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.

This is dizzy diverting fun, from it's first Carell one-liner to the 3D gimmick gags stuffed into the closing credits.

The intensity of Caruso's close-to-the-vest performance in this absorbing, brutal crime movie suggests that he may have the makings of a big-screen star. [21 Apr 1995, p.29]

Not a neat and tidy thriller. It is a most engrossing one, commanding our attention even as the filmmaker tries to slip this or that hole in the plot past us.

A dry and moody piece built on closely-observed characters, not on thrills or an unraveling plot.

Where Fargo was cool and wryly detached, the zany new film is aggressively antic - more like parts of their Barton Fink or The Hudsucker Proxy. On occasion, in fact, the Coens' anything-goes approach can begin to get on your nerves. [6 March 1998, p.17]

This lovely, tentative motion picture tells a captivating tale. [14 May 1993, p.19]

Sayles has created a lively and instructive entertainment, a moral tale that is everything The Natural (1984) should have been.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome isn't a bad movie. It has entertaining sections, decent performances and more than a few provocative images. But it also has a major shortcoming: It's too darned sane.

Animated musicals are only as good as their songs, and this one isn't on a par with "Beauty and the Beast" or even "The Princess and the Frog."

Director Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember (1957) was - and always will be - a poignant romantic fairy tale elevated above the typical studio tear-jerker. This is because of the performances turned in by Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, and outstanding production values. [17 Apr 1994, p.71]