Little gem.

It's the complexity of Lurie's moral universe that makes it linger in the mind.

Ultimately, Fortress is a formula picture, an action film that has to resolve itself in a conventional way. Still, until its last five minutes or so, when it takes a slightly silly turn, Fortress is nicely realized and holds your attention. [4 Sept 1993, p.E1]

The sensation is dizzying, and you may feel relieved -- certainly the filmmakers do -- when Chavez re-enters the picture. There's a feeling of order restored, but the depiction of political free fall has been unnerving.

Once it gets rolling, Unstoppable doesn't pause for breath.

A clever, heart-pounding thriller, and a welcome return to form for the director.

The Rainmaker has a mostly plausible story, an engaging young courtroom hero (Matt Damon, Hollywood's new cover boy), a giant insurance company as the perfect adversary and the best supporting cast of any movie this year.

It’s mildly amusing when it should be funny, sentimental when it should be deep and all too easy when it should be unsettling. It’s still some kind of success, but a modest one.

At its exhilarating best, Following Sean is reminiscent of the lauded British documentaries that began with "7 Up.''

It’s a very good movie, and it features a blood-curdling performance from Joaquin Phoenix, in the most frightening portrayal of a violent maniac in decades. One more thing: It’s clearly a response to the times.

Perhaps the movie's use of the past is more than cosmetic in this one regard: Watching Woody Allen revisit his old themes and obsessions already feels like a nostalgic experience. Actually setting the movie back in time deflects this and makes a virtue of a shortcoming.

Heartfelt and passionate and brave in what it attempts to explore.

Black Snake Moan' is a trip to that unfamiliar territory well worth tagging along on.

Happily, Blue Beetle comes closest to cracking the code by grounding its slam-bang sci-fi shenanigans in familia. Based on the third incarnation of a comic book character who’s been in and out of circulation — published by several different companies — since 1939, this movie’s Latin flavor feels fresh, with welcome bits of political bite and funny takes on the genre’s over-familiar conventions.

Entertaining and pleasing for children and parents, and not in the schizophrenic way of most kid's movies, which toss naughty in-jokes over the kiddies' heads.

For those who've never before heard fado, Fados will be a revelation - a window into a music that (like blues music) can be poetic, heartbreaking, melodramatic and redemptive, all at the same time.

Seizes on a primal fear and flogs it for two hours.

An absorbing, multilayered story about the search for a French girl who goes missing with her Muslim boyfriend, starts in a very un-French way: with cowboys, horses, a Marlboro Man-like billboard and country-and-western music.

A charming and wise film.

Taut and suspenseful.

But for director David Cronenberg and the commitment of his actors, A History of Violence might have been a cartoony action film. Its origins are in a cartoon, of sorts -- specifically, in a graphic novel, by John Wagner and Vince Locke.

Great pleasures.

Apart from Lawrence's goofing, Blue Streak isn't much of a movie.

While hardly glorifying abusive husbands, Take My Eyes, a mesmerizing and deeply disturbing film from Spain, makes an attempt to understand their thought processes.

Ignoring these lapses in logic, The Parent Trap' is hugely enter taining and more relevant than most family entertainment.

Compelling.

The film is charming throughout, literally from the beginning of time to the final goal.