Mick LaSalle

Breaks the formula for teen romances. Martin Short, as the vain and zany drama teacher, does not disappoint.

An unforgettable examination of a host of dark impulses.

The language is brilliant, and the laugh lines come so quickly that you'd probably have to watch the movie twice to get them all.

It's hard not to come away in awe of a director in complete control of every frame.

This one is dazzling.

Movie magic.

First, this movie should be enjoyed. Later, marveled at. And then, once the excitement has faded, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days really should be studied, because director Cristian Mungiu creates scenes unlike any ever filmed.

What makes The White Ribbon a big movie, an important movie, is that Haneke's point extends beyond pre-Nazi Germany.

The experience of seeing this film is cumulative, sober and profound.

A first-rate thriller about arrogance at the top.

A film of wisdom, emotional subtlety and power.

Comedy is getting more and more nasty and more and more funny. But it’s hard to imagine any movie more nasty-funny than Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

Allen's most satisfying film since "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994) and his most compelling since "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989).

The resulting film is neither better nor worse than the Swedish film, but it's more cinematic.

An ungainly masterpiece, but Chaplin's ungainliness is something one can grow fond of.

Funny People is a true brass ring effort, a reach for excellence that takes big risks. It's 146 minutes, with a story that's more European in feeling than American.

A great movie.

A masterpiece.

It's a beautiful machine, thought out and revved up to the last detail, with no other purpose but to delight - and it delights. [24 May 1989, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

The first great Hitler movie.

The movie is funny, definitely funny. But underlying the humor is a vision so bleak, so despairing and so utterly hopeless as to make "No Country for Old Men" almost look cheerful.

The picture, written and directed by Francis Veber, the screenwriter of "La Cage Aux Folles,'' is a complete success.

It's screamingly, hysterically, laugh-through-the-next-joke, laugh-for-the-next-week funny. It's so inventive…This is a film by an original and significant comic intelligence.

The Devil's Advocate is a sharp, suspenseful and completely satisfying movie.

The picture gently caricatures the folk music scene with dozens of delicate brush strokes, creating a picture that's increasingly, gloriously funny -- as in entire lines of dialogue are lost because the audience's laughing so hard.

Toy Story 3 is a better film than "Wall-E" and "Up" in that it succeeds completely in conventional terms. For 103 minutes, it never takes audience interest for granted. It has action, horror and vivid characters, and it always keeps moving forward.

It is, simply, the alienation-invasion movie to beat all alien-invasion movies: meticulously detailed and expertly paced and photographed, with sights so spectacular and terrible that viewers will have to consciously remind themselves to close their mouths when their jaws drop open.

It's a complex, satisfying piece of entertainment, a succession of unexpected, outrageous scenes.