There's no pretending this is a perfect movie. Yet I doubt I could have enjoyed it more if it were. [25 Nov 1992, p.E1]

One of the best films of the year.

A Haunting in Venice is no downer. The script by Michael Green (“Logan,” “Blade Runner 2049”), who also wrote the first two Branagh Poirots, is at times ingenious, and he wrote a great part for Fey. As the mystery novelist Ariadne, a stand-in for Christie, she brings nice comic touches to a performance that threatens to steal the movie.

Rachel Weisz - in what has to be the performance of her career, and there have been lots of good ones - plays an intelligent woman in the grip of a lust that's too big to handle or suppress. She can either ride the tiger or be devoured.

So wonderfully odd, even spiritual, that audiences won't be able to do anything but smile.

A couple of other odd moments to savor: Lucky, seeking a crossword answer, reads a dictionary definition of “realism” that’s perfectly to the point. And listen as he plays “Red River Valley” on the harmonica. Either one is a great way to remember Harry Dean Stanton.

In some ways, this is "The Graduate" gone to "Lord of the Flies."

Writing With Fire, directed by Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas, tags along with these remarkable women as they go about their work. Viewers sit in on editorial meetings and training sessions, and go out in the field...It’s well worth seeking out.

The film's final words are simple and to the point, and come from the retired cop, Seymour Pine: "You knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that?"

It doesn’t make cows into human beings. If anything, for some 90 minutes, it turns us into a cow. In doing so, it shows us — in a way that we actually feel it — how amazing it is to exist.

That’s a strength in this documentary. It becomes clear that it’ll take a strongman to bring down a strongman, at least in this case.

Visually mesmerizing, lyrical and with a unique cadence, “Is God Is” is a one-of-a-kind experience. It’s angry and yet imbued with wry, fatalistic humor.

Art is either alive or dead, and this movie is emphatically and exuberantly living, energized by what can only truly be described as love. The movie’s love is for the place, for the characters and for all their dreams. In movies, as in life, love is rare. It makes everything better, and it must be respected.

Morgan finds the right elements of action and character through which to make history leap off the page.

None of these issues are fully resolved, but just enough ... and that’s what makes On Golden Pond cinema gold.

Everyone has a story from childhood that remains vivid in memory, and that feels important enough to immortalize in art. But few people have the ability to get their story out from their minds and onto the page, the stage or the screen. Yet when that does happen, and when it’s done right, you can get something original and heartfelt, such as Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical Belfast, one of the glories of this year’s cinema.

One of the smartest and most impassioned films about Christianity in recent memory, though to say that might give the wrong impression. In tone and strategy, the film is low-key and subtle; and the story can be appreciated both for its surface qualities and its deeper intentions.

Green Card demonstrates that explicit nudity is not necessarily an essential ingredient in creating an erotic atmosphere, but that it does take a director's sensitive understanding of the various ways in which emotion creates desire. When that understanding is combined with a sense of the human comedy, it's cause for celebration. [11 Jan 1991, p.E1]

Spotlight one of the best movies about journalism ever made, at once gripping and accurate. It doesn’t just get the big things right, such as how news stories evolve, but the small things, such as what offices look like and how staff tends to react to a new boss.

Such are the timeless joys of the books (and now the movie), this sparkling absurdity and knack for buckling swash under the worst of circumstances.

A unique and hilarious British comedy.

Riveting.

Descendant isn’t just necessary. It’s urgent.

A larger-than-life resonance.

Addams Family Values is so much better than the first film -- partly because Sonnenfeld, who made his directing debut with the first film, has refined his directing chops, but mostly because Rudnick has contributed a delightful, mock- macabre script. [19 Nov 1993, p.C1]

All told, the best ensemble cast I've seen this year.

A dark comedy that confirms Diablo Cody as a screenwriter of importance, eliminates the last shred of doubt that Jason Reitman is a major director and gives Charlize Theron her best showcase since "Monster."

A viewer may even blink his eyes to be sure the turn of events is actually happening.