This is a remarkable movie: lovely, slow-paced and almost silent, rich with pathos and deft comic gestures.

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.

Wallace’s 2008 suicide informs the film and Jason Segel’s performance. What Wallace wants to say, tries to say but can’t quite say is that, having reached the summit of success, he sees an even bigger mountain in front of him. His anxiety about holding it together in the face of newfound celebrity is no affectation. He’s frightened of it and probably has good reason to be.

More than worthwhile.

Some of "The Shawshank Redemption'' comes across as outrageously improbable. Yet the film keeps pulling you back with its sense of striving humanity slowly turning the tables against evil.

The performances are sublime, of course, but it's how Altman masterminds the moral conflicts at the core of the story that makes Thieves so powerful. [03 Jun 2007, p.32]

The details feel authentic: The empty Paris streets, the profanation of German anti-aircraft guns atop belle epoque buildings. And Devaivre's adventures provide high tension.

Ultimately Maiden is very much a feel-good movie, a tale of underdogs finding their strength, combined with a character study and a sprinkling of social history. After the Maiden, women in sailing had to be taken seriously.

In the new film, War for the Planet of the Apes — the best of the series, by far — the series’ viewpoint comes into focus, and it’s a lot more intricate and enlightened than some unthinking death wish.

A superior adventure film with a poetic heart.

It's a love story only in passing. And yet the love story is what lingers in the mind and gives energy and meaning to everything that happens on-screen.

Any director who sees Short Term 12 will want to cast Larson in something. This movie puts her on the map.

The new film Parenthood is a challenging, funny, affecting and mostly rewarding effort - like parenthood itself. It makes good use of a large ensemble cast led by Steve Martin as a man striving to be a good dad. [2 Aug 1989, p.E1]

The drama builds and builds until the last seconds and never really lets up. It’s a striking debut from Meneghetti, in his first feature film.

Street Gang is a worthy celebration of a one-of-a-kind program. If you’re not careful, it might leave you humming your ABC’s.

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.

The balance between action and mysticism in The Empire Strikes Back provides fascinating energy. It's as if the kids are given one set of delights, the bravado of battles and elaborate warships zooming through exotic space, and adults are given another, a layered explanation of what it all means in the grand scheme of things. [Special Edition]

It’s revolutionary due to Sadiq’s care and close attention to detail with all of his characters. It’s a love letter to a place and people he knows intimately, and I hope to see much more of his work soon.

A gripping look at the immigrant experience, with small moments as important - and visually arresting - as any on the baseball diamond.

If you have even a passing interest in outsider art, you owe it to yourself to see Marwencol.

Immediately has you in its thrall and doesn't let go -- a reminder of how powerful and moving cinema set in wartime can be when all the elements align.

Rye Lane keeps winning you over by being a satiric-yet-sincere love letter to creative expression as much as to love itself.

If you can live with its blemishes, The Lobster is a bracing experience.

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

In addition to being a visual treat, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a musical whose handful of songs delivers elements of the plot in the manner of a '40s MGM musical comedy. Songs by composer-lyricist Danny Elfman (founder of the rock band Oingo Boingo) are amusingly vital throughout, and even pretty. Andrew Lloyd Webber could take some tips from this guy. [22 Oct 1993, p.C1]

Technically rough and ragged, Paris nonetheless does an excellent job of digesting a rich, multilayered subculture, and breaking it down for a general audience without oversimplification. [09 Aug 1991, p.F1]

One of the most haunting and vital movies of the year.

An entertaining and perceptive film with one big problem.