August Winds is a contemplative, nearly formless depiction of rural life. Mascaro regularly hangs back, adopting an unobtrusive vantage point, letting the moments form so that his characters can live out their lives.

A landmark in animation. [12 Apr 1996, p.AE23]

One of those undeniably beautiful things. The film is, in fact, an encyclopedia of beauty -- the beauty of desire, the beauty of nostalgia, the beauty of music and clothing and smoke and pain, and, chiefly, the beauty of women.

It's a visual feast that only a crack director could provide, and it's mounted within a story and setting that, played utterly straight, might still have made a good movie.

Panic never lets you forget that Donald Sutherland can be one of America's greatest actors.

The Aviator, though, if not prime Scorsese, is the closest thing in a long time to the old Scorsese. What a splendid year-end gift!

A sense of claustrophobia emerges, increases and colonizes the film.

Sirk freighted this material with surprisingly delicate art: gorgeous photography and staging, a fluency of camera work rarely seen even in A-level movies, and an earnest tone evident in the music, dialogue and acting. [17 Oct 1999]

Herzog's drive to bring Dengler's story to a wide audience might have paradoxically caused him to do what he seems normally to abhor: compromise.

Miller's global harmonizing never feels preachy -- he's too busy cramming Happy Feet with enough entertainment for three movies.

Beautiful, thoughtful and engrossing.

A tight little thriller that recalls the good old days of "Fatal Attraction" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle," back when suspicious packages appeared on the doorstep, no affair went unpunished, and the family dog was never safe.

It's also exhausting, despite an engaging premise.

Possesses a tone that wobbles masterfully between whimsy, dread, affection and horror, building on rich performances and an understated showiness to cast a queer and tingly spell.

The resulting film is a labor of love with all the strengths and weaknesses you might expect from such a designation.

The resulting documentary is a fascinating meditation on the different ways nature can be experienced, as well as a fatalistic take on the process of our planet's seemingly inevitable change in climate.

As far as a coherent, hilarious story line, as well as sheer blasphemous glee, you can't do much better than "Life of Brian."

Alexandre Dumas pere's 1844 novel has been filmed more than four dozen times, but this lavish and hilarious rendition is the pinnacle. [21 Sep 2007, p.38]

Although the plot might sound like the stuff of a soap opera, a smart script, strong performances and an ideologically determined lack of filmmaking niceties result in a shattering, deeply felt work.

While the urban texture and the unapologetic work of Basinger impart a sophisticated air to what is essentially a downtrodden-teen-makes-good film, that is, finally, just what 8 Mile is. That's not a bad thing, but it's nothing to rap home about, either.

Ferrific fun and rousing proof that there’s still vital life in an aging master filmmaker.

Baumbach loses his grip a little in the third act and gives Stiller too much babbling and ranting. The denouement at a tribute dinner for Leslie is unsatisfying for all concerned but is redeemed by a coda that assures everyone that happiness is possible in this crazy world.

It wouldn’t be surprising to hear about moviegoers demanding their money back after seeing The Dallas Buyers Club, but not because the film isn’t good. It’s actually very nearly great.

If film is an art, it's because it's possible for somebody to make films like this.

The film does leave you with the lingering regret that you missed a hell of a good party. It is, as the kids used to say, a trip.

Director Bart Layton's film takes us to such strange and emotionally-charged places that we cannot believe that what we're seeing is real, even though it demonstrably is.

Built around Firth’s fine work, A Single Man is a handsome film that, like its slender source novel, is stylish, quiet and sure.

The only scenes that felt "actorly" come when the pair drunkenly crash an ex-girlfriend's wedding party. Otherwise, The Messenger has a verisimilitude rare in films tackling this subject matter.