The constant shifting between today and years ago is, in and of itself, powerful.

Paul Thomas Anderson is getting there. He is a great director of scenes, not of movies, but in Phantom Thread he has devised a film that hangs in from start to finish, his first since “Boogie Nights.”

Actually, Mom is the essential difference between Wahlberg and Caan. Caan has the glow of mother love on him. Wahlberg plays Jim as having made the adjustment to a lack of love, but in a twisted way. He's gambling now to see if the universe loves him.

The funniest movie so far this year.

A bit of fluff expertly made and a hoot to watch.

Vast, beautiful and meticulously detailed.

A love story that gets the single male culture down so honestly and unapologetically that it can't help but push the boundaries of political correctness.

An old formula made fresh.

Deliriously original.

A movie that eliminates Hollywood gloss and pop cliches -- and in their place offers an honest look at young love and its pitfalls.

Director John McNaughton does not shy away from depicting Henry's acts of violence, but he also has not designed it to titillate the bloodthirsty who may get their kicks from ''slasher'' movies. [13 April 1990, p.E3]

The first feature by Rose Glass, Saint Maud delivers shocks with confidence.

It’s a fantasia on a short period in the life of the esteemed Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda — while based on fact, it’s made with a sense of freedom suggestive of poetry.

As you enjoy the movie’s gleeful outrageousness, take a moment to appreciate the strategic sophistication of some of these bits. These scenes were well planned.

Nattiv, working from a sharp script from Nicholas Martin, expertly mixes in documentary footage to convey a sense of the times and the war.

Adults may have more fun watching this engaging film, which cleverly paints Hollywood as a treacherously duplicitous place even though it turns out some of the most joyous entertainments on earth.

Never soars, but it never flags. It remains brisk, engaging and pleasant throughout, and face it: If a movie this well made had Spanish or French subtitles, we'd all be talking about it as a searing examination of sexual politics.

Waste Land is a film about recycling, but it's far more intriguing than the average eco-documentary.

By avoiding the usual animation cliches, by keeping the story moving, the pictures pretty and the characters consistently amusing, director and co- writer Rob Letterman cobbles together an entertaining 90 minutes.

It's really just old- fashioned melodrama, dressed up with lustrous cinematography and a few nods to history.

Viewers need only a willingness to have fun and not mind when they realize the movie was never intended to be profound. Full Frontal is merely human, funny and unusual -- and that's enough.

The kind of little film you can get cozy with, laugh at in odd places even when nobody else is laughing - and yet people will not turn around to glower at you because they understand. [12 July 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Sounds great and if nothing else should help diminish the stereotype, blasted by the film's subjects, of Gypsies as little more than pickpockets whom travelers need to be wary of.

A touching, sophisticated film that almost seems like a documentary in the way it captures an Italian immigrant family on the brink of major changes.

At its simplest, "Fire" tells of Mikael's efforts to exonerate Lisbeth. At its most baroque, it explores a vast web of sex trafficking and deep-rooted conspiracy that goes back decades and touches on Lisbeth's inflammatory background.

Eastwood and screenwriter Jason Hall have made as good a film as could be made from the substance of Kyle’s life and career. But greatness was never a possibility, not with a protagonist not all that interesting and with the surrounding circumstances making it impossible to go deeper and risk the movie’s critique of Kyle’s becoming overt.

Most of the time, the movie is appropriately gritty and plenty engaging.

The story, based on a real incident, may be simplistic, but that's the nature of fables.