The film seems to resonate even for people who aren't Jewish or gay, as there are so many people touched by homosexuality and religion.

Before Frank Abagnale there was Ferdinand Demara, who also impersonated a doctor, among other roles -- not for financial gain but from a compulsion to have other lives. [03 Jan 2003]

An absorbing relational Rorschach test masquerading as a domestic drama, a sardonic examination of marriage and friendship that invites the audience to think for itself.

Unsurprisingly, the formulaic "Breakfast Club" casting yields a formulaic narrative.

Few films so thoroughly lose their way as The Edge. After developing an engrossing plot and mood, it goes frankly bonkers, and the intensity whistles out of it like air from a punctured tire. When it finally limps home -- at least 20 minutes too late -- you're left with a sour, treacly taste where once you had savored something almost exquisite. [26 Sep 1997, p.21]

The overall effect of the movie is to make you wish there were a statute of limitations on how long maladjusted adults are allowed to blame their parents before it's OK to holler, "Get over it, people!"

Director Martin Koolhoven doesn't take many narrative chances, but the somber, steely cinematography and convincing performances help to carry the day.

Director Matthew Vaughn has provided an imperfect but still wickedly hilarious take on Mark Millar's deconstruction of superhero mythos.

Sassy and sharp.

A perfect example of an ordinary movie made unique by the powerhouse performance of its lead.

Sidewalk Stories is nobly intended and has many moments of humor and ingenuity. But it's ultimately a sermon with a point so general as to be almost meaningless. And it sure ruins the fun. [25 Nov 1989, p.C08]

What is special about The Good Dinosaur isn't the characters...but the backgrounds.

Moves with lightness, verve and charm, which Magnetic Fields fans might find amusing, given Merritt's well-known morosity. But there is more than a suggestion here that his persona is just that, and that those sweet melodies he sings so dryly arise from a truly sweet core.

It's got some great action sequences and is peppered with genuinely dazzling images. It's also subtly infused with Mann's favored themes of men-at-work and the high price of loyalty to duty. But it hasn't got sufficient meat to warrant its draggy length.

It's not an ideal film, but it has the virtue of the ideal star, and that counts.

Some of the dwarves have nice individual moments, namely Balin (Ken Stott), Bofur (James Nesbitt), and Kili (Aidan Turner), and Gandalf gets to throw some potent magic around at Dol Guldur. But other than that (and the dragon itself), The Desolation of Smaug turns to be more of too much of a good thing.

The Amazing Spider-Man is agreeable. And occasionally it's more. But, as with the American remake of the Swedish film of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," you can't help but feel that you've not only heard the story before, but that you you've seen it before, too -- and recently.

A rather routine thriller that's got two things going for it: the ticking of a clock and the clickety-click of bicycle wheels. Both impart a sense of exhilaration to a thin and even silly story, engaging you when, really, you ought to know better.

Horror fans should still seek the film out for Dren -- one of the most striking abominations to hit the big screen in a while.

The plot is tired, the energy sputtering, the jokes less manic. "Spy Kids" was a shot out of nowhere; Spy Kids 2 feels like a shot from someplace tiresomely familiar.

If you're one of those fussy filmgoers who demands that a movie engage somewhat higher body parts -- the heart, say, and the brain -- you'll find only intermittent comfort and joy in this high-concept, low-wattage film.

Weir is the real deal, and his gifts more than repay the time you invest in the film.

I liked The One I Love but if I had to choose between it and "Third Person," the Paul Haggis relationship movie that flirts with narrative in unconventional ways, I'd go back and watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Now that's how it's done.

The result is a cast of characters who are little better than automatons themselves. This wouldn't be a problem if the rest of the film were as captivating as it was surely meant to be. Instead, the Quays work overtime to make both their story line and images as obscure as possible.

Absent the real sense of creepiness and highly honed film craft of De Palma, or the strong visual and emotional sensibility of Woo, M: I III feels like one of the more forgettable James Bond films -- saddled, moreover, with a star who's sliding into self-parody.

Gere and Foster play out an exciting love story that is heartfelt, romantic and thoughtful. It slows a bit at the end but is beautifully produced and vaguely suggests the tale's original medieval setting. [05 Mar 1993, p.E16]

There's real chemistry between the two actors.

Witty, treasure-filled and nostalgic in the best sense.

The subtext is singular: The presence of potentially dehumanizing technology serves to make the characters seem more human.

What we have is a not-very-funny college comedy for tweens, full of unappealing characters and, although the musical arrangements are fun, some truly unimaginative choreography.

Vincente Minnelli's 1949 film is patently made on the MGM lot, and Van Heflin makes cloddish country doctor Monsieur Bovary a bit too pleasant. And Emma Bovary's grotesque death is tidied up. Still, the film conveys the story and Emma's naive romantic thralls. [13 Jun 2004]

Ultimately, it's an instructive and entertaining examination of both the overlooked environmental costs of everyday life and the possibilities for change.

Although there's a twist in this tale, most of it is stuff we've seen before. And Wingard doesn't think of a new way to show it.

Like "Trek V," this would be merely an interesting episode on a TV series, but it would move faster. On the big screen, even with the snazzy ship, credibly sized crew and good special effects, it plods in spots. [6 Dec. 1991, p.15]

It takes an almost bracingly explicit attitude toward issues of sexual intimacy, to the degree that just seeing this film might count as therapy for some married couples. The PG-13 rating is justified, and should be taken literally, though I can't imagine too many parents bringing their kids to this one. Talk about an awkward car ride home. 

To quote a source as authoritative as Francis Bacon -- namely a "New Yorker" cartoon: "On the internet no one knows you're a dog."

I Am Legend has one undeniably cool thing about it, namely the vision of Manhattan as a semi-feral wasteland.

Like dark chocolate -- not semi-sweet, but the exotic, nearly black stuff -- Coffee and Cigarettes won't appeal to everyone. Jarmusch is the 70 percent cacao of contemporary filmmakers, and people who love this kind of chocolate swear by it.

Director Jim deSeve has done an excellent job of providing both historical and personal perspective on a topic that provokes heated emotional reactions.

This one wraps up with a melodramatic finale that doesn't really deal with the issues raised earlier. Nevertheless, until then, it is an intelligently written, well-acted film that deals sensitively with the disorientation of guys who find adapting to peace as difficult in its way as adapting to war had been. [13 Mar 1988, p.06]

Directed and co-written by Ron Underwood, Tremors maintains a good, steady tongue-in-cheek tone while working nicely as a suspense thriller. [22 Jan 1990, p.D5]

Balanced precariously between a horror film and a war movie, but it's so sly and assured that you can't dismiss the allegorical, even satirical undertones that Cortés teases out of Sparling's conceit.

Ultimately, the movie takes its characters, and the absurd ethical dilemma it subjects them to, far too seriously.

The Harvey Girls isn't really anything special, cinematically speaking. This run-of-the-mill Judy Garland musical is notable mostly for its Oscar-winning song, "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe."[10 May 2002]

Never loses sight of the human beings at the heart of the conflict -- no matter what side of the conflict they're on.

One of the best political films of the last 20 years. [16 Oct 1988, p.06]

If you're content to let dream logic take over, a lot can be gleaned from this odd, darkly funny meditation on life, death, love and revenge.

By trying to inflate one remarkable life story into the chronicle of a generation, Daniels fills what could have been an inspirational, personal saga with a lot of hot air.

In their hands [Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton or even Steven Spielberg], Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone might have made as terrific a movie as it is a book. When Columbus got the job, however, it was guaranteed only to be a commercial success.

It's in its aspiration to depict deceit and obsession, selfishness and recklessness, bitterness, revenge and fury that the film's power lies. There and in Clive Owen's sure and powerful hands.

In 1960, British director Michael Powell made "Peeping Tom," the definitive exploration of voyeurism in the movies. The shocking thriller also practically ruined the career of the veteran filmmaker. Although the stalker-centric Alone With Her doesn't quite rank with Powell's masterpiece, it shows enough promise that one hopes writer/director Eric Nicholas doesn't share his fate.

Transcends politics and forces us to consider just what it is we ask of young people who answer the call to duty.

A story like this requires a villain worthy of decades of built up horror and rage, and Christensen provides a thoroughly credible stimulus for the nail-biting events of the film.

Tries less to dazzle you than reel you in with competence and restraint.

Howard Hawks admitted that he and co-scenarist William Faulkner never got the hang of how ancient Egyptians probably talked, but he produced a spectacular epic. [05 Oct 2001]

It's often a vivid film and paints its small niche well, but only in the final passages, when AIDS changes everything, does it feel full-blooded.

If I had to pick one word to describe The Great Debaters, it would be "nutritious."

Puss in Boots isn't particularly deep, nor does it take itself seriously -- it just wants to seek glory, win affection and cash in. Done, done and done.

The performance of Bening (and, quietly, Irons) keeps Being Julia from being too tiresome.

A gripping account of grown-up sensuality, obsession, loss and hope.

At its core, the story is a Mars vs. Venus case study.

Meeting at the intersection of cinema, history and ethnomusicology.

It's not that Bogdanovich's movie doesn't have its laughs. It does. Frayn has a comic genius that is expansive -- he can pile one-liners, character humor and physical schtick on top of one another quickly and deftly. And the cast Bogdanovich has assembled, led by Michael Caine as the embattled director, is up to the demands. But a film version of a play about making a play? That's a step removed. It's a blanket that muffles the crispness of the play. A bridge too far. The mediation of the screen between us and the play about a play is unnecessary at best and a real bother at worst. [23 March 1992, p.C08]

As usual, the director is a wizard at camera movement and more than willing to plunge his audience into unpleasantness.

Digitally shot, the film looks great, and the performances ooze charisma. The biggest star, though, may be Kinshasa itself, a roiling, barely cohesive sea of humanity that seems as if it could serve as a backdrop for some fascinating films for years to come.

Eventually the chemistry between Collette and Church wins out, and Lucky Them makes for a diverting, if forgettable, romantic comedy.

Weaver is hilarious and horrifying.

Moncrieff manages to get beneath the skin of several of these characters, a nifty trick considering what a crowded world she's created. In all, it's a grueling, emotionally taxing, discomfiting film.

If you loved his (Gilliam) older work -- and if you can stand the twinge of pain that beholding the lamented Ledger will surely evoke -- it’s worth a visit.

This being an Italian film, and Gianni being such a hapless, kindhearted aspiring Lothario, make this perhaps the sweetest movie ever made about a guy trying to cheat on his wife.

A movie that tells -- or rather, circles -- the story of the band's formation and abortive career.

Makes the case that Fischer's chess prowess and his mental illness were inextricable. The chess fed the paranoia which supported the chess which drove Fischer deeper into madness, and so on.

Slow, contrived and monotonously grim. [18 Aug 2006, p.45]

The movie's pretty good, occasionally very good. But I also kind of hope they don't make another one.

Salt is hooey, but in a medium in which hooey is the stock-in-trade, it's effective hooey, and hooey with admirable craft, and, most of all, breezy hooey.

That "The Hunger Games" movies lost momentum is hardly a surprise: even "Star Wars" and "The Lord of the Rings" slipped after the second installment. The end feels like a relief for all concerned, and it does feel like the end.

Carrey fearlessly gives it his best shot, but this fundamental schizophrenia strong-armed me out of the film, and left me feeling like McGregor's more grounded performance existed in another movie entirely.

Whereas Carver writes about alcoholics, this movie is about alcoholism, which is completely different.

You get to know each person just well enough to compare them, allowing you to judge as you like; the film, nicely, refrains from moralizing.

A fascinating blend of brand extension and corporate history.

Fassbender plays Magneto as a supercool assassin with a completely understandable set of beefs. I spent most of the movie rooting for him, and would watch a "Magneto, 1960s Nazi Hunter" sequel in a second.

It's a shame The Matador isn't a better movie, because this semi-dark comedy contains one great, cackling, self-loathing performance by Pierce Brosnan.

A tough picture to wrap your brain around.

Dick works best as a catalog of style: It's the story and the acting that are the window dressing.

Richly frightening film.

It's the screenwriting equivalent of those fat substitutes used by snack food manufacturers: the finished product looks all right but the taste is off, and the aftereffects are embarrassing and uncomfortable.

An audaciously unique and exciting film, not as successful as an A-to-Z story as it is mind-expanding as a vision of what the cinema can do.

Paradise: Love, the first in a thematic trilogy, is a sad story about the difficulty individuals face when trying to establish relationships across vast cultural and economic gulfs.

An up-close, engaging and ultimately moving look at Telfair's family, his final high-school season and his decision to forsake college for the NBA.

Hoooooooooooo-hum. [19 Apr 1991, p.R13]

Still, when a director of his pedigree and years brings so much life to the screen, inconsistency hardly seems to matter.

I could see people enjoying Dan in Real Life, I guess -- the scenery is nice and the people are pretty and the songs are cute little emotion substitutes. But Dan? Buddy? It's not all about you.

This final act goes on far too long and devolves into such a miasma of pap that it's clear Stoller had no idea how to wrap things up.

All in all, as products go, The Powerpuff Girls Movie is an honest one, probably better constructed than the trio's lunchbox and a little more reasonably priced than their T-shirts. But it's still a product, not a picture.

Despite the mysteries of the plot, a sitcom-style sense of expectation creeps into Saving Face, which sometimes feels comfortable but mostly serves to spotlight the shortcomings in a script that invents compelling characters but doesn't give them much out of the ordinary to do.

For all Smith's dedication and Mann's abilities, Ali remains a figure too big for even the big screen to contain.

I'd argue that a very good movie could have been great if it had kept to subtler psychological tones.

The word 'samsara' means 'continuous flow of life' in Tibetan, and Fricke and company surely experienced that sensation in making the film, which took them to 25 countries in a span of five years.