Compelling and frequently entertaining.

What makes it interesting is the story that the viewer must put together, of a model who lives her entire life -- or at least what we see of it -- in front of the camera.

It's compelling, emotionally exhausting terrain, and Altman delivers it in cold, blunt strokes. [22 Oct 1993]

Caruso, a very visual director, serves up some surprises and scares, and he's paced his movie briskly. You're out of this disturbing suburbia before you know it, shaken and even stirred.

The best part of the film is early on, when Innis Dagg’s story is enlivened by beautiful color 16mm footage she took in the 1950s and ’60s.

If you can buy the film’s unlikely core premise, you’ll be rewarded with persuasive speculative fiction in all its other aspects. Penna and company make it easy for audiences to do that, while putting four people whom they’ll come to really care about through all kinds of hell.

In his feature director debut, Grant Singer (previously a music video director who’s worked with artists from Sam Smith to Skrillex) adopts a measured pace that lends the movie a somber, mysterious aura. But he breaks that up with smart, psychologically insightful cutting.

You know how I realized I actually liked I Melt With You? I kept talking about it, and at one point, in the middle of mocking it, I accidentally referred to it as "a good picture." That's when I realized, yes, it really is good, albeit in ways that are different from other movies.

At its heart, The Babadook is a story of mother and son, whose relationship ultimately determines whether they survive the demon — or die trying.

The tone is low-key, and Franco never presses the audience. Instead, he lets scenes happen, avoiding close-ups and all other means of exaggeration or emphasis.

Miss Juneteenth, a Texas-shot film appropriately made available to stream on Friday, June 19 — the date of Juneteenth, a holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States — is a rich story of broken dreams, family struggle and emotional triumph that puts black Texas women in the center of the frame.

Portrayals of transgender people in movies and television are a vast and complex subject, but Netflix’s new documentary Disclosure does an admirable job of covering many issues and contradictions a century of mostly insensitive screen depictions have raised.

A remarkable treat. It contains information about the writer heretofore unknown, and though it’s a dramatic feature and not a documentary, it claims to tell the truth, without embellishment. Even better, it was written by someone who saw the events depicted firsthand.

Enlivens the classic premise of innocent-in-the-city by moving its archetypal characters in unexpected directions.

Turning the comic game slightly on its ear and injecting it into a romantic Western setting, Maverick, inspired by the old TV show, plays its ace for all it's worth. Ace, in this case, is fun. [20 May 1994, p.C1]

From the movie’s first minute, viewers will know they’re in the hands of a sure-footed storyteller.

A film that, despite its slight intentions, offers several lovely moments.

Once the focus switches to Venus, whatever is going on with Richard becomes secondary. In her scenes on the court, Sidney is able to convey the double quality of a killer in embryo and a vulnerable kid.

This is the second-best Spider-Man movie yet made. In the previous trilogy, only "Spider-Man 2" surpasses it.

The casting, at least, is magical. Plowright shows both her character's strength and her heartbreaking vulnerability, sometimes at once.

Hillcoat and Cave give us more than an action story. They create a world.

For sure, this is a cause movie - sometimes it even feels that way - in favor of charter schools and against the teachers unions. Still, Won't Back Down is reasonably fair in its approach.

The Truffle Hunters takes us to a part of the world where time appears to have stood still.

Riveting.

The film is sweet. Its observations of life in the aftermath of death ring true, especially for anyone who's traveled the contours of mourning. And although it doesn't rank among Crowe's greatest films, it's a better, tighter, more disarming piece of grief work than his baggy and zigzaggy "Elizabethtown."

In performance and rehearsal clips, Heymann’s saturated cinematography captures the raw physicality and emotion of Naharin’s work, and the way he cajoles, demeans and seduces his dancers.

The mix of comedy and drama is winning; Costner couldn't be better, and the little girl is a find.

A spirited adventure with generous romantic and comic charms.