Ultimately, one's reservations are overwhelmed by the story's urgency; it's impossible not to be shattered.

It has a timely resonance. While it doesn't have that transcendent quality of Majidi's earlier work -- the implied bleakness from across the border puts a slightly darker hue on the proceedings -- it does tell a story worth telling.

Cusack is a master at playing smart, frazzled, self-flagellating hipsters, and the movie, propelled by his arias of angst, lets him strut his best stuff.

A demonstration of bravura acting.

Funny, bittersweet, its understatement yielding surprising depth charges, Broken Flowers is a triumph of close observation and telling details.

An epic both raw and contemplative, is neither a flag-waving war movie nor a debunking.

Courtney Love's performance as stripper Althea Leasure is an amazement. Funny, unfettered and almost scarily alive in front of a camera, she's the definition of a "natural."

This wonderful, one-of-a-kind movie hops from Taiwan to France, from tragedy to deadpan comedy and, in its mysterious conclusion, from the worldly to the otherworldly.

Urgent, gritty, sometimes weirdly funny, The Fighter might be considered his first feel-good movie. But Russell's too honest and acute an observer to serve up affirmation without leaving a subversive aftertaste of ambivalence and unease.

Downey and Favreau give the movie a quirky flavor it can call its own. For that we can be grateful.

It's a swirling, fluid retelling of the tale that packs an impressive cargo of laughs, thrills and wonders into a watertight 88 minutes.

The result is a film of rare restraint and surprising power.

Schrader has never been one to coddle an audience, and this is as uncompromising a vision as he has given us.

A terrific piece of work: smart, inventive and executed with state-of-the-art finesse.

Told from both women's points of view, this fascinating, if sometimes overwrought, tale packs a wallop.

Where the original gave you something to chew on, the sequel is more interested in chewing on you.

Like most of this refreshingly subtle film, it's not what you expect, and it's not something you've seen before.

Akin's raw, powerful, multileveled movie takes us places we never expected to go.

A very funny movie, full of eccentric, deadpan little moments. What's more, it resonates, and has subtle, tender and acute things to say about romance, art, class and -- why not? -- interior decorating. It's a winning tribute to the flighty Aphrodite.

As brutally unsparing as "Platoon" was, it was ultimately warm and embracing. Kubrick's film is about as embracing as a full-metal-jacketed bullet in the gut. [29 June 1987]

Steven Knight’s smart, if overly plotted, script delivers social insights tautly wrapped in genre thrills.

Juxtaposes beauty and horror to fashion a savage and lyrical cinematic poem.

Punch-Drunk Love is one dark, strange-tasting sorbet, its sweetness shot through with startling, unexpected flavors. It’s a romantic comedy on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

What stays with you finally is not the mystery's byzantine twists and turns, which are fun but don't resonate very deeply. It's the time, the place, the palpable feel of community. [2 Oct 1995, p.85]

It's as smart, quiveringly alert and fleet of foot as a purebred pointer on the scent of fresh game.

In the end, first-time writer-director Kasi Lemmon's ambitions exceed her skill, but her creativity and the breadth of her vision more than make up for her occasional missteps, luring us into a family album of secrets and lies that keeps the audience groping along with this fine ensemble cast for the truths buried in murky waters.

It might, however, have been a greater film if its villain were as compelling as its flawed hero. Williams is effectively creepy, but next to Pacino’s rich, multileveled portrait he seems one-note, and one we’ve seen before.

Hilariously odd and prodigiously inventive.