If you want to fall in love with Catherine Deneuve, don’t start with her youth. Start with her here, in her 70s, and then work your way back.

As a cop movie it's entertaining enough, but as a social commentary it comes up short, becoming self-conscious and preachy. [27 Apr 1990, p.E1]

A sleek, intelligent thriller.

Matt Damon's old-fashioned, brilliantly calibrated character turn as a corporate schnook-turned-whistle-blower; and Marvin Hamlisch's retro-groovy score. For the movie's first hour or so, the pair of them together make for four-star entertainment. The last half hour, not so much.

In the end, the most valuable aspect of “Cyrano” is that it shows that Peter Dinklage can do anything.

That Hossein Amini, in his first outing as a director, kept all three of these well-known actors in perfect balance suggests a filmmaker who knows how to steer a performance.

The movie becomes inventive in new ways and even cheery. It’s a true delight.

The young actors are adequate, but they’re not intrinsically interesting, so their interior movements hold no fascination. With that in mind, The Kid Who Would Be King should have been an hour long, but an extra 20 minutes, just to stretch it to feature length, would have been forgivable. But a full 120 minutes for this was just borderline crazy.

Sitting through Diggers is so tedious that you might find yourself envying the clam diggers. At least they get to be outdoors.

In the end, Crash lacks a cumulative impact. It takes audiences to new places, but we've all been to similar places, and we walk out knowing no more than we did walking in.

It’s obvious that this is a well-intentioned, sensitive labor of love, and Hooper’s strategy of keeping it safe is bound to bring in folks who might otherwise avoid such material. For the rest of us, we must settle for a film that is solid but never quite soars.

It’s not a movie that will make you tired, but lack of ambition can sometimes be a strength. This is a comedy-thriller made simply to please in the moment, and it does, for almost every minute of its 100-minute running time.

Don Jon deserves praise for wearing its message lightly and yet for daring to present such a lecture in today's Internet-drenched environment. Gordon-Levitt may be blithe in discussing pornography, but his movie nonetheless asserts that porn is addictive and destructive, that it intrudes on intimacy, and that it short-circuits the capacities for interaction and also, ultimately, for pleasure. That's a serious subject and a committed viewpoint, handled with wit and intelligence.

The first half of White Palace is done so well that it's tempting to overlook the fact that once the picture gets its two lovers together, it has nowhere to go -- and it goes nowhere for the last 50 minutes. [19 Oct 1990, p.E1]

The only scene that takes a stab at saying something about the root causes of the violence is the weakest. At a poorly attended community meeting called by the police to urge residents to speak up when they witness a crime, one black Vietnam veteran angrily mentions the lack of jobs. [15 Apr 1988]

A silly Hong Kong action flick from actor-turned-director Corey Yuen, fits nicely in the "bimbo fu" genre.

A must-see for anyone still coming to terms with the chaos in Iraq.

Routine, genial sports movie.

Charmingly quirky.

Thus, we find ourselves watching an ice-cold movie about competition that contains not a shred of rooting interest.

His affable, regular-guy shtick works well here, and he scatters the movie with such gleeful ads for his sponsors' products that, if his documentary work ever dries up, his next career choice is obvious.

A great movie was within reach with Judy — the new Judy Garland biopic starring Renee Zellweger — but the producers and creators made an epic mistake: They didn’t use Garland’s actual vocals. Instead, they let Zellweger pinch-hit for Babe Ruth and ended up spoiling the movie.

As prim and dreamily romantic as an old Doris Day movie -- and a genuine eye-pleaser photographically -- the new romantic comedy I.Q. is one pokey little film that refuses to get up and dance. Or sing. Or do much of anything but be mildly pleasant. [23 Dec 1994, p.D1]

The movie takes on a somber, fitful atmosphere of straining epic proportions. But it strays into an episodic bog that leaves it gasping for dramatic life.

Kung Fu Killer is like a roundhouse kick from the past, a satisfying, old-school martial arts film that has a ’90s feel to it.

In 2009, Kholoud Al-Faqih became the first female judge in the Palestinian Shariah (or religious) court system. As Erika Cohn’s fascinating documentary The Judge shows, al-Faqih has fought for justice for Palestinian women ever since.

The Art of Rap was made by a hip-hop fiend for hip-hop fiends. I fit the description, and it's difficult for me to approach the film as an outsider. But if novices can make it through the barrage of interviews with artists they don't know, they'll learn plenty about a craft still grossly misrepresented by the mass media.

Truth is a journalism horror story, something like “All the President’s Men” but with the wrong ending and plenty of blame on all sides. It is one of the most frustrating speak-truth-to-power tales ever put onscreen, because it dares to show how that usually works out: Power wins. Big.