009, p.10]

Duvall, an American Lear not going gently into that good night, reminds us that it will be a sad day indeed for movie fans when it's about time for him to Get Low.

It's a delightful cartoon that truly feels African in the way it carries the wisdom of the ages. It feels like a great fable, preserved for generations because of the wise lessons it imparts. [04 Aug 2000, p.19]

The Big Easy is as atmospheric as they come, but -- surprise! -- it's also sharp and swift. Plus, it has ample amounts of chemistry -- the steamy, sexy kind.

By the soaring standards of Mike Leigh's career, Career Girls (which opens locally today) is a minor work. But minor-league Leigh is better than major-league most other people, especially because he possesses the most emotionally sophisticated sensibility of any contemporary filmmaker.

Movie could use a little of the tight plotting and clarity that made The Hit so effective. But perhaps the new film's diffuse nature is the price of its ambitiousness. Besides, in many ways My Beautiful Laundrette is a beauty.

Sid & Nancy is an honorable try, but it could have been better had Cox found a way to imbue the movie with some of the sheer zaniness of his Repo Man.

Taken on its own merits, this profile of "Buck" Brannaman is a pleasant and touching but somewhat superficial insight to the man and his methods.

There's another, more important reason why Stand By Me isn't for kids. Its perspective is that of a knowing adult, which is to say that though the film is frequently affectionate and funny, it contains a drop too much condescension to be entirely successful.

The comedy - it's too cautious, really, to be called a satire - just sort of tap-dances along, hitting all the usual marks without ever straining too hard.

A stop any literary-minded movie-goer will want to make.

This compelling-acted film explains, better than any soundbite, why people have taken to the streets, "occupying" centers of finance. If their rage is unfocused, Margin Call suggests, that's with good reason. There are no real heroes or villains here, just human beings with human failings making BIG human mistakes.

Not only is House Party breezy fun, but its dialogue often sounds as authentic to its black-teen setting as The Breakfast Club did to its white-teen one. And authentic or not, much of it is funny. [27 April 1990, p.4]

What's different about this film is that it holds together better than Brooks' other movies. And in the end, it's somewhat sweeter. [17 Jan 1997, p.21]

That message, this script and these actors make Rabbit Hole one of the best films of 2010.

The Last of the Mohicans isn't a classic, but it's one of the most exciting action pictures to come along in recent memory.

Does well in capturing the cruelty of school life and the assorted "types" who inhabit schools there and here. But it's more twee than clever, more affectionate than romantic and more promising than satisfying.

Baumbach overreaches, making this character a selfish, off-putting cultural (LA) and generational scold. But Stiller, in his most “real” performance in ages, finds the function in this catalog of dysfunctions, the humanity in this humanity-hating crank.

A chilling detective tale, a horrific sexual abuse drama and an overlong, emotional, tie-up-every-loose-end melodrama that is sure to be half an hour shorter when Hollywood remakes it without the Swedish dialogue and probably without the cool Swedish edge.

It's stunning work, movingly narrated by actors from Josh Lucas to Robert Duvall, all telling the stories of those who fought and bled and lived to tell the tale. [23 Mar 2007, p.21]

Fitfully amusing or not, the whole demented enterprise of Rango comes into question when you're that tone-deaf about what's appropriate for children.

The rawboned Hawkes manages both charm and menace in the same look, and Dancy gives his character a testy, fearful edge that doesn't make him scary, but rather someone we fear for.

A brisk blast of bloody good fun, sci-fi with a little social commentary as subtext. Attack the Block is the movie that "Battle: Los Angeles" was not - thrilling, nerve-wracking and fun.

Misery is one of the best movies made from a Stephen King story. [30 Nov 1990, p.6]

With Win Win, McCarthy has found his emotional sweet spot, a sweet and complex story to set it in and the perfect title for it.

This is "Her Hangover," a smarter and sweeter stumble to the altar that never quite gets to Vegas, and doesn't seem to mind.

The musical comedy whimsically and often cleverly revisits the characters, their shtick and and the TV show and movies that made them most famous.

Dreamworks hired the directors of "Lilo & Stitch" to turn Cressida Cowell’s romp of a novel into an animated film and can’t be too surprised that they made, in essence, "Hiccup and Stitch."

The wow factor alone makes Oceans a great Earth Day/Earth Week at the movies.

The action in Terminator 2 is edited for maximum suspense, and much of it is mounted on such a grand scale that little in movie history comes close. (Scenes in last summer's Die Hard 2 did, but they lacked the finesse of the new film).

The Square may be played in a thick Aussie dialect that’s hard to fathom. But thanks to bravura filmmaking that never violates the classic rules of the genre, they could be household names here someday, too.

Green Pastures, told with gentle humor, gives more meaning to biblical stories than most holier-than-thou entries. [23 Feb 2003, p.9]

"It was a perfect tabloid story," the Brit Peter Tory, who covered it, remembers. "Kinky sex, religion, kidnapping, a beauty queen."

If The Hunchback of Notre Dame isn't for younger kids, it's an ambitious, often stirring film that's easy to recommend for just about anyone else. [21 June 1996, p.17]

Inception is an elegant, portentous ride, though I’m not sure Nolan is any closer to visualizing the real (dream) deal than Hitchcock was.

It's a treat for children making their first trek to the multiplex and for parents and grandparents with fond memories of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Farmiga directs and plays this as a woman with questions. Thus, the tone is a bit all over the place - frank discussion and depictions of sex, but with an equally frank embrace of Christianity, talking the talk and walking the walk.

It's the best heist picture since "Heat."

The combination of a flexible, funny cast, an amusing situation and a style of movie-making that embraces every happy, nasty accident make this if not the funniest, then certainly the most uncomfortable comedy of the summer.

The movie's dark themes, unhurried pace and talkiness make it something of a gamble for many children. But older children - especially those who have been asking specific questions about death - may find some nourishment in this garden.

Notwithstanding the hero's Superman similarities, Hercules isn't quite super. But it's strong enough to get the job done. [27 June 1997, p.17]

Duncan Jones, director of the very fine and very paranoid "Moon," makes this seemingly silly situation work, building tension over 93 minutes.

The movie works the way Westerns have always worked: In clear, simple terms and with straightforward dramatic devices.

Perhaps the best thing about this movie isn't any individual performance or scene but the mere fact of its existence. At a time when so many films strain to be either tragically hip on the one hand or distressingly saccharine on the other, a movie like Down in the Delta is a genuine rarity. [25 Dec 1998, p.19]

They all help Malkovich to do his thing, and a remarkable thing it is. That terrific performance of his just might be a selling point, after all. [16 Oct 1992, p.17]

What's pleasantly surprising about Gilbert Grape is that director Lasse Hallstrom generally maneuvers quite deftly around his self-created obstacles. In its gently ironic, unforced way, his movie manages to be both uplifting and funny, with the laughs never really being at anyone's expense. [4 March 1994, p.17]

There are so many terrific small moments to discover in The Commitments that there's no danger of ever growing bored. [14 Sep 1991, p.E1]

If director Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) and first-time screenwriter Jenny Wingfield often lay it on a little thick, they also manage to express some surprisingly authentic feelings. [22 Nov 1991, p.22]

The setup isn't exactly what you'd call plausible, but the follow-through is consistent and clever.

Not only does Slam strike me as one of the best films about being a writer I've ever seen, it is also the least sentimental coming-of-age movie to come along in years. [06 Nov 1998, p.19]

The triumph of this bleak, unsettling picture is that, no matter how grim it gets, it's far too involving for you to turn away.

Noel Coward's Cavalcade, a rich nostalgic look at a vanished way of life, vividly details the period through the travails of an upper and a lower class family between New Year's Eve 1899 and New Year's Eve 1932. [09 Mar 2003, p.9]

The lack of dramatic tension that knowing the ending before you being creates isn't a huge drawback.

Miami Blues is more interesting than any bad movie I've seen in months, but it is still a bad movie.

JFK is a limp, semi-coherent, boring movie. [20 Dec 1991, p.21]

Egoyan makes you pay dearly by subjecting you to large doses of film-festival-strength ponderousness. [14 Apr 1995, p.19]

Presumed Innocent is a stylish, dark-toned movie with handsome photography (by Gordon Willis) and solid performances. Without exploiting the sensationalistic elements of the material, director Pakula creates a fascinating mood of impending disaster. If this movie isn't exactly exciting, it definitely holds the viewer's interest.

Odds are you'll find something of substance, a few life lessons in between the laughs in 50/50.

J.J. Abrams, with Steven Spielberg producing, has made one of those jaw-dropping out-of-body summer entertainments that kids old enough to swear and see PG-13 films will remember on into adulthood.

The ghost of John Hughes smiles upon Easy A, a film that freely and giddily borrows from and pays tribute to Hughes' famous Holy Trinity of '80s teen angst comedies.

There probably isn't anyone working in movies today who could have done more with this material than writer-director Paul Mazursky does. In Down and Out, he finds humor in those contemporary issues about which most people haven't quite resolved their feelings. This can lead him into dangerous territory: AIDS, anorexia, homosexuality and even "We Are the World" all figure in Down and Out's unusual comedy. [21 Nov 1999, p.60]

A film taut with cold-war tensions and cloak-and-dagger secrecy. [23 May 2004, p.8]

The bottom line is that The Crow is a somewhat-better-than-average exploitation flick that has received an extra shot of hype from the untimely and dramatic demise of its star performer.

Rarely has a movie been so sexual without being remotely sexy. Rarely has a guy who might be admired in a sex comedy as a "playa" seemed more pathetic with each fresh conquest.

Lena Dunham's amusing meander through "post graduate delirium," a relationship comedy about nothing so much as the permanent relationships of family and New Yorker's relationship with space - and the lack of it.

It's a movie of thematic dead-ends. Director Azazel Jacobs and writer Patrick DeWitt give us a slow SLOW and somewhat morose tale that isn't remotely funny or profound enough to sustain that pace and tone.