His film has a kind of lyrical and poetic beauty at the same time it's remarkably free of sentimentality and didacticism, and it tells its tale with the minimalist effectiveness of a first-rate short story. [3 July 1998]

There's a real joy to this film, a love of the music and an appreciation of the band's eccentric humor.

In the latest of what is getting to be a booming genre of Iraq war documentaries, director Deborah Scranton gives digital video cameras to five members of the New Hampshire Army National Guard so they can intimately record their year of service in the Middle East.

It's occasionally quite witty, it's able to tell us a great deal about its characters and their back stories in an economic fashion and its plot swings are surprising and compelling.

Jolie steals the film from nominal star McAvoy in the wild gunfight and dynamically absurd chase that kick Wanted into high gear. Her wicked moves and seductive smirk brand her immediately as a true believer who really, really loves her work.

Verbinski puts a Jackie Chan flourish of high energy and gymnastic action on the swashbuckling stunts and swordplay and keeps this lark sailing along.

A film that turns a comedic eye on the cultural, sexual and generational gaps that divide families and lovers and just generally make life the tricky mess it so often is.

I guess there's something grizzled old codgers like Clint can teach those young hotshots after all.

Writer/director Raoul Peck never gives us enough intimate moments to let us feel we know the man on a personal level, and he doesn't have the narrative skill to economize the necessary exposition or steer a clear storyline.

Unfortunately, there's no great performance here. Pitt (who looks like Leonardo Di Caprio) delivers nothing close to Brando's tour de force, and all three stars may have been chosen less for their acting ability than their willingness to disrobe for the camera.

The Ring, is going to be this year's version of the "Blair Witch" and "Sixth Sense" phenomenon.

Working for the first time in live action, under the constraints of a classic novel, he (Andrew Adamson) proves himself to be a capable visual storyteller but no Peter Jackson.

Its heart is in the right place, and it doesn't flinch an iota from its duty of rubbing our faces in the horror of the Third World over the past two decades.

The Paper definitely works. By the time Hackett calls out that inevitable "Stop the presses!" Howard has caught all the romance of the great old newspaper movies - the camaraderie of the newsroom, the adrenaline rush that goes with the pursuit of a big story, the teary pride in the power of the press. [25 March 1994]

Too short to tell the whole story. It is, however, a fast-paced, highly enjoyable and provocative introduction.

This nifty little addition to the Winnie the Pooh franchise boasts some nice touches.

In its defense, I can only say that, technically, it's an exhilarating piece of filmmaking; it offers a commanding comeback role for Carradine, and it serves as a summation, dead end and, perhaps, epitaph, for Tarantino's unique contribution to world cinema.

Within the limitations of the script, both stars shine. Moore displays a wonderful flair for self-deprecating farce, and Brosnan is cumulatively endearing as her unflappable nemesis.

Touching, transcendent love story.

It's a gloriously baroque vision and Leconte believes in his sequin and sawdust fantasy with such unabashed enthusiasm that he makes it work even through its most absurd moments.

More of a leisurely paced ensemble character-study than the slam-bang traditional action gut-buster that its trailer seems to promise.

For all of its weakness, Ju-On: The Grudge is creepy and unnerving, qualities in short supply in gore-filled American horror films.

A strange and convoluted film that is as rewarding as a Dylan song, and just as perplexing.

More intelligent and thought-provoking than the usual dumb and dull-witted fare for children.

Apparently no one bothered to tell Stone the movie was a joke. She plays it without a hint of the tongue-in-cheek required, and totally against her strong star persona, so that she serves mostly as the unnecessary straight woman to all the giddy male comedy. [10 Feb 1995, p.3]

Funny, eccentric and touchingly just, combining a unique interpretation of the time with an offbeat sense of humor.

It's an agreeable comedy that makes its priorities clear: It wants to be funny at the expense of almost everything else.

Not simply a coming-out story but a journey into the conflicted androgyny of early adolescence.

Beautifully acted and conceived -- even if the final vision is not always totally satisfying.

The music is truly the thing in Songcatcher and it's awesome, haunting stuff.

It really does communicate an optimistic sense that race is irrelevant and we can all live happily ever after together.

It's not "The Wizard of Oz," and its cotton-candy fantasy of a story line is definitely aimed at very young children. But it's well made, and adults likely will find themselves yielding to its gentle, whimsical charm.

A familiar but rewarding little parable.

For most of the way, it's indeed quite a ride: a cumulatively exhilarating, visually mouth-dropping, somberly stylish odyssey crammed full of virtuoso animation sequences.

It's hard to figure exactly what the point of this movie is -- except maybe to expose the myth of samurai machismo.

When (Tykwer) connects it's exhilarating and gorgeous, a sight to behold.

Together, the two of them (Pitt, Roberts) are cute as a bug.

This restrained drama of lifelong friends drifting in separate directions is a quietly rich and resonant portrait of disconnection.

A breezy comedy about a battling couple (Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery) who discover they aren't married. [07 Sep 2004]

Both sophisticated and elemental enough for all ages to grasp the message.

This is an actress (Streep) who can pull off anything -- including a shamelessly kitschy musical.

Full of mystery, romance and ambiguity, Zhou Yu's Train is a tight mosaic of a film.

A big change of pace for the bad-boy Spanish director. Like his other work, it's kinky and proudly gay, but this time it's not a comedy. It's a serious neo-film-noir, and a pretty darn good one at that.

Original, imaginative and stylish.

The film powerfully demonstrates the diversity, the adaptability, the resilience of the insect world. The rest of the animal kingdom (including man) may be on the brink of extinction, but these little guys are thriving. [22 Nov 1996]

The film goes for a grainy, fast-cut, documentary look that is both a blessing and a curse.

It makes for an unusual angle on the era, and a passionate paean to the power of books, ideas and art.

Love. Lust. Recrimination. Jealousy. Resolution. This British female friendship melodrama has them all.

Though it's hardly as uplifting or inspiring, it's hard not to appreciate these driven men who know they've found their calling when they start to anagram in their dreams.

Fukada captures the stubborn individualism of a girl who embraces an unpopular lifestyle.

An indie film that was lavishly praised and won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, rolls along in the well-rutted, dusty tire tracks of other mother-and-daughter road trip

Kidman brings her character to life with a fey, moth-to-the-flame enthrallment that's both touching and fascinating.

Although set in England with a predominantly British cast, Death at a Funeral is no stiff-upper-lipped comedy, but a lean, mean, and often crude, farce.

Whatever you think of her performance, Foster has certainly made all the right choices as a producer, and come up with a movie of taste, integrity and considerable emotional impact. [23 Dec 1994]

It's as if Gondry lets his performers settle into their parts and feel their way through their stories. It gives the film an ambling pace and a unique chemistry that bubbles with strange and unexpected flavors.

Schroeder's misstep is trying hard to please his star, whether it be her character's empathetic past or one very fake-looking action climax. His greatest service is keeping her toe-to-toe with her talented co-stars -- and both are the better for it.

Inspired, inventive and funnier than it has a right to be, Larry Blamire's loopy spoof of 1950s bargain-basement sci-fi and horror knock-offs gets it right where so many well-meaning efforts go wrong.

The casting is so strong and the overall filmmaking flair of the movie is so captivating that it basically works.

Most of the laughs are due to Bynes, a vibrant young actress with excellent comedic chops.

The movie is funny without disrespecting its characters. But there is a sadness at its heart, because, although the possibilities for romantic happiness diminish after the age of 65, the dynamics of sexual attraction and coupling never change.

Though it's ostensibly a thriller, Trade constantly works against the conventions of its genre in a rather audacious way -- finding, for instance, surprising moments of humanity in even the most monstrous of its villains.

Presents itself as a sassy twist on "Taming of a Shrew," but what looks like just another contrived sex comedy becomes, surprisingly, an insightful and sensitive look at knots that family ties create in adult romance.

Gradually, it becomes clear that Campion is taking an experimental, almost documentary approach to movie biography - avoiding clear villains, grandly dramatic moments, and the kind of phony movie dialogue so characteristic of the traditional Hollywood biopic. It's a bold and risky method, and sometimes it induces boredom. But somehow it works, giving us a extraordinary sense of one woman's life and the forces that made her, and a subtle, powerful feminist statement. [21 Jun 1991]

Clever, often hilarious, inside-Hollywood farce that makes the most of... a delightfully absurd premise.

The film's grueling training sequences have a perverse fascination, and, though he's nothing special here, Kutcher is probably the most appealing he has been in a big-screen role.

As amateurish and fumbling as it is in every department, the sum total of the movie is pretty darn scary.

There are some flat moments, to be sure, and Palansky's direction can be a bit unsteady and awkward, but he doesn't wallow in the eccentricities or the modestly self-empowering moral. This fairy tale feels pleasantly down-to-earth.

Despite the cultural and artistic differences among the contributors, the overall production design maintains a unified tone, helped in part by Laurent Perez's eerie soundtrack.

A hilariously spry effort from an equally unpromising premise.

Has the modesty of a savvy, smart drive-in movie with Hollywood studio polish and a movie buff's loving care.

Very slick, very compelling and not nearly as predictable as it sounds.

The film is weirdly fascinating in its own maverick way.

The performances are immaculate, especially Dafoe and the always-magnificent Mirren, who rarely gets a vehicle this worthy of her talent.

It's a consistently funny script, tastefully packaged by super-producer Brian Grazer and directed with just the right touch by Dean Parisot.

A tough, taut, mostly well-executed morality parable and thriller that explores some of the bitter ironies of this strange religious vendetta in which America unwittingly finds itself.

Jonah Bobo and Josh Hutcherson -- may have delivered their parts just a wee too convincingly. Their squabbling is so pitch perfect that most adult viewers likely will want to reach through the screen and start crackin' some heads.

Filmmaker Pray, who is building an impressive body of documentaries on American subcultures, including the Seattle grunge scene in "Hype," graffiti artists in "Infamy" and truckers in "Big Rig," does an admirable job of allowing his subjects to represent themselves.

It's resolutely grim and rather predictable but very compelling, and it offers a commanding star vehicle for Denzel Washington.

Non-cultists should enjoy this engaging and well-acted retread -- a film that develops its own charm as it goes along.

Movies about gurus generally fail to capture the charisma of their subjects. French director Jan Kounen's documentary on Amma, India's hugging saint, who allegedly has given restorative embraces to more than 45 million supplicants, is no exception.

It's an expensive star vehicle that also happens to be a teary, unabashedly sappy, romantic comedy with every element as purely calculated to appeal to a heterosexual woman's romantic fantasies as an episode of "All My Children."

Were it not for its pat resolutions, Mister Foe might deserve a mention alongside such classic psycho-sexual thrillers as "Vertigo" and "Peeping Tom." Instead, Mackenzie has reined in the strangeness to deliver a conventional, if better than average, mystery.

Like most films in this overworked genre, it's as formulaic in its own way as a John Wayne western, and the characters and situations all have a gnawing predictability about them.

The film doesn't shy away from the political side of hip-hop.

It's mostly quite enjoyable. Director Joe Johnson's many action sequences are lively and engaging, the location photography (mostly Morocco) is breathtaking, and both the horse and Sharif (in his biggest Hollywood role in years) are adorable.

A genre-twisting surprise.

The stories of the other competitors are just as fascinating, particularly that of Bernard Moitessier who, after nearly a year at sea, could not bear to return to England, and turned sail for Tahiti.

Another gutsy, big-budget movie that dares to say something new and optimistic about our messed-up times. And it almost, but not quite, brings it off.

The most fascinating aspect of the film is how the point of view shifts -- each character, as seen through another's eyes, is something else entirely.

A spirited, screwball crime-thriller with a sly heart.

There is such a joy of play in the film that it's easy to overlook the overdone performances and the lazy script shortcuts.

If ever a film seemed poised to take over the spot occupied by the surprise indie hit, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," it's Real Women Have Curves.

When a director has two actors as iconic and skillful as Robert Duvall and Michael Caine for his leads, all he has to do is point the camera in their direction and it's hard to go wrong.

Casts a dreamy romantic spell that lingers pleasantly in the mind for a long time after experiencing it.

DiCaprio could hardly be better. He brings this outrageous character and his demons to life with skill, sympathy and a symphony of small, telling touches.

It's an entertaining and mostly intelligent movie that is grungy enough to appeal to today's rock fans and nostalgic enough to appeal to the aging baby-boomer fans of the Fab Four. [22 Apr 1994]

There's a satisfying craftsmanship to every sequence, the direction is stylish without being show-offy, the plot mechanics are convincing, the pace is breakneck and compelling, and the film does something unique and interesting with its Hitchcockian concept.

It fulfills a lot of the criteria for a successful oater: spectacular scenery, an evocative frontier atmosphere, an ensemble of enjoyably tight-lipped performances, and plenty of stylish violence.