Woo's hand is sure and his eye, as ever, finds beauty in everything, even death.

A near-perfect movie.

American teens will respond to the directness of the issues here, as well as the film's brisk and risky tone.

Audiard's craft is still arresting, and the film hums with beauty, vigor and blood.

David Lynch's Inland Empire left me grasping for the merest crumbs of comprehension.

In breezy fashion, it introduces us to a handful of crossword savants, the history of crossword puzzles, a number of celebrity crossword addicts...

If Like Father, Like Son had set up a genuine conflict here, this could have been a fascinating, even gut-wrenching, melodrama. Instead, writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda stacks the deck by making Ryota such a highfalutin jerk and Yudai such an exemplar of cozy, loving family life.

It's to the director's credit that despite its characters going off the deep end toward the end of the film, Time maintains its focus, setting up a mind-bending finale.

This film insists on being taken on its own terms -- the sort of demand, in other words, that defines the best art.

A charming but only partly satisfying portrait of its subject.

It's an entirely conceived work of art, dark and hopeless and maybe even callous, but glittering and wonderful in its determination and in its craft.

Solid summer entertainment set in a recognizably real world.

There is life to The Proposition, though, and brutal, pitiless life it is. If it breathed more (and if Huston had spoken less), it might have been remarkable. As it is, it's monotonous, grim and uneven.

The film is whimsical and satirical but not totally a comedy. Despite the occasional Monty Python-esque jab at romantic history, the story of the central lovers is also poignant, a chronicle of bad choices and missed opportunities. [25 Jun 1999]

It's a remarkably mature achievement

Rich in detail, gorgeously shot and beautifully acted, Les Destinees is, in its quiet, epic way, daring, inventive and refreshingly unusual.

As usual in Le Carre's world (and the real one), a measured, rational approach faces an uphill battle against the philistines who really run the show. That predictably weary attitude is both the best — as embodied in Hoffman's performance — and worst — in its weary predictability — things about A Most Wanted Man.

More seriously, Jarecki never quite pierces the skin of this world, capturing its shiny and grimy surfaces but failing to immerse us in its flaws; too often it's like flipping through a magazine story on the lives of the rich and corrupt.

It's no "Fantasia" or "Sleeping Beauty," but it's no "The Rescuers Down Under," either.

A film in which barbs of wit, anger and grief continually prick at you.

It romps along with infectious good humor but continually imparts a sense that underneath all the surreal frivolity lurks a scathing allegory of modern-day Balkan troubles.

Marnie is merely a marginal work by director Alfred Hitchcock, meaning, naturally, that it's superior to all but the best works of almost every other director ever. [02 Jun 2000]

It's hard to recall the last time a big-ticket summer movie delivered so fully on its promise.

This is the sort of film for which the phrase 'movie-movie' was coined -- and coined as a term of highest praise.

With solid performances, competent direction and artfully drab cinematography, the film would be indistinguishable from a Hollywood thriller if not for the Flemish dialogue. It's no surprise to learn that an American remake is in the works.

A funny and sometimes substantial movie that in real life would never have a happy ending.

The people are pretty, the music scenes are well-staged (they're supposed to be crude and corny, right?) and we've needed a silly romance for a while now. But for all its hugs and kisses, the film refuses to embrace itself.

The Matrix slams you back in your chair, pops open your eyes and leaves your jaw hanging slack in amazement.