A thoroughly enjoyable three-or four-gimmick comedy.

The back and forth, the listening and reacting between Mirren and McKellen, as each of their characters gauges the other and as we mark the incremental shifts and exchanges of power, is pure pleasure.

Captures one of the wildest, most heartbreaking episodes in Gilliam's career.

Even with its thrifty set pieces and smaller ambitions, this attempt to reboot the series based on Tom Clancy characters does the most important thing right: It almost always feels like a Jack Ryan movie.

The remake of The Last House on the Left breaks the template, taking the 1972 original into an interesting new direction, with bold camera angles, good actors and a script that heaps on just as much character development as carnage.

What Dunham lacks in polish, she makes up for in her ability to observe her generation, with the hardest truths coming at her own expense.

A warning: The pace is very slow in Taste of Cherry, with long takes and leisurely, repetitious shots of Mr. Badii's car twisting through a hilly countryside. Kiarostami is in no rush, but the respect and love he shows for his characters, and the confidence and simplicity of his technique, make Taste of Cherry a satisfying experience.

An idiosyncratic, oddball movie that is funny and moody.

What this uncaring man is doing to her (Ida), he's about to do to a nation of 50 million people. And all of them will hate themselves in the morning.

There’s also a lightness in the tone that yet allows for real emotion and impressive performances. Maggie’s Plan doesn’t quite transcend the limits of the romantic comedy genre, but it pushes at them.

The best reason in years to reconsider (Woody Allen).

Wong Foo is pure fantasy and sets up the cross-dressers as avenging spirits of fun, frolic and frisky style. Like samurai cleans ing a village of its criminal scum, they transform Snydersville from a drab, dusty whistle stop to a wonderland of wigs, sidewalk cafes and spontaneous dance parties.

Ayoade is well known to British viewers for his role as a coddled nerd in the sitcom "The IT Crowd," so it's fair to expect laughs from his directorial debut feature. But much depends on your mind-set; U.S. audiences could have trouble with the movie's less-than-sunny worldview.

Easily could have been mildly funny and phony but instead is really funny and true to life.

If you can find a better time at the movies this year than this wild comic thriller, let me in on it.

In just a short period of time, a weekend hookup tests the boundaries each man has set for himself.

Naomi Kawase’s films don’t hammer toward arbitrary plot points but flow like water, so “True Mothers” doesn’t unfold like a Hollywood blockbuster, or indeed, even most arthouse films. It courses along softly and confidently, with unexpected ebbs and estuaries.

I liked Dave -- bits and pieces of it, that is -- but I think it would have worked better as a dark and fearless farce -- reckless, nervy, a little bit mean. American politics deserve it. [07 May 1993, p.C1]

Reeves’ skills are on glorious display in John Wick, an expertly made revenge drama in which he goes all headshot on lots and lots of bad guys, and it’s awesome.

Amid all the mayhem, a fairly lucid portrait of disturbed child psychology emerges. Although derivative, Chris Thomas Devlin’s script has enough sick, witty ideas to make the fearsome goings-on seem fresh and immediate. At the very least, after watching Cobweb, you’ll never look at a jack-o’-lantern the same way again.

This is an excellent comedy, and the fact that it's made by a filmmaker with even better movies on his resume is nothing to hold against it.

The cold, efficient and really British spy thriller stars a marvelous Michael Fassbender (“The Killer”), a sly Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) and an underused but most welcome Pierce Brosnan, who all help overcome a ridiculous premise.

With Desplechin, it doesn't ever feel as though he's straining to show us things. It's more like we're just hanging out. We're in this house, and by some strange coincidence, every time we turn around, something interesting is happening.

Wondrous performances.

Alan Parker's picture is epic, lavish and fascinating. It is not a perfect screen musical, but it is spectacular and it works.

A sweet-natured reconsideration of one of San Francisco's most vital, if least widely recognized, creative fountainheads.

The star's amusingly inventive performance keeps your attention through predictable early scenes when "Ohio" repeats familiar material on women's sexuality. It's like a continuation of "The Vagina Monologues" to see Liza Minnelli, as a New Age orgasm coach.

Woody Allen's incredible wit is at the heart of all that's wonderful in Mighty Aphrodite, and Woody Allen's incredible ego is at the core of its major flaw.

It’s a somber, serious experience that won’t appeal to everybody, but it’s quite smart and will keep you guessing until its last seconds.

Compelling.

Fraulein works by an accumulation of details.

Never very frightening, but it's clever and fun, with a memorable amount of humor and gore.

Love and basketball -- if you like either one, here is a movie for you.

A tearjerker that earns its sobs with heartfelt emotions.

Snags on the fact that neither story depicted -- not Kaufman's and especially not Orlean's -- is enough to sustain more than an incidental interest.

It’s moving but not maudlin, and there’s humor in addition to compassion.

An amusing bauble.

True to the loose, funky spirit of the artists and their work.

Deep Cover is a sleazy crime picture and a peculiar and twisted moral journey. It's also a terrific movie, and once you trace its lineage you begin to see why.[15 Apr 1992, p.E1]

The most lethal weapon is de Armas herself. She twirls through “Ballerina” with a bone-crunching tenacity. Her and the stunt team more than earned their pay with every kick, chop, punch and glass-smashing body hurl.

A nice little holiday movie.

Dead Man plays a lot of cards at the same time, and Jarmusch occasionally loses his rhythm when he allows his actors their improvisational riffs.

Graceful compositions and slow, easy pacing.

The film holds us rapt not through narrative suspense but through the eerie and demanding spectacle of profound moral courage, of a powerless good person in collision with absolute evil.

The Instigators is unremarkable but consistently amusing, and makes you feel like everyone showed up at the set expecting a party.

A nonstop action picture with a fair amount of laughs, car chases and exploding buildings. [15 May 1992]

This is an important movie, but it’s not a perfect one. It has one enormous flaw, and it’s a testament to the smartness of the writing and the inherent fascination of its viewpoint that it doesn’t wreck the experience: Director Justin Simien doesn’t know how to shape scenes or pull performances from his actors.

The real acting laurels go to Klein, who is both an adult and a child - by turns smart and not so smart, brave and fearful, caring and full of disdain.

When you finally stop laughing, there is something to think about.

Both revealing and evasive.

One of the year's funniest acts of malice.

"Alita” is an action movie, and some of that is who-cares. But the bigger thing about this film is that it makes us think about humanness, what it means, what it is, and what it might be in the future.

Dunye's engaging personality quickly wins you over. She deserves to be a character in a movie; she's more interesting than most.

Offers a thrilling, informative history of a sport-subculture.

The visuals are excellent, featuring a refreshingly small dose of forced cuteness, and plenty of the animals' natural movements.

Delightful.

A smooth, elegiac mood piece.

The Devil All the Time is really a portrait of a place, told through the lives of several people across a span of about a dozen years, and the thing that makes it interesting — from start to finish — is that this place is so brutal and appalling and unexpected in its various cruelties that we cannot stop watching.

Le Quattro Volte may sound like art-house tedium, but in fact it's a movie of grave beauty, serene pace and surprising humor.

Salma Hayek stands out in a comic role as the hitman’s impossibly vulgar, assertive wife. It’s also worth noting that there are lots of car chases here, and they actually aren’t boring. That qualifies as a rare achievement.

It's nothing you'd ever want to put yourself through twice, and yet it's effective in the moment. Shrewdly prefabricated and yet lovingly assembled, it is, in short, the most beautifully made cynical thing I've ever seen.

Gripping.

Underlying the story is sadness, a sense of mystery and a quality of pain. Enjoy the movie for its surface pleasures, but when it's over, it's those subterranean qualities that will keep it lingering in the mind.

The scope of the film can be frustratingly narrow. But even this limited view into the events of the Maywand District murders is gripping cinema.

Fortunately, !Woman Art Revolution isn't a stuffy museum piece. It's an important documentary, sure, but it's also playful and engaging.

War Game is one of the more timely and disturbing movies of recent months.

It would be nice if there were more movies like this, but few have the talent to make them this well — to take a human scale story and make it feel, not bigger than life, but as grand-scale as life actually is.

An enjoyable if fairly predictable film.

Though Craven satirizes horror cliches, he also knows how to cut through them and do new things. Throughout, the action comes unexpectedly and quickly.

When you see a director going for that lump-in-the-throat mood, instinct takes over and you want to dig in your heels. Sometimes it's best just to let yourself be swept away.

The film has a sweetness that stops short of sentimentality.

As is appropriate in a well-crafted and meticulous movie, the acting is strong down the line.

Cunningham's work is about seeing and teaching us how to see, and that should be plenty for us.

This is an irresistible throwback to not only old-school horror, but old-school television.

The result is a gutsy little picture and a nice slice of life.

This is the heart-rending true story of a man with a seemingly benign preoccupation that turned into something close to madness and brought him to a terrible end.

That's Entertainment! III aims mightily to please, and it's a fascinating, unpretentious journey through a garish, opulent, often breathtaking American art form. [13 May 1994, p.C3]

The beauty of Duck Season is its insistence that profound human experiences can arrive slowly, in incremental packages, scattered over the course of an average Sunday.

There is plenty that’s wrong with it, and there’s plenty that’s right with it. But the truth is, in the moment, no one is balancing pros and cons. I just loved it. It’s a film that combines an overall feeling of modernity and relevance with the glow of old-time glamour.

As played by Douglas, he is a man with a free flow from his spirit through the instrument. It's instinctive. He becomes involved with two women, and this is where the movie could become hokey, but it doesn't. [12 Jun 2005]

In this last passage Longley shows a poetic, almost elegiacal artistry. After two years, he might not understand the Iraqi people fully, but they have won his heart and mind.

It would be nice to say that Blast From the Past is, but it ain't exactly. Half-blast is more like it.

Quite remarkably, “The Next Level” actually does manage to level up — both in terms of different landscapes and scenarios and surprising new characters (and actors to play them) — ably matching its predecessor for emotional investment while exceeding it in ambition.

You're under the thrall of a new peculiar couple. Both actors appear to be having fun outmaneuvering each other on the ice and onscreen.

The important thing is that Clark has found a new way to be creepy, which isn't easy. In the process he has created something irresistibly watchable, the kind of original piece that might mean less but reveal more than its creator intended.

Come True should be an exhilarating discovery for anyone it doesn’t put to sleep. But even if you do find yourself nodding off a little during this deliberately paced, low-humming, sci-fi horror movie, that means it’s working, too.

Here and there, there are moments when the energy dips, but what carries the film from scene to scene are the truthful performances and the genuineness of the storytelling.

It’s also a film with horrific shots of open graves. By all means see it if you have the inclination, but do be aware of the experience you’re letting yourself in for.

It's the speed of love, not the speed of light, that occupies Adam, a small, sweet movie about one man's widening cosmos.

The film about violence and retribution is a tough piece of work, subtle in some ways, obvious in others, viscerally affecting throughout.

Mesmerizing documentary.

Favoring precision filmmaking over cheap thrills, with a vibe more Alfred Hitchcock than Freddy Krueger, Red Eye establishes two intelligent characters and lets audiences sit back and enjoy an entertaining battle of brains and wills.

It's an excellent movie for kids, because it is about how amazing children can be.

Some films are harder to watch than others - not because they're bad, which makes for a different sort of painful viewing, but because they touch on areas of such profound moral discomfort that the mere act of watching makes us feel complicit. We feel like gutless witnesses to a crime. And that's what makes Compliance such a hard thing to stomach.

Sexy, surprising romance.

Pike’s Colvin is brave, but she’s not tough, and, scene by scene, she reveals more and gives more than she probably means to.

The Rodriguez segment is terrific; the Tarantino one long-winded and juvenile.

For the most part, good food and good cheer are the order of the day here, and the chatty, old-school Ziggy serves as a reliable — and touching — tour guide.