Gabrielle borders on the manipulative, but Archambault’s refusal to shy away from the tougher questions the narrative raises keeps it from being swallowed by its own sentimentality.

Sincere, delicately funny, a little staid, a little precious, and more interested in the ebb and flow of the heart than in the dubious rewards of sensational narrative twists.

The problem here is that while some of Mann's work is overwhelmingly great, the sum of it simply never compels.

With a predictable and borderline manipulative plot, Tsotsi depends on strong performances for its impact, and its cast delivers.

Wild demonstrates that even a workaday movie can become something special when blessed with once-in-a-lifetime casting and a couple of dozen hilarious one-liners. [19 Jun 1998, p.32]

It's long, like life, but like life it continually fascinates.

Rodriguez, who never acted before auditioning for the director, is utterly convincing, fluid and determined and jaded and wild like any teen-ager, but with a bracing spirit and a shocking store of ferocity.

Owning Mahowny may at times feel futile in its colorless, disheartening subject matter, but that's the point -- to see how barren Mahowny's life becomes. Hoffman gives the film relevance.

It is affecting, accomplished, witty, poignant and memorable.... Unstrung Heroes is one of the year's best films. [22 Sep 1995]

Oswalt sells Auferio's pasty indecision and makes him a more sympathetic figure than he has any right to be.

Whether Waddington's film comes across as hypnotic or boring, mythic or pretentious, may depend on the viewer's mood or tolerance for quasi-allegorical storytelling. But, as the women in House of Sand learn, patience can sometimes be its own reward.

Despite some of its more rickety story elements, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is possibly the studio's best action film and the one most able to stand on its own since the original "Iron Man."

If it happens to lose you as you wander through this strange land, at least it does so to the accompaniment of captivating visuals and music.

A spry and appealing film that throws off comic sparks with aplomb.

It's not afraid to be funny, tragic and decidedly female.

Lohan has a fresh presence; in a world of pale blond princesses it's a relief to see a freckled redhead who looks like she eats occasionally. A pleasure, too, to watch a young actress accomplished enough to play not only a punky high schooler, but a punky high schooler with a middle-aged woman trapped insider her.

Merry Christmas is long and ponderous, but for a few moments, its heavy hand is refreshingly light and agile, and you feel something other than frustration.

Gets behind the armor and the camouflage to give viewers a clear if brief view of the men and women who fight and die under the American flag every day in Iraq.

And while it may be true that Almodóvar doesn't have Hitchcock's way with terror, it's not clear that Hitchcock could leave the real world behind so wholly and convincingly as Almodóvar does here.

There are fine actors at work here. Chow is quiet and cunning, Gong Li is haughty and cold-eyed, Chen Jin is sturdy as a ghost who appears out of the past, and Gin Junjie is vividly bratty as the youngest, and most underappreciated, prince.

There's visual poetry here, in small doses, but it doesn't take long for one's patience to run out.

A highlight of Sunshine Superman is archival footage of Boenish attaching a homemade ladder to the side of the cliff, extending it 20 feet out into nothing, climbing out and sitting on a bicycle seat, and facing back toward the cliff with a movie camera.

The exquisitely exact photography and sound design represent the highest level of craft of Van Sant's career.

This fascinating and occasionally transporting film never quite transforms into something really great.

Just because it's how they did things in the old country doesn't excuse clinging to these outdated, oppressive traditions, even if Ravi manages to negotiate them with surprising good humor.

It's a splendid ensemble, equal in almost every way to the fine, probing script.

Elliott has come up with an ebullient entertainment propelled by garishly jaunty musical numbers, adroitly handled comic banter and an optimistic faith in people's ability to roll with the punches. [26 Aug 1994]

It's all polished and slick and credible, but it never truly engages. Perhaps it's because Irving's story is well-known; perhaps it's because of the script's repetitions and tangents; or perhaps it's simply because Hallstrom himself is ambivalent about his protagonist.