Fight Club -- cue the blurb machine -- is a knockout.

If you're a big Michael Jackson fan, you'll love This Is It. If you're not, it's like watching two hours of band practice.

The result imparts something of the emptiness of Johnny's existence and, if you're not partial to either the fellow or the technique, might very well drive you up a tree.

The star, though, is the script, a rare enough occurrence in Hollywood that it merits special note.

It is a colorful tale in an exotic location, with excitingly staged action scenes, exotic desert locale and a richly colorful musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. It is also rich in satirical cynicism about international relations and political expediency. [09 Oct 1991, p.D07]

The music they made is timeless, and Denny Tedesco deserves credit for giving them the credit they deserve and for working through the music rights issues that delayed a theatrical release for seven years.

The art of Miranda July, the former Portlander and hyphenate extraordinaire, balances on the edge of the cunning and the precious, of depth and naivety, of the fetching and (sorry) the revolting.

The movie's still quite affecting -- in part because of its simple, old-school earnestness, but mostly because Stolzl does white-knuckle work behind the camera to make you feel the height, pain and awe of the grueling ascent, and the bottomless terror and exhaustion after everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

In the quest to purge this Cinderella of anything sly or post-modern, though, the filmmakers have eliminated any wit or distinction, making this a pre-modern disappointment.

Funky, scrappy, dishy, screwy story of that star-studded, gilded squad.

There will always be plenty of fictional geniuses solving impossible crimes, but Holmes, it turns out, it where the heart is.

If Ruby Sparks doesn't warm you much or form a seamless whole, it's nevertheless got pieces that you can genuinely admire.

Even with Paul Green's invective echoing in the back of your mind, nothing's quite so heartwarming as the sight of a young person blossoming.

Manages to feel both obvious and oblique: You feel the need to watch it twice but wonder if you would actually be up for it. It moves like a breezy techno-thriller but tangles itself with duplicities and metaphors. You get it, and then you don't get it, and then you wonder if you even care.

If you've got the stomach for it, it's a treat.

There's atmosphere and tension and dark humor and some truly shocking gore throughout. But the positive impression all of that makes pales next to a headscratching finale that is admittedly well-executed but is also undeniably perverse and borderline random. Maybe you'll go with it, simply out of shock. I, alas, could not.

Has many puff-piece moments to it and barely touches the controversy surrounding Tupac's death or that of rival hip-hop impresario Biggie Smalls. But it's engaging nonetheless.

iI’s a film more content to amuse than truly to probe or feel.

Where "United 93" was lean and merciless and got you thinking hard about how you might conduct yourself in a no-win situation, World Trade Center is reassuring.

William Shatner, it must be said, comes off as an insufferable, pompous jerk. Maybe he's jealous. After all, at age 75, Takei is an openly gay Asian American with an overwhelming social media fan base, making him the one who has really gone where no man has gone before.

A solid, twisting, well-acted mystery, but it strains credulity at times, and its ultimate revelations are unsurprising and, when you think back on the whole film, confusing. It also lacks a distinctive atmosphere, shot in an almost TV-style flatness.

If the presence of Cheadle and his handsome pal George Clooney can entice otherwise resistant viewers to learn about the ongoing travesty in western Sudan, then Darfur Now has done its job.

Watching skinny-armed little Will pretend to be the spawn of Sly Stallone in a series of botched feats of derring-do is a treat, as is much of this film.

A modest movie full of decent pop songs, three-dimensional humans and sharp observations about the male mind. It's also full of funny little ironies.

As an action film it roars forward with agreeable, transporting energy.

The re-creation of early 20th-century Beijing is dense and loving, and Hu shows just as much affection for the people who start to trickle into the shabby little cinema.

As I sat slavishly (and needlessly) through the entire end credit roll, it was hard to muster anything more fervent than "Yeah, it was pretty good." Even a clean, white hate would have somehow been more satisfying.

It gives you all that you could ask for when you buy a ticket to a thrill ride.