A really satisfying suspenser, but also really, really fun.

The performances are uniformly strong - nuanced, realistic, lacking any wild, flailing emoting.

Opens the window on a pivotal time in 1960s (and early 1970s) pop culture.

Been there, done that. As thrilling a filmmaker as Martin Scorsese continues to be, and as wild a performance as Leonardo DiCaprio dishes up as its morally bankrupt master of the universe, The Wolf of Wall Street seems almost entirely unnecessary.

Whatever one makes of its subject's moral code and mind-set, one has to give Terror's Advocate its due: the stories are riveting, the man is real.

Americans seem uncommonly uncomfortable discussing our own class struggles. But, boy, do we love to watch the Brits do it. I think that's one reason the inspiring and joyful Dark Horse is such an appealing film.

Muscle Shoals isn't perfect. Neither Bono nor Alicia Keyes has any business being in the movie, though Bono does wax poetic about the genius of the music recorded there, and Keyes teams with the Swampers for a strong performance of Dylan's "Pressing On."

The same kind of keen, empathetic observations that made "The Station Agent" and "The Visitor" so illuminating are at play here, too.

Clean, director Olivier Assayas' spellbinding study of a junkie trying to get her life in order so she can reclaim custody of her child, avoids the pitfalls, brilliantly.

Croupier, immersed in a world of gambling, gamesmanship and crime, is a solid, seductive entertainment.

He (Irving) has been able to capture the quirky tone of the popular novel.

Girl on the Bridge, with its doomed art-house romanticism and echoes of Fellini, may not be the deepest piece of filmmaking out there now, but it is easily the most intoxicating. Take the leap.

A gorgeous, gory epic, is a blow-your-mind masterpiece about the emperor who ruled more than 2,000 years ago.

So electric are the performances in The Crucible, so breathtaking is director Nicholas Hytner's darting camera, that it was fully halfway into Arthur Miller's screen adaptation of his legendary drama before I noticed something missing. Namely, a subtext. [20 Dec 1996, p.03]

Wildly sad, funny and terrific documentary.

Weirdly funny, inspiring film.

Like many Apatow films, Bridesmaids has a rambling, disjointed quality, crammed with sequences that elicit laughs without advancing plot.

Assembles varied and remarkable digital video, archival footage, photographs, interviews and personal reflections and academics' perspectives to convey the scope and history of the Tibetan story.

Jones (Like Crazy) gives Nelly's tragic plight a palpable anguish. There is no doubt that Dickens - who was mad about theater, about acting, about inhabiting other lives onstage and in the pages of his books - was in love with Nelly.

'As long as there are Muppets," muses a little felt guy named Walter, "there is still hope." And indeed, there is something hopeful about The Muppets - Disney's rollicking reboot of the late Jim Henson's furball franchise.

In an extraordinarily inward and moving performance, Gere sheds every vestige of his silver-screen persona.

A disarming, funny and animated Al Gore, once a robot among presidential candidates, proves himself a rock star among environmental activists.

Beautifully shot, in long, fluid takes, The Beat That My Heart Skipped is that rare thing: a remake that improves on its source.

A little like a British Eric Rohmer film -- a lot of talk, and a lot of talk about love and relationships -- Lawless Heart has wit and a winning charm.

It has a quiet thoughtfulness that never comes close to being draggy, and a wisdom that is anything but obtuse. It's a film of many themes.

Shrek 2 is a dream, a sequel as exhilarating and riotously funny as 2001's top-grossing original.

A boisterous and improbably entertaining action comedy.

Lady Vengeance is not for everyone. The violence, while less over-the-top and orgiastic than Park's two previous installments, is still hard and crackling. The sex is grim and graphic. And deadpan nihilism permeates the air.