Lucas knows his fans are un-boreable, un-annoyable and inexhaustible. For an artist, that's more a curse than a blessing.

Getting an inside view on events is fascinating enough to carry the movie.

Still, I Am Woman, while it doesn’t roar, effectively tells Reddy’s story and speaks strongly about the women’s movement and the struggle that continues.

Entrapment is an adventure movie without two brain cells to rub together.

Intermittently funny.

You're in that world, sucked in by the music and the performances. Appreciate the big things, but while watching, also pay attention to the little grace notes that make up a quality production.

The film spends an excessive amount of time on Ruskin’s psychological abuse of his wife, which makes Effie’s eventual redemption feel rushed and out of the blue. But Thompson has once again proved herself to be a talented wordsmith, imbuing Effie with generosity of spirit and intelligence.

Too labored and cliched to incite passion in an audience.

The plot is an obvious parable for modern dilemmas, yet in the hands of the film's creators, and with their graceful use of 3-D, viewers feel as if they're watching how the future might actually unfold, glimpsing a conflict that's destined to take place 300 years from now.

An American reissue, with a fresh new soundtrack and all the dialogue dubbed.

After a slow start, it moves.

It's an art-direction, Dolby-sound, special-effects extravaganza, a grand-scale effort that's more awe-inspiring than completely successful as entertainment.

The movie is probably best appreciated by devotees of the cult director, who has made some good films and some interesting ones (and some that are both): "King of New York," "Bad Lieutenant," "The Addiction." "4:44" isn't quite in that company.

For a documentary about one of the most prestigious opera institutions in the world, The Paris Opera has, maddeningly, very little opera.

The Brady Bunch Movie is fairly innocuous, and ought to satisfy the twenty- and thirtysomethings who grew up on the sitcom. Just one problem: It may be unsporting to point this out, but the whole notion of holding up the Bradys as the ultimate cultural icon of the '70s is basically a lie.

Tolkien’s fantasy world is always worth revisiting, and that makes “The War of the Rohirrim” worthy of watching even if it ultimately doesn’t amount to much once you look past the obvious visual panache.

Art School Confidential exudes confidence as long as it is satirizing a questionable, at least according to Clowes, institution of higher learning. But the film loses its way with multiple subplots, becoming a hodgepodge that isn't particularly hard to follow, but, far worse, provides no compelling reason to bother.

If only Streep would have put down the microphone and let Springfield sing “Jessie’s Girl,” Ricki and the Flash might have had half a chance.

Life Stinks will never stand with the classics -- it's basically a diversion -- but its plea for economic equality is well taken. And Brooks, after years of lousy movies, finally seems back on sure footing. [27 July 1991, p.C3]

Dopey but rather sweet. [30 July 1993, p.C1]

Sparks' strengths include not just a powerful voice but also a radiant niceness, and that becomes part of the story.

A tough internal struggle must take place before one can come forward and admit enjoying The Devil's Rejects, a movie so fundamentally horrible that even its creator has to admit he's basically made a 101-minute snuff film.

The uneven result is definitely not for prudish moviegoers, definitely funny for everyone else, and even approaches poignancy in one or two scenes.

Proceeds at that pace to an ending that is as inevitable as it is poignant.

A film that can’t decide whether it wants to be “Raging Bull” or “Remember the Titans.” In the end, it’s a little too much of both.

It touches, in a way movies rarely do, on some essential current of life.

The fuzziness is suddenly and definitely gone, and Reeves emerges as a mature, charismatic movie star.

It’s never easy to translate visually the inner turmoil of a struggling artist, and “Gauguin” is a prime example of that.