13 Assassins is entirely too long and too talky. But the cat-and-mouse game of strategy, figuring out when and where to ambush the evil overlord's entourage, is fascinating.

This performance reminds us that Bridges is that rare actor who has never had to make that apology. Crazy Heart lets him be every bit as grand as we’d hope him to be.

Working from Blatty's own screenplay, director William Friedkin sets his own unhurried pace. That pace, at times, does seem a tad glacial, and that is the film's biggest failing. But unlike so many horror flicks that followed, this one really is about something. It's about several things, actually: coming of age and letting go, mainly, as well as getting sick and growing old. [2000 re-release]

Here's a documentary so slick, novel, touching and outrageous that your first thought might be "This has to be fake."

It's rooting against grandma that drives this violent, hardhearted film, and waiting for the pride of lions she's created to devour her that gives Animal Kingdom its animal energy.

A stunning exercise in 3D and a delightful celebration of Scorsese's lifelong love of the movies, something he, like Hugo, developed on childhood.

The 1951 sci-fi classic set the standard for a wave of films examining the Eisenhower era's end-of-the-world paranoia and humanity's newfound power to obliterate itself. [07 Mar 2003, p.40]

Style always outweighed substance in the atmospheric films of Josef von Sternberg, and this 1932 feature is no exception. [26 Nov 1993, p.32]

Like Tati himself, The Illusionist feels like a relic of a different time.

Hogancamp seems a pleasant, offbeat and intuitive fellow who probably takes all this less seriously than those who "discovered" him.

A masterpiece. A work of grand visual wit, clever songs, funny gags and genuine pathos, it is perhaps the greatest stop-motion animated film ever, a painstaking style of model animation that computers have all but completely done away with.

The riffing, the one-upsmanship, the off-the-cuff zingers and the singing (ABBA, a great favorite of Coogan's most famous creation, the dizzy talk show host Alan Partridge) make The Trip an easy-going trek down a road well-traveled by these two.

Marty will give you a heartening slice of life, full of honesty and humor. [24 Oct 1955, p.7]

A beautifully photographed, sentimental film about a family of itinerant Australian sheepherders who travel from job to job during the 1920s.

In Mary, Leigh has found the polar opposite of Sally Hawkin's giggle-through-the-pain heroine of "Happy-Go-Lucky."

Fresh is easily one of the best of the new ''hood flicks'' because it doesn't neglect the basics. There's a story here - a good one - and characters you can connect with.

It's a gritty, almost ugly to look at film, and Cianfrance isn't shy about including a random blast of unwarranted shaky footage.

First-time director Claire Denis (a Frenchwoman who lived in Africa as a child) wants us to know that colonialism is a bad thing. Would anyone care to argue the point? Like German director Wim Wenders (with whom she worked on Wings of Desire), Denis achieves some ravishing images but is committed to using a deadeningly static camera. [30 Mar 1990, p.16]

This is a story about people, not politics. And perhaps because we can see the actors in closeup on the screen, that is even truer of the movie than the play. When you leave this film, you're not thinking, "My, what an important story!" When Driving Miss Daisy is over, you think, "I sure will miss those folks." [12 Jan. 1990, p.12]

The 1937 movie excels with outstanding performances by child star Freddie Bartholomew and Spencer Tracy. [20 Jun 1999, p.56]

One serious omission in the film - identifying what these seemingly prosperous alumni of the band do for a living and did with their lives.

The filmmaker's dreamy style has a quiet strength: The bright, rich cinematography is a treat for the eyes and the hypnotic musical score is lulling. [10 Sept 1992, p.E1]

Souffle-light and long on charm.

The film is more overwhelming than uplifting.

Witty, sharp and, ultimately, chastening, Ridicule is a terrific movie in the sinuous tradition of Dangerous Liaisons (1988). [31 Jan 1997]

During the 1930s, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart were masters of the gangster role. They made three films together. Two of them, Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939), were among the best gangster epics of the decade. [05 Jan 1997, p.48]

There are people, powerful people, who don't want old cases dug up. It's a tribute to the story's construction that the mystery only deepens, the more Benjamin digs.

Incendies is occasionally compelling, but also overlong and vexing in the ways it draws out a "shocking" conclusion that we unravel long before the characters do.