Woo's camera is easily the star of the film -- poring over Van Damme's cheekbones and chest (and groovy new locks) in an effort to make an epic character of him, caressing shotgun barrels and split lips, expanding and contracting time like Silly Putty. [20 Aug 1993, p.AE17]

Director Steven Shainberg makes something draggy out of something that wants to be light. It's got wit, but it's also earnest, and in proportion to those two traits it wins and loses you.

It's an odd, overly long picture, filled with too many pauses but dotted with just enough funky band sequences to keep you interested.

The film holds charms for everyone but in a very unusual way: If some audience members feel cheated at the halfway mark, others will feel that the film is finally getting started. Nifty!

Until it goes off the rails in its final 10 or 15 minutes, Wendigo, Larry Fessenden's spooky new thriller, is a refreshingly smart and newfangled variation on several themes derived from far less sophisticated and knowing horror films.

Washington makes it fun, which is about the best it could hope for.

Seems likely to stir rebuttal from historians, especially those on the other side of the pond.

If you're willing to have your patience tested, Twohy and his cast reward it.

Not only did surviving vets get to see their World War II exploits (in the September 1944 Arnhem debacle) played out spectacularly for all the world to see, but several got to coach the actors playing them. [28 Dec 2001]

It should be noted that Walk Hard is aimed at a fairly specific sort of movie subgenre -- it's practically an extended "SNL" sketch -- and it doesn't produce belly laughs so much as steady smiles of recognition over how accurately it's nailing its target. But it really nails that target.

Young & Beautiful is mysterious and erotic, though the ending may leave some as cold as Isabelle.

Even though it largely succeeds in putting a civil face on some unpalatable material, it lacks the heat and suppleness of the best Shakespeare on film.

Scott's cast is like a grand orchestra with various performers filling the roles of instruments: Thewlis a wise, ironic oboe; Neeson a stout cello; Norton a slightly battered flute. As it happens, the piece they're playing is a piano concerto and the keyboard -- that is, Bloom -- isn't big enough to match.

You see, in "Jesus Is Magic," Sarah Silverman plays "Sarah," a self-absorbed Jewish American Princess who also happens to be casually, cluelessly racist.

In this loose adaptation of Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla, Ingrid Pitt became a Hammer favorite as a lesbian vampire. This has a few nude scenes and Cushing; something for everyone. [22 Aug 1977, p.38]

Even as the film sometimes veers into unproductive sidebars, there's a masterful tension to it, Alcazar is wonderful, and the final shot is a stunner.

They have been true to a classic source, using Adams' language and finding just the right actors, sets and costumes to flesh out his vision. Only the most persnickety cultist won't appreciate the effort.

Handsome and perky and built around a story so simplistic that it almost feels like it wasn't written down.

It's a triumph of the film that it manages to make Jeffrey Dahmer a human being -- at least a member of the species -- without ever bending toward empathy with or excuses for him.

There are many merits to the picture -- it's wonderfully shot and boasts a beautiful performance by Eul-Boom, who acts in gestures of subtle dignity and compassion. But it's questionable how we're to take actor Seung-Ho.

Like last year’s vaguely similar “Killing Them Softly,” “Furnace” reeks of '70s-inspired, downbeat, politically conscious genre filmmaking. And its cast is composed of hard-working, seemingly omnipresent actors who understand what Cooper’s after.

Made with a slapdash non-style that doesn't seem quite lame enough to have been intentional, this aptly titled low-budget horror comedy serves up tame amounts of both guts and gut-busters.

But as the story takes some surprising turns, it works like a slow infection: Patient audience members may find themselves awakening to the story in much the same way the characters awaken to their own capacities for tenderness.

Its heart is never anywhere but in the right place.

Whatever the interpretation, Stoppard and Wright have demonstrated that Anna's saga has lost none of its power.

Whereas "Liaisons" mixed cruelty, wit, sensuality and drama into a deliciously tart frappe, Cheri is pretty, tepid and dull.

The Marquis de Sade makes for entertaining screen time, as the jovially subversive "Quills" proved a few years ago. For a more subdued version of the infamous writer's life, there's French director Benoit Jacquot's Sade --praised as the more "realistic" of the two and criticized for being dry and overly intellectual.

It offers a rare look at the everyday life of a spiritual leader, so that even if Yeshi's dilemma never seems that urgent or vital, My Reincarnation remains a compelling, universal film.