What it lacks, though, is any sense that these people - are real.

Adapted from the devilishly clever 1955 novel by master crime author Georges Simenon, The Blue Room is a dazzling deconstruction of the mystery genre that turns its conventions on their heads.

Filmmaker Dabis based Amreeka on her own family's experiences in the rural Midwest during the first Gulf War. Although the drama heads on a predictable course, Faour brings intelligence and humor to her performance and Muallem, as the smart adolescent turned surly and scared, is likewise sharp.

Paradoxically, the closer Mendes gets to his characters, the more remote Perdition becomes. One wishes that his film had as much heart as it does art.

Stevie is compelling, real-life drama: bleak and disturbing, but illuminating all the same.

Winner of a prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the quiet, solemn Climates is a bit like those towering ancient columns that Isa photographs to show his class. The fragmented architecture is beautiful and striking, but also extremely dated.

Casey's big brother has made a tough, taut mystery.

An odd and entertaining mix of backstage melodrama, indie verite, and "Showgirls" kitsch, the usual gender stereotypes are upturned.

I'm not sure what kids are going to make of Matilda and its perception of an adult world crawling with menacing, malevolent despots. They'll probably love it - and the film's resourceful, resilient star. Parents, on the other hand, might be squirming in their seats from DeVito's unrelenting send-up of the crass and the cruel. [02 Aug 1996, p.05]

Still Mine resonates in all the right ways.

Deftly filmed and directed by Jean-François Richet.

A mischievously inventive, surreal entertainment, one that celebrates not only Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight and Nutty Crunch Surprise but Busby Berkeley, Stanley Kubrick, the Beatles, and the outer-space acting choices of one Johnny Depp - not to mention those bushy-tailed rodents in all their bustling splendor.

The film is suffused with the generous, nonjudgmental spirit of Uncle Tomas, whose live-and-let-live attitude warms like the sun and who helps Magdalena and Carlos make the safe passage from adolescence to maturity.

The film only occasionally comes to life - it's too literal (and literary), too studied, too still.

Irreverent, provocative and provoking.

The film's recurring image is that of a butterfly fluttering around a flower, a lovely symbol of the reader drawn to a novel's nectar.

A mostly glum, gray and grim story lit by a fugitive sunbeam.

The movie sometimes seems (like its title character) to drag its feet. It’s messy, but with the untidiness of real life.

Girl With a Pearl Earring is really about watching paint dry. S l o w l y.

We know how the story ends: Nordling persuades Choltitz to back down. Yet, the film somehow maintains a razor-sharp sense of suspense throughout. And it ends with a delicious plot twist that makes one rethink Nordling's moral superiority.

In his newest film Egoyan memorably gets under the skin of the skin trade. [10 Mar 1995, p.03]

It's a documentary that is ostensibly a profile of a man, but is really about the vibrant city he inhabits, beyond the Hollywood sheen and the grit of Compton.

Anyone with a casual interest in gospel music stands to learn a lot by seeing Rejoice & Shout; a true fan won't want to miss it.

It's not as good, nor as complex, as "The Lost Boys," but that doesn't make the story of mass annihilation, sprawling refugee camps, the generosity of Americans, and the resilience of a handful of Sudanese survivors any less worthy of telling - again.

It's a charmer.

A standout.

The three (human) leads are perfection. Bridges' Howard is as breezily garrulous and glad-handing as Cooper's Smith is laconic and withdrawn. Maguire's Pollard has haunted eyes and orangey hair that makes him look like a human jack-o'-lantern, and establishes his own unique rhythm and less-is-more style.

A wide-screen wildlife documentary in which the cycles of birth and death, migrations and seasons, are captured in stunning - absolutely stunning - ways.