A superb martial discipline has ended in a commercial movie genre--not the worst fate in the world, but the comic irony of it is of little interest to a director bent on glorification. [9 Sept. 2013, p.90]

In spite of his problem of sentiment, it's a happy, unpretentious farce.

Martin and Tomlin are both uninhibited physical comics. They tune in to each other's timing the way lovers do in life, only more so.

The film errs in many ways, and at times the editing seems glaringly poor, but Olivier's performance gives it venomous excitement.

In all, Steve McQueen is a master of fascination rather than of drama--he creates stunning shots rather than an intricate story.

The film’s real charge lies elsewhere—in Preminger’s view of a jolting, disoriented age of rock and roll.

The Good Thief is too spindly and unconfident for an actor of this bulk, yet without him it would curl up and die. [7 April 2003, p.96]

If you want family values, Marco Bellocchio is your man, though they may not be what you expect.

Hawke is on a roll right now, and Good Kill stirs him to another performance of cogency and zeal. Is it sufficient, however, to support an entire movie?

Cloverfield is a vastly old-fashioned piece of work, creaking with hilarious contrivance. I was thrilled, for instance, to hear someone actually speak the line “It’s alive!”

After a while, you stop counting the chases -- they just get longer and louder, and it's like watching the revival of a forgotten art form; the fact that it's done with a minimum of special effects makes it all the more stirring.

Too many dramatizations of the Holocaust have left us flinching and queasy, whereas Glazer, in choosing so precisely what to show and what not to show, gives us no chance (and no excuse) to look away.

Caught Stealing is a grand entertainment for a time of shame and guilt and corruption, of treacherous authority and brazen hypocrisy.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette has to be seen, and demands to be believed, because of Cate Blanchett. Like “Blue Jasmine” (2013), which earned her a second Oscar, this new film lies at her command.

Tears of the Sun may be a flattering myth, but it’s not a bad myth to be flattered by. [17 March 2003, p. 154]

The ultimate deflation of the movie into a pointed drama of norms and ethics doesn’t, however, dispel its glorious hour of theatrical spectacle and artistic mystery.

Sitting through Transit is like watching an anti-“Casablanca,” so diligent is Petzold in the draining of romantic hopes, and there were times when I dreamed that Claude Rains would stroll in and order a champagne cocktail. What sustains this highly unusual film, and lends it an ominous momentum, is the figure of Rogowski, as Georg.

As broad and obvious as Wanderlust is, it's often very funny. [5 March 2012, p. 87]

Ryder is devious and witchy, her eyes flashing, her crinkly voice developing knife edges. She gives an acidly brilliant performance as a desperate, lying woman. [24 Jan. 2011, p. 83]

Good Boys is worth catching for those rare and wrenching points at which emotional honesty breaks through.

Without Nancy and her demon lover, Polanski's Oliver Twist feels handsome, steady, and respectful; it has that touch of mummification which wins awards. But Dickens had murder in mind--women killed for their kindness, children for lack of food--and he wanted us to howl and hyperventilate. He asked for more.

Affleck the movie director makes you truly, badly want his bunch of ne'er-do-wells to pull off their heists without a scratch, and you can't ask for much more than that. [20 Sept. 2010, p. 120]

It's an idiosyncratic film, it's cuckoo--an old man's film (partly directed from a wheelchair)--but it's very likable.

Viewers will be split between those who wonder about this silly, trumped-up story and those who already know and love the silliness for what it was. [4 November 2002, p. 110]

Its characters are no different from the rest of us, in the cluster of their annoyances and kicks, yet utterly removed from us by a system that frowns upon ordinary desire. Jafar Panahi's movie, unsurprisingly, has been outlawed in Iran. Nobody likes a prophet. [19 January 2004, p. 93]

Southern idiom, delicious fish fries, and naive theology are fused with awe and wonder.

The film, which kicks off in a flurry of visual tricks and narrative switchbacks, grows plainer in the later stages, and its concluding mood is surprisingly sad; these kids, who yearned to be something special, turned out to be anything but.

Tony Richardson whizzes through the Henry Fielding novel, but he pauses long enough for a great lewd eating scene.