Crudup gives a performance that is by turns scary, heartbreaking, grotesque and funny as hell.

In Sheridan's warm and glowing treatment, the moral of the story feels less like a reheated fable than like something utterly, indescribably original.

Still, for all its attractively appointed torpor, Corsage offers a provocative retort to the fetishistic depictions of Elisabeth that have become commodified in Austria over the past 125 years. It tears open the candy box to reveal something poisonous at its center.

It's a half-baked stopover in the big house, relying on Eastwood, rather than a particular prison theme, for focus and continuity. For better and worse, Eastwood's peculiarly intimidating personality - solitary, sarcastic, fearless - has become its own predominant, suggestive theme. Escape From Alcatraz is poorly orchestrated, but the Eastwood melody still comes through, laconic and clear. [22 June 1979, p.C1]

The film is a documentary, pure and simple. But the movie, by director Rick Rowley, plays out like something of a murder mystery.

A hilarious new addition to the wonderfully warped Generation X-Files.

Engaging entertainment and a great work of art.

With its energetic cast and insistent street score, it still manages to be poignant without becoming bathetic, and violent without being exploitative.

Whatever your familiarity with [Liza's] indelible performances, the amount of deep cuts and candid behind-the-scenes material is an archivist’s dream.

Choose Me holds up the mirror, not only to its own characters, but to the conundrums of '80s life.

The film, whose title may or may not refer to a slang term for a dog’s erection, often teeters between compassion and something that feels perilously close to cultural voyeurism.

The remake adds 24 minutes and subtracts most of the suspense.

While qualifying as the most gorgeously appointed and finely detailed version of the novel so far, still lacks the element of essential fire to make it come fully, even subversively, to life.

Using a cockeyed, surreal style harking back to Monty Python-ism, writer- director Peter Duncan illuminates the tragedy of all true believers whose faith depends upon keeping ears and eyes firmly shut.

The whole endeavor runs a high risk of drowning in melodrama. But the movie avoids that pitfall, because nothing about the story or characters is easy or straightforward.

You don't have to be a horse nut to fall for Buck, one of those rare documentaries whose subject is so inherently fascinating that a fictional character could hardly compete.

If the zombie genre steadfastly refuses to die, we can be grateful to Shaun of the Dead for breathing fresh, diverting life into the form, with subtle visual humor and a smart, impish sense of fun.

Spalding Gray himself has the last word on his life, something this exacting storyteller would surely have demanded.

As he demonstrated with the recession-themed “99 Homes,” Bahrani is a cynical observer of the forces underling cultural upheaval; the story of “Tiger,” at times, feels more schematic and archetypal than wholly lived by real people. But its ominous message — watch out for the person whose back you’re stepping on — has never been more timely.

What's so powerful about the film is the rich stories it tells and how it leads them like so many human tributaries to one black, bubbling source.

As directed by Rob Reiner, Stand by Me has a quality of seriousness, and of relaxation, that you hardly ever see in movies made about kids. It's at its best when its characters are just hanging out, razzing each other, feeling the summertime -- when it's like "Diner" for 12-year-olds. [22 Aug 1986, p.D1]

On screen, Reds evolves into an earnestly muddled mishmash of Romance and History. An intriguing, ambitious disappointment, it launches the Christmas movie season on a note of droopy-spirited seriousness...It isn't the running time alone that makes Reds a tough sell and a discouraging endurance test; it's the lack of an emotional payoff strong enough to justify an epic trek down the corridors of history. [4 Dec 1981, p.D1]

Seems propelled by a doomed sense of inevitability and is all the more gripping for it.

Retrograde is a handsome film, ironically, conveying a sense of the country that is at stake, and its people. And Heineman is smart to frame the story around a single individual, as he did in his fact-based drama about war correspondent Marie Colvin, “A Private War.”

Even with Hudson's triumphant arrival and an overall fizzy mood of singing, dancing, pop nostalgia and camp, Dreamgirls is an uneven crowd pleaser.

The film documents how Dion has remained a pop culture fixture in the past decade, from appearances on late night shows to a music video with Deadpool.

Using home movies, photos, a brilliant soundtrack and candid, articulate interviews, director Stacy Peralta (one of the original Z-boys) details the birth of a pop culture phenomenon.

Zappa gives its subject his well-earned due within the rock firmament. But even more valuable, Winter gives Zappa pride of place among the most important composers of the 20th century, sharing some extraordinary performances of his little-known classical work.