Truly a winter's tale.

Lower your expectations going into Volver and accept it for what it is: a ridiculously entertaining melodrama with loud echoes of "Mildred Pierce" that provides Penelope Cruz with a vehicle for her multifaceted talents.

Most of Widows isn’t felt. It’s a cold exercise, and occasionally a ridiculous one, as when McQueen tries to get fancy, with camera angles that make no sense.

Boys State is the most depressing film about boys since “Lord of the Flies.” If anything, it’s even more bleak, because it’s not fiction and it’s not allegory. No, this is a documentary about actual boys.

Homicide is a haunting picture that nags at you, days later. It provides no neat answers to the questions it raises about the merits of assimilation vs. maintaining one's ethnic, racial or religious identity, but rather captures something of the times. It might not be the most satisfying movie out there, yet there's a sense about it that, years from now, Homicide will seem even better than it does today.[18 Oct 1991, p.D1]

Part travelogue, part narrative and part art-history class. The class is what's best about this pretty decent movie.

It's an exuberant, well- crafted film that gets the audience involved on a gut level even before the opening credits are over.

The movie itself is a worthy thing, too, but it's not as good as Clooney is here, which is to say, it's not great.

First Man is one small step for Chazelle that shows he is much more than a music man.

A minimalist drama that takes its mood from Turkey's wintry terrain and the uneasy relationship between two bullheaded cousins.

It's a film that, in its own peculiar way, forces viewers to question their values and ask themselves how much they're willing to sacrifice for a functioning society, and how much is too much.

The key to enjoying the film is warming up to the heroine, Poppy.

As innocent as a Disney movie -- and a lot more entertaining.

A return to rowdy form for Chappelle.

The issues of aging and familial relationships and the appealing nature of this family would make “Our Time Machine” worthy of a look in any case, but what puts it over the top is Maleonn’s fascinating visual inventions.

Graceful compositions and slow, easy pacing.

A smart and literate effort with a few weaknesses.

Interviews with Pinochet's victims put a human face on the systematic torture that existed under his rule.

It’s a school shooting movie for this particular moment and plays like a dispatch from the front lines. It’s past trying to figure out what these tragedies mean. It just wants to explore how a person might assimilate such a trauma and go forward in life.

Although the mix of buffoonery and earnestness often doesn't work, it's priceless to see director Otto Preminger (who was Jewish) play a peevish Nazi commander who has his boots put on simply for a phone call to Berlin. [19 Mar 2006, p.32]

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.

Chilling, superbly acted.

The energy of the play's best scenes is dissipated in the film version, but they still work. [02 Oct 1992, p.C1]

You don’t see many sci-fi action extravaganzas that are about late middle-aged disappointment, about wondering what it’s all about and whether any of it was worth it. It’s this element that gives The Last Jedi an extra something, a fascinating melancholy undercurrent.

The caper-movie touches and cocky self-awareness may wear thin, but you can't discount the importance, or the horror, of that footage.

Bujalski's writing is so good, and every shot and edit seems exactly right. Hopefully, there will always be a place for a film like this on a theater screen, no matter the whims of the marketplace.

This is human drama at its most intense and universal. This is the rare film that can change the way you think and see the world.

A gentle, sprightly satire that pokes fun at these trendy communards but emphasizes their humanity and fallibility.

Succeeds despite that mismatch of artist and material.

The well-crafted 13 Assassins, a remake of a 1960s samurai film, is one of his best; it shows that Takashi could be a great filmmaker if he'd only slow down.

A meditative state of a movie. While shorter-attention-spanned moviegoers should stick to "The Fighter," this is an interesting and enjoyable entry on the opposite side of the genre.

The Blue Caftan, like its title garment, has a handmade, lived-in quality, an authenticity that marks Touzani — a former journalist making her second feature — a director to watch.

Perhaps the idea of watching Jeff Bridges as a drunken, broken-down, down-on-his luck country music singer in Crazy Heart doesn't automatically sound appealing. But think this: "The Wrestler." With good songs.

An idiosyncratic, oddball movie that is funny and moody.

It’s a master class with a director who profoundly loves the movies, and, in his best work, has shown dazzling skill at making them.

Infused with a dark charm that will appeal to some girls, A Little Princess, based on the classic novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is as near to a mannered, lushly photographed Merchant/Ivory-style film as you'll get in a kids' movie.

It’s a pretty good movie that automatically goes up one full notch because of a single great scene, which is one more than most movies have.

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.

Gentler in tone than the English working-class comedies of Mike Leigh (Life Is Sweet and High Hopes), The Snapper manages to draw laughs from the cheerful vulgarity of its characters without ridiculing them. [17 Dec 1993, p.C3]

If there is no other reason to see An American in Paris than its fabled 18-minute ballet scene -- well then, that, during the last reel, is worth the price of admission. Choreographed by Kelly -- no doubt with a smile -- it is a stunning series of homages to French painters Toulouse-Lautrec, Dufy, Utrillo, Renoir and the like. It is a masterpiece of filmic creations -- nothing quite like it before or since. [11 Dec 1992, p.C11]

Darkly comic tone of heroin-addiction film sets it apart

Solondz ("Fear, Anxiety and Depression") is almost unrelenting in his quirky fixation with the adolescent outsider and he pursues visions of everyday human injury nearly to the point of caricature. But he stops just short, and this amusingly twisted film mixes humor and heart-tugging sadness with a disturbing vitality.

The Ground Beneath My Feet consistently serves as a powerful showcase for the talented Pachner, who manages a performance that is both distant and achingly vulnerable.

Miyazaki is arguably at the Kubrick/Polanski level, where his lesser films still yield great rewards. Even during the moments that don't soar, The Wind Rises continues to satisfy.

Anderson injects such charm and wit, such personality and nostalgia - evident in the old-school animation, storybook settings and pitch-perfect use of Burl Ives - that it's easy to forgive his self-conscious touches.

This character study, which was nominated for two BAFTA Awards, including outstanding British film of the year, is Sharrock’s second full-length feature. That he could make a film so warm and wise early in his career bodes well for whatever comes next.

The language is brilliant, and the laugh lines come so quickly that you'd probably have to watch the movie twice to get them all.

The film takes us behind bars to hear horror stories from prisoners. They're illuminated by a black light to hide their identity. The effect is like looking at an X-ray. Moments like this attest to Padilha's artistry as a filmmaker.

The beauty of Soul is that, just as animation is finding more being demanded of it, Pixar is answering that demand. It is making the case for animation as an ideal vehicle for exploring the grand, the general, the universal.

There's a seething moral core in Amores Perros that uses the canine savagery as an entre to human brutality.

A heartbreaking, powerful drama.

Sing Sing is also a celebration of the creative expressiveness of live theater and its possibilities.

Although the war in Ukraine is still raging, 20 Days in Mariupol is already a historical document. So much has happened in the war in the 14 months since these events, and graphic, front-lines reporting is now ubiquitous. However, Chernov’s team was among the first to document what many say are war crimes by Russian troops, and it provided an early window into the conflict for Western news media.

As a whole, Turning Red succeeds in hitting all the right emotional notes — and its real magic lies in its unabashed celebration of the joyful chaos of girlhood within a proud Asian immigrant family.

Three years ago Tsang made “Soul Mate,” an enchanting tale about female friendship that offered an engrossing look at modern, urban China. Yet, that film isn’t quite adequate preparation for the emotional wallop of Better Days. Don’t think, just close your eyes, and jump in.

What is astonishing about this movie is how all the elements are so deftly mixed - the technology of real sets and people interwoven with the cartoon world, and yet Zemeckis hardly sacrifices a beat in laying out a curlicuing '40s-style thriller. [22 June 1988]

A corny, overblown romance, and while it eventually wins you over with its atmosphere and good nature, it's far from the masterpiece you've been hearing about. [15 Jan 1988]

A gritty but sweet look at young love and family dynamics.

It’s like a Syrian “MASH,” except real.

For the most part, Cowperthwaite keeps the preachiness in check, letting the scientists, former SeaWorld trainers and other witnesses tell it as it is. Indeed, the scary training scenes - uniformly gripping - do most of the talking.

Deliriously original.

The filmmaker’s default setting is to tell each person’s story with dignity, a significant achievement that goes a long way.

After watching Project Nim, a distressing portrait of a misguided 1970s language experiment, you'll be glad you're not a chimp in a cage. But you might want to revoke your membership in the human race, which comes across as a narcissistic, hedonistic, self-absorbed, neglectful, anthropomorphizing and arrogant bunch of hippie-dippy know-it-alls.

Captures an artist who has decided not to burn out, but to fade away with dignity.

The Lighthouse is more than four times longer than a “Twilight Zone” episode, and 100 times worse.

Smart, fun entertainment.

While “Viet and Nam” is filled from beginning to end with outstanding visuals and thought-provoking ideas, it is perhaps too lethargic and, at a little over two hours, overlong. Yet there is still much to enjoy.

On a deeper level -- and this is where When We Were Kings exceeds its expectations and becomes a great film -- Gast examines African American pride.

Vast, beautiful and meticulously detailed.

20th Century Women is not especially dramatic. At times, it eschews drama. Every time the story is on a knife edge and can drop deeper into turmoil or recede back to the normal flows and ebbs of life, Mills chooses the latter. But this time, the strategy works. It feels real.

It's a remarkable film: A gritty, gut-churning, crime thriller based on a true story. Its greatness lies in its unwavering fidelity to human nature and the unstoppable laws of the wild.

The result is a movie that's kinetic yet slow, whose joys are architectural more than spiritual.

Wild Reeds is a sober, heartfelt piece of work, sensitively directed and lovingly photographed -- though slightly dull, if we're going to be perfectly honest.

The movie is a wonderful surprise, cleverly written and executed brick by brick with a visual panache.

Tough, mean and unsparingly honest, Ladybird, Ladybird is the kind of movie that people resist going to, feel edgy while sitting through and then can't shake off for weeks afterward. [31 Mar 1995, p.C3]

If you can stomach the projectile-sputum gags and stapled-eyelid attack scene, it's hilarious.

As impressive as it is geeky. Most of the principal characters look like they haven't seen daylight since "Pac-Man Fever" was on the charts.

In this small and very smart film, Cronenberg does several things at once and makes them all look effortless, capturing various shadings of consciousness and versions of reality.

Dumont makes movies that almost nobody wants to see. That doesn't make him a great filmmaker, but he's a great filmmaker all the same.

Ixcanul provides a window into a culture that we rarely see. But it’s not just an anthropological study — it has a powerful story to tell, too.

To see Come From Away onscreen now — directed by Christopher Ashley, who won a Tony Award for his Broadway direction of the show — is to see a path to mercy and compassion off in the distance and wonder if we can still get there — or if it’s too late for us.

For all the beautiful scenery and Thoreau-like contemplation, Evil Does Not Exist stalls, then implodes.

An elegant study in perversity.

In the end, that just might be the takeaway from the "Up" series, that a 28-year-old, say, has more in common with another 28-year-old than with his own incarnation at 70. Who knows? There are mysteries of life captured within the frames of this film that are eluding our grasp. We're still too close to it.

This is an extremely violent movie, with one long gory scene that's particularly hard to stomach. The great majority of Triad Election is about political maneuvering, but when the conversations end, the blood flows mightily.

Crisply funny and fleetly paced, it's in its quiet way one of the saddest things in the theaters all year.

With Milk, a great San Francisco story becomes a great American story.

Riveting.

Watching the film is like being at a freak show: You feel like a voyeur, yet you can't take your eyes off this Mommie Dearest or her childlike middle-aged daughter.

Enter the Dragon goes far beyond the philosophical, of course. Its best sequences, and the only real reason for seeing it again, involve Lee's phenomenal physical and emotional presence.

This elegant movie never reduces or diminishes its subjects, and leaves us to ponder a remarkable truth - that Ushio and Noriko have an abiding love that four decades of frustration, resentment and rivalry have battered but not extinguished.

What it brings to the filming of a rock concert other than novelty remains to be seen.

The acting is uniformly strong, which says something about King as a director.

This is one of the wisest, slickest and most unorthodox feminist films one could ever hope to see.

The all-time great talking-pig movie, a lovely, intelligent gem of G-rated entertainment that is also rib-tickling funny.

All [Tarantino] has to do is trim a full hour out of "Vol. 1" and a half hour out of Vol. 2, combine what's left and he'll have something not just amusing and idiosyncratic, but outstanding.

Expansive, but succinct. Leigh tells a small story and doesn't try to make something huge of it.

Spike Lee is relevant again. He's necessary again.