So, Dogman is a strange case: Great actor, great character, but a story that’s like an overstretched anecdote infused with art-film portent.

From the outside, Sunshine sounds like the most boring film on Earth. In fact, it's glorious.

Sexual curiosity is a very dangerous thing in Rain, a dazzling mood piece from New Zealand filmmaker Christine Jeffs.

The films never lose sight of Mesrine the man, a fascinating character in that he's brutal yet extremely intelligent, has a skewed but discernible conscience, and, under the right circumstances, can be warm and generous.

This is all good movie material, so far as it goes ... but Get on Up can't go any further. Sometimes damaged people stay damaged, and sometimes popular artists make their contribution and then stay in one place forever. It's a big letdown for everybody, but in a biopic, it's poison.

The landscape against which a mother and her son try to find each other is stunningly realized.

Although it would take much more than a 95 minute documentary for true enlightenment, Letters to Baghdad also helps us understand the complex political situation stemming from the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

If this movie ever figured out what it wanted to be when it grows up, it would be a terrific one.

A new documentary, The Great Buster: A Celebration, shows us why he inspires rhapsodies from critics and film historians, and would be a fine introduction for those who don’t know his work.

Director Abdullah Oguz gives us lots of nice scenery, but the simplistic story and characters strain credibility. What's more, the climactic plot turn is as hokey as it gets.

The film urges decentralization and bottom-up decision making as tools in remedying problems of global warming, food production and the like. The tone is more upbeat than you might expect, and there’s a certain glossiness to the movie that’s a refreshing change from some of its more dour documentary siblings.

Gripping.

Yes, eventually, after about 100 minutes, it does default back to the usual nonsense, of protracted superhero battles in which no one can get hurt, and of commotion that makes a movie screen seem like a very big computer monitor. But until then, Shazam! is sensitive, imaginative and funny, with a good story and a smart premise.

There’s no denying that this imaginative puzzler has moments you won’t soon forget.

Has an old-fashioned feel, as if it had been made in the period of its setting. I mean this as a compliment.

Often the picture drags, getting caught in its own goodness and going for a generalized sense of wonder, till you kind of wish you could apply the spurs. [17 Sep 1993, p.C3]

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.

I think what I like best about Light Sleeper -- more than Dafoe's peculiar magic or Schrader's wise, sympathetic writing -- is the fact that it gives you so much to chew on. So many contemporary films seem to evaporate as soon as you walk out of the theater. Light Sleeper resonates. [04 Sep 1992, p.C1]

There's almost no violence in the film, which favors natural settings and, for weaponry, archery. Only one scene, when Rothbart appears as a bat, is strong enough to make kids shudder a little. The script chirps with funny interplay between the animals.

An imperfect, fascinating film about an imperfect, fascinating man.

The stuntwomen are also subject to the unbreakable law of Hollywood, that the advantage is always to the young and beautiful.

Pleasant and surprisingly hard-edged coming-of-age indie film.

Surprisingly lighthearted, thanks to Israeli director Eytan Fox's deft touch with comedy and old- fashioned romance.

It's difficult to remember a recent movie that soared so high, before plummeting with a series of bad story choices. But the end result is still a strong piece of cinema, a failure only if you dwell on what might have been.

It’s hard to imagine a more original movie, or a more unfiltered vision from the mind of its maker.

One of those quirky little movies that you marvel ever got made.

Best of all, there's just the pleasure of seeing something that's both fantastic to the eye and emotionally dimensional. This is how to make action movies.

Talk about disturbing.