Under better circumstances, Cooper might be said to have stolen the picture outright. But as it is, and compelling as he is, there's just nothing here to steal.

Undoubtedly the rudest and possibly the most inspired comedy of the summer.

Around about the third act, the picture does what no self-respecting virus ever would -- relents, turns confused, and lets our immune system fight back with thoughts of its own, with distracting cavils about the logic of the plot and the slightness of the themes.

The story in Japanese Story grabs you precisely because it's so wonderfully hard to define.

Floating in between the dramatic and the campy, Novitiate doesn’t tell a straightforward story of love and sacrifice, of faith and its crises. Betts’s film is ritualistic and enthralling, with a complex feminism woven into its cloth, and it’s something of a blessing.

It takes a party pooper to point out that it's not very good. But this is one party that people familiar with the play - especially people familiar with Heath Lambert's memorable performance in the title role - would do well to pass up: every addition to the original results in subtraction. [19 June 1987]

So, if you must celebrate Bill Murray Day this year, pour yourself a Suntory Whisky and watch "Lost in Translation" instead. And make that drink neat.

Much like its predecessors, Bloodlines joyfully relishes in its Rube Goldbergian kills and thrills, often trading on the absurd humour of its own fashioning.

The result is a road movie with a lofty message that too frequently gets lost in its own thematic barrens.

This film is about giving credit where previously neglected credit is due. “You wouldn’t let us talk about it before,” Robertson says at the end of the doc. “But now I’m going to talk about it real loud.” No volume is too much at this point.

With its claustrophobic unity of time and place, the disintegrating party feels highly theatrical and, of various classic screen adaptations from the stage, this wonderfully performed black-and-white film recalls in particular Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." Yet also, Potter's comic dissection of the London intelligentsia's personal and political angst is completely of the moment.

Smartly cast, in the sense that Reeves, gloomy and pained, and Harrelson, confused and explosive, both seem befuddled while Downey, as the devious, intellectual Barris, is befuddling.

It's a long time since I've heard a press screening audience applaud a foreign film, but then it's a long time since a French movie has been as funny as The Dinner Game.

This is a picture as severe as the real-life generational abuse that its director is chronicling, even if a few false steps mean that The Iron Claw ultimately lands as a technical knock-out.

As expected, it has gaping holes where back stories used to be. Still, it's a historical war movie with impressive sweep, strong characterizations and the kind of idiosyncratic flourishes that made Woo such an irresistible storyteller.

By turns brutal and tender, Rust and Bone is a bullet train of heightened melodrama that refuses to derail.

While Robinson’s lecture is thought-provoking and his living tour of that same history is illuminating, the Kunstlers don’t add much in terms of directorial vision. Robinson is an apt orator and tour guide, but the literal translation of his lecture to screen lacks life and suffers from the inherent banality that comes with watching a recording of someone – no matter how charismatic – speaking to a live audience we are not part of.

By the time Inland Empire, David Lynch's three-hour digital epic shot on a home video camera, takes you through its tour of the contents of the director's febrile imagination, it's probably the bunnies you'll most remember.

The political buck-passing from all entertains and creates the film’s time-sensitive tension.

The juxtaposition of Loretta learning how to be a good capitalist and the historical flashbacks to her ancestor on the block at a slave auction rings unintentionally awkward. The good intentions, though, aren't in doubt: For the sake of the generations who have made sacrifices before her, Loretta has an obligation not to waste her life. [24 Dec 1998, p.D6]

A fine bilingual cast, haunting period detail and a provocative approach to a twisting story carry the day.

It's light, it's bright and it succeeds precisely where the lesser doc fails -- by setting modest targets and hitting them square on.

If Yung, who made the Genie Award-winning Up the Yangtze, comes off as too deferential toward Fisk, he does acknowledge the controversial nature of his subject, noting how Fisk is regularly proclaimed to be a pawn of the different sides of whatever conflict he is covering.

While the case could be made that Koreeda is merely replicating the world as the blinkered Ryota sees it, the disparity between the characters’ development still leaves you feeling slightly cheated, if only because you want to see more of what this truly gifted student of human behaviour might do with them.

Even though Rain comes up short in overall effect, it is noteworthy for the singularly powerful performance of Nick Nolte. [14 Aug 1978]

The film is neither a stern lecture nor cheap entertainment, with Domont instead threading the needle somewhere in-between to create a tense guessing game of just how far she will push her characters.

This is a raw, intense movie circling on despair, hopelessness and inevitable dead ends. It is about the dark. But in plumbing the pitch black, Werewolf offers the distinct hope of a brighter future – at least, a brighter future for Canadian cinema.

Over all, A Field in England aims to confound. The filth-encrusted characters aren’t easy to keep apart, and the narrative is too fragmentary and freakish to grasp (the sun turns black, a character vomits rune stones).