In all that empty space, the film gets a bit lost.

Throw in an unbearably gloomy plot involving overbearing or grieving parents and a pointed commentary on the corrupt, classist nature of modern Romania, and you're in for a downbeat evening. "The Lego Movie," this isn't.

Grandma is a movie that, for what it's worth, gets an A+ on the Bechdel test. Writer-director Paul Weitz may still be cashing residual checks for the "American Pie" movies, but this is his most heartfelt, successful effort since 2002's "About a Boy."

Frustrating, tedious and yet often compelling.

It's inconsistent fun, and it's a little too layered with self-congratulatory irony to be truly transporting.

For a movie with such a brisk pace -- it clocks in at just 76 minutes -- Caesar Must Die has surprising depth, particularly when it comes to the strong performances by the actors, many of them Mafiosi serving time for drug trafficking and murder.

In the end it may amount to little more than an exotic fable, but it is a particularly conscious, wise fable.

The edited footage has an intensity and immediacy you won't find on cable news networks.

Moving and suspenseful.

A Band Called Death is more effective as a chronicle of the intensely close relationship between three musically ambitious brothers than as proto-punk archaeology.

Ruby in Paradise has small flaws. But it also has enough small pleasures to make it a warm-hearted, well-intentioned alternative to noisier Hollywood fare. [11 Nov 1993, p.B08]

It doesn't all work. The energy and the performances by Cannon, Parris and Hudson can't carry a movie that careens from camp to tragedy to farce without taking a breath. Several scenes could have been cut, particularly a long, dumb take on sex and the Civil War that ends with a horny old goat in Stars-and-Bars skivvies.

This film could serve as a potent tool for those trying to change 40 years of public policy.

The only danger with a movie like this is the inevitably disappointing return to more humdrum reality once it ends.

It’s a harrowing and impressive accomplishment (especially considering potential government censorship), and it shows how, in its mad rush toward modernity, China has become a land of haves and have-nots, where income inequality and lack of opportunity have made a mockery of the nation’s purported ideals. Sound familiar?

The film is still a wonderful lark filled with an ingredient most summer blockbusters lack -- likability.

Among the film's highlights are an interview with Grand Wizard Theodore, who is generally uncontested in his claim to have invented the idea of scratching vinyl.

With understated skill and absolute authenticity, the film builds with enough layers that by its powerful ending, you'll feel as if you have been kicked in the stomach.

Gets its hooks into you in ways that are hard to explain or to ignore.

Effective, fact-based melodrama that packs an unexpected emotional wallop.

A winning, grown-up film that benefits from fine, homey performances, a steady directorial hand, and the sense that everyone involved was invested in the story and not just the job.

There are strange variations in the mood of Three Burials that may strike some viewers as flippant. As gritty and real as the business of toting a corpse at gunpoint gets, the tone occasionally veers into farce. But it's never too long before the focus returns to Jones' weathered eyes.

Best Intentions should be engaging for those unfamiliar with Bergman -- and at three hours, it had better be engaging. To Bergman buffs, it is fascinating -- a lively, clever drama of opposites powerfully attracted. [14 Aug 1992, p.17]

It is provocative, smartly made and truly independent.

The film is somewhat scattered in construction, but it's an eye-opener.

Gives just enough to forgive any of its initial flaws and eventually grows on you.

Often-brilliant, often-reverent documentary deconstructs Bukowski's bad-boy literary persona, finds a fascinatingly messed-up guy behind the words.

Even with this curiously limp resolution, I Stand Alone is unforgettable moviemaking, more muscular than anything seen since Jean-Luc Godard still had some spit and vinegar in him. It may not be palatable, but it's played with convincing fury. [08 Oct 1999]