Director Alison Chernick profiles the violin virtuoso, through his performance, of course, but she also reveals a personality as expressive as his musicianship.

Refreshingly free of the hyperbole of special effects...Ong-Bak will win no scriptwriting awards, but Jaa is definitely the real deal.

Even without the guidance of narration or a single story arc, it becomes clearer and clearer that the war on terror has unwittingly spawned another war: between police officers trained to fight like soldiers and the people they’ve sworn to protect.

The title of Ondi Timoner's Sundance award-winning documentary about the loss of privacy in the Internet age says it all: "We Live in Public." Don't believe it? Just try Googling "Tiger Woods" or "Michaele Salahi."

It feels sharply, even painfully true, while also hazy and nonspecific. Its head is in the clouds, while its feet are grounded in the very real catastrophe we are all currently suffering through.

Compliance is an extraordinarily assured, well-made drama, signaling a promising career for Zobel, an adroit filmmaker with a talent for taut pacing and staging. But it also fails its first test, which is that the audience believe every word of it.

Sutherland's not particularly strong in his role of the man who knew too little -- he's handicapped by obvious dialogue like "I was so naive."

Though it's not as good as the brilliant "Capote," it's nevertheless a riveting, well-made picture.

It may not boldly go where no “Star Trek” film has gone before, but it gets there at warp speed, and with a full tank of fresh ideas.

Martin is pretentious in a way that pornography is when it is dressed up for people who don't want to admit to their taste. We're not really coming for that , it seems to say; that is just there because it is an integral part of the story.

The rapport that ought to evolve between Gloria and her juvenile charge never quite makes it from the filmmaker's imagination onto the screen. [10 Oct 1980, p.E7]

An engrossing, well-crafted story of a grave injustice avenged, hitting all the right notes of sympathy, outrage and, finally, relief.

Many terms applied to action movies - muscular, animalistic, testosterone-fueled - are literally true of Bullhead.

As this film’s engrossing character study makes clear, this woman of extraordinary tastes and appetites was ahead of her time, in more ways than one.

Francis Ford Coppola magically recreates the era, its movies and its music, in this razzle-dazzle celebration, some fact and some fiction.

After all, Like Crazy seems to say, haven't we all been there? Didn't it hurt? And wasn't it grand?

One thing the film does do, if only inadvertently, is offer insight as to how we have gotten to this state of affairs.

The vérité style of filmmaking is slow and sometimes monotonous, making it all the more surprising that you will probably find yourself bawling your eyes out — without ever knowing how you got to that state — at the film’s profoundly, heartbreakingly somber conclusion.

Equity isn’t perfect — far from it — but it’s an intriguing attempt at rebalancing a system that’s been dreadfully out of whack for far too long.

It’s a funny, fascinating look at why Landis became an art forger, how he got caught and what he plans to do in the future, which may be more of the same.

If the series's legions of fans miss a detail here or a sub-plot there, they'll still recognize its bones and sinew, especially in Jennifer Lawrence's eagle-eyed heroine Katniss Everdeen.

Even if the film is only moderately enjoyable, it can create a sort of exotic escapism.

It's a silly, if simultaneously deadpan and stomach-churning, psychological portrait of one crazy lady.

A few minutes of inspired lunacy aside, The Yes Men is largely a case of the same old preachers preaching to the same old choir.

With modesty, precision and wry compassion, I Used to Go Here limns human nature at its most contradictory and indefinable, offering a textbook example — at least until the right German word comes along.

Like Shepherd's speech, The American President touches on all manner of issues but illumines none of them. And while there are some engaging glimpses of the president's staff in action...the film's principal pleasures lie in the president's pursuit of a first lady.

It's the story of changing chefs and changing seasons. It looks at food as not just something that nourishes our bodies, but as something that enriches our lives and our relationships.

What's universally hilarious is the way the inhabitants of "Moscow" come so close to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Gibney's documentary strains to make sense of the minutiae without losing the audience's attention over its formidable, two-hour length.

Afterglow is a lazy river of a movie that chooses beauty over sense and rhythm over reason. It goes nowhere slowly. [16Jan1998 Pg B.06]

The most expensive animated feature ever made in Japan (over 1 billion yen) and it's easily the most impressive, as well.

This is hardly your same old trough of slop. Babe nonetheless prevails, demonstrating once again "how a kind and steady heart can heal a sorry world."

A rambling disappointment.

The non-judgmental state, in which the wrecking of a family is treated like a natural disaster for which there is no human responsibity or possiblity of control, is also true to the spirit of the society the film depicts. But it makes the film, like the marriage itself, seem irritatingly thoughtless. [19 Feb 1982, p.4]

With its contrived setups, preposterous coincidences and calculated sentimentalism, Crazy, Stupid, Love seems beamed from the same alternate reality as "Larry Crowne." We might enjoy the ride while we're on it, but it will seem like a visit to another planet once we're home.

When disaster strikes, about an hour into the movie, we’re put in the uncomfortable position of admiring the fiery spectacle that Berg has created with sophisticated visual effects, cinematography and editing, while being aware that unspeakable real-life suffering has been packaged for mass entertainment. Berg does a good job of maintaining a thoughtful balance between those somewhat uneasy stances.

Lamb is weird and disturbing, even by the standards of the movie’s indie distributor, A24, which is known for its eclectic and times unsettling content. But it’s also strangely beautiful.

It's powerful stuff, but I almost felt like I needed an intermission.

Gibson may not be much of a deep thinker, but he's a heck of a storyteller. Apocalypto turns out to be not a case of Montezuma's revenge but of Gibson's: It's something entirely unexpected, a sinewy, taut poem of action.

Director Frank Oz has brought a devilish tang to the machinations here, and the actors bring a sense of a spoiled grandeur to their characters' mingy souls.

Fortunately, for both Ozon and the viewer, the title character is played by Catherine Deneuve, who can very nearly carry a film by herself.

It’s a comedy of outrage and horror that elicits laughter not as a cure for what ails us, or even a temporary balm, but a close cousin of the feeling you get — sharp pain followed by relief — when a Band-Aid has been ripped off an open wound.

It's a great style, it's a fabulous performance, but it never quite finds what it's searching for.

Sadly, Herge isn't around to see The Adventures of Tintin, Spielberg's crisp, richly rendered animated adaptation, which could be counted as both a success and a failure. Spielberg has brought Tintin to the big screen all right, but not quite to life.

It is a snapshot of a great actor in his prime and a chance for us to see one of yesteryear's great films in all its kingly luster.

Whatever your belief system, this much is gospel: Movies like The Conjuring are less about the battle between God and Satan than the battle between the silly and the scary.

Freeman lays out the father-son dynamics with great skill and very little fuss. There's no hysteria in his approach; instead, he sticks to the facts, relying on his cast to provide the emotion. The result is a surprisingly powerful, insightful film. The dramatic curve of the narrative may not seem entirely fresh, and some of the characters are simplistic, but the movie still gets to you.

The Meddler is a movie of modest charms.

As the movie's tag line has it, it's based on a hell of a story. Too bad they didn't just tell it.

What She Said pays fitting homage, not just to a great writer but to a vanished age.

Fortunately, the [animated] reenactments are rendered with sensitivity, respectfully capturing the wide-eyed curiosity of a young woman, and conveying her story in a way that archival footage and family photos cannot.

The problem, as “Table” shows, isn’t that the next meal never comes. It’s that when it arrives, too often it is filled with empty calories.

Ghost suffers most from a distinct lack of anything, well, cinematic.

A solid and subtly moving portrait of the people of Burma.

A charming, poetic and at times surreal stop-motion animation co-written with Etgar Keret and based on the Israeli writer's short stories.

For a filmmaker who believed in giving Africans their own voice, it seems appropriate to offer such an unvarnished portrait.

It’s an oddity, and all that strangeness is what makes the movie hard to shake.

In Akin’s capable hands, And Then We Danced becomes an affecting testament to heartbreak, resilience and emotional expression at its most liberated and life-affirming.

A meticulously balanced if oddly inert film.

Henry Fool, the fascinating and often infuriating new film from the idiosyncratic Hal Hartley. [24 Jul 1998]

Used Cars, a mean, spirited farce about cutthroat rivalry between ruthless used-car salesmen somewhere in the Southwest, recalls the worst tendencies of "Ace in the Hole" crossed with the worst tendencies of "One, Two, Three." It's assiduously nasty and hard-driving too, a double-duty excess. Director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis has undeniable energy and flair, but it's being misspent on pretexts and situations that seem inexcusably gratuitous and snide.

Lynne Ramsay's thoughtful, unnerving film works its strange power over viewers who are likely to find themselves as compelled as repelled by its fatally flawed key players.

It’s certainly a movie nobody asked for, as Marvel itself acknowledges. But it’s here. And it’s just fine.

The net effect is one of frustration and will surely send Cohen compleatists back to their record collections for relief.

It’s as if the movie’s many pieces are supposed to be like impressionistic brush strokes. When seen together, the result is pretty to look at. But it’s not as meaningful as it should be.

In the grand scheme of movies for kids, the stop-motion comedy is hardly a stinker. But it’s also less fun and inventive than you’d expect, given the company’s stellar, Oscar-winning track record.

As usual, Marling is a pleasure to watch for the psychological complexity and contradictions of her character. This time, the story almost lives up to the performance.

It’s frustrating and distracting when flat direction, inconsistent effects and wooden acting break the spell, making it more and more of a slog to stay interested as Johnny slices and dices his way through the film’s 94-minute run time.

To come out of the summer haze and enter the dark (and cool) wonder of Batman Returns is a pleasure not to be denied. Even more than before, this cartoon opera about cloistered personalities bathes exultantly in moody blues, gothic music swirls and a symphony of character tragedy.

A grisly, often cynical piece of work whose joyless, aggressive spirit is made even less appealing by its soulless visual style.

Even filmmakers and actors as fine as these haven’t managed to solve one of cinema’s most enduring challenges — making criminals interesting without exalting them.

The human scale of this story about a very real threat to one Norwegian village makes the movie more tragic and also more chilling.

What makes the film so affecting, however, is its matter-of-fact evocation of character. Each person in the four-character cast is vivid and specific and believable.

Though the story line seems grim at times, it's always made lighter by Brodsky's gentle, often hilarious presence.

Like its Southern California setting, the sunny semi-autobiography is tempered with just the right touch of Jenkins's smoggy cynicism.

Shaolin Soccer is "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with soccer balls, a touch of Sergio Leone and not one microsecond of seriousness.

Davis, who won an Oscar for Best Documentary, may not have agreed with presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon on the war, but he heeded Johnson's call to fight for hearts and minds. His aim was dead on target.

Kari may eventually go far, but for now he's one of the less interesting inhabitants of international art cinema's disaffected-youth ghetto.

It's a sweet family dramedy whose political undertones don't flatter either capitalism or "democratic socialism."

Still, what separates Walking With Destiny from a run-of-the-mill war documentary isn't necessarily its insights into its main subject but its tangential stories about fascinating nobodies.

The Hateful Eight never lives up to its intriguing opening minutes and provocative premise, its wide-screen canvas wasted on a talky, claustrophobic chamber piece that descends, in due Tarantino fashion, into a mean-spirited slough of bloodshed and mayhem.

Often, it feels conspicuously educational. The movie is far better when it focuses on its intimate story of love between family and friends in a small town.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a visually striking masterpiece of mood and carefully calibrated storytelling. If only its technical gifts...were in service of a better — or at least more original — story.

A sporadically funny, marginally interesting fiasco that might have evolved into a memorable romantic comedy.

Candleshoe isn't immobilized by wholesomeness, as Disney movies go, it's unsually spirited as well as pleasant. [11 Feb 1978, p.E1]

The screwball side of All of Me cries out for a latter-day Howard Hawks. Alas, there is no latter-day Howard Hawks. Reiner is only a latter-day Reiner. [21 Sep 1984, p.C1]

Braverman has a number of aces up his sleeve, including a wealth of interviews filmed in the 1990s by Kaufman’s girlfriend, the film producer Lynne Margulies, and his writer and best friend Bob Zmuda, for a project that was never completed.

Rather than taking viewers on a twisty, provocative journey through a mazelike meditation on appearance and reality, The Illusionist finally just sits there, looking like a very well-produced pilot for PBS's "Mystery!" series. It's a sophisticated snooze.

A knowing, somewhat slight, often hilarious sendup of cubicle culture.

Like the best horror movies, it doesn't beat you over the head, splatter you, or fold, spindle and mutilate you. Rather, slowly and subtly, it creeps you out. You may go home and throw out your computer and lock the doors.

Remember the peaceful atmosphere of bedtime storytelling? The kind that allows parent and child to take satisfaction in the story, not the teller? That's how "Charlotte" draws you into its web.

The movie does present solutions, including its urging of consumer demand for more accountability from restaurants and the building of marine reserves.

Despite its excesses, "The Howling" has some tricks and jokes worth howling about. The sexual undercurrents in the werewolf myth have been made playfully explicit, especially in the sultry, voluptuous form of Elisabeth Brooks, cast as a nympho werewolf named Marsha. When she ambushes a victim in the woods, they change forms in the course of coupling strategically obscured by a blazing campfire in the foreground -- a deliberate howl of a sex scene. [13 March 1981, p.C1]

Although the central match in Chuck is effective, and hits all the right beats, unlike the best of the “Rocky” movies, the drama outside the ring is less potent than drama inside. This, despite strong performances by Schreiber and — especially — Moss, a grounding presence who summons a toughness not usually seen in her work.

Things take a nasty turn in the film's bilious third act, suggesting that Guest's deepest gift -- his expansive humanism -- stops at the studio gates.

As Alice, VanCamp is exceptional, eliciting our sympathy even when the character is making maddeningly self-destructive decisions.

The result is a solid if conventional bio.

It's more of an urban fairy tale, a surprisingly charming story that -- in certain sections -- almost crystallizes into the sweetness of a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musical.