It is an exciting movie, full of crises and dramatic turns despite an aura of sadness that seems to pervade it.

The spellbinding power of this almost certain Oscar nominee for best documentary comes from its chilling subject matter.

Mainstream audiences will probably be confounded by Drive, while lovers of gritty filmmaking will defend every exaggerated shotgun wound as art. Know which camp you're in before you enter the theater.

Most of the right laughs in most of the right places and some unexpected ones thrown in.

The entertaining new film from Sony Pictures Animation is a nice surprise, and the rare mainstream American kid film.

Lorne makes it clear that nearly everyone in the entertainment industry who is known for creating laughs owes a debt of gratitude to the master.

Miami Blues is offbeat and fun. [20 Apr 1990, p.E1]

It's an amazing story, one that would seem too far-fetched if it weren't true.

When the movie is viewed with fresh eyes, the most captivating feature is this surreal Vegas -- its neon signs askew, as if reconfigured by Andy Warhol, and its preternaturally glistening streets a siren's call to an ever-new batch of suckers.

There is none of the drippy cuteness of ''Star Trek V.'' This is the best sort of adventure story, with good characters and excitement and lots of humor. [6 Dec. 1991, p.C1]

All this happens in an India that is both grim and beautiful: bustling, bureaucratic, colorful, harsh, full of cute children playing, full of downtrodden adults hustling for the next buck, full of life in general. It all feels very real. So does the ending.

In the end, Let Him Go is like a Southern Gothic, only set in the Northwest. It’s just a genre movie that delivers the goods, but the restraint and emotional insight of the direction and the quality of the performances bring it up an essential extra notch.

Miles Teller as Brendan McDonough is a standout, beginning as a dead-eyed drug user, then gradually turning into a responsible adult.

You can love or hate “The Chronology of Water,” but if you don’t come away from it marveling at the brilliance of Poots’s performance, you just weren’t paying attention.

A gentle fable, full of wit and charm.

The filmmakers have wisely turned it into a comedy, and a wickedly entertaining one at that.

Though not flawless, this is a compelling study, in Dogme style, of a wounded young woman who spends her working life spying on others.

The movie is directed by Anjelica Huston, and like a lot of actors who direct, Huston shows an ability to elicit strong emotions from her actors. But Huston also demonstrates a sense of where to place the camera. [13 Dec 1996, p.C1]

Still, despite Olsen and the appealing breeziness of Cumberbatch, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is what it is, a superhero extravaganza with too many fight scenes. But director Sam Raimi doesn’t overplay them, and the creative visuals keep them from becoming monotonous.

The result is not only entertaining but also refreshing, a shameless crowd-pleaser with a healthy cynicism about itself.

If it's ultimately a failure -- and I think it is -- it's still worth seeing, because it's the most ambitious and magnificent failure in recent memory. That, in a sense, qualifies it as a certain kind of "good movie."

At its best, Forrest Gump is a gentle, elegiac fantasy about love and trust.

A very effective primer of an underreported problem.

Original enough to keep an audience guessing most of the way. It has a strong plot that takes surprising and satisfying turns, and there's never really a dull moment. This is the kind of movie that, once you start watching, you have to finish just to see how it turns out. [08 Oct 1991, p.E1]

Provocative.

Sometimes demure, sometimes funny and other times flat-out crazed, Wuornos was effusive and confrontational when Broomfield filmed her just before her 2002 execution in Florida.

As the title suggests, she might as well be on trial for her life. That’s the absurdist but eerily true premise behind this provocative Israeli feature film, which takes us to the world of the Jewish religious courts, a place where only rabbis can decree a divorce — and where husbands wield stupefying power.

Watts is the movie's soul, thoughtful and deep-revolving.