Needs to be seen and savored.

May hit a few wrong notes, but it strikes an emotional chord.

It's that compelling sense of mystery, of the endless search and its undercurrent of loneliness, that sets this great filmmaker apart.

A compelling, sympathetic portrait.

An elegant-looking picture, carefully made and beautifully put together, but when the gloss wears off, you're left with an experience that doesn’t quite satisfy. [5 Oct 1990, Daily Datebook, E10]

Devotion earnestly tells that story in a stolid, straightforward manner, flying admirably high while knowing when to remain grounded.

The combative, off-putting Dark Horse features many of writer-director Todd Solondz's usual preoccupations: misery, complexity, stunted emotions, misplaced dreams.

Deliciously witty and entertaining… A first-rate thriller, one that's likely to generate as much word-of-mouth as “Alien,'' “Carrie'' and “Psycho'' did in their time. [23 Aug 1991, Daily Notebook, p.F1]

Creed II can’t be new this time out, but it does prove that the characters and relationships introduced in the first movie have staying power. People can keep making these movies and no one will mind.

What makes Ben Is Back different is that, even if this kind of pain is completely outside your own experience, you’ll feel some of it watching this movie.

Rush is dour, and its danger and its spectacle of mind-melting become humdrum. Still, the film is well-acted and is painstakingly accurate in details. [10 Jan 1992, p.C3]

At the end of the day, Wiener-Dog seems to be saying that life is mundane, then you die. It’s not the stuff of Hallmark cards, but Solondz has a way of making it palatable.

If you watch “Pamela, A Love Story,” you will probably discover a few things: that you like Pamela Anderson more than you realized, that she’s probably nicer than you think, that she’s an open book, that her sons are eminently normal and proud of her, and that she has some of the worst taste in men of any woman in public life. (She makes even Liza Minnelli seem lucky in love.)

Obviously, Barrymore is not ideally cast outside modern times, but her presence is so good-natured that she makes an audience want to work with her.

Keaton is fun to watch — fun and a little bit eerie. He plays Ray as all drive and no soul.

Mulan is a spirit lifter, and though it doesn’t arrive as planned, it could not arrive at a better time.

Sigourney Weaver is so daring and amazing, her veracity is at times painful to behold.

It's a movie for audiences who think exuberance in movies is more important than sense or logic and who can laugh at a movie and like it at the same time.

Sarsgaard and Jones are good actors, and both are fine. The real star, though, is sound designer Ian Gaffney-Rosenfeld and his team, who bring a depth and dimension to the story that sorely needs it.

It's a special movie that can make you laugh out loud numerous times at gross comedy and then make you think and feel something, too. There’s also something to be said for a movie that seems like the most fun these actors ever had.

Compared with other movies, Seven Psychopaths is clever and inventive enough to be considered a weak success or a modest failure, the kind of effort that usually gets damned with the faint praise of "not bad."

The script stays on safe, formulaic ground, but it’s effective — and somehow breathes new life into a franchise that had become a junk heap.

Perhaps the best teen date movie ever set in the year 1914, "Tuck" represents a brave leap against the tide. No sex, no car crashes and minimal violence. It just might be a hit.

His (Seidl) camera is shocking in its intimacy, his film surprisingly casual in its depiction of extreme behavior and the randomness of violence.

A fine example of how anime uniquely contributes to world cinema.

Phantom Boy has a cute, comic-book vibe to it, a visually pleasing style and a fast pace. It’s fun, for sure.

For a film that depends so heavily on talking heads, it has both a dramatic arc and a sense of character development.

One-half of an unremarkable war movie, followed by a touching story about the importance of animals in people’s lives. Fortunately, the stronger part is saved for last.