Park is a visual virtuoso, with imaginative transitions and clever use of special effects wrapped around a sly, effective performance from Lee at the center of it all.

In their best moments, Hark's action movies have a what-did-I-just-see giddiness, as if their choreography were springing straight from a cartoon id. Though I could have done without much of the film's CGI-heavy fakery, "Detective Dee" finds that giddiness more than a few times.

I'll See You in My Dreams takes its time getting to unexpected places and makes you glad to follow along.

Slowly, inexorably and fascinatingly, Jean de Florette glides to a seemingly inevitable ending -- and to scenes of the next installment. [14 Sep 1987, p.C05]

Some of the combat scenes work, including a kitchen-set hand-to-hand battle that's one of the movie's highlights, but more often they feel superfluous at best.

A worthy and compelling look at a unique and essentially American figure.

The movie's centerpiece and peak is the operation itself, which Reichardt depicts with the pulse-pounding patience of a classic heist sequence like that in "Rififi."

Crude is only a progress report of a case that might last until well into the decade, the sordid details of which are still, pardon the pun, spilling out.

It's charming, funny, exceedingly well-made and features enough comically thrilling flying-lizard mayhem to cause your child's head to lightly explode.

By the time the satisfying conclusion rolls around, though, it proves to be much more about the ability of a world-class director to induce such willing suspension of disbelief that even the loopiest narrative developments seem like the most natural thing in the world.

Behind the on-field shenanigans and eccentric personalities, there's a meatier story about the corporatization of sports and the disappearance of the barnstorming attitude Bing Russell took as a virtual religion.

It's quite possible that Titanic is one of the greatest romantic epics ever filmed.

The result is a rare and precious work. The Motorcycle Diaries is an epic road movie with everything you'd want from such a film: laughs, kicks, adventures, pathos, poetry, natural beauty, strange encounters and friendship tested and strengthened.

That this is a documentary, this family lived in New York for decades in almost complete separation from its neighbors, is astonishing.

Like "In the Bedroom," the film is studded with brilliant acting, and it's all rendered with gorgeously fluent technique. The result is a film that skirts cruelty and easy satire for deep, troubling realities -- a nearly thorough triumph, in short.

Packs the power to make you see at least a few corners of the world in a new and bracing light.

For fans of Monk's music, the film is a must-see. [20 Jan 1990, p.C09]

Hers is a sad story, but the fact that she never received recognition during her lifetime isn't part of its sadness.

A witty, frightening, well-acted picture with near-perfect cinematic timing.

With no easy heroes or villains, Startup.com can be a Rorschach test for viewers.

A nearly perfect piffle in an age when hardly any movie seems to know how to play the light notes well.

It's a film that triumphs in small ways and satisfyingly demonstrates how our human nature is based on both the eccentricity of our hearts and the quirky workings of our heads.

Director Jan Hrebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchovsky ("Divided We Fall," "Up and Down") have crafted another well-observed tale, one with no heroes or villains, just people trying to make something of the situations in which they find themselves. And, with a nicely ambiguous ending, it's drama enough.

The whole thing unfolds with sadistic precision, but Edgerton's expert manipulation makes it a fun ride nonetheless.

A fair amount of traumatic stuff happens in 2 Autumns, 3 Winters... But writer/director Sébastien Betbeder's French seriocomic romance still feels light (or emotionally distant, depending), thanks to the film's fusillade of stylistic tics.

It's the most charming and buoyant film Spielberg's ever made.

Hold onto your hats, True Believers! This one's got the most massive, momentous montage of Marvel's merry mutants ever mashed into one movie!

As it stands, it entertains quite a bit, frustrates too much, and leaves you feeling slightly undernourished, like a meal of tasty but not filling hors d'oeuvres.