As a first-time director, Pearce manages something difficult. He creates a tone that acknowledges absurdity, but also consequences. He finds an edge that’s extreme, that’s weird, that’s satirical and that goes right to the edge of farce, and yet the movie is at all points as involving as an intense drama.

The absorbing rags-to-riches-to-rags story — a must for any classic film fan — is told in The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, directed by Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri.

City Slickers is a funny and affecting comedy, with wonderful jokes and a script flashing intelligence in every direction. [7 June 1991, p.E1]

They talk and talk, and somehow it's delightful.

One of his better efforts, not up there in the Vertigo-North by Northwest-Psycho stratosphere, but a cut above his competent thrillers such as Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur and Lifeboat. [19 Dec 2004]

The film deserves some kind of honor for its campy originality, smart and funny dialogue, and provocative yet sensitive look at the making of a film circa 1969.

An inspired mix of spirited family entertainment and harrowing drama.

Lattuada has adapted a gritty neorealist style to suit his dark comedy and is in full command in the final half hour, when he ups the ante in surprising ways.

To think of how people thought and acted just 45 years ago is to realize that the women in this film were the advance guard of the modern era. That makes them important, and they make this documentary important.

The film is as much about the creation of the original show back in 1975 and the genius of the late Michael Bennett, who masterminded it, as it is about the newer version.

Carries a lot of emotional power.

When explored by writer-director Mike White’s expert, soulful script, Brad, against all odds, becomes a sympathetic figure, and the film itself achieves a sort of poetry.

Director Gabe Polsky masterfully documents Fetisov’s triumphs — and sorrows.

The Boy and the Heron is unquestionably a personal vision, with its own internal logic. It has a direct conduit with the mind of its creator, who happens to be a genius and one of the best to ever do it. If this is it for Miyazaki, well, what a finish.

The greatest sexual suspense drama ever made has come to be regarded by many Hitchcock admirers as his most accomplished film. It is certainly his most forlorn, and easily his most mesmerizing. [Restored]

Aided by sumptuous cinematography (Eduard Grau), a haunting score (Alberto Iglesias) and eye-popping production design (Inbal Weinberg) – there’s always a font of interior decorating ideas in an Almodóvar film – Martha’s journey toward the great unknown has everything but a light at the end of the tunnel.

Contains an incest story line that's disturbing but shouldn't scare people away. Nair handles the subject with such grace and sensitivity that it becomes just another element in this complex celebration of family.

Neither a "gay" movie nor a straight one; it is simply a funny one.

Freeway is rude in the way the truth is rude -- only funnier. The movie seduces with its humor, all the while presenting a realized vision of a harsh, absurd world.

Backed by a feral, driving score from Ukrainian folkloric quartet DakhaBrakha, “Porcelain War” makes the case for art as another protective weapon against imperialism. Like Ukraine, the film concludes, the delicate but resilient sculptures may break easily — but are very hard to destroy.

The great thing about Reality Bites is that each of the characters comes across as real, and not some glib concoction by a screenwriter who's watched them from a cloistered distance. Childress obviously knows their world inside out, and shares it with insight and a prickly, original wit. [18 Feb 1994, p.C1]

A strikingly immersive movie, a slow burn filled with subtleties and nuance, with its message nestled in the details as much as the greater story. While other filmmakers have effectively captured San Francisco’s landmarks and topography, story co-writers Fails and Talbot seem to be filming San Francisco’s streets with a microscope.

Anybody who talks about True Romance has to start with the writing. It's dazzling. In scene after scene, Tarantino surprises the audience even while coming up with dialogue that rings much more true than anything you could have anticipated. [10 Sept 1993]

In the person of Cameron Diaz, Mary is an island of sanity, good-natured humanity and genuine sweetness in an ocean of anarchy. Without her presence, There's Something About Mary would be merely sophomoric and tasteless.

One of the consistent pleasures of Knives Out is that, while its style evokes an earlier era, the script is very much a witty response to today’s world.

As the corpses pile up and the cocoons hatch, the spiders become more brazen and finally start invading houses. The last 45 minutes of Arachnophobia is a blast, with attack-of-the-killer-spider scenes coming nonstop. This is not great art, but it's a good time, and the climax is terrific. [18 July 1990, p.E1]

A superb film.

This is one of the wisest, slickest and most unorthodox feminist films one could ever hope to see.