Mild but engaging romance.

It's a tasty buffet of food gags, both visual and verbal. When they say "We're toast," they really mean it.

It addresses the essential human need for dignity, for freedom, for mastery over one's life.

A gut-punch of a movie, a potent, mesmerizing drama.

It mostly is a triumph of stagecraft and speaker-blowing freestyling.

A sharp, intricate political drama.

Most disappointing, Eastwood's decades-spanning portrait reveals little about the man himself.

Has a cool, midcentury-modern look (dog and boy live in a populuxe Manhattan penthouse) and a voice cast that may not be A-list but fits the bill nicely.

The Cartel does what good reporters are supposed to do: follow the money.

Scafaria's movie never catches fire. The bad news: The end of the world comes with a whimper. Worse: And two wimps.

Lean's classic is something of a picnic compared to The Railway Man, which contains horrific scenes of torture.

Like "Man on Fire," the previous collaboration between Washington and Scott, Déjà Vu is stunning but poorly paced, a film that manages to be both captivating and frustrating.

In physiological shorthand, Mr. Holland's Opus is a very large and very insistent reflex hammer applied to the ducts instead of the knees. [19 Jan 1996, p.03]

Run All Night isn't dull. The pace is breakneck, and necks get broken. But the violence is relentless, ugly, unredeemed by any real humanity.

At times solid and suspenseful, at times dopily implausible and woefully familiar.

While it lacks the heart and hipness of the similar-themed Pixar odysseys, The Meltdown has the physical humor of slapstick comedy.

Honest, sensitive and keenly observant.

Signs is about God and family, too, but it's also about scaring the bejesus out of you -- and on that level it works like a miracle.

Intriguing, provocative stuff.

The movie's greatest misstep - other than Dempsey's boring romantic foil - is that, at one point, Bridget flashes back to events from the first movie. It's a reminder of how much fun the first film was, and it'll make you want to run out and watch that rather than the finish the one you bought a ticket for.

Blending facts, anecdotes, and no little conjecture, Elvis & Nixon finally finds the two American icons face to face, sharing M&M's and Dr Peppers.

Smart screwball comedy that upends the stereotype of the airhead towhead.

Gyllenhaal, in the pivotal role, brings a scruffy, boyish charm to the proceedings, but his big scenes with Hoffman and Sarandon are one-sided - he's not in the same league, and comes off as a bit of a cipher.

A must-see for Pearl Jam fans - and for folks keen on gleaning insights into the pressures that come with megastardom.

Who knows if it was Del Toro's idea, or Stone's, but at a particularly crucial - and criminal - moment, as a very bad thing is about to occur, the actor twirls his mustache menacingly, like a Mexican Snidely Whiplash. Yes, Savages is that kind of story.

Though it might be Moliere for Dummies, it's infinitely more fun than French director Ariane Mnouchkine's tedious 1978 film portrait, a Moliere for Smarties that ran four hours plus and, like Tirard's movie, explored the comedy of tragedy.

Unfortunately, Mission: Impossible - which assembles a new Impossible Missions Force and plops it down in Kiev, Prague, London and Langley, Va. - doesn't have the momentum or suspense of De Palma's best pictures. It moves, awkwardly at times, from one elaborate set-piece to the next. [22 May 1996, p.E01]

Best of all is Hoffman, who hasn't had this much obvious fun since he played Hollywood producer Stanley Motss in "Wag the Dog."