It's a buoyant, often thrilling piece of animation that more or less does for the Central African rain forest what "The Lion King" did for the East African savanna.

The new movie year's poignant love story to beat.

Throughout, it's clouded -- for me at least -- by a nagging sense that it's straining too hard to build the media clash into more of an historic event than it was.

A marvelous piece of cinematic storytelling, acted to perfection by Sihung Lung (the father in "The Wedding Banquet"), fueled by an ingratiating sense of humor and so infused with the sheer joy of Chinese cooking that it will probably make you rush right out for a Chinese meal. [05 Aug 1994]

Not quite up to the exalted level of the two predecessors ("Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2"), be assured it's still the most eye-popping and thoroughly entertaining animated film to come down the pike so far this year.

The director's tenacity has resulted in a breathtaking as well as heartbreaking adventure of life and death.

Stanley Nelson's documentary shows how a religion becomes a cult, and how people are deceived by an ideal.

In the face of intolerance, Two Family House lovingly celebrates the triumph of love and acceptance over prejudice.

Danny Aiello is right at home as owner Louis, a paternal Italian father to all but his own son, reigning over the throng from his corner table like a benevolent lord and maybe underworld gangster.

It takes a strong stomach to sit through its two-plus hours of non-stop brutality (much of it involving very small children).

Several times, Hotel Rwanda teeters on the edge of making a unique, visionary statement about our times, but can't quite do it. Too bad. If it could have pulled itself together in one brilliant scene, this may have been a great movie, instead of just a very good one.

Aoyama's monochrome images are filled with a simple shadowy beauty and his scenes are rich in tender sensitivity and empathy.

The second-class status of women in Korean society is a reminder of Confucianism's dark side. For all its pretty cinematic images and well-meaning bows to a vanishing literary tradition, this movie is a celebration of that dark side.

The faces of its inarticulate characters tell the story, and Majidi has put some amazing faces on the screen.

It's aimed squarely at a young dating audience, and is not likely to be hugely captivating for anyone out of that demographic.

Condon's direction is steady and fearless, Neeson and Linney are individually excellent and together they create an inspiring chemistry for a truly adventurous marriage.

Dizdar humorously compares and contrasts extremes in economics and lifestyles and looks at the west through the eyes of an outsider.

Plays in spots something like a stage play smartly brought to screen.

It's a consciousness-raising personal odyssey in the tradition of such recent indie hits as "Sideways" and "About Schmidt" -- only less obviously comedic and, as always with Jarmusch, blissfully unresolved.

For all its moodiness, despair and disconnect, I've Loved You So Long is all about acknowledging human error and embracing ties -- to family and life -- that can't be undone.

The movie offers one authentically terrific performance: Beach as Hayes. He's so painfully sympathetic in the role that he absolutely breaks your heart, and he looks like the front-runner in the best-supporting actor Oscar race.

While Look at Me at times falls into familiar plotting, it never offers false hope or false characters.

It all feels like a performance for the camera: von Trier as madman producer taunting the elder filmmaker.

The movie is never engaging on anything but a superficial level, and it gradually gets decidedly tiresome.

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]

The new black-and-white print is gorgeous, the film plays well in this broader key and it sets the historical record straight.

It works on several levels, and stands out as a wistful meditation on the psychological cost of 9/11.

Is it possible to have yet another expensive excursion into this genre that seems in any way fresh, original and alive? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.