The movie is well-crafted and finely acted (including by the non-actors László and András Gyémánt as the creepy, affectless twins), but it never comes up with a new way to communicate its sadly familiar themes.

A clever and affecting thriller/comedy about a subject that absolutely cannot be written about in a daily newspaper or website that's for a general audience. The film is a giddy pastiche of styles -- slasher picture, faith film, social satire, teen romp, '50s atom bomb monster movie -- and it makes you laugh and squirm and grin in appreciation.

Space Jam is a high-energy comedy that mixes live action, animation, cornball storytelling and rowdy humor into an energetic, gee-whiz confection that will probably delight just about everybody. [15 Nov 1996, p.20]

A kinda funny, kinda charming movie about finding out what really matters.

In Little Buddha, the Italian director offers an utterly sincere, respectful introduction to a religion that is, for people raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, largely a mystery. [27 May 1994, p.21]

It's fine ensemble work, but you nevertheless grow itchy wishing Roos had focused it a little better.

Godfrey Reggio's Powaqqatsi is just like his Koyaanisqatsi, only different. Its dreamlike mix of forceful imagery and Philip Glass' surging, unique music is the same, but the dream is different, and Reggio uses different techniques to incarnate it. [08 Jul 1988, p.F13]

May not carry great emotional or intellectual weight, but, in a slim and fetching way, it's peachy.

A charming, funny piece of wish-fulfillment for young girls -- and, if you're much older than that, a disturbing critique of modern male sexuality.

Humor and humanity keep The Boys Are Back from being a cloying mess.

Even if her turn in Bright Days Ahead feels overly familiar, especially after Deneuve's recent "On My Way," Ardant is still possessed of the same Gallic poise and presence, and generally a joy to watch.

The result calls to mind “Lord of the Flies” and “Children of Men,” even if the film’s second half is much less compelling than its first.

Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance alone makes it worth giving your "Full Monty" DVD a rest and heading out to Kinky Boots.

The ensemble can't bring enough, though, to overcome the unoriginal setup and predictable story arc.

Decent performances aside, the only interesting bits involve Geoffrey Rush as a chemistry professor who enables their self-abuse.

In a movie that strives to offend with every spat profanity and cruel insult, the most shocking thing about Bad Words is that it expects us to care about its main character at all.

As a picturesque mood piece, Flesh and Bone is haunting and effective. As a movie, though, it doesn't quite get to where it wants to go. [05 Nov 1993, p.AE17]

There are small pleasures, but not many. It especially underwhelms when you consider how Penn seemed to have found a new paradigm for this now-hoary comic form.

Minkoff lets the fight scenes go on for a while, which is nice, and all the best bits are in the middle, when Jackie and Jet spend a lot of time playing off each other.

The chief attraction of Albert Nobbs is the acting.

Goes overboard in its presentation of supposed reality.

A suffocating quality stifles it, a sense that we're watching artistic excellence and important ideas being enacted rather than realized.

The last time Jane Fonda acted in a French-language film, it was Jean-Luc Godard's radical 1972 effort "Tout Va Bien." It's fitting, then, that she fluently plays Jeanne, one of five aging leftists in this slight, but never frivolous, tale.

Bees is a movie in which a bunch of powerful African American women get their lives upended and in some cases destroyed so a little white girl can feel better about herself.

The parts of "Run Ronnie Run" that advance the minimal plot can be painful to sit through, but the jokes scattered along the side of the story often are hilarious. [19 Sep 2003]

Be warned that this is a movie literally awash in blood and graphic violence.

By and large it's formulaic and dull.

A bit of exotic neo-noir, clunky in parts and long, but often engaging and artfully atmospheric as well.