This coming-of-age tale is ultimately about self, not sex.

It feels too self-satisfied, but the prickly personalities and relationships have the ring of experience.

More chic and movie-savvy than its predecessor.

Never quite escapes the Euro-centric blinders of its characters, but its engagement with their evolving sense of identity and story of empowerment and acceptance is nonetheless rousing.

This limited point of view, while effective in chronicling Gator's rise, is dreadfully inefficient in contextualizing his fall.

One of the American cinema's rare excursions into pure autobiography: the movie is Montiel's own coming-of-age story, with little or nothing disguised as fiction.

Spurlock is good company: a more likable, less abrasive, less manipulative Michael Moore.

It's a reductive moral to a story full of fascinating contradictions, but Bailey and Barbato draw a convincing line between the social and political atmosphere of the film and the culture wars of today. The issues are still very much alive.

This one is a kiddie show all the way, with characters as broad and one-dimensional as a billboard, a vision of good and evil as simple as a bumper sticker and a tiresome chimpanzee mugging through every other scene like something from a bad Tarzan movie.

This a film where men on both sides of the line are seasoned and efficient. Men after Mamet's own heart.

Well-cast and sporadically gripping.

Techine has a delicate touch and these lovely moments flow with a life that Martin's heavy, stumbling psychodrama can't match.

But if her wisp of a story rushes the simple connection between the women, the actresses fill in the details with an easy, unforced intimacy.

The annoying shaky-cam style so common to such indie dramas is toned down to a dreamy sway and the image drifts in and out of focus in scenes of heightened emotions. It's like waking from a daze and getting your bearings; the effect is both unsettling and calming.

Hopkins' Picasso is a first-rate performance.... With his intense stare, his air of subtle lechery, and his life-devouring zest, he not only looks uncannily like the real Picasso, he was actually able to convince me that he was Picasso. [4 Oct 1996]

Rodriguez has the chops of a smart-aleck film school brat and the imagination of a big kid, and they come together to remake the world in the image of its young audience. It's more amusement park ride than adventure, which in this case is exactly the demographic he's reaching for.

Amanda Peet exudes her patented mix of charm, beauty, humor and smarts as the best friend who may become more than a friend.

An absorbing little drama full of unexpected revelations, keen insights into the Anglo and Hispanic cultures of L.A., and strong supporting performances.

The characters are not hugely compelling, the performances never completely grab us, and much of the story, while visually arresting, is dramatically tedious.

As well-acted and well-directed as many of the individual scenes are, the movie itself is a mess. Lumet, who made the mistake of writing the script himself, apparently couldn't leave out anything that was in the book. It's a confusing jumble of characters and themes, with off-screen actions that crowd and diminish the movie's impact. [27 Apr 1990]

Though Wood is the star, it's Hutz who is the indelible presence.

The story is slim but the script is snappy and the film moves with a fluid rhythm that charges up to a rollercoaster pace.

It dares to test the audience in several ways: It may not be Asimov but its plot is truly labyrinthine, it works a specific theme (the very real possibility that robots will evolve on their own) and it's happy to end itself in a shroud of enigma.

The perfectly dressed surfaces couldn't be more lovely, but the long fashion show to the finale smothers the emotions under the length and the look, and Lee's insights into the messy feelings that simmer and stew in the hothouse of sex are, frankly, fairly mundane.

Dedicates itself to the beauty and thrill of bodies and motion and in doing so upstages Altman's cinematic conduit. The medium ultimately surpasses its messenger.

A total guilty pleasure.

Dragon works just fine as a martial arts epic, with several extravagant and thrilling action sequences. [7 May 1993]

An acid movie flashback a la Oliver Stone.